Brenda
Lady Sibyl Barrmount
The Witherlands, Barrmount Manor
A week prior to the tournament

Sibyl sat in her study, twiddling a quill in her left hand. She had, just this morning, received an updated report from one of the council members sent to check on the prosperity of the region. According to him, the townsfolk were rebuilding their villages, crafting new homes with lumber chopped from the vast pine forests enveloping much of her domain. Food was, of course, scarce, but fewer men were starving. There were even talks of setting up more farms near the outskirts of the territory, slaughterhouses for swine or elk or fields of whatever sort of root vegetables the peasants could manage to grow.

She knew, though, that the worst of this winter was yet to come. The cold never ceased.

After taking a slow, calming breath, Sibyl composed a reply to her council member, thanking him for his diligence and signing off with her name and a blackened Barrmount seal.

Once she finished her letter, Sibyl sat and waited, just for a second, for her butler, Yulius, to call her to her midday meal before remembering his absence.

Yulius had, with her permission, taken a rest day and ridden a horse to a nearby town to visit his family. The servants were permitted a certain number of days to themselves a year, and they had free time in between their daily activities, but Sibyl suddenly regretted granting her most valued employee leave when she heard the entrance doors thud with three succinct knocks.

She was not expecting visitors.

Sibyl stood, patted down her carefully coiffed hair, swiped at a stray fleck of dust on her immaculate green dress, and walked stolidly to the great wooden doors of her manor. With much reserve, she unhinged the door lock and pulled on the glimmering brass handle.

There, standing in front of her, was a woman. 

Sibyl took a moment to assess her. She looked frightful: clothes in tatters with shoes so worn they were little better than bare feet, hardly anything to shield her from the elements, and, most glaringly, she seemed so skinny a sharp wind could fell her. Her light brown skin was like leather stretched tight on jutting bones.

She was obviously not from the Iron Plaines. No resident of hers, peasant or not, had ever come to her in such a condition.

After staring at her for a while, gaze withering, Sibyl opened the door a little wider. To have a woman die on her doorstep would be very unwise of her.

"Come inside," She said finally, stepping back and ushering the woman in with a long sweep of her arm.
Joyce
Stern Logarsh, forest of Gorangrad

The hunter remained silent as his knife shaped the wood with the same ease of clay, never once touching the thumb of the greenskin. Time passed until a wooden object landed on the sellsword's lap. 
Stern scratched the side of his neck with the dagger before putting it back into its sheath. 
He glanced at the young woman and pointed at the sculpture he had tossed at her. It was a beautifully carved owl, the detail of the feathers were extremely precise, in huge contrast with the dagger the hunter had used, which was big and rather difficult to handle.
"May it bring you good luck."
Stern stated briefly, now searching his bag for some rations as it was definitely later than noon.
He took some sips off a waterskin and let out a sigh. He would have loved to hunt in the forest for some fresh meat, but with the shifter around, dried meat and hard bread would have done just fine.
George
Tanyth Carven, Forest of gorangrad

She'd been lost in thought, staring into the forest, when the sculpture landed in her lap. Steel clad fingers curled around the wood and the sellsword examined it, it was the second gift she'd ever been given. Something shifted, anger gave way to sorrow, "I wasn't supposed to be this... My mothers had such dreams for me," She murmured as she clutched the owl, "They imagined I would be sitting in the courts of kings and queens... That every man and woman would desire me or envious of what I had ad yet be unable to touch me. 'Tanyth, the Gilded Queen,' they'd said." She tucked the owl into a pouch on her belt, shaking her head, "All for naught. I wound up an orphan, innocence destroyed by pirates and sold into slavery when they finally got bored. Now look at me," She laughed ruefully, "My body is hard as stone, I kill without remorse and now I am out in the forest, camping with some creature most would call a monster, but is kinder than most humans I've ever known." She shook her head and laughed again, laying her head back, "You're the second person to ever give me something, without expecting anything in return. The first was my mom, she gave me this beautiful dagger... Family heirloom, made by elves millenia ago and still just as sharp and polished as the day it was forged." Anger flashed across her face, and her eyes darkened. "Gods have mercy on the pirate captain that took that dagger from me when I find him... For he will find none in me."