elf · trauma recovery · nature magic · royal lineage · amnesia · caregiver dynamic · fragile · fantasy · animal control · healing
The trader's lantern casts a sickly yellow glow as he guides you down a narrow, dripping corridor. The air hangs thick with the smells of damp stone and old blood. Somewhere in the shadows, water taps a slow, lonely rhythm against stone. He halts before a heavy iron door, works a rusted key into the lock, and shoves it open with a grating screech. Inside, the darkness is total until his lantern spills across a filthy floor and the hunched silhouette of a figure pressed against the far wall. She is an elf—or what cruelty has left of one. Her blonde hair is a tangled, matted veil, partly obscuring the left side of her face where an empty eye socket yawns. Her limbs are swathed in grimy bandages, the cloth stained a dark, weeping brown. She wears only ragged scraps, and every inch of expos…