Chapter 101: Chapter 108: Warming Up.

Mara helped me warm up next to the fire, stacking so many blankets over my shoulders I thought she might be trying to bury me.

The well-lit house was like night and day from my room. It was like a hellish landscape where I fought the demon, but the rest of the house was somehow still so peaceful.

Before I knew it, Lu walked into the room, already sweating as if she had just come back from a workout.

“Lu.” My mother kneeled down and spoke softly, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Can you please go and get a change of clothes from your room for Siya.”

“Ye–yea.” She said before running off quickly.

‘Of course… my new closet got trashed with everything else… So much for the new wardrobe…’ I closed my eyes, tilting my head. ‘Honestly… That pisses me off more than I thought it would…’

Just as she ran out the door Airsidh came walking in, awkwardly turning around as if he had walked in on something he didn’t want to be a part of.

“Airsidh, go warm up some water for a bath, and mix in some of the frostvine… We need to purify the curse.”

He froze, his eyes narrowing as he raised his brow. “Yes, mother.” He said, calmly going to the next room. His face was unfazed, but I could see his hand trembling. Still, he simply followed the order without wasting a second.

Everything blurred together as Mara took me to the bathhouse, giving me deja vu from when I fought the giant bitterweed and Catherine had done the same thing to warm me up.

“Siya, start talking, you can’t fall asleep alright?”

Really she was worried about nothing. I was still tired of course, but nothing a nap wouldn’t fix.

I sighed. “I’m not going to just fall asleep and die. It isn’t even that bad.”

“Humor me…” She groaned.

I rolled my eyes, continuing my same line of thought, just out loud. “If you heat up the body too fast it goes into shock, so if you put me in warm water, slowly heating the water more and more until my body temperature rises with it then I will warm up, without any adverse side effects. It’s actually pretty smart.”

I continued rambling on until everything was ready and I was sinking into a hot bath, staring up at the ceiling as all my worries melted away.

“Siya, talk.”

I sighed, feeling a bit refreshed if anything. “Honestly, I’ve had worse mornings.”

As my body sank into the large tub I couldn’t feel a thing. It felt like it took hours before I finally began to move normally again. My hands ached and my cuts stung, but I had been through worse. The fact I was in a hot bath, and not a cold one, was in itself a testament to that.

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When all was said and done Mara cleaned out the cuts one last time, bandaging them properly with a special salve after she dried me off with a soft towel.

Suddenly it felt like she was doing everything for me, just like I was a baby again. Old memories started to resurface from over a decade ago. Having memories of something similar from when I was 2 before I started training. ‘This is all… a bit much isn’t it?’

When she was finally done she closed the med kit and set it aside. “There, now that that's all taken care of let's get you dressed.”

“Mara!” I yelled, starting to get embarrassed by all of it. “I’m not so helpless that you have to even put my clothes on for me.”

I walked over to the set of clothes Lu had dropped off earlier and slowly started to dress myself. ‘After all the times you told me I had to be strong, do you really think I’d be so weak that I couldn’t even…’

I wasn’t, completely helpless… But when I realized I was unable to lift my right shoulder above my head, and my grip in my left hand was too weak to tie the laces, or that I couldn’t properly balance on one foot… I only became more embarrassed, realizing fairly quickly I would need help after all.

“Mara…” I whined softly.

She let out a small snort with a smile. “I’ve got you.”

“Thanks…” I mumbled, unable to look her in the eye as she pulled the dress over my head, gently helping me put it on.

“I’ll let you rest, but we should get Catherine to take a look at you the moment she gets back from her monster hunt.”

“Right…”

Before I knew it she was done, as if she had done it a thousand times before. “There, how’s that?” She asked

“What do you mean?”

“Well… How does it feel? Does it fit right? Do you like it? Is it too tight? That sort of thing.”

I grabbed the edge of the skirt and felt the soft fabric between my fingers. “I mean, it’s not falling off, so it’s probably fine.”

She sighed. “Well, at least you care whether or not it stays on.”

I hung my head, still too embarrassed to look at her. “What would I know about how I looked, or what clothes looked good… For years I’ve worn raggy sackcloth, and when I finally got new clothes they were all destroyed.”

‘I finally had a real bed and even that’s gone now too, and that thing’s not even dead either. It was hurt, but who knows for long, who knows when it will come back. I have to keep facing it just to survive. I’ll have to keep bleeding, keep getting hurt, keep fighting back.’

I leaned forward until I was supporting myself against her. ‘I’ll kill it… I won’t go down this easily… I can’t… From this moment on, this is the weakest I will ever be.’

“Are you alright?” She asked

“I’ll be fine…”

“Well, That isn’t a lie at least.” She gently grabbed my shoulders, pushing me back up on my own two feet. “But that isn’t what I asked.”

I could only hold my eyes on hers for a second before I had to lower them again. “Mara, I didn’t kill it. The only reason I’m alive was because it got struck by lightning. It was a freak accident, everything I did on my own just made it angry.”

She placed her hand on top of my head as she pulled me close again. “People don’t get angry because they didn’t get hurt, Siya. Demons are the same. Now… I’ve killed a few in my time… Just leave it to me ok.”

I wanted to push her away, but as much as I hated to admit it, it actually was comforting. Her touch made me know I wasn’t alone, that I still had my senses, that the ghoul wasn’t there.

It was more than that though. To have someone to help me warm up when I was cold, to have someone to patch up my wounds instead of telling me to rub dirt on it… To have someone to help dress me when I couldn't lift my arm or make a fist. It was nice.

“Thanks…” I muttered again as I looked back at the ground. ‘If it’s her of course she could beat it…’ I still didn’t have the courage to hug her back, but I couldn’t deny that I liked it, at least to some extent.

“Just… Don't leave me alone… Alright? Despite my words themselves making me feel like I was showing weakness, I at least managed to say them in a cold and indifferent tone, making it sound more like I was talking strategy, rather than asking my mom to protect me from the scary monster. Well, at least that was what I told myself.

She slowly let go, clearing her throat. “Right, if it feeds off fear then it makes sense that it will only attack you when you're alone, it's probably for the best that I stay by your side.”

I smiled shyly, feeling like she was going along with it, completely ignoring how needy and afraid I felt like I came across as. Even if she wasn’t technically wrong either.

“Thanks Mara…”