The girl slept uneasily, she kept reliving her previous waking moments as though it was a nightmare. In her dreams, she saw not the handsome gentlemen she’d revived with her cooking and dressed in her handmade clothes but the horrid goblin man staring hungrily at the little orb floating in the pink liquid as she lay back in the pool of blood unable to move. In her dream, she saw him eat it in front of her and approach her closer.
“Everyone pays like this you know?”
She heard his shrill goblin cackle in her head. He began laughing.
“Perhaps one more wouldn’t hurt; you weren’t planning on using it were you.”
In her nightmare, she saw him pierce his bare hand into her exposed navel and dig out a second one as she cried watching his rows of needle-like teeth surround the other one with tears in her eyes. She tried to scream but instead her lungs filled with fluid. She immediately woke up in fear. She was floating submerged in a vat of blue glowing liquid.
She turned and grasped at the edge and ripped her face up from the water coughing and heaving violently. She looked around and found herself in a different room than before her body still uncovered. She scanned the room cautiously and noticed the woman, Archive, staring at her with dull eyes wearing her bathrobe from across the room.
[“She’s awake.”]
She reported flatly. The girl hid herself in the waters. The woman sat quietly for a few moments before responding as if spoken to.
[“Right away master.”]
She looked over to the girl and gestured with her eyes for her to follow before rising and heading for the door. The girl nervously but swiftly followed after her covering herself with her arms as they went down the halls.
“A-are you taking me to where my clothes are?”
[“You won’t be needing them where you’re going”]
“W-what?”
[“The training ground provides better protection than human hands can manufacture… but only while in the training ground.”]
The words confused the girl, but she seemed to understand that she was finally being trained. She suddenly looked down in fear and touched her abdomen. No scar no mark, absolutely no proof he’d even taken what he said he did, appeared on her skin.
After a good deal of walking, they stood shoulder to shoulder and Archive pushed her in when the door opened. The girl stumbled for a few steps confused why a countryside was sprawled out before her, soon after her face filled with terror when she was suddenly shoved into the seemingly open plains nude, only for the door to close behind her with Archive smiling fondly on the other side of the door.
Before she could rush back the door disappeared and she just stood in the field naked and afraid.
[Master, I’ve brought her to the training ground]
She heard echo down from the sky. A few seconds passed before she could hear a reply
[Understood.]
And then nothing. She stood and waited and hid herself behind her arms.
“Ah, maybe he’s testing me.”
She looked around fearfully remembering where the door was, she turned around and began seeking the man who’d promised to train her. As she did, she began to notice things she never noticed before. Broken blades of grass, the clear distinct marks of footprints, she began to track as if it were her profession.
For three hours she huddled behind bushes and hopped along tree branches hiding while seeking him out. After a bit, she noticed she’d gone in a circle and let out an exasperated sigh.
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“I’m never going to find him.”
“Find who?”
The familiar voice sounded in her ear. She jumped at the sound and fell over immediately. He began laughing.
“Did I scare you?”
“N-no! I was just a little surprised. And why did I have to be naked for this?”
“Oh, did Archive not explain it to you? In here you simply have to believe you’re wearing clothes and you will be. But then if she didn’t explain that you probably thought you had left the cave didn’t you.”
His booming laughter filled the space. She hugged her knees to her chest and looked down at her hand sulkily, the ring she wore the day before reappeared on her hand. She seemed more inclined to believe him now. As she stood her clothes began materializing from the particles of light surrounding her from underwear to socks to skirt shirt and armour. She stood with her eyes closed for a moment before he began speaking.
“Hey, this is how you see yourself? Not bad.”
She opened her eyes and looked right at him.
“Archive, make us a mirror real quick.”
[As you will.]
The girl saw herself clad as the warrior princess of her dreams, a gold tiara sat atop her still wet glossy and faintly blue glowing blond hair. Her armour was a mix of chain and plate mail with gold embellishments around the corners of the steel plate. The fabric of her skirt was velvet she wore long thigh high stockings and plated grieves up her legs.
“Fashion and function.”
A grin appeared over his face. The way he seemed to look right through her made her feel naked again and in the mirror, she saw that this room betrayed her by bringing her feelings into reality again.
He laughed as she hurried to cover herself again.
“Don’t worry. It’s not something I’ve never seen before, how many men and women do you think I trained in my countless centuries on this mountain.”
Images of other naked heroes of an age long passed being laughed at by the goblin man she saw at the front gate of the cave flashed in her mind and her face turned red. As she switched from covering her body with her hands to covering her face with them, he slowly got control of himself again and grabbed her by the wrists.
She let a surprised utterance leave her lips as he swiftly moved to hold her arms against a nearby tree leaving her face and body completely uncovered. Though she knew instinctively there was no one else in this room to see them as they were, she was still a girl.
“W-what are you?...”
“First lesson, manifest the clothes you had before. You already did it once so it should be easy to do it a second time right?”
He stared right into her eyes. She struggled vainly in his grip for a second before she realized how close his face was to hers. His gaze refused to break away from hers. The shade of red on her face deepened. And he whispered something into her ear.
“You expect to be a hero and you can’t even stand up to a gaze? Do you think a hero will go unnoticed? That eyes with stronger gazes than mine won’t pierce you? inspect you for any error? Any fault? Anything to use against you? Do you enjoy being seen like this? What will you do if your house collapses and the masses see you like this? Will you crumble in their sights, or will you stand and fight!?”
At first, she didn’t understand but as his vigor began rising in his questioning, she began to realize two things, he was speaking from experience, and he was seriously concerned with her weak mind. In a moment she met his gaze and her clothes returned to her.
His eyes drifted down again, and he began inspecting her choice of clothes again. She steeled her resolve and pushed him off with all the force she had. Imagining a sword at her waist she drew her blade and came at him earnestly.
A smile rose on his face, and he began dodging her advance. With a hair's breadth every time he dodged only enough to move away and no more. After a few minutes, her movements began to dull, and he began to strike back. Every time she left an opening a finger was pressed into it with enough force to push her back but not injure her.
When her movements began to slow considerably, he punched her in the gut strong enough to send her flying. He walked back over to where she landed and saw her with determination in her eyes, a fierce glare to match his own and his face broke out in a smile.
“So! You’re finally awake!”
“Yes! I am!”
“Wonderful follow me.”
He held out a hand to her and she took it. Through the planes, he led her to a small log cabin seemingly with less technology even than what she’s used to. When they arrived, he gestured for her to sit in the seat provided and snapped his fingers.
Part of the illusion of the world faded away and from the ground came a pane of glass, various words were listed out on it, and he browsed them at his leisure. Some of the items were faded from the list and he began looking through them.
She caught her breath in the chair raising her eyes every now and then to see him staring intently at the glass, a small, contented grin crossed her lips, the words on her heart threatening to leak out.
“Finally, I can save my village.”