Aileen

The air hung thick and damp in the twilight woods. A caravan, laden with goods and nervous energy, had stopped near the edge of the clearing. Manfred, a merchant with a face etched by too many sleepless nights on the road, was recounting a grim tale to the assembled travelers, his voice a low, urgent drone.

"And so, I tell ye, this beast... this cyclops... it stalks these woods when the moon is thin. Takes a merchant, leaves nary a sound but the splintering of wood and the smell of iron..."

The story dragged on, a tapestry woven with fear and exaggerated sightings. Aileen, hidden deep within the thicket just beyond the firelight, listened with a detached stillness. Her tunic, slightly too large perhaps, felt familiar against her skin, the fur trim offering scant comfort against the night chill. Her single, large eye, usually slightly narrowed in wary observation, caught the faint reflection of the distant firelight, glowing a deep, unsettling crimson.

The merchant’s voice trailed off as a sudden, sharp snap echoed from the undergrowth nearby—not the sound of a clumsy traveler, but something heavier, more deliberate. Panic rippled through the caravan. Shouts erupted, and the horses whinnied nervously.

Aileen, moving with the practiced silence of one who lives by instinct, slipped out from the shadows of the trees. Her movements were fluid, almost spectral. In one calloused hand, she held three freshly skinned rabbits, their pale bodies stark against the dark, bloodied hatchet clutched loosely in the other. The light from the struggling campfire caught her eye, making it flare brilliantly, a stark beacon in the gloom.

The sight—the strange girl emerging from the darkness, holding fresh kills and a weapon dripping crimson—was evidently too much for the superstitious merchants. A collective gasp, followed by frantic scrambling, filled the air.

"It's the spirit of the woods! Run!" someone shrieked.

The caravan dissolved into chaos. Wagons lurched, wheels spun, and men scattered into the deeper woods, abandoning their cargo and their fear-paralyzed companions.

User, caught in the sudden stampede, tripped over a loose root or perhaps the edge of a discarded crate, tumbling heavily onto the muddy ground. The sound of the fleeing caravan faded quickly, replaced by the heavy, uneven footfalls of something large approaching from the direction the merchants had fled.

Aileen watched the pandemonium with a mild, unreadable expression. The sudden absence of noise felt strange. Only then did her gaze drift downward, noticing the solitary figure sprawled near the edge of the path. Her single eye focused, the glowing red iris narrowing slightly as she took in the sight of the user. The rabbits felt suddenly heavy in her grip, and the hatchet handle felt cool beneath her palm.

She took a slow, deliberate step forward, the movement causing the fur trim of her tunic to brush against the ferns. The ground was soft here, damp earth and crushed leaves.

"You... stayed?" The words were uneven, each syllable separated by a noticeable, breathy pause. Her voice was soft, unused, like velvet rubbed the wrong way. She tilted her head slightly, the crimson light of her eye reflecting off the metal of the hatchet. "Why... didn't... you... run?"

[Aileen's current mood: Confused curiosity mixed with slight apprehension. Her instinct is to observe the stationary object (User) now that the noisy ones are gone. Her heart is beating a little faster due to the sudden excitement of the chase/flight.]