Chapter 2: Chapter 1

As a sword spirit with a name and a bonded master I had the privilege of sensation. I felt everything my prince did. His pain, his pleasure.

Even without a body I knew what cold steel slicing flesh felt like, what fire licking at my heels felt like, what earth shaking beneath feet and a heart dropping into a stomach felt like, what the pang of hunger and the scratchiness of thirst felt like.

And I knew the feeling of wind through long hair, of cool water washing away sweat, of hot baths, of soft blankets, of friendly hugs, and a lover's caress.

When I received a body, I realized how muted those sensations were...

The rough stone and small pebbles dug into the new tender flesh of my legs. It almost felt as if hundreds of small blades were biting into my skin, yet the skin wasn't broken. Because of the exertion of existence, sweat poured down my new body, plastering its long black hair to its neck, back, and chest and chilling me deeply when the wind stirred in the cave, the heat of the eternal fires doing nothing to warm me.

Hesitantly, I stood. My knees shook like branches during a storm. I took a few uncertain steps. Then a few slightly more confident ones as my muscles loosened and I grew numb to the pain of walking. Then I pivoted towards the altar where my sheath laid, falling back onto my butt, pain shooting up my spine.

I sat for a few moments, wallowing in self-pity and desperately praying to be a sword again. And then I tried again. This time I made it to the altar without issue and was able to behold my sheath with my own eyes. One of the first things that I noticed was that there were actually multiple shades of red within the intricate designs, through my prince's eyes it all looked like the same color. I reached out to touch it, startled when it burned, stumbling back with a hiss.

The sheath laid in a blood red array, shredded talismans peeling off it. The talismans were most likely what hurt to touch. Hundreds of years and it still had enough strength to sting. Bracing myself, I picked up my sheath, attempting (and failing) to pick it up without burning myself on the talismans and used all the strength of my new body to fling it at the small pond in the cave. I overestimated the strength of the body and the sheath landed a few feet short. With a sigh, I trudged up to it, slowly nudging it with my toe until it fell into the pond.

The talismans fully peeled off, floating up and away on the ripples. I knelt to retrieve my sheath, catching sight of the reflection in the water.

"My-" I started to speak, my hoarse voice echoing eerily in the cave. "My prince..."

It was his face. My prince's. Ves'hil'n's...

I bit my lip, caring not for the pain as a drop of blood rolled down my chin. I sat back, away from the pond, and wrapped my arms around my shins. I took a deep breath...

... And I screamed.

Over two hundred years of pain, rage, loneliness, anguish, despair... It finally had an outlet, a voice. And I screamed and I screamed and I screamed.

Tears poured down my cheeks and I kept screaming I kept screaming I kept screaming. 

My throat burned but I still screamed but I still screamed but I still screamed.

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I screamed until I couldn't scream anymore and yet I continued screaming. 

I screamed.

I screamed.

I screamed.

I...

I...

I stopped.

Slowly, I closed my mouth. Then I crawled back to the edge of the pond, splashing water onto the face that looked like Ves'hil'n's and drinking a few gulps from my palms. Before taking another look at it.

It really was his face, but his face from when he was a young teen, before he set out to fight the Demon Lord. Lily pale, soft and round with baby fat and devoid of any scars. I reached a hand out as if to touch it.

The ripples destroyed the reflection.

I took a deep breath and plunged my hand deeper into the water to grab my sheath.

My tears only half dried, my head pounding and my throat still burning, I left the cave.

Two hundred years and I still remembered every twist and turn of the maze.

Two hundred years and there was still someone waiting to stop me from leaving.

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