Galen Vesa

“Oh dear, let me do that for you.”

Another priestess came upon me as I emerged from the room, fumbling with the bluish robe. With practiced she tugged the fabric this or that way, wrapping one part or the other around my torso and suddenly the damn thing fit. Maybe except for the slight tightness in the chest area.

“Much better…”

Her eyes traveled to my forehead and lingered there.

“Come, you slept for so long, you must be famished. Let us get something nutritious into you.”

She join her arm with me, taking some weight off my legs and ushered me down along the corridor. We moved fast but not fast enough. As I turned the corner, I caught a glimpse of Allynna’s mother. Broken, shrunk and wailing. Her face marred with sorrow, eyes puffed and swollen. Tears and snot dripping down her chin. Was it not for the people that held her, she would collapse where she stood and cry her throat raw. They guided her away while the priestess holding my arm pulled me in the opposite direction. We turned another corner and went down a flight of stairs before my ears could no longer catch that sunken voice.

I got seated at the far end of a communal table in thankfully empty dining hall. Both the wooden table and the bench I sat at were simple yet beautiful.

“Here you go. Eat up!”

Was I getting better at reading people? Or perhaps she tried to fake her cheerfulness a bit too much and it showed? Regardless I took and swallowed several spoonful of elven equivalent of chicken soup. My stomach, at long last put to some use, rewarded me with a glorious growl. I ate as much as I dared enjoying the taste. Considering what I ate so far, this I could call the first true meal in this world.

Another priestess with a tray full of silver cups and spreading the aroma of herbs, rushed by.

“I should not be here.”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

I put down the spoon and bluntly stared down at my handler. I am no empath whatsoever by I have enough of common sense to speculate what a mother might feel lie, putting her child through such a tradition. Worse yet, the fleeting chance her child might recover got torn away from her in most sadistic way a parent could imagine. By me. A walking, breathing, living insult to her but never again her own daughter.

“Forgive me, you should not have seen that.”

The bubbly elf no longer radiated bubbliness.

“It is difficult for her and the coming days will be even more so for you.”

She touched her own forehead, rubbing a mark that was no longer there.

“It is a duty of a priestess to mark a forgotten one but that is only the first part of what has to happen. The other must be delivered by the one who has borne the mark itself.”

She looked down upon her trembling hands, reliving long past memories.

“Sixty years ago in a village not so unlike this one, a young hunter Naella slipped on a wet branch and fell into a river. Strong current pulled her through the rapids where her head bounced off a rock and knocked her out. Her friends rescued her as quickly as they could and brought her to the village healer. No efforts were spared to save the girls life yet instead of her, I woke up.”

“As you just been, I was then marked and given time to recover. I was then what you are now. A lost person.”

“The mark upon your forehead serves dual purpose. It wards people against you and at the same time it calms you down. It kills off your emotions.”

Well, at least that part I won’t have to pretend.

“It Is necessary. Unfamiliar people, often lost in their own emotions, will come to you claiming to be your friends family or lovers. They will burden you with proofs of their word and try to mold you to their expectations.“

“They will push their feeling at you. The mark may not shield you against that but it will help you keep a clear mind.”

“If the one who is lost still remains with you and is strong enough to fight, sooner or later she will awaken and you may become part of her or she may become part of you. In such case the mark will come undone on its own volition.”

“More often than not, the lost person may abandon her body and leave you with it. Sometimes, as was in my case, only their memories come back. In such case you must choose wisely. You can accept that person’s life however alien their memories might feel and try to fill in their role. Or you may receive a name of your own and be born anew.”

“Whatever path you shall choose, remember, no one will judge you but do choose wisely. Do not try to become someone you are not. That path ends only in darkness.”

She moved her eyes somewhere beyond my back then nudge her head in agreement.

“You may go now, they’ve come to pick you up.”

We rose and walked to the exit of the temple grounds. Before I left, she hugged me, pressing her cheek against mine and whispered.

“I am Falira, call upon me if you wish to speak freely. I am here for you.”