Checkmate

Your character has just arrived in a swampy, dim town. As they look around, their gaze is met with shacks and cabins. It smells of rotted wood and wet moss. They 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?)) Her eyes studied the features of the crone, expression visibly suspicious and unashamed of showing it forthright. Despite this, the Elven woman takes a heavy step forwards, the heel of her boot squelching against the damp ground beneath the tent in a way that made her right eye twitch in discomfort. A bony hand took hold of the cushion, pulling it slightly back before she'd unceremoniously sink to a less-than-polite sit; Her voice came out low, "You have some nerve, woman. ah..." ..perhaps more blunt than she thought it would judging by the quick clearing of her throat. "I apologise.. for I have never seen your face, yet, you seem to know mine. I will tell you this, and if you can make any sense of it, then what brought me here was none other than yourself." Hark took a deliberate breath in, her chest rising and falling with a strain against the tight latch of cloth bound around her waist. Her appearance would give the impression of a hard-headed, very forward traveler; but her tone and her words could only showcase the tiredness seeping through, and the ache that came with it. "Most stories begin with eyes opening, yet mine remains only once they close. It began when I first found myself in a field of valerian flowers.. where I slept. And slept. And slept.." A hand decorated in inexpensive jewelry raised; allowing itself to dance in the light of the candle, emitting shadows across the canvas of the tattered tent. "Within the land of my dreams was a wiry forest, outstretching further than one could imagine; like a serpent, coiling inward towards my path. Each step I took provided something new.. but first came The Fox." And as she spoke, the Elven woman's hands twisted into an odd shape - and the casted shadow morphed into the head of a fox, teeth gnashing down upon the both of them as her hands showcased the art of shadow-puppetry. Hark recounted her never-ending nightmare to the wise woman, the flames licking with her own discontent behind her eyes. The longer she told her story, the more evident the bags beneath her gaze became - and once she was finished, she looked upon the crone like she were a ghost, knuckles white with how she had began to clench them in suspense.. or prayer, prayer that someone could tell her how to move forward.