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?))
X stepped into the tent and allowed the flap fall shut behind him. The swamp noise dulled immediately. He noticed right away the decoration inside the tent, the floating candles, the odd smell. When the hag spoke, he listened without interrupting, he had no reason to, he was curious. When she paused and looked at him more closely, he felt the familiar tightening in his chest. Recognition rarely came without cost, yet at the moment he merely prayed he would not get cursed... Or worse.
He did not ask how she knew him, he awaited to see what she had to say.
At her gesture, he moved to the cushion and sat, slower than necessary while keeping his eyes fixated on the hag. His coat creaked faintly as he settled. Mud stained the seat. He had not bothered cleaning it earlier. “I didn’t come for this town, nothing within it has peaked my interest in the slightest, I'm sorry to say.” X said, his voice low and tired. “It just happened to be where I stumbled to, I'm just passing.”
His eyes drifted briefly toward the tent wall. Then back to her. He studied her face one too many times, deep in thought as he tried to remember if he had seen her even once before in his life. “You say you were expecting me,” he continued. “How so?”
He rested his hands in his lap. Tapping his fingers anxiously against his ragged coat. “My story isn’t impressive, anyways.” he said. “No prophecy, no calling. Just a long list of places that stopped being what they were supposed to be and a whole lot of nonsense.” His gaze held hers, steady but tired. “If you want to hear it, I’ll tell it. But first... How about some introductions, hm?.” He'd say with a calm tone, crossing his arms as he kept conversing with the hag.
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Backstory
Maehrir Tharassi was born in Nor’Velyth before its fall, though the city was already failing by then, it was a mess. Not in obvious ways, clearly, but it showed. Buildings still stood, trade still moved, and life continued, but tension was constant. Arguments lasted longer than they used to. Certain topics were avoided. He grew up in a Mali’ker household that focused on practical skills, mostly. He was taught how to make himself useful and how not to draw attention when it was unnecessary. Religion existed around him, but it was fragmented and often contradictory. No one agreed long enough for it to settle into something stable, to put it simply, it was a mess, same as the entire city, though he had grown to like it with time.
When Nor’Velyth finally collapsed, it did not feel sudden. It felt like confirmation that he was never really meant for that place... He was not there when the meteor hit, he had left to finish work orders elsewhere. Afterwards, his life became inconsistent. He lived among others of his own kind for a time, then among mixed elves, then in settlements where he learned to keep his origins vague. People reacted differently once they knew where he came from, false pity to try and pry open his story. It was easier not to explain. A whole lot easier.
Sleep became a problem after the loss of his home. At first it was manageable. Later it wasn’t. He began waking up regularly in the middle of the night, sometimes unable to remember what he had dreamed, only that it involved corridors, voices echoing where they shouldn’t, or streets from Nor'Velyth that no longer existed. Cold sweats that ran rampant on his poor body, stress, killer headaches that kept him awake longer than they should. Those nights never fully stopped. He learned to function on little rest and stopped expecting that to change.
He continues to travel because he has yet to find a place to settle in, he studies the world, in search of his new spot after the fall of his beloved home. All he hopes for is to find a place he can call his own at some point in his horridly long lifespan, for his existence is merely to wander and document what he find, as he has no real purpose of his own in life. He lost it all with the destruction of his home.
