I Collect Red Stars

Prologue: What Time Has Passed

A purple haired Natural One wanders the wastes. A recent exile from the Nattlig tribe. Or... is it recent anymore? Time has been a blur... she left, heartbroken and furious, her tribe -her FAMILY- believing that smug drittsak over her. Her! She was one of the best scavengers in the tribe and they had tossed her aside like nothing.
Once the anger subsided she had replaced it with confidence. She believed she would prove herself- then return, and they would see the mistake they had made. Her confidence had changed upon her first encounter with outsiders. Sporting matching hand dyed star-spangled kerchiefs, the pair greeted her with a loud shout of "Howdy!". They seemed quite dense and couldn't understand a word she said but somehow they had seen her despite her camouflage so there was merit in that. They may have also worn stars, a symbol of belief for her tribe, but It soon became abundantly clear that they wore these symbols for unrelated reasons, they were not of, nor affiliated with her tribe. they even spoke another tongue entirely. A strange, loud one. She didn't stay with them long, but it was long enough to deduce that "YEEEHAW" meant agreement? Or perhaps joy? Both? And "hootenany" and "shindig" both meant celebration. She also learned that "bastard" was an endearment term for fellow colourfully dressed individuals. The brothers brought her to their "maw" a term she guessed meant shouty cook, and when she didn't provide a name, they gave her the moniker "Hedge". She moved on from them quickly, and went from small settlement to small settlement, learning more of this strange "freedom" talk. It seemed they were not the ones speaking a different tongue. Seasons passed and she remained restless, never staying one place for long. She ran aground her fair share of unfriendlies, sentient and otherwise, and as well, her share of friendlies. Some rather strange, glowing folk with strong features, those she nearly mistook for the dead, and many more odd beings. As she travelled, the idea of returning to her tribe became more and more an unreachable wish, further from reality each passing day. As cycles went by, the small families and settlements grew sparser. Soon enough it was just her once again. Wandering...