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19/05/2025 6:18 pm
The road from Lamordia had long since vanished behind the veil of mists. Wind howled over the moors of Tepest like the wailing of damned souls, and the moon above was little more than a pale, voyeuristic eye peering down upon the travelers’ pain.
The fire was low, casting long shadows against the weathered canvas of the communal tent the unlikely group of companions would call home during the night. Moss crept between the edge of staked poles and heavy fabric, and the ever-present chill of Ravenloft clung to the walls like a curse. Everyone else had gone quiet—some sleeping, others pretending to, no doubt struck sleepless by the horrible transformation inflicted on poor Hildy.
Raven sat with his shirt discarded beside him, legs folded beneath him in a meditative pose. His hell kissed skin gleamed with sweat and candlelight. The body was perfect—too perfect. Smooth and unmarred. An insult to his past. A hard sigh choked back so as not to disturb his comrades and Raven slowly, silently rose and stepped out into the cool night air. His new body—sleek, strong, untouched—moved like silk over steel. And he hated it.
Where once his burnished bronze skin bore the latticework of infernal sigils, scars burned in ceremonies of agony and triumph, now there was…nothing. No proof of the torment he had endured under the gaze of Glasya, his patron. No testimony of his worth, of what it meant to be forged in the flames of Malbolge, raised in the court of the Devil Queen of Suffering herself.
The pristine skin mocked him.
He stood near a gnarled tree at the edge of their tent, its bark blackened as if struck by lightning. His hair fluttered in the wind like a tattered banner. His eyes focused on the mirror-like surface of a nearby barrel of collected rainwater. From the shadows, a voice oozed with honey and smoke.
“You stare at yourself as if looking into the eyes of a stranger.”
Zybeksia stepped forth from the gloom, a sinuous, beautiful imp, wings folded behind her like a crimson shroud. Her form, though diminutive now, still bore the elegance of her Erinyes past—those barbed horns, gleaming eyes like molten rubies, and a voice that curled like incense smoke into the mind. Her black claws glinted faintly in the moonlight.
“I hate this skin.”
Bex, perched lazily on the edge of a stone, her impish wings tucked close to her back, tilted her head. Her tail flicked once—absent-minded, perhaps wary.
“It’s stronger,” she said flatly. “You should thank the lunatic doctor for the upgrade. No more old bone fractures. No more branding calluses. Your liver actually works now… It’s certainly less polluted.”
“It’s empty,” he snapped, voice low but sharp. “This body wasn’t forged. It was grown. It doesn’t remember me. It doesn’t remember anything. I don’t want it to be perfect. I want it to be mine.”
He looked up, eyes glowing faintly with the sickly green dark fire of his patron. The light there didn’t frighten Bex—she was of the court as well and understood the emotions feeding the flames.
Raven turned, facing her with a scowl that couldn’t mask the shame in his eyes.
“She took it all, Bex. Everything that made me me. The scripts of endurance. The runes of my commitment. Without them I’m…clean, innocent. And that is not who I am.”
Bex cocked her head, lips curving into an amused grin.
“So… what?” She clicked her talons together for effect. “You want me to write your pain upon you again.”
He nodded.
Bex raised an eyebrow, slinking off the stone and approaching with the slow grace of someone who had once been much more than she appeared to be. She circled him like a predator, letting her claws drag gently across the unmarked skin of his shoulder.
“You’re serious,” she whispered. “You want me to carve your memories back into you.”
“Yes,” he breathed. Raven reached into his belt and pulled a blade forged of Baatorian green steel, the edge was marked with runes whispering a language that only fiends and madmen spoke.
“With this. Your claws. Your tail. I want it all. The old sigils, the old vows, the names of the dead I carry. I want to earn them back.”
“You know what that means,” she said. “No magic. No numbing. No shortcuts. The sigils must be bled. The infernal lines must hurt to be real. You must be made to suffer. Some of it will get infected. Some of it will scar ugly. Some of it will make you scream.”
Raven’s voice was calm.
“I know the pain. I earned it once. I’ll earn it again.”
She paused behind him, claws poised at the nape of his neck. Her voice lowered.
“It’ll take time, Raven. Weeks. Months. This isn’t a single ceremony. These scars were your life. You want to relive it, line by line?”
He nodded.
Bex took the blade and ran a blackened claw down its edge, letting it slice her finger open. The blood sizzled as it touched the blade, hissing like an oath renewed.
“It will be painful.”
“It should,”
“This isn’t a game Xa’raven. There could be complications. You’d be weakened until it was done.” She stood still, thinking.. “It is not without danger. I could stop your heart with a single twist of my tail,” she murmured, taking to the air, hovering around him slowly. “Break your mind with one whisper of your true name.”
“And I would thank you for it,” he said, “I trust you Bex.”
She paused behind him, claws poised at the nape of his neck. Her voice lowered. “What will the others think?”
“I don’t care.”
Bex was quiet for a moment. The moon was bright in the night sky, casting her impish silhouette across the nearby walls of their shared accommodations—too small now, too humble, for what she once was.
“I remember every mark I gave you,” she said finally. “You cried on the fifth night. Not from pain—from pride. You thought it made you beautiful.”
Raven smiled faintly.
“It did.”
There was silence between them, heavy and old.
“This will bind us even closer,” she warned, her voice like a whisper of silk on steel. “It’s not just flesh, Raven. It’s oathwork. These sigils… they remember. They tie us.”
“I want that,” he said.
She motioned to the stone and moved in front of him as he sat. Her claws brushed his chest as she reached for the ritual dagger he offered—his Pact-blade, razor-sharp and humming with Glasya’s favor.
“Then we begin with pain,” she murmured, almost reverently. “Just as we did the first time.”
“Start with the devotion to Glasya. The vow I carved into my side the night I passed the trial of chains. Then the bounty marks—the long one across the ribs, remember? When I caught that sorcerer who tried to cheat his soul-marked deal.”
“Slow down my young apprentice. Some things can’t be rushed.”
With reverence more fitting a priestess than a devil, Bex began.
First came the incantations—dark syllables uttered in Infernal, words older than blood. Then, with claw and dagger, she began to etch. Runes burned into flesh like brands, forming the ancient sigils of Malbolge: the Mark of Ownership, the Seal of Oath-Sworn Service, the Script of Endurance.
Each stroke of pain was a hymn. Each drop of blood, a sacrament.
She carved slowly—deliberately—not deep, but true. The tip of the dagger moved in circular strokes, tracing the spiral sigil of Glasya over the back of his neck. Blood welled with each cut. Raven gritted his teeth but did not flinch. He clenched his fists, breath sharp and ragged, but his gaze never left hers.
“Why do you do this, Raven?” she asked at one point, pausing as her barbed tail carved a spiral of torment over his collarbone. “Why cling to suffering as if it’s a lover?”
He reached up, taking her clawed hand in his, their bloodied fingers interlacing.
“Because it made me worthy. Because you trained me to survive it. Because in pain… I found clarity. And because—” his voice cracked—“because I never wanted you to think I’d forgotten who I was. Or who made me strong.”
For a moment, something flickered in Bex’s gaze. The cruel grin softened into fondness—genuine and unguarded.
“You were always strong,” she whispered. “Even when you were a soft, bleeding thing crying in the dungeons of Glasya’s court. You survived. That’s why I stayed. That’s why I trained you. That’s why I—”
She bit her lip, something unsaid thick on her tongue.
The moment broke when footsteps approached.
“Raven?” came the low, kind voice of Tobias, the paladin. “You’ve been out here for hours, at night… the dark… It’s unsafe. Are you—?”
He stopped short, eyes flicking between Raven’s bleeding chest and Bex’s bloodstained claws.
Raven turned slightly, eyes meeting the paladin’s.
“I’m ok my friend. Just reclaiming something I lost.”
Tobias looked like he wanted to protest but, perhaps understanding the sanctity of the ritual, instead he simply nodded and stepped away.
When they were alone again, Bex reached up and brushed a strand of ink black hair from Raven’s eyes.
“The contract you signed,” she said, voice lower now, “to protect that girl, Hildy. It’s fulfilled.”
“I have not matched your time, your service.”
“It was never about that.” She interrupted. “I thought you needed another lesson. We make the contracts not enter them. But… I see you’ve learned more than I gave you credit for.”
“I made the contract with you. Not with Glasya. Not with Hell. You. I trusted you. And I still do.”
She leaned in close, breathing warmth across a fresh mark to seal it, she spoke with something one might believe was affection.
“You always were my favorite.”
He closed his eyes.
“Then make me remember it.”
His voice was raw, exposed like the new scars she carved. Her wings unfurled slightly. Her tail curled around his waist in a slow, tender motion.
“Very well. Let me mark you with one more sigil,” she whispered. “But then we stop. You’ve had enough for one night Xa’raven Virc’wzir”
She pressed a final rune over his heart—a personal one. The infernal symbol for Belonging.
They stood in silence for a long time, shadows whispering around them.
Tomorrow, they might be hunting through the Mists again. Tomorrow, Raven would face another horror of the Demiplane of Dread. But tonight, he had found something he thought lost.
Not just pain.
But purpose.
And someone who remembered his name.
Topic starter
23/05/2025 11:00 pm
Two Weeks Later
They were alone in a secluded copse just outside the carnival. Tobias lingered at the edge of the tree line, his armored hand resting on the hilt of his sword as he looked back toward Raven and Bex.
He had caught only glimpses—slashes of crimson across Raven’s chest, the glint of an imp’s venomous tail wet with blood, and the quiet words exchanged not in cruelty, but reverence.
The scene unsettled him.
Not because it was dark. Not because it involved devils or rites or contracts—he had grown used to such things on this gods-forsaken plane, not to mention his own experience hosting the Infernal spirit of Naomi, a presence he has, in guarded moments since their separation, dare he say… even missed?
It was because of what he saw in Raven’s face. Conviction. Serenity.
And something else—affection.
“He’s letting her hurt him,” Sahani said, emerging beside the paladin. The dhamphir gnome sorceress’ eyes glowed faintly in the moonlight, her sharp gaze missing nothing. “He asked her to.”
Tobias looked down at her. “He thinks it makes him whole again.”
“Maybe it does,” she replied, with an uncharacteristic softness. “Maybe it’s not about pain. Maybe it’s about memory.”
Tobias watched as Bex traced a final sigil across Raven’s left side ribs and the tiefling closed his eyes in something that looked very much like peace.
“You think I should stop them?” he asked.
Sahani shook her head. “No. He’s not being corrupted. He’s being… remade. And maybe that’s what he needs to survive this place.”
Tobias stared at Raven’s bare, bloodied chest, the sigils burned anew, and felt a pang of guilt for ever doubting the warlock’s resolve.
“Even in the Hells, there’s honor, I suppose,” he murmured.
“And perhaps even love,” Sahani said quietly. “Don’t forget that.”
……………………………………………………………………………………………..
The Following Week…
The smell of charred herbs and blood-metal filled the communal tent where Bex worked. They had forsaken their discretion after two weeks of ritualistic suffering, that despite their best efforts, ended up being a poorly kept secret.
Her claw traced slow, practiced patterns into Raven’s bare back—sigils etched into his flesh not by spell nor flame, but by will. His breath hitched, shoulders tight with restraint, lips pressed into a firm line. The ritual scarification had begun two weeks ago and would continue over many weeks, each session a slow reconstitution of identity through agony.
He never screamed. He never cried.
But he shook.
Not from fear—Uncle Dunkle knew the tremor of pain held inward. He’d seen it before.
From behind the low archway of entry flaps, Dunkle watched quietly, a bundle of bandages in hand, his thick spectacles fogging faintly as he adjusted them on his nose.
“You shouldn’t be alone during this,” he said, voice barely more than a whisper.
Bex paused, her claws lifting off Raven’s back. “He’s not.”
Raven turned his head, sweat clinging to his jet-black mane.
“Uncle Dunkle,” he murmured, trying to sound casual through a clenched jaw, “Apologies. I’m not the best company right now.” He saw the concern in his companion’s expression and appreciated worry. “There’s no need to fret over me my friend.”
The gnome slowly approached, his normally exuberant aura dimmed like a candle behind frost-glass.
“It’s not about you needing me, Raven,” Dunkle said gently, kneeling beside the cot. “It’s about me needing to be here. For you.”
Raven blinked. “Why?”
The little artificer gave a quiet laugh, but there was no mirth in it.
“Because I know what it means to carry wounds the world doesn’t see. I used to hammer toys beside people who didn’t understand why I flinched every time sleigh bells rang. Later I made things that brought terror not joy. Every scar you wear—they’re stories, I get that. But pain?” He looked at Raven with sad, thoughtful eyes. “Pain is a path. And I don’t like seeing anyone walk it alone.”
Bex watched from the other side, her expression unreadable.
“As I said, he’s not. He has me.” A sense of judgement began to fill her. “You think I shouldn’t be doing this to him,” she said softly.
“No,” Dunkle said, surprising them both. “I think you’re the only one who can.”
Raven tilted his head, puzzled.
“I’ve built machines,” Dunkle said, brushing a shaky hand along Raven’s forearm, “and I’ve mended bones. But hearts? Hearts are stitched by people who’ve held them in the dark.”
After several quiet hours, he stood, focusing his eyes to Zybeksiya as he adjusted his satchel. “Just… make sure when this is done, Raven remembers who he’s doing it for. Because you only get one soul. And if you carve too much of it away—” he faltered, his voice tight “—Krampus taught me it doesn’t always grow back.”
With that, he gave a small, solemn smile and exited the room, humming an old, broken carol from winter’s past.
Later That Night
Bex sat beside Raven as the sigils dried into place, the faint glow of infernal magic ebbing into his skin.
“He sees the innocent boy you were,” she said after a long silence.
“He sees too much,” Raven replied hoarsely.
She touched his hand—gently, without heat or claw.
“Not too much. Just enough to know you’re worth grieving for.”
Raven let the silence hang.
Then: “I’m not sure what hurts more. The blade, or the kindness.”
Bex smiled faintly. “That’s because you’ve had more of the first than the second.”
He let his head rest back. “I don’t deserve friends like him.”
“Maybe… Maybe not,” she said quietly. “But you need them. That’s not the same as deserving. But it’s equally important.”
……………………………………………………………………………………………………
Several days later…
Renvarin had never liked the smell.
Burnt blood, scorched oils, the tang of ritual incense designed to echo hellish courts. The warlock’s cot reeked of it—pride roasted over coals of pain.
He leaned in the doorway of the tent, arms folded, eyes half-lidded in his usual I’m-so-over-this slouch.
“Still playing ‘tattoo me like one of your Malboge consorts,’ Raven?” he drawled.
Bex didn’t glance up from her work. Her tail flicked once—sharp and warning.
Raven exhaled a shallow laugh, his back half-bandaged, half-etched with raw infernal sigils. “I didn’t think you’d care what devils do in the dark.”
“Oh, I don’t,” Renvarin said, pushing off the frame and strolling inside. “I just find it hilarious how much you’re suffering to look exactly like someone who never smiled.”
He circled slowly, eyes scanning Raven’s exposed back. “Don’t get me wrong, the designs are exquisite. All the brooding melodrama of a tortured noble. Real ‘Last Prince of Hell’ flavor.”
“Ren,” Raven warned, eyes narrowing.
“Hey,” Renvarin raised his hands, “I’m not judging. It’s just… interesting. You’ve survived Malboge, escaped the literal Nine Hells, landed in a gothic pocket dimension where hope comes to die, and your first instinct is, ‘Oh no, I’m not tortured enough.’”
Bex finally spoke, tone like cooled steel. “He’s reclaiming what was taken. You wouldn’t understand.”
Renvarin stopped moving.
There was a flicker in his expression—barely a hitch—but Bex saw it.
“You’d be surprised what I understand,” the Shadar-kai said more quietly. “I was born in Kartakass but my people hail from the Shadowfell, remember? Our lullabies are dirges, our childhood games involve knives and goodbyes. Everyone there thinks suffering is the only way to feel real.”
He leaned on a heavy post near the cot now, less teasing, more thoughtful.
“But here’s the thing, Raven, you’re not in Malboge anymore. You don’t have to be what they made you.”
Raven’s voice was low. “It’s not about what they made me. It’s about what I survived, what I earned.”
“Maybe,” Renvarin shrugged. “But maybe you keep wearing the scars so no one asks about the wounds still bleeding.”
Bex looked over at Renvarin—sharp-eyed, impressed, perhaps a little wary. “When did we become the introspective philosopher? Are we learning empathy?”
He smirked.
“Don’t get sappy on me, Bex. I’m allergic to emotional growth.”
She arched a brow. “And yet here you are.”
“Curiosity, mostly. I mean, you two are clearly about three rituals away from a wedding with lava fountains and soul-binding vows.” He snatched an apple off the nearby tray and took a bite. “But whatever floats your Styx riverboat.”
As he turned to leave, he gave Raven a look—brief but sincere.
“Just… don’t lose yourself trying to find yourself, yeah?”
And then he was gone, his footfalls soft as shadows, leaving behind only sarcasm and the faintest echo of wisdom hidden in jest.
The tent had fallen quiet again.
Only the faint crackle of a brazier, the rhythmic drip of melted wax, and the soft scratch of Bex’s claw tracing a fresh line across Raven’s shoulder remained. The sharp, metallic scent of blood still lingered, but the heat of Renvarin’s parting words refused to dissipate.
Raven stared into the low fire across the room, letting his breath come slow. Controlled. But inside, his thoughts churned like molten iron.
“You don’t have to be what they made you.”
He wanted to dismiss it. Wanted to file it away under Renvarin’s usual irreverent noise. But something about the rogue’s voice—cool, edged with quiet familiarity—refused to be ignored.
He had chosen to bear these marks again. Chosen to feel every etching. Every sigil. Not to impress, not to boast. But to remember.
Yet Renvarin had pierced the ritual with an uncomfortable truth.
Was this truly about reclaiming his identity?
Or was it about not knowing who he was without the pain?
Raven flexed his hand unconsciously, the skin across his knuckles still healing where Bex had reapplied the oathbrands. Each one a badge. A sin. A story.
Bex noticed the twitch but said nothing. Her tail curled around her leg, her claw paused just above his shoulder.
“You’re thinking too loud again,” she said softly.
“It’s nothing,” Raven murmured. “Just… shadows.”
“The kind that speak in riddles and smirks?”
“The worst kind.”
He exhaled, and the silence settled once more.
Days later…
It was a quiet afternoon. They had made camp in Darkon and set the carnival ready for the the following day’s opening. Raven was enjoying the solitude of the empty tent as his comrades had gone to the traditional pre show dinner hosted by Isolde. Raven had decided to pass on the festivity and instead enjoy a quiet night of ritualistic torture with his lifelong companion Zybeksiya. The silence offered a comforting embrace until it was broken by stomping loud enough to nearly rattle the lanterns off their stands.
“HELLOOOO?” boomed a deep voice. “I brought soup!”
The tent flaps swished open, and Vimak, towering and broad, ducked into the room with a grin big enough to shame a sunrise. His cloak was dusted white from a light snow wafting across the Ravenloft winds, and he cradled a large, steaming pot in both arms.
“Uncle Dunkle said you might be hungry! Pain rituals take calories, right?”
Raven blinked. “Vimak… what—?”
“Soup!” he said again, beaming, as if that explained everything.
He stepped into the tent, sniffed, and wrinkled his nose. “Smells like burning incense and sad poetry in here.”
“That’s about right,” Bex muttered dryly.
The goliath looked at Raven, then at the wounds, then at the set of Raven’s mouth—tight, proud, hurting.
His face softened.
“You don’t have to hurt to prove you’re strong, you know,” Vimak said, slowly. “You’re already one of the bravest people I know.”
Raven blinked again, caught off guard by the earnestness in his friend’s voice.
“I’m not brave,” he said after a moment. “I’m just… stubborn.”
“Same thing where I come from,” Vimak replied, setting the pot down and producing a carved wooden spoon like it was a relic from a sacred temple. “But if you are gonna do this—if it means that much—I’ll sit with you. No one should hurt alone.”
Raven turned his gaze back to the fire, throat tightening.
“Why?” he asked softly. “You don’t understand what these scars mean. You’ve never seen what I was in Malboge.”
“You’re right,” Vimak said. “But I do know what you are here.”
He crouched beside Raven, surprisingly graceful for someone his size, and looked him straight in the eyes.
“You’re my friend. You protected Hildy from the zombies in Falkovnia and that horrific woman in Yeulestadt, you protected us in Kartakass, and you sing those creepy lullabies that help me fall asleep when the dark dreams come.”
Raven blinked. “That’s Infernal chanting. I do not sing—”
“—hum threatening ballads, same thing,” Vimak interrupted cheerfully. “Point is, pain might’ve shaped you, Raven. But compassion is what made me trust you.”
There was a pause. Then…
“And this soup has mushrooms.”
Raven’s eyes widened.
“Oh… No… Not Yoshi mushrooms…Real wild mushrooms.”
Even Bex cracked a smile at that.
“Sorry you lost him. Lamordia was bad for all of us but certainly worse for some, you and Hildy most of all.”
“It’s ok. I have his seed. He’s not truly gone.”
Raven shook his head slowly, eyes lowering, a quiet smirk tugging at his lips.
“You’re impossible.”
“And you’re family,” Vimak replied, scooping soup into a bowl. “Even if you do let a former devil claw you up like one of Uncle’s carving boards.”
Bex smirked wickedly. “I take my art very seriously.”
“So does Sahani, and she only lights things on fire accidentally,” Vimak replied, handing the bowl to Raven. “Eat. Heal. Scar later.”
Raven took it—grudgingly—and felt, for the first time in weeks, a little warmth not drawn from pain or fire.
Just soup.
And something dangerously close to hope.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Another week passes…
It was morning, just as most of the party departed the tent to begin their work for the carnival, Rainer, the bronze Dragonborn cleric of Bahamut, found Bex alone sitting on the edge of Raven’s bunk. She was sharpening Raven’s dagger with practiced ease, with what appeared to be infernal energy flickering down her wrist with each pass.
“You always seem to take advantage of him when he’s at his weakest,” Rainer growled.
Bex didn’t flinch. She glanced at him with a smirk.
“And you always bark when you don’t understand something.”
The cleric’s eyes narrowed, his bronze scales shimmering in the lamp light.
“Oh I understand. I know exactly what you are. A fallen erinyes reduced to imp form. Once a scourge of the battlefield, now a broken imp clinging to scraps of pride. You’re corruption with a pretty voice, whispering poison with just enough sugar to make it go down smooth. You twist him. Lead him closer to darkness.”
“Aww… You think I’m pretty?” She batted her eyes dramatically.
“I think you’re a parasite born of sadistic cruelty with a flair for drama…”
Bex stood slowly, sliding the dagger into her belt. “You speak like you’ve been in Malbolge, priest. You haven’t. You’ve read books and scrolls written by terrified men and call it knowledge. Heard stories relayed by the fearful ignorant and assume you know anything of value.”
“I don’t need to stand in the Nine Hells to know a demon,” he snapped.
“I’m a devil, you scaled sycophant. At least get my nature right before you judge it.”
Rainer took a step forward. “He’s vulnerable. You prey on that. Don’t pretend your warped affection for him absolves you.”
Bex’s eyes flared.
“I dragged him back from the edge of madness. I taught him how to endure. I was his blade and his shield when no one else would touch him or dared to try. I loved him when he couldn’t love himself.”
The air sizzled between them, the tension palpable.
“You don’t get to erase all that because your dragon god tells you I’m damned.”
Rainer’s breath huffed with contained fury, but he said nothing. Not yet.
“Ask yourself,” Bex continued, fluttering closer, voice low and cutting, “If I were truly what you believe me to be, why haven’t I led him into some infernal pact? Why haven’t I dragged his soul screaming into the Pit?”
“Because he already signed one,” Rainer said coldly.
“And he fulfilled it, That contract had been satisfied.” Bex said. “By choice. By love. By pain. Not because I demanded it. But because he did.”
“Oh please,” he said. “You’re a summoned devil bound to a lonely man’s grief. Don’t mistake emotional codependency for love.”
“You fear I’ll corrupt him,” Bex said, turning away. “But maybe it’s not corruption that scares you. Maybe it’s the idea that a creature like me could ever care for someone truer than you, that I might offer better protection than you can provide.”
Rainer exhaled, slow and steady.
“No,” he said. “I’m afraid that when he finally falls, he’ll think it was love that pushed him.”
Her eyes slanted back for just a moment. “What would your cold blooded heart know of love?” She whispered more to herself than for effect. She vanished as she flew off into the morning sky.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………
Each night, Bex added a new mark. Some small—symbols behind his ear or across his knuckles. Others brutal—sigils along the spine, ritual infernal scars down his ribs, each one echoing the agony of his youth.
Raven bore it without complaint. Only once, when she etched a jagged line behind his eye—where he once had been branded for daring to glare back at the Erinyes Metris of the Grim Quartet who had threatened Zybeksiya—did he reach for her hand, trembling.
“It’s alright,” she whispered, guiding the claw again. “You survived this once. You’ll survive it again.”
He nodded, jaw clenched.
“Do it.”
In time, the others stopped asking about the process. But they noticed.
His posture grew more rigid. His gaze more focused. The softness in his features—the unnatural smoothness—was slowly replaced by something older, truer.
Until, one night weeks later, Sahani saw him standing shirtless under the moonlight. His body told a story now—a grim, beautiful testament to his past.
And in that moment, even she had to admit:
He looked whole again.
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