The flickering candlelight cast long, spectral shadows across the stained canvas walls. The air inside the tent was no sweeter than outside—thick with swamp humidity, tinged with a bitter herbal tang that clung to the tongue. The stranger hesitated for only a breath, then stepped forward and lowered himself onto the cushion with a slow, deliberate motion, the leather of his coat creaking with age and moisture.
His eyes, a strange shade of slate-grey, met the hag’s with a glint that bordered on wary amusement. "So," he said, voice low, gravelly, touched by some far-off accent, “the bog has eyes, after all.”
He pulled back his hood, revealing tangled dark hair damp from the mist, and a face scored by more than time—scars, one across the bridge of the nose, another vanishing into his collar. He reached into his coat, not for a weapon, but for a tiny charm: a coin of bone etched with a sigil that pulsed faintly under the candlelight. He set it on the dirt floor between them.
"My name," he began, though he didn’t immediately offer it, "has been traded too many times to mean much anymore. But since you're expecting me..." He leaned forward, his voice growing quieter, more confessional. “I was once a warden of the Black March. Bound to guard the veil between this world and the Deep Underneath. But something—something came crawling through when the wards failed. Took my people. Took my kin. Took part of me, too.”
He glanced toward the hanging candles. One flickered violently at the mention.
“I followed its spoor through ruins, through frostfields, and now—here. The swamp chokes with its breath. You feel it, don’t you? The old wards hum like broken strings. Whatever it is... it’s here.”
The hag leaned closer, the flicker of recognition dancing in her pale eyes. He mirrored her intensity.
“So, if you’ve been expecting me, tell me, crone—what else have you seen?”
