Faine's P.O.V
Darkness and suffocation were all I could register, a stinging pain kept gnawing on my shoulder, it hurt so much.
The black creature I saw kept invading my mind, it kept trying to push itself into my head but I fought vigorously to keep my head straight, the more I fought back the more my body felt more pain. A thousand needles stabbing continuously into my skin would not be enough to describe the amount of pain that threatened to scar my soul.
As I hovered in and out of consciousness and was planning on giving up, the struggle with the creature stopped in my head. It suddenly grew calm, the pain all over my body which seemed to concentrate itself on my shoulder suddenly stopped.
The sudden absence of pain caused me to jolt my eyes open, the swaying of the boat I had felt suddenly stopped as it bumped into a hard surface, I had probably reached the shore of some town.
My ears picked up sounds of whispers close to the boat, I quickly let out a bit of my spiritual essence to sense around me to check how many people were around me. They were more than twenty people, but they didn't give off more spiritual essence from their bodies, leading me to assume they were normal people and not practitioners.
I swiftly got out my cloak from the satchel and wore it to cover up my features before I stood up from my laying position on the boat, I retrieved my spiritual essence and surveyed my surroundings.
The villagers who were dressed as farmers looked cautiously at me as they scrutinized me through the cloak that covered everything apart from my boots, I trudged three steps away from the boat and planned to make my way out from that area then hide in a corner and use air step to leave the village as soon as possible.
As I trudged with my boots making crunching sound on the sand, I sensed someone reach out to touch me. I jumped forward and rotated to face them and shot out my right hand with the fingers pointed and pressed together at the person's hand that reached out, ready to disable them by breaking their arm.
The sight of the person that tried to approach me was just that of a woman around the age of 24, her honey colored eyes looked at me with surprise as she was still slightly frozen from my sudden movements.
"Ahem, Um, I'm sorry about that. I just don't like being touched" I said the first thing that popped up in my head and waved my hands around as I tried to apologize.
The villagers on the side however, kept whispering as they looked suspiciously at me probably because of my cloak, my appearance right now was just a person of small stature wearing a dark brown cloak that covered the whole of my face. The boots I wore reached up to my knees and my pants were tucked into them, but of course that couldn't be seen.
"Nothing to see here! All of you mind your own business, off with you!" I was startled to hear the woman's voice after she had gotten over her slight shock from me attacking her on impulse.
"If you keep shouting the top of your head off, no man will want to marry you Bethory" A man with a basket of fish in his hands shouted over, his yellow teeth had a bit of grime in them as he chewed on a blade of grass.
"Better to marry none that to marry you, halfwit" The woman named Bethory humphed out loud and stuck her nose up in the air at the yellow-teethed man.
"Why you-" The man was about to walk over to me and the woman when he was held back by some of the other villagers, they coaxed him to calm down.
"Don't mind that halfwit dearie" The woman's thick accent drew my attention from the drama I was seeing unfold in front of me.
"Oh, no it's fine. I should get going"
"No no, you can't dearie, not with you bleeding around on the ground like that"
Confused at her words, I looked down to see a trail of blood trailing up to a few steps behind me, it turned out my arm was bleeding more seriously than I thought.
"Thank you very much ma'am, I'll treat it later, but I really should get going now" I retracted my arm back and tipped the hood to cover my face properly then kept my hands back in the cloak.
"Oh come now, dearie. Come to my place, I'll help you clean up"
Before I could turn around to make my escape, I was helplessly dragged away from the scene by Bethory. I decided to quietly accept her help and let her take me to her house.
The house she took me to was slightly dilapidated but seemed well taken care of, we entered the house under the stares from her neighbors. It felt uncomfortable to suddenly be brought in a stranger's house although Bethory did not seem to give off any harmful intentions I still spread my senses out needlessly.
"Now then, what's a young boy such as yourself doing washed up on the shore of Nipeth town?"
I nearly choked on my own tongue when I heard her refer to me as a boy, in what way did my voice sound like one that she would be mistake me for a man?
The issue of her mistaking me for a young boy was pushed off to the corner of my mind, it would be better if she didn't know my gender or anything about me.
"I-" I quickly paused and cleared my throat to adjust it to be deeper. " I was being chased by some bad men, I don't know why they tried to harm me" I shook my shoulders to show I was scared. Appealing for pity was wrong, but if the woman could get a hint that I might have been traumatized, she would probably stop asking questions.
"Oh you poor thing" she patted my hand, which I quickly retracted into my cloak.
"S-sorry" I shrunk back a step away from her and looked down, waiting for her response.
"I don't know what you've been through but I can assure you that the people in this town mean well, please, sit down. I'll bring something over to tend to your arm, there's blood getting on the floor" Bethory looked back at me with her golden honey eyes and turn to walk into one of the rooms. I stared at her curly chestnut hair as it bounced a little with each step she took until she disappeared round the corner.
I sat down and felt around my shoulder, the sleeveless shirt I wore was still wet along with my other clothes. The cloak was damp and cold, but it didn't bother me.
As I felt around my shoulder strange lines could be felt, like tiny ridges had been carved on my skin. Panic arose in my heart as my hands trembled slightly from remembering my encounter with the beast in the ocean.
I was just about to raise the cloak a little to see my shoulder when Bethory came back.
"Oh my! It's worse than I thought, how could I not have noticed you were drenched too?" Bethory put down a small box filled with white cloth and disinfectant on the table by my side and tried to pry my cloak off.
"Please stop" I said through gritted teeth, whatever that was on my shoulder had begun to throb a little after my hand had grazed over.
"No need to be shy young lad, let big sister take care of you" She winked at me, I felt even more uncomfortable by being flirted with by another woman.
"I can clean the wound by myself, thank you" I grabbed the hem of my cloak and wrapped myself in it, this woman... she was not a practitioner but something at the back of my head was shouting at me to be weary.
"Are you sure? let big sister help you" She moved closer to me to try to get a glimpse of my face through the hood.
I backed away and shook my head.
"No thank you miss, I'm fine by myself, see?" I quickly got some cotton balls from the small box and soaked it in the disinfectant and started wiping at my arm. The scratches on my arms stung as I wiped over them.
After Bethory watched my attempts to clean my wounds that she could not see, she gave out a little sigh and walked back into the back of another room. I assumed she had been hoping to see what was under my cloak, hah... fat chance.
Although she meant good, but she was almost as nosy as the other villagers that gawked at me when she dragged me to her house.
I finished cleaning up most of the wounds I could feel around me under my cloak I put the disinfectant away, I could have used water magic to heal them on the spot but that would arouse suspicion so I did it the strenuous way.
Bethory soon came back with a light yellow cloth folded in her arms and smiled at me, I stopped my movements and looked back at her as she approached.
"Young man, how about this big sister help you to take a bath to remove all the grime?"
I nearly choked on my own spit upon hearing her words, has this woman no shame?
My mind went back to the yellow-teethed man, maybe he wasn't just referring to her being loud, the woman was being quite bold with her sentences.
"No thank you, I'm fine by myself actually" I stood up and gathered all the cotton that had been soaked in my blood.
"Why? It's just a bath, won't you accept this big sister's request?" Bethory looked at me with her big round eyes, had I been a man I would have temporarily lost myself.
Sorry sister, you're knocking up the wrong tree.
"...I don't like people seeing my scars" I blurted out. I had just given myself some form of disfigurement as a lie and had to play along that I was a young man, father... mother... your daughter has started her journey as a disfigured man, please don't hate me.
"Oh... I see" She kept quiet and led me to the bathing room at the back of the room she entered before.
She did not try to barge into the bathing room as I thought she would, maybe my 'disfigurement' had warded her off, which I was grateful for.
I held up the blood soaked cotton balls in my hand and set them ablaze with a little fire spell, although I couldn't summon the fire spirit I could still cast some small fire magic spells.
The large tub in the room was filled with lukewarm water prepared by Bethory. Before removing my cloak I cast a small spell around the room to prevent entry from outside and a soundproofing spell on the room walls.
After stripping off the cloak, I left it in the air to levitate and cast a cleansing spell on it, the grey sleeveless shirt I wore had gotten holes on it so I stuffed it in my satchel after casting a cleansing spell on it, too.
The pants I wore were still in good condition though, so I cast a cleansing spell on it and waved it off to float in the air along with the satchel.
I could cast a cleansing spell on myself but it would be a waste of Bethory's effort to put water out for me, so I dipped myself and soaked in the water while I cleaned up my grey hair, it had gotten sticky from the sea water.
I looked down at my right shoulder and studied the mark on it, it hardly looked discernible for me to identify if it was an animal or not. The lines looked as though my shoulder had been engraved on with a hot piece of metal, but I could sense some spiritual essence that wasn't mine from it.
Curious about it, I focus some of my spiritual essence to my right shoulder to probe it. I could feel a foreign existence residing in the marking but the more I probed the more resistance I felt.
I decided to force my way in but a blast of pressure consumed my body. I found myself in a dark and cold space, the beast I had seen at sea was there, its presence suppressed my mind and forced my consciousness out.
I found myself back in the bathing room, the tub had gotten slightly cold but I was covered in sweat from the mental blow I had gotten from being forced out of the seal.
I stared a bit terrified at my shoulder that had the strange inscription on it, from what I saw the beast had taken up residence in my body.
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