AurL

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?)) "You… You were expecting me?" he stammered, the words leaving his mouth with the clumsy hesitation of a newborn finding its first breath. The old woman regarded him with a look of faint disdain before repeating her initial question. "Well… my story is rather short, you see. I am the son of a crabber, as was his father before him, and his father before that. Yet some moons ago, while I was checking the crab traps, I heard a shrill scream echoing from the forest, a few leagues from our humble hut. And so… I paid it little mind." The tavern seemed restless that evening. As he continued recounting his tale, a brawl broke out nearby between two adjacent tables. Two stocky men were trading blows over a wench, though the true cause of their dispute remained unclear. "However, during the night, when we had gone to bed, I heard a monstrous crash in our common room, as though a wolf were tearing our hut apart in search of its meal. Exhausted, I fell back asleep nonetheless. It was the following morning that I learned the terrible truth. I found my father slumped over the table, sobbing. When I asked him what had happened, he struck me again and again, until his fist broke against my jaw. He kept shouting, ‘Why? Why me? What a miserable life!’ It was not like him at all." Tears streamed down his cheeks as he spoke, and the old hag, despite herself, seemed to take pity on him. "And so I never saw my father again. He left without another word and never returned. I was forced to piece the truth together on my own. My mother had gone into the forest to gather berries. She had stumbled over a fallen branch and torn herself open at the hip. She died during the night… a branch piercing her chest. Thus, I decided to leave the hut I once called home. Since then, I have wandered, searching for a place I might one day call home again." The distant brawl grew louder, drawing the attention of the kingdom’s guards. At the sight of them, the young man, caught in the midst of his tale, abruptly fled. And when the old crone called after him, he merely replied that the rest of the story would have to wait for another time.