Self-fulfillment
The robed figure furrowed his brow upon the scarred palm laid before him. One last customer before dawn. He usually liked these visits, where the customers are easily to swindle as the forest played tricks on those who tethered near first light.
This one however, rank of sweat. He’d received him at the entrance of his tent, a notably stout fellow. He had to side-step hastily to avoid being brusquely brushed aside, his cloyed words all but forgotten.
“Perhaps a name, please?”
He peered down on his guest hopefully, a hint of impatience showing in the edge of his voice.There was a pause, and the yordle broke the silence.
“It’s Esen, the gold coin is yours if you tell me how much trouble I’m in.”
The yordle looked slightly amused with himself, reclining on his chair which creaked, feeding on the other’s discomfort
“It’s written all over your face. You don’t need a fortune teller for thi-”
The guest reached in his pockets and took out a gold coin, clasping it firmly in the other’s hands. The other paw reached for the teller’s shoulder and squeezed.
“....A-annnddd I see a dark figure in thine seeing eye... It is.... close by.” The teller’s gaze flickered to his quarry, no response. He spun threads of light from his finger tips, anchoring them onto a murky glass orb. He willed images of a beast, one with an elongated face with no eyes. A curious beast of imposing height and claws, yet possessing neither scale or hide, simply naked skin.
The teller frowned as his conjured images grew sharper. His orb was getting increasingly hard to grip, but the hand on the shoulder refused to budge.
“It’s drawn to this place... it’s drawn to you. “
There was full blown horror to his voice now. The image was morphing fur onto it’s skin, no longer just smoke and mirrors in his tent. He was no longer in control, he was going to die.
“It looks like you, it’s your pet. It belongs to-”
There was a buzz on his shoulder and then a growth started to sprout from where the strangers’ paw had been, it crept to the back of his neck and he opened his mouth to scream.
The air behind the tent howled, and a shape of a bow rested on the teller’s back. The yordle drew and loosed, the hastily made bowstring twapping against the other’s neck.
An arrow flew through the tent, and there was a pained screech from both beast and yordle. Something tumbled onto the earth behind the tent, parting it slightly as blood spilled onto the tent.
The teller dared not to look behind his shop, nor dare stir the unconscious yordle who started to bleed from his head. When he came back with 2 tired and bemused guards in the morning, they would find nothing, nothing except a pile of gold coins at the counter.
