[2] Tale of Neshka: Where Monsters End

This is the backstory of my tabletop RPG character. In it, Neshka recounts her tragic past in the world of Pathfinder. Part 2: Where Monsters End [Intro: Soft lute and cello] [Spoken: Intimate, low, fragile female voice] I woke up. [Short pause] It was raining. I could feel the water against my skin. I could hear it drumming on the roofs. And somewhere... ...a child was screaming. [Long pause] I was standing above it. I remember looking down at my hands. My fingers had become claws. My skin was pale and ashen. And my eyes... ...were burning. But I could see. Better than I ever had before. Everything was visible. The rain. The house. The child. Everything... ...was gray. [Verse 1: Soft, haunting acoustic folk] I raised my hands beneath the rain, And nothing looked the same. The skin I knew had faded, The girl I was had changed. My fingers stretched to sharpened claws, My face had turned to gray. And through the dark I saw the world In colors washed away. The rain was cold against my skin, The night was clear and wide, But all I felt was terror At the thing I saw inside. [Chorus: Ethereal, deeply melancholic] Cold rain falling on a stranger's skin, Tell me where the monster ends and I begin. The colors have all vanished, The world is carved in stone. How can I be frightened Of the thing I call my own? Oh, wash the ash away... Take these claws from me. Let me find the girl I was Before the night found me. [Verse 2: Restrained lute, soft frame drum] I didn't stay. I ran. I left the child behind me And disappeared into the rain. I ran until my lungs were burning, Until I could no longer stand. Then I found a crack within the earth And disappeared beneath the land. I curled myself into the darkness. I cried until I slept. I thought if I simply vanished, No one else would have to be afraid. I wanted to die. I thought it would be kinder. [Verse 3: Sparse, sorrowful cello] They found me days later, Half-starved and barely breathing. They carried me back to the village. And everyone stared. Some stepped away. Some whispered. Some looked at me as if I were something that should never have existed. And then... ...I saw her. Ilorien. [Music drops] My mother. She looked at me. And screamed. [Silence] I will never forget that sound. Not because it was loud. But because I understood. She didn't recognize me. The girl she had raised... the child she had loved... ...was gone. At least in her eyes. [Chorus: Slower, devastating] Cold rain falling on a stranger's skin, A home I knew was closing in. Names they spat at me like stones thrown through the rain. They saw a beast. They saw a curse. And slowly... ...I began to see it too. [Spoken: Quiet, bitter] They called me Luethjan. "Changeling." And Valjunesh. "Hagspawn." Names meant to tell me what they believed I was. [Verse 4: Dark, restrained] They wanted me gone. Some wanted me dead. I cannot say I completely blamed them. I was afraid of myself too. They argued over what should become of me. I waited for the end. Perhaps I was ready for it. But then Ilorien stood before them. She begged them to let me live. My mother. The woman who had found me. The woman who had raised me. She stood between me and the people who wanted me dead. And she chose me. [Soft, emotional] I think some part of me had been waiting for that moment. Waiting to know if she still loved me. [Pause] She did. But I could not stay. [Final Chorus: The Exile] [Slow, deeply tragic, emotional] Cold rain falling on the road ahead, I was still alive, but everything I knew was dead. Names I never chose. They took away my home, but somehow left me breathing. Oh, wash the tears away... Turn your face and run. The girl named Nijalaeda was lost beneath the sun. [Outro: Soft lute and cello] I left my home that night. And I never looked back. [Long pause] For the next five years... I wandered alone. [Fade out]