Aimless wandering

One foot in front of the other. First one, then the other. Step by step by step. After Kiraea left you, you gathered your belongings and left by the river, totally ignoring her suggestion of going through the beaten path. Instead, you pick a hard route, over sharp crags and treacherous cliffs next to the river. You thought to take this path as self-punishment, but now you are beginning to regret that decision.

'This is it.' You say to yourself, 'Now I've had enough, after this step I will lie down. After this step I will die.' But you continue to walk.

Your travels take you west as you follow the river, away from Elohin. Away from the memories. You ploddingly wind through the Dragon's Teeth, foraging by day on wild berries and roots, and sleep at night. Your rests are short though. Ofttimes you wake up in the middle of the night, plagued by some invisible dread or menace. Finding yourself unable to go back to sleep, you start walking again.

Two days later, you emerge on the western side of the Dragon's Teeth, weary but unable to find a reason to stop. You've yet to see a soul during the entire trek, and the loneliness is eating away at you. This is the only thing that continues to drive you forward, to find someone to talk to. Anyone. You pass by burnt-down farms and ransacked villages, their residents either dead, **** and murdered, or missing, eventually ending up in a densely wooded forest.

Following the river through the forest, past birch, elm, oak, redwood, and ironwood trees, past glades, gutted and gouged by trampling feet to expose the mud underneath, you reach an old, derelict water-mill. The wooden wheel has long since cracked and stopped spinning, but the structure is still intact. Mainly. Windows are broken in and a part of the thatched roof has caved inwards, exposing the interior. Hoping to find some supplies left behind, you step inside, pushing past a door left ajar.

The inside of the watermill fared no better. Splintered and flame-blackened wood lie spread around the one-room building. There is a faint musty smell that you cannot put your finger on but besides that, nothing unusual. A firepit sits in the middle of the room, the flames slowly dying away. Someone was here recently, but no longer it appears. Spotting nothing valuble in the house remaining, you turn around to leave.

"Oi."

You stop. The noise seems to vibrate softly from somewhere nearby but you cannot pinpoint it exactly. As a matter of fact, you wouldn't of even heard it if you hadn't been lost in thought.

"I said 'oi', boy. Down here."

You look down. You see...you see...'something'. First sights and first thoughts completely baffle your senses. You first thought it was a talking cloak, greyed, old, and tattered. After looking past the wrinkles and the leathery skin, you spot two black circles that might be mistaken for eyes, and hook-shaped nose (which might be mistaken for an actual hook), all atop a bulbous and flabby trunk that might pass off for a human body. Then your head started really messing around and you thought you were looking at a gigantic vegetable with a straight-end stem potruding from the top. And if you look really closely, it might actually look like an old lady, curled up so far that she's almost doubled-over, carrying a elm walking staff that's her size twice over.

"Now I know I'm hallucinating." You mutter, "An over-sized, dried-up prune is talking to me."

The sharp report of wood on bone sends a painful shock up your leg.

"Ow!" You yell as the ancient creature withdraws the butt-end of her stick from your shins, stamping it on the ground. "It was a joke, you crone! A joke! Why in the hells did you jam that stick at my shin?! A 'hello' would work!" Massaging your leg, you find an old stool to sit on.

"Mebbe I should jam my branch up somewhere else, eh boy? Mebbe then you'll listen ta' me." The old stone smirks, waddling towards the gutting firepit. She grabs a stray log, awkwardly chopped for burning, and tosses it into the fire. "Ain't no respect, boys give, these a' days." she murmurs, stoking the flame back to life with a rusted cast-iron rod.

"What are you doing out here?" You ask, bewildered as to how this frail creature has managed to survive, "Don't you know there's a war raging out there? The demon overlord's armies are everywhere."

"Don't talk ta' me like like I be a senile granny. I can stands on two feet myself, you know." the crumpled parchment-like woman answers, "I be too old to leave now. And no one would want a lil' ol' lady like me, besides."

You are rendered speechless by this fiesty, strange-speaking carpet that poses for an old woman.

"Whats about you, eh boy? What be ya doin' out in this here woods?" She asks, "You ain't no knight o' Morgent nor man-at-arms, I can see plain. Freerider? Mercenary? Mebbe. I see them clash against ta' demon overlord's armies, all over this land, 'longside the King's armies, but all o' them be armed to tha' teeth, and you ain't got nary a needle or whistle on ya. Only dead men and wantin'-to-be dead men walk 'round these places without arms. Be ye without arms? Armless?" She cackles madly.

"No, I...I'm not...I'm just...I'm just wandering." You stutter, confused. You weren't prepared to answer questions, "I don't know where I'm going. Just looking around, I guess."

"We all be wanderin', boy. Some just range closer to home than others." She replies, looking at the growing embers of the fire. "And if ya don't know where you be going, mebbe you should stop looking and start seeing. And here be as good a-place as any to see what you need see."

She turns to you now. Her coal black eyes seem too clear for madness, but too wide for sanity. "Do I know you?" You ask.

Not breaking eyecontact even for a moment, she says, "I be the answerer, when all the world be ta' question. When you be lost, I be the finder. Fog o' lies be the hider and I be the seeker. I make it clear against those that seek 'ta ravel the truth and to puzzle it well. So it be known. So I be Noan."

"You don't know me, but I be Noan."