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?))
Tala inclined her head at the crone’s bidding and lowered herself onto the frayed cushion, the sour breath of rot and wet moss filling her chest as candleflame quivered above like stars caught in amber.
“M-My mother ever warned me against parleying with strangers,” she began, her voice faltering, each word weighed down by old fear. She drew a slow breath, then lifted her eyes to the hag, gathering courage from some deeper well. “We dwelt in a humble shack, not unlike this place—five children pressed beneath one roof. The nights were cramped and restless, our bellies oft gnawed by hunger, living upon scraps to see the dawn.”
Her gaze fell to her hands, fingers tightening as memory took hold. “My mother danced in the district,” she confessed softly. “Men would come and go, and when they departed, they left coin or crusts enough to keep us living another day.” A tear slipped free as she bowed her head. “She loved us fiercely, beyond the bounds of our lowly station, and I longed—desperately—to change the life we were bound to, to grant her ease where there had been none.”
She lifted her face again, a faint, unconscious smile touching her lips. “She named me Tala Hiraya,” she said, reverent. “She told me it meant a star that leads one toward their dream, and bade me follow it, no matter how cruel our lot.” Her eyes drifted to the tent’s opening, where pale starlight struggled through the mist. “Oh, how dearly I love the stars…”
“Their light has drawn me to this place,” she continued, her voice now steadied by resolve. “When they burn in a certain manner, it is fate’s summons—one that cannot be ignored. I know little of this world’s truths, yet their glow teaches me to dream… and so I have come.”
At last, her gaze returned to the crone, fear tempered by quiet determination, ready to face whatever destiny awaited her within the mire
