Tree_

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?)) *Aeson, lifting his head having just steeped it to step into the dire looking tent would meet the gaze of the crone as the croaked words passed her dusty lips. As she spoke, his brow would raise with faint amusement and curiosity.* "Expecting me? How intriguing, and you wish for me to regale the story of my life without even offering me a cup of your finest swamp water tea" *He suppresses a smirk as he bends at the knees to rest on the cushion, quietly remind himself to burn these trousers once he returns to real civilization.* "Well, I do love an opportunity to talk about myself... where to begin I wonder? Perhaps the start, it only makes sense." *He dramatically clears his throat* "I was born, I grew up with a level of education far beyond mediocrity, then I must have bumped my head and ended up in the back woods of swampsville. Now, rather by coincidence.. I was expecting you! Tell me your story of how you never heard of moisturizer and landed your comfy job as the mustiest looking crone I've ever met." *He smiles* *It did provide a moment of rare reflection for Aeson. He knew perfectly fine he was not about to retell his sordid life history to this bag of bones, but he did helplessly recall to memory his deep resentment for growing up the youngest son in a family who had long since stopped wanting boys in favor of girls and therefore viewed him as unwanted, unnecessary and unneeded. Yet still the overwhelming expectations from his battleaxe of a father is placed firmly on his shoulders with no assumption he'll fulfill them but the punishment should he not. His childhood was not easy, and so he attempted to breeze through it carefree and unbothered. It did bother him and so he would not be spilling his emotional backstory to some wizened old witch in her cheap tattered beige tent.*