You’ve just arrived in a swampy, dim town. As you look around, your gaze is met with shacks and cabins. It smells of rotted wood and wet moss. You duck and step into a tattered tent, illuminated by a series of candles suspended in the air. At the back of the tent, an old hag raises her head, “What brings you to this dingy town? she begins, then pauses to study your face—”Ah, it’s you. I’ve been expecting you. Sit,” she gestures at a cushion, “Tell me your story.” ((How do you respond?)) Hilde eyes the cushion in distaste, noting the threads that pulled loose from their otherwise tight prisons with a disdainful curve of her painted lip. She steps cautiously over creaking wood to lower herself hesitantly against the surprisingly plush fabric.
"My story?" she sniffs, ignoring the musty scent that permeates the air and the way the mud has seeped into the hems of her skirts, weighing them down from their normally voluminous inclinations. "What good is my story as I've left it? Are you hoping for something adventurous to fill your dreary days or something tragic to remind you that, though you live in this dreary town, there is always worse to come home to?" Here Hilde pauses and stares up at the floating candles' flickering flames. Her face slackens then, the dour and unwelcoming expression melts from her face and she is lost in memories; she is taken away to a place very different.
"Should I tell you of brightly painted walls, Ma'am?" she asks softly, distractedly. "Should I tell you of dashing portraits and the smell of leather tomes? The sound crystal makes when you scrape it with a silver spoon?" There is a moment where silence feels the spaces between her words and then, almost hesitantly, she offers her marred arm, the skin puckered and raised like a thousand knotted snakes live under her flesh. "Should I tell you the feel of fire? Of a scream so ragged it rips the throat? Of a day where ash fell from the sky like snow and coated the blackened ruins of a once lively, loving home?" She leans forward, her gaze severe on the hag, her voice rough with pressing emotion.
"Shall I tell you of betrayal?" Hilde whispers, studying the woman intensely, before, as though she had never allowed herself to dive so deep into otherwise buried memories, she straightens and sniffs again, flicking out her muddied skirts. "No. I don't think I shall."
