Judian

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.” Valdure responds as he refuses to take a seat, stoicly and coldly he responds, "I endure, agonizingly, with each passing day, week month and... years. Living." Valdure desists, tensing himself and looking haunting. He sighs, however. Calming down and convalescing himself, feeling there was no need to intimidate somebody he sees as much more lowly than himself. He begins taking a second to ease himself before sitting on the cushion. Not making eye contact, he speaks more emotively "I apologise, It isn't usual for somebody to hark, especially to somebody like myself... I am a rohdi, my clahn exiled me over a hundred years ago..." As he continues, he begins to look more sullen and lour. "My father, he... had grown desperate for a successor that was, in his words 'Drendroch'." Valdure looks down upon his hands, it appeared as if they were shaking and he immediately stopped. "I had aspirations of becoming an actor on stage, I knew I had the talent for it..." He finally looked up at the old hag, smiling with gleebriefly. As his expression faded, he says callously, "...and yet my father wanted me to pursue the army, any army. Anything that he'd approve of. Until the birth of my brother. Suddenly due to our traditions, I would therefore be excused of inheriting my family's will. And then he cast me out of the family entirely." He exhales loudly, looking sulky and withdrawn, "I was lost. I had to fend for myself for a long time, I couldn't tell you how alone I was until I met... He pondered, suddenly his expression changed from sour to warmth, "My sweet Vruhildi..." Valdure pauses for a brief moment, reminiscing. "I was different, I found love, I found my purpose again. She was all glowing, so full of life... I thought I'd grow a big family with her, something to call my own. To prove I was meant to live." Valdure looks on at the small light emenating from a candle, gasping quietly, "A fire..." His eyes widen with horror, seeing visions of his past through the flames, "Our home, it was burnt to the ground. I could not save her life..." He recoils into his cape, eyes still widened as he shields himself from the light, "The illumination I see reminds me of pain and only pain." He unveils himself, looking on at the old hag once again, "Nature, the order of things, I dread now. My eyes are more congenial to the darkness..." He sighs, looking away as a single droplet of a tear runs down his face before he wipes it away, continuing. "Ever since that day, I grow ever more restless... Longing for any kind of revenge against the world, there must be some sort of justice. I believe nothing, only death. It is far more true. I believe that I died along with my love and that I am cursed to wander in this husk... She was true to me, wherever we went we went together." Valdure becomes restive, his left leg shaking, him glaring at the candle light again, piercing his eyes, "I'd give anything to make her live again..." He senses the aroma from outside, rotted wood and wet moss reminds him that it is time for him to leave. "It has been far too long since we were living, nature is unfair. One day I'll find the unnatural and make that my home instead." He lifts himself up and begins to leave. "I never could stand the rain myself... water on the brain..." He picks up a candle on the way out, his cape shrouds his exit. Only visible of is his head facing down at the candle, reminiscing the past once again.