A young Witch

From the other side of the door, I heard the sounds of someone shuffling around, then a clanging noise followed by muffled swearing. Finally, the door opened, spilling light out into the rainy yard.

In front of me stood a young woman, clad in an assortment of rags and scraps, haphazardly sewn together, with what seemed to be an oversized, moth-eaten bearskin thrown over her shoulders. Her long, chestnut-red locks were adorned by a rather comical, wide-brimmed, pointed, black hat, as patched and frayed as her dress. Various strings of beads and bones hung around her slender neck, and the various pockets of her shapeless garments were overflowing with various bushels of dried herbs, scrolls, bags and small bottles.

It was hard to make out the shape of her body underneath the mess of clashing colours and textiles, but she was decidedly shorter than me, just about coming up to my chest.

In the lamplight, her skin was luminously pale, dusted with freckles. Unlike the dry, straw-like orange and yellow of the women of the towns, her hair was a dark, reddish-brown, appearing almost black in the gloom. Messy, uncombed, luxuriant coils framed her girlish face. Her lips were full and ruddy, her eyes, though tired and sleepy-looking were the alert, dark royal blue of a late-autumn evening sky.

She surveyed me, looking up and down my tall frame, noting my foreign clothes, the curved dagger, aetherometer and faintly-glowing craft-lamp dangling from my belt and the golden bangle at my wrist, before settling on staring up at my face.

"You. Who are you? What in buggery are you doing out here during a storm like this?" she asked brusquely, brow furrowed in distrust. Trying to put on my most disarming smile and silently cursing my dark and swarthy good looks, jet-black hair and beard, sharp features and tall stature, which, while good at impressing the easy women of the Great Merchant Cities, had the side-effect of making me look more like a bandit than a scholar, I stepped forward to introduce myself.

"Well met, good Miss!" I exclaimed with a small bow, struggling to properly pronounce the slippery, lisping syllables of the northern common speech, "My name is Solomon Alnayyir, I am a Magus of Thracis, from far to the south beyond the seas. I was sent on a mission of study to these northern forests, but I seem to have been caught in this storm without a roof over my head... I beg of you to grant me shelter in your honored house."

"Magus... Nan said that´s fancy talk for a wizard. So you´re a wizard then?" the girl asked.

"Indeed, I am a scholar of magic, as well as many other disciplines of wisdom!" I answered, desperation now giving my voice an undignified edge, "Perhaps I could repay your kindness by sharing some of the knowledge of the Citadel of Thracis? I´m certain it could be of some help to a fellow practitioner of the occult arts such as yourself. Incidentally, I couldn´t help but admire that excellent barrier-spell you have set up. Such fine work is rarely seen, even in the Citadel!"

"A foreign wizard huh..." the young witch surveyed me head to toe once more, mulling it over before seeming to arrive at a decision "Well, I can´t just let you spend the night out in that nastiness. If you get all chewed up by a warg or struck by lightning or squashed by a falling tree it´d be partially my fault now, so I´d best let you in..." With that, she stepped aside and ushered me into the hut.

Thanking her profusely, I stepped over the threshhold.