Chapter 4: Cleansing

Water pounded our hunched back, rolling over our sides and dripping off our scabbed chest. It had been far too long since we’ve had a proper bath. It was our luck we had stumbled across this waterfall, its noise beckoning us from the road. It was wonderful and private, water poured from one floating landmass to another then crashing down onto us. The sayk’s angle was such that it weaved its daylight through the hovering bodies, keeping the cold shadows cold at bay.

Riverside plants were low and dying, but provided enough cover to keep inattentive creatures from spotting us. We were careful when cleansing our wounds, the dirt Xanrei had coated it with was no longer welcome. It was a delicate and painful process. The crystal clear water carried our filth far away, dirt red with blood had small fish nipping for sustenance. The slimy rocks were a bit tricky to keep steady on, a few times we almost slipped.

When we stepped away from the waterfall to gently lap the water over our body, our reflection shimmered from our ankles. Moons ago I had last used a mirror, I was pleasantly surprised to see what we were. I had not visibly grown in Jassen’s body, his colorless right side still unmarred by me.

Jassen, an Oqmi Humi, was such a strange creature from everything else. He was bipedal, as all other humi were, with a flat face and no tail. He was mostly hairless, what semblance of hair he did have was left on the top of his head with sparse sprigs over his limbs, chest, and groin. The hair on his head was long and untidy, its typical Humi shade darker than a closed cave.

His body was as a charcoal drawing on the most pristine of paper. Achromatic, his body could only have shown hue from dirt and foreign bodies, such as I. His eyes were as the rest of his body, without any vibrancy; his iris silvery. It was only Humi that were absent of color, a curiosity about them that was gained ages foregone, even before any preserved annals.

What was probably started by these homogeneous humi were self-defining additions to one's body. Jassen himself refused any means of distinguishing himself from others, never having his hair styled or cut, no body modifications, nor did he often wear clothes. While it was not necessary to wear cloths, most Rela had something on their body to distinguish themselves further from their fellow race.

Though Jassen didn’t wear anything, he let me. They were wet from cleaning, laid on the leafy shore with the rest of our things. What I wore mostly was a flat gery-brown cloak that hides most of our body. Underneath the sheet, on the rare chance we were able to move about without fear, I wore more tasteful attire. Green bands that crossed over each other down my arm meeting into a silver bracelet, the same fashion on my leg to an anklet. They were held at the top of my arm and waist with sashes, with emerald cloth spilling over hiding my shoulder and thigh.

What was less common for distinguishing oneself, something I found myself doing to my heavily taken parts of Janssen's body, with his permission, was body modification. The more tame of these changes are painting, temporary dyeing of fur, or even piercings. But the more extreme would permanently change one's color in artful patterns, have gems, metals, or other things engraved into their hide, or even add cartilage to change their form.

While not going so far as to change form, I had red, orange, and yellow tattoos crafted into my side of Jassen’s face. I also had my side of his head’s hair braided in multiple braids with a metal rings holding them together. The tattoos had no immediately identifiable meaning to the colorful swirls, routs, and cuts, but Jassen had helped me, nay even encouraged me on what to get. They were an abstract representation of Jassen’s family crest, a phoenix with berries held in its talons. A symbol of warmth, trust, power, and nobility. He went through such great lengths to assure me I was welcome, as true as a brother could ever be.

Jassen had stopped to look at our reflection as well, his take away not as nostalgic as my own. He mournfully rued that fact that this confrontation would leave scars for the rest of our lives. His mind, opened with thought, left me with a feeling of being homesick. His wants spilled into my own, It might have been a good idea to just turn back. What were even going to accomplish. Leaving home, we had planned little more than to play for money from town to town. It was mostly Jassen’s idea for this, he had hated being home and had a need to be away from his family.

The scars left by the pupfiter made him second guess himself, it was safer to just head back. I tried to console him, telling him that it was okay to head back, I’m sure father would have understood. My comment brought back his previous determination, we would not head back, we would continue on the path we had starter upon. Yet he could not hide his feelings; the possibility of this venture being a mistake. All I could do was try to support whatever decision he made.

With the completion of our cleansing, we kept all but our eyes and nose submerged in the cool river. Our mental conversation shifted away from such deep topics to idle things such as new song arrangements. Abruptly we are brought to the attention of our newfound stalker. She came shouting at us at first sight, complaining on how we had tried to leave her behind. We had indeed tried to leave her, but truly did not care for her one way or another. Rising out of the water, Jassen calmly told her we didn’t want to wake her.

She perched herself beside our belongings, ruffling her wings to keep our attention. In the light of the day I noted a dark spot on her chest, Jassen had actually pierced her hide. Her scar will eventually heal, her chest's scales would eventually cover over any sight of scarred tissue. She, with faux desperation, crumbled before us, “so you just planned to leave without me, I saved your life, remember?”

“And we're grateful for that, but why do you even care about us. I thought drake prefered to travel alone, why would you want to follow a lowly humi?” Jassen thought his wry tongue would give him the upper hand in keeping her away. But Xanrei seemed to be in a game of her own.

“Because you’re so so interesting. Not only shouldn't you exist, but you seem to attract danger too. Others could only wish to find something like you.” Why she wanted danger, I could only assume. Jassen assured her it was a bad day and that they were truly quite boring, but her mind was set. “Besides, you'd be as good as dead if I weren’t around, you’ll probably need me later. You probably should owe me a life debt, but I’m nice so I’ll let you go free. Just don’t think you can abandon me, I’ve had plenty of experience tracking my prey.”

Jassen saw he was in a losing battle, asking me to take the reins to try and convince her to leave us alone. I immediately flounder and make a fool of myself, “we’ve got no place to go, so you should probably go back to a place.”

She cocked her head, “no place to go? How intriguing. I need to know, where are you from, how did you come to be, what are your interests.”

Seeing I had opened the box, Jassen retakes control, “please we’re simple bards hopping from town to town, it would be much more interesting to follow a refugee, their lives I’m sure are in much more peril and adventurous than ours.”

Nothing we did or said changed her attitude, I think we even somehow encouraged her idea to follow us. We then tried to just ignore her. We got out of the water, dressed, and made our way back to the road. She, the most obstinate creature we had ever met, followed us. For hours she bombarded us with questions as she flittered around our head. Eventually she shifted from questions to the most random and one-sided conversations. How fruits tasted to how they felt or if swimming was the same the as flying but in the water.