Mylah kept her eyes down as she followed the woman. She placed her hands in front, gripped them tightly to calm the shivering of her arms; the shivering of her entire body. Each time her feet met the wooden stair-boards, a loud creak deafened her ears, a stark contrast to the woman’s soundless ascent.
Mylah did not want to follow her, she wanted to get as far away from her as possible; to find a hole to hide in which the scary woman would never find her. But her feet disobeyed her.
Stealing a glance at the woman’s back, she recalled her not sounding happy when she had ordered Mylah to follow her. That was a bad sign. When her grandmother used to be in a bad mood, it often ended with Mylah receiving a beating. After that, her grandmother would retreat to the basement to calm herself.
Will the scary woman beat me too? She wondered, toiling to suppress her shaking. Or will she do something more? Like ki- ki- kil-
Even in her mind, she was unable to finish the sentence.
When Mylah did something that made her grandmother mad, she would receive a hiding. The more upset her actions made her grandmother, the more intense her beating would be. Some of these beatings would leave her bedridden for days, or unable to move properly for a week. Despite all of it, Mylah had never been in danger of losing her life. Mylah was an infuriatingly useless girl, as her grandmother always reminded her; but no matter how angry she made her grandmother, a hiding was all she would receive. You are a useless shit! She remembered grandmother barking once, but you are family. If you were not, you would be in the basement. No matter how much her actions- or inactions- upset her grandmother, Mylah knew that the worst she would ever receive from her was bruises.
It was not so with this woman.
She had already tried to kill Mylah, had actually killed her grandmother, and turned Mylah into… she was still trying to figure out what.
When the woman grabbed her and the armoured knight earlier, Mylah had frozen up, her breath caught in her throat. It had only been minutes after they entered the city that she managed to release the breath. She could never do that before, but now she was able to hold her breath for as long as she wanted.
Mylah recalled even earlier, shortly after the unbearable process she was put through. When she had gotten up from it, she had been grasped by a hunger unlike any she had felt in her life, causing her to attack the dead body of the mean woman who came to spend the night at the inn with her friends. Never in her life had she eaten raw meat, never had she thought it would ever taste as good as it had; the fact that it sped up the healing of the wound she had sustained made the experience all the better.
Mylah was not the same as she used to be. Breathing was no longer important to her, but she felt stronger than ever; at least when she was out of the open. Earlier when they were outside, she tried not to show it but the sun against her skin had a nauseating effect.
They reached the top of the stairs. The woman took the left side, sliding the key she had gotten into the lock of the first door and turning it.
She changed me, Mylah thought as she followed her inside the room. Maybe it meant she would not be killed like her grandmother. She could only hope.
The room she followed the woman into had two beds with brown sheets, a wooden table with two chairs and a chest next to each bed. It, just like the rest of the inn, was cleaner than the one she grew up in.
When the door closed behind her, Mylah closed her eyes and braced herself for what the woman had in store for her; hands tightening even further to keep the shaking from being noticed. She must not let the woman see how scared she was. The days when her grandmother use to catch her shaking had always been the ones where she got worst beatings.
To her surprise, the woman paid her no mind even after the door closed. She went to one of the beds and sat herself down; reached into the bed’s shadow and pulled out a book. Then she put both legs on the bed and leaned against the headboard to read comfortably.
Despite the woman not showing any intention to attack her like the previous night, Mylah did not dare to move. She stood in the middle of the room, her eyes occasionally wandering about but mostly glued to the floor while she twiddled her thumbs. In her experience, if she stayed still like this until told to do something, there was less of a chance she would anger the woman.
Minutes passed but the woman never looked up once from her book, causing Mylah nerves to climb. What exactly did the woman want?
A knock on the door brought her out of her ruminations. On the bed, the woman gave her verbal consent and the door was flung open to admit two girls almost as old as the woman looked without her mask; minus the stitches. Between them, the two girls carried a large basin filled with water.
“We’ve brought the water you requested,” one of them said, her eyes darting between Mylah and the woman.
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“Thank you,” the woman said. Although her voice was polite, she still did not look up from her book. “Leave it in the middle of the room.”
Mylah shifted to the side to allow the girls to place the basin where indicated, then she hurriedly cast her eyes back on the floor to avoid a look from one of them.
After the two girls fulfilled their duty, they left without a word. That was when the woman finally put her book down. Mylah kept her eyes glued to the floor as she felt the woman’s gaze pierce her. Is she going to drown me in the basin? It probably would not work now, but still… If her heart could still beat, it would be pounding heavily right now.
“Take off your clothes and get inside.”
Mylah obeyed, not that she could do anything else. She cast her clothes to the side and climbed into the basin. Then she sat in it, closed her eyes and coaxed her unneeded lungs to take in a huge breath; allowing some of her tension to melt away. The woman’s intentions were now clear. At least for now, she did not want to hurt Mylah; she simply wanted her to take a bath.
It had been a while since she cleaned herself. Feeling the clear water against her skin, it was not a bad feeling. Her focus was fully on running the water around her body, which was probably failed to notice objects flying her way until they knocked against her temple.
“Wash yourself with those,” the woman’s voice came from the bed.
Mylah grabbed the objects that had been thrown at her and examined them. The first was a dark red cloth softer than any fabric she had ever held in her hands and the second a soap unlike any she had seen. This soap was a solid round block which carried the scent of flowers. Stealing a quick look at the woman, who had returned to her book, Mylah wondered; where had the woman gotten the such a soap? Also, was it okay for Mylah to use something this nice? Would it not anger the woman at a later date and cause her to raise her hand against Mylah?
As if reading her thoughts, the woman released a huff and looked up from her book once more.
“Go on,” she said with feigned patience. “Use the soap up for all I care. I have more where it came from.”
Although she had received permission, Mylah proceeded to only smear a little on her skin. It was bad to take advantage of someone’s generosity, especially when they did not like you; that was her reasoning as she proceeded through the next minutes running the cloth around her body softly, careful not to ruin in case she angered the woman.
A sigh from the bed caused her to look up eyes wide, breath in her throat, as she witnessed the woman drop her book in her shadow. Then she removed her mask before turning to face Mylah. Her scarred face had a displeased look.
“Did the old bitch not teach you how to wash yourself properly?” she asked.
The woman got off the bed and approached Mylah while her hand reached in the direction of the table, causing one of the chairs to fly into it. Witnessing the scene, Mylah’s hands instinctively flew to her throat protectively, only to realise what she was doing, at which point she stopped herself. The woman would not be pleased if she knew what she was thinking.
Said woman placed the chair next to the basin and sank into it. “Give me the soap and washcloth then turn around.”
Mylah obeyed. She had no desire to add to the irritation she heard in the woman’s voice.
In the minutes that passed woman was not gentle with washing her; in fact, the force with which she pressed the cloth against Mylah’s skin was hurting her. Even so Mylah remained silent, not so much as daring to wince.
More time passed. The once clear water had now turned brown- nearly black- from the woman washing her. She beckoned Mylah to get out and handed her the cloth, telling her to dry herself off. Then the woman reached into her shadow and came out with a small crystal bottle holding what looked like a thick liquid.
“Wipe it over your body,” she ordered.
Again, Mylah proceeded to obey without saying anything. Once she opened the bottle and got a whiff of the substance inside’s odour, she stopped hesitating as well. She scooped up a handful and smeared it onto her arm, rubbing the liquid into her skin before dumping more onto her hand and repeating the process with her other arm. After she had applied the substance to her entire body, she reached for her dress; only to be stopped. She then watched in puzzlement as the woman used her [Mage Hand]-like spell to throw her dress in the water and then lift the entire basin, sending it to the open window and dumping its contents outside. Then she put the basin down and took Mylah’s hand.
Like the woman had done earlier before the sun rose, she took Mylah through the shadows. This time they appeared in a place she was unfamiliar with. It was an empty space with a heap of clothes on one side, a pile of gold on the other, a stack of books in a corner; and a frozen block of ice holding a- was it a body? She immediately cast her eyes elsewhere to avoid offending the one who brought her here.
The woman walked over to the clothe pile and reached inside, rummaging through the attires until she came out with a green woollen jersey and a pair of brown shorts. She turned around and threw them at Mylah along with a rope slightly longer than her arm.
“Wear these,” she commanded. “The shorts will be loose around your waist so use the rope to fasten them.” When Mylah was busy getting dressed, she added. “There aren’t any shoes your size in here, but we’ll fix that later today, as well as get you a few more clothing. For now, look around for a pair of sandals”
Mylah nodded while keeping her head down, new thoughts flooding her brain.
This woman was not a good person, in fact she was not even a person. Since entering the city, Mylah had to fight the urge to lick her lips whenever she looked at someone, a reaction she did not have around this woman and the armoured man; probably because they were not humans. Mylah too, was no longer a human. Spells like [Candleflame] and [Mage Hand], which she had struggled to learn, were no longer available to her. They had been replaced by abilities that manipulated flesh and bone, ones she was uncertain how to use.
Near the book pile leaned a mirror large enough to cover more than half her body. In it, an unfamiliar half-orc girl stared back with wide blue eyes. Astonished, she leaned closer to get a better look at the foreign entity reflected in the mirror. No scars, clean clothes and while the bright azure eyes were downcast, the face carried an eased expression.
Maybe being around the scary woman would not be worse than growing up in her grandmother’s inn.
Her thoughts were interrupted when a hand from behind grabbed her shoulder. Darkness covered her eyes for the briefest moment before she found herself back in the inn bedroom.
The woman let go of her shoulder and went back to the bed. “Now that you’re done, take the basin downstairs and ask for more water.”