vanss_allstar

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?)) Example: “I… didn’t plan to end up here,” she murmurs, avoiding the hag’s eyes. Her fingers fidget with the edge of her sleeve as she glances toward the tent’s entrance, nervously twisting a bow in her hair, “I left… everything… everyone.” She breathes out slowly before continuing, removing one of the bows to twist it between her fingers, “My family belongs to the Mali’ker,” she says quietly, almost as a fact rather than a statement of pride. “We weren’t wealthy, we weren’t struggling either… just… stable.” Her gaze drops. “They cared about me, that’s why it’s hard to talk about them… I can’t hate them.” Her fingers curl slightly. “Everything in that house was about doing, not choosing, not asking, just following the path laid in front of me.” A small pause. “They never explained things, they just expected obedience.” She lifts her eyes again, calmer now, tying the bow back in her hair, mirroring the one on the other side. “Those are my roots. I won’t deny them. But I also won’t romanticize what hurt me.” A quiet, honest breath. “I left because I was done, because I remembered I had free will,” she tightens the bow again, “I love them, but I cannot deny my need for discovery.”