A Questionable Quest

The old hag grinned. It was an unpleasant sort of grin. A yellow-toothed, wizened, knowing sort of grin.

It was the type of grin that, normally, made any travellers to cross her path cross on the other side of the path. Unfortunately, the two travellers today did not have such an option. They were tired, and it was dark, and they had already stopped for the night.

They didn't know the old hag meant them no harm. They didn't know she only wanted to tell them a story.

The old hag glanced at one of the several watches on her bony, wrinkled wrist... and sighed. "I'll have to cancel my next appointment." She looked at the still-frozen pair, the flickering firelight illuminating her beady black eyes. "There's a knight who cheated his quest, see," she said, in a rather normal voice.

One of her companions started. In surprise? Fear? Who knew.

"Ah well, it can't be avoided, I suppose." She sat, slowly, on the nearest log which had been pulled up to the fire. The hood of her black cloak fell to her shoulders, revealing patches of limp, grey hair and a sunken-in face.

One of the campers shifted uncomfortably.

"Oh really, do sit. We have a long night ahead of us."

"You-you're-you're a..." one of the campers stuttered. The hag looked at him, waiting. She knew what was coming. Then again, she always knew what was coming. It was just that some version of this moment happened every time, and she'd come to expect it.

"You're a hag!"

"I am not," she corrected sharply, "a hag. I am a seer. Now sit. You're being rude, and I'm already running late." She shook her arm, and her several watches all rattled and clanked.

The campers sat, as one did when lectured about manners by an all-powerful seer.

The seer nodded, satisfied, then she spoke. Her voice was different this time. Raspier. Drier, like sand on a cliffside.

"Princess Ariabelle Tatiana," she began, for her confused but attentive audience, "was no ordinary princess..."