“How long have you been channeling your mark?” Casper asked, as he removed his gloves, scarf and shirt, bathing his pale skin in the moonlight.

“For as long as I can remember, the acolytes taught me how.” The nameless girl explains as watches Casper from a modest distance.

“Where do your marks end?” Casper asked in follow up. He couldn’t see her marks at all, and in similar fashion she couldn’t see his. Casper had managed to get a small glimpse at them when the elf mage cast her spell over the girl in the auction house. But it was hard to see the full extent of the marks from so far away and with other people actively distracting him.

“They end here.” The nameless girl pressed her hand to just above her elbow. “It is thickest at the hand, and the very end of it is here,” she clarifies.

Casper nodded, thinking.

He examined his own marks, and though he couldn’t see the full extent of them , he could tell they stopped at approximately his neck, though each veiny line was incredibly thick, resulting his his arms being almost entirely black up to the shoulder, then mostly black around his chest and only began to taper of at just above his collar bone.

Despite having used nearly a full quarter of his full strength in the fight against the Dragon, he was genuinely surprised to notice the mark barely moved at all.

“What abilities do you know how to use?” Casper asked, shifting his attention to the cool night air around him, as he let the mark flow through his body to channel its strength, and gather and grow to perhaps recoup the loss from today's encounter.

The girl thought for a moment, shifting her weight to her back foot and lacing her hands in front of herself in what almost appeared to be a prayer.

“I can heal myself, I know how to increase my senses capabilities, and i know how to divine”

“Hmm, limited, but we should-”

Casper paused.

“Forgive me, did you say divine?”

“Yes, I can see glimpses into the future, though not very far I must say. I was still in the process of learning that ability when i was captured”

“...”

Casper had never heard of that aspect of the mark. In fact he didn’t even consider it as a possibility.

As far as Casper was aware, the mark acted as a way to boost the physical capabilities of a marked individual. Divining the future sounded far too general to be an ability granted by the mark.

Then again, he had no reason to not believe her, and she was otherwise human with no magical capabilities.

Still, he wanted to test it.

“How does it work?” Casper asked outright.

“Oh, can you not use this ability?” the nameless gaped slightly.

“I'm afraid not, but I'm curious about how it's done. Can you explain it to me?”

“Of course, yes. The process is rather simple in premise but complex in execution. You see, you must channel the mark not into any part of your body, but instead channel it outside of your body. Imagine the mark itself as a hand, reaching away from you to grab hold of the threads of fate that drift around us all. Once you gather the threads, you must discern between the likely and unlikely with great focus”

“Can you give me a demonstration?”

“Most certainly” the nameless girl smiled, and sat down with her legs crossed.

Casper joined her. Watching intently as she closed her eyes, and let out a breath.

It didn’t look like anything was happening from what Casper was looking at, the only change he could pick out was the every so slight shift in ambient temperature around the girl.

“So what now?”

“So what now?”

The girl spoke a fraction of a second before Casper did.

His eyes went wide, and just as he was about to speak again, instead she spoke first.

“How far ahead can you see?” she said, as if reading from a piece of parchment.

“There is no clear answer, it depends on the certainty of an event. How likely it is. The further away from the present I see, the more uncertain it becomes.” She answers the question that Casper never asked.

“Yes it is impressive, no I cannot fight while doing it, yes I can see you about to throw that twig in my direction” she rattles off responses quickly, prompting Casper to drop the twig he had in fact raised, ready to throw at her.

The fact that her eyes were closed and he even channeled the mark enough to move perfectly quiet, yet she still foresaw it coming meant that the ability to divine the future was real.

“Damn…” Casper let out a sigh. “I should learn how to do that,” he admitted.

“I am more than happy to teach you. Just as you wish to teach me more about combat. It will help us both'' the nameless girl smiled softly.

“Speaking of helping us both, maybe you can help me think of a name for you,” Casper admitted, letting out a low breath as he continued to passively channel the mark. The heat was approaching unbearable now, but still he needed to force the power through him to compensate for its use.

“Would it be strange to pick my own name? Or would it be more appropriate for you to pick mine? After all, it is you who saved me, you who now own me.”

“I… sure, I suppose I could pick for you” Casper grumbled.

There was no point in trying to dissuade her, or even the others from their notions at this point. It would just complicate things. He would rather learn to deal with it and make it work for him than to attempt full scale social reconditioning.

“Though I can't do it all by myself. Tell me more about yourself. I don’t wish to name you something ill fitting for your personality” Casper added.

“About myself? Unfortunately there is little to tell”

“A little is better than nothing, indulge me” Casper leaned back. Releasing his pull on the mark with a sharp exhale as the lingering burning sensation caused him to dig his fingers into the ground and clench his jaw from the pain.

The nameless girl mimicked Casper's movements. Leaning back and casting her gaze up to the clear sky, giving herself a moment to gather her memories.

Casper took that moment too, to cast his senses out to the world around him. They had been able to pretty quickly make it clear of the city. Casper could have easily cleared the distance to the marked spot the girls would be headed to in a little under an hour, but he couldn’t do so safely with the hills and plains offering clear lines of sight from basically any direction.

The smell of the grass around them was pleasant, clean, and natural. The gentle music of the bugs made a harmony with the nocturnal birds that still called out into the night. The air was almost warm, at least compared to where Casper was from, and the sky was wide open without a cloud in sight. Even the smoke had fully vanished from sight.

“The earliest memory I have is of being on a boat…” The girl started.

Casper turned his attention away from the nature around them to watch and listen as the girl spoke.

She held her head down, as if the grass under their feet held the story she was trying to recall.

“I can’t remember too many details, it all seems so blurry when I try and think too hard about it. But I do remember the cold. The spraying water on my skin. I remember people. But there were too many.”

The girl took in a deep breath and shivered, as if the cold she remembered had returned for only a moment.

“Something happened to the boat. I remember falling in the water and screaming, and then cold, and then I woke up…” she sighs the rest of the words out. Frustrated with herself.

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“It's alright, don’t force yourself” Casper reassures her with a calm tone.

“I…wish I knew more of my life before, but all I have ever known was the Acolytes I am afraid.”

“Well, I don’t think we have enough for a name yet. But I'm sure one will come to me eventually”

The girl nods. Pushing down her frustration.

“For now let's rest up, we will be meeting up with the others tomorrow morning. The sooner the better”

“I understand”

Casper laid down where he was, crossing his arms behind his head to look up at the sky.

It was a pleasant night, a warm night, he wouldn’t need his tent or bag.

The only thing he could do now really, was hope that tomorrow would be easy, and free of any surprises.

“Casper!”

A voice, a familiar voice.

Casper couldn’t quite place where he had heard it before but his mind definitely recognized it from somewhere.

It sounded as though he was under water, or perhaps somewhere very far away from the source of the sound.

He couldn’t figure out why someone would be calling his name, or why said person would be far away but that didn’t really matter right now.

If he was in danger, his body would have alerted him and he would wake up. Given that he was still asleep it probably wasn’t terribly important.

He knew he was dreaming, because of the strange sensation running all along his body with no perceivable source.

His hands and arms felt warm, gripping something that made his entire person tingle with the pins and needles you might get from hearing a beautiful song on festival night.

His breathing was low and steady, each breath euphoric almost, like the one you might take after a shot of strong spirits.

“Casper! Stop!”

That voice again, it was starting to annoy him slightly, he wished he could do something about it.

“Casper! Please!”

It was really getting on his nerves, every time that voice called out the pleasant sensations working through his skin and muscle and bone started to dissipate slightly. Which was a problem.

It wasn’t often he had entirely pleasant dreams. Not since he returned to his burned down village. In fact it was safe to say he rarely dreamed at all these days, so he was honestly rather enjoying this one, even though he didn’t know what was going on.

“Casp-er…” the voice, hollow, no longer distant, in stead is was right next to him now and it pleaded through clenched teeth and blood.

Casper's eyes flickered open, his vision swimming into focus and stabilizing rapidly as adrenaline dumped through his body at the sight before him.

The soft blue and gold of the early morning pierced through a canopy of trees he didn’t remember falling asleep under.

His hands were saturated in deep crimson up to his elbows, with his hands squeezing firmly around the small throat of the nameless girl, struggling for life on the ground under him.

Casper released his grip and threw himself away, as if at any moment he could fall back asleep and resume his assault on the girl.

He landed hard on something metallic. He twisted slightly to see what he had just collided with in his fall, to see the corpses of nearly a dozen men in armor around the forested floor.

Rather, he thought they were at one point armored men, it was hard to tell given their current state.

What was left of their bodies was mangled and nigh unrecognizable. Twisted fragments of plate seemed to fuse with the chunks of flesh left scattered around the forest.

Had there been scorch marks, he would have thought some ancient dragon let out one of their breath attacks in the middle of the forest.

Instead, the twisted, mangled assortment of body parts and scrap painted a gruesome picture in which Casper was the only possible artist responsible.

“Are you alright?” He called out to the nameless girl, moving to stand and reaching out a hand to her.

She nodded reluctantly, bringing her hands to her throat to touch the rapidly growing black and blue bruise forming in the shape of Casper’s hands.

Casper moved to stand, approaching the girl, though she took an instinctive step away from him, her eye flickering momentarily with fear and hesitation.

“I…what the fuck happened to me” Casper said in a low whisper, examining his arms first, and then the rest of his body.

He was saturated nearly all over, though his arms had taken the worst of it. Small wounds mended themselves along the length of his exposed forearms, where the clothing of his shirt had ripped apart, presumably when he punched clean through the plate armor of the men around him.

“The Acolytes taught me that the use of the mark could alter the mind. The mark is primal, the mark is animalistic…” the girl says softly.

Casper winces at the hoarseness in her tone. It's clear that the act of speaking alone is causing her pain.

“Nothing like this has ever happened before” Casper tried to reason, and it was true, mostly.

When he used the power of the mark on his body his mind began to shift to something far more animalistic, that was for certain. He had noticed his impulse control falter, his reasoning skew, among other effects. But he had never done anything like this before.

The nameless girl began healing herself slowly, the bruising slowly beginning to dissipate and the scratch tone of her voice ebbing away.

“You woke at sunup, and sprinting into the woods,” she explains. “I tried to ask you what had happened but you wouldn’t respond. I followed you here. By the time I arrived the men were already dead, I tried calling out to you, but…”

She traces a thin finger down her throat, and casts her gaze to the ground.

The movement makes Casper wince.

He tries to take another step closer to her, but again she backs away a single step to keep the distance.

“I…must have used too much of its power in the fight against the dragon” he tries to reason some more.

“It’s alright, the mark has a strange effect on those who bear it. I cannot fault you for its side effects given how much power you must have used, specifically to protect me.” She starts, finally returning her gaze to Casper.

Casper gives up on trying to approach her, though is shocked as she instead takes a stop towards him.

“I will be fine” she smiles, as the bruising around her throat heals itself slowly, returning the skin to its “natural” pale hue.

“The Acolytes did not teach me how to use the marks strength, but they did teach me control. I can share with you this control, if you can share with me its strength. It will aid the both of us, will it not?” The girl surprises Casper further by gripping his hand into both of hers, bringing it up to her face and staring Casper in his eyes.

“Right…I can teach you how to fight…” He mutters to himself softly at first, then much more firmly again as his resolve strengthens.

“And I will teach you to control.” She confirms.

Casper lets out a long breath, and with it, the lingering heat from the mark in his body.

Control, control, control. That was a hard thing to do with her so close to him. His hand in hers, her eyes on him.

He tore himself away effortlessly.

“We need to move, and find the others. Quickly.” Casper tried to switch the topic away to anything else. Any excuse to quickly put his focus elsewhere and distance between himself and the girl.

“Of course, we should make haste, the bodies will attract attention soon enough I'm sure”

“You’re right…” Casper sighs, looking around to the blood soaked forest floor. “We should move irregularly, using the trees and stones and the mark to navigate to avoid any skilled trackers following our trail.”

It would mean a further detour, but the last thing he needed right now was for someone to find these corpses and then follow the footsteps back to his main camp and have to explain the situation.

The two shot off into the woods, navigating in odd, meandering motions. Using the boulders and trees to avoid leaving footprints, and using the mark to jump and maneuver otherwise impossible distances with relative ease.

Casper remained silent as they traveled. Lost in his own head about what the hell he had done, and furthermore what he had almost done. The blood still caked his body, drying and flaking off in the heat and wind.

He really had almost done something horrible. He hated the feeling of not being in control, which is when he never drank to that point on the rare occasion he had alcohol. It was the same reason he had never joined some of the older boys in the village when they had found the magemoss.

He knew the mark could take a hold of him, but he never thought he was capable of something so dramatic while not being away from it.

Casper could still feel the thin muscles and fragile bones of the nameless girl in his hands. How easily he could have killed her then if her voice hadn't cut through his dream.

It made him shiver. What if it had been Elisayra, or Alex, or Annabelle? Someone who couldn’t heal themselves.

He couldn’t allow anything like that to happen again. It was too dangerous, it was too…terrifying.

Casper wasn’t scared of much. If someone had asked him to name off his greatest fears he would struggle to name one, though now that his mind swam with the memory of how pleasant giving in was, how good it felt to let the mark take over. That horrified him.

It had taken the better part of an hour before they had found a stream Casper could wash in, and then an hour more to clean the blood that had stained deep into his skin and stuck itself under his nails.

He removed small fragments of metal that had stuck into his arm, using the mark to heal the wounds as he washed them in the stream.

He was grateful for the natural heat the mark gave off, as he submerged his head under the cold flow to remove the chunks of flesh from his tangled mess of longer hair.

He should really get it cut soon, he thought, as he worked through the knots.

Afterwards, he grabbed the bandages from his pack and wrapped them around his fingers and arms to cover the now exposed skin from his ruined shirt.

He had left his clothes on to bathe in the stream, knowing that it would dry quickly in their travels, but it was still damn uncomfortable to wear in the meantime.

Though, if Casper was being honest with himself, which he rarely was, he had left his clothes on intentionally because he knew the effects of the mark still coursed through him, and he couldn’t risk any indecent exposure at the moment, for fear of what else might happen.

By the time the sun began to set once again, the two had made their way to the sport he had picked out for the girls to meet him.

Rounding the corner of the small hill, Casper’s heart quickly sank.

It looked like they had made it. Embers still glow red where the fire had been left to burn out and die. Their tents sat fluttering and flapping half set up.

The ground was a mess of heavy boot prints and churned earth, spattered with drops of blood that had not yet fully soaked in.

“What happened here?” The nameless girl gasped, bringing her hands to cover her mouth.

“They were attacked, and taken captive.” Casper traced the outline of the camp, working his eyes in a spiral leading to the campers center, before following the churned earth in the direction they were taken.

“How is it possible?” The nameless girl asks softly.

“No idea how, but I know why” Casper grits his teeth. “No bodies, no ones dead. Not enough blood on the ground. They didn't make any effort to cover their tracks. Which means it's a trap. Who ever has them wants me to follow…”

Casper takes in a deep breath, and lets it out in a slow, measured stream.

The only person who had seen him in the auction house, had seen Annabelle with him in the auction house, and had seen him with the marked girl would be the man in black he had encountered.

He didn’t have the slightest clue how that man could have beaten him here, or managed to capture Annabelle and the others. He would have examined the bodies of the men he had killed to determine who they were, had their armor not been left unrecognizable.

“We have to follow.” Casper admits somewhat reluctantly.

As much as he didn’t want to admit that the girls meant something to him, it was true. The risk this man posed was substantial. He evidently had money, he had a desire to acquired the nameless girl, he had stayed to steal her despite a damn dragon appearing, and worst of all he knew Casper bore the mark as well.

“Follow me, stay close, and do exactly as I say, understood?” Casper ordered.

“Yes.” the nameless girl responded curtly.

So much for a hassle free day…