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You step inside without a sound, the mud of the town still clinging to your boots. The floating candles cast thin greenish light across your face, catching the faint glow in your eyes.
For a long moment, you do not sit.
“I do not have a story worth telling,” you reply quietly, your voice low and even, like wind slipping through dead leaves. “Only fragments. Shadows. Names I no longer speak.”
Your gaze drifts across the tent, studying the dangling charms and brittle bones. None of it seems to frighten you.
“I came here because the roads led me here,” you continue. “Because the forests have grown restless. Because some things that sleep beneath roots and swamps have begun to wake.”
You finally lower yourself onto the cushion, folding your hands in your lap.
“They call me many things,” you murmur. “Witch. Omen. Bringer of ill winds. I prefer none of them.”
A faint, humorless smile touches your lips.
“I was not born with gentle magic. Mine hums beneath the skin like rot beneath bark. I learned early that light fears what it does not understand.”
Your fingers trace an unseen symbol in the air, and one candle flickers.
“So I wander. I listen. I gather what others discard. And sometimes… I make use of it.”
You lift your eyes to meet the hag’s.
“You say you were expecting me. Then you already know why I am here.”
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