Coryn stared at the sky, that endless and deep darkness above her. How she yearned to be back there, in a world she could not quite remember but nevertheless mourned severely. She extended a hand towards the blackness, as if she could scoop up the stars and use them as a rope to haul herself back up amongst them. Of course, her fingers came a good few million miles short and her hand fell back to her side, deflated and landing flatly against the wet sand.
She was naked, and the few clothes that Coryn had to her name were bundled up further away from the coastline. The Ethaefal was lying with her waist in the water, the waves lapping at her hips and over her thighs. Yet despite only half of her body currently being in the shallow water, every inch of the woman’s skin glistened wetly. The dark locks of her hair were plastered to her face uncomfortably, no matter how desperately she swiped at them.
Coryn had been swimming.
Whilst far from obvious or indeed logical, there had been a reason for her otherwise dangerous midnight swim. Coryn had developed a theory that if she had plummeted to this world into the Suvan sea at midnight, it only made sense if she ascended back from wherever she had fallen in the exact same conditions. It had been four days since her falling - that was how those kind morons in the medical centre had described her arrival, when she was delivered to them by an equally idiotic but kind stranger - and tonight had been the first opportunity for Coryn to test her hypothesis.
She had been so foolishly hopeful, undressing desperately and half-throwing herself into the sea. Thankfully the tide had been calm, but still Coryn had ingested a stomach-full of salt water that had made her gag and almost vomit. Whilst she spluttered and paddled deeper and deeper into the ocean, her optimism had washed away, sinking like a dead weight. Eventually she came to a stop, twisting back to face the coast and realising that she had covered barely any distance.
And, in that moment, the realisation struck her. There was no going back. She had been dumped, abandoned like an unwanted baby by an unloving mother. The short swim back to the coast had been twice had laborious, and by the time she came crawling onto the sand, Coryn was cold, wet, and utterly, utterly, devastated.
Perhaps she was crying, but her skin was so wet already that it would have been impossible to tell. Her breath was ragged too, from the swim, so perhaps her hyperventilating was not entirely due to the pain that tore itself through the horned woman. Still, the agony was immense and all consuming. She pinched at her own skin, trying to get some feeling back not only in her half-frozen physical body but into her mind as well. But it was no good: her fingers nipped and mashed her forearm, thighs and stomach but to no avail. Come morning, finger-sized bruises would take form on her diurnal pale skin, but by then it would be too late and the importance of physical pain would be all but forgotten.
In truth, Coryn had no clue how to proceed with her new, unwanted life. She closed her eyes, figuring that rest and relaxation would help. But of course it didn’t. So then she stared at the moon, her gaze poisonous and furious. But after a tick or so, that too became too much for her so she looked away, along the coastline. But loneliness was not what she craved right now, but then again neither was the companionship of strangers. What Coryn wanted could not be given by a mortal man or woman. Gods, even she didn’t understand what she wanted, not fully.
She continued to pinch her skin, and when she was satisfied that that resulted in no pain, she scratching her nails straight down her forearm, from elbow bend to wrist. Her skin prickled, darkening where her nails had dragged like a snail leaving its opalescent trail, But still there was no sensation, no overriding this sense of abandonment. She tried again, pressing harder and angling her nails until - yes! A tiny, pin-sized blot of red where her nail had caught her flesh just right to pierce it. She squeezed her arm so the little jewel of red swelled and swelled until he split and ran down her arm. Relief at last, but it disappeared as quickly as it had come.
Coryn tried again, this time scratching her opposite arm with her other hand. Numbness, nothing. She snarled, growing desperately frustrated to somehow damage her own body. No, this wasn't her body. This was some strange outfit that Leth had forced her try on, and now he was laughing at it's poor fit from his pearly seat above her. She wanted to shred this skin to pieces, to step away from this physical form.
She wanted to harm herself.
Again and again she repeated this clawing motion, but her nails were too short. She tried biting her arm, but the pain reached her jaw before it did her arm, and there was no damage to her skin either.
Her violet eyes turned to the sands. She remembered, on her walk down here, how she had judged the status of the beach, filled with litter and unwanted things. There would be something here to do adequate damage, she knew. Standing, the naked woman trotted up and down the sands, her head tilted downwards as she scanned for something, anything. But no, apart from abandoned toys, papers and scraps of food, there was nothing of use to her.
And then!
Something glittering caught her attention, something shiny. Glass! Coryn almost wept with relief as she fell to her knees, dipping her hands into the sands to dig out a perfectly sharp shard of glass. After testing the sharpness of the top with her index finger - and yes, it was very sharp! - Coryn returned to her previous sitting position, half-in and half-out of the water.
She placed the tip of the shard against her arm and dragged it slowly down. The pain was immediate and immense, and instinct had Coryn throw the piece of glass back into the sand.
The Ethaefel gave a shriek. This was not what she wanted! She no longer desired to replace the hurt of her fall with the physical pain of injury. Now Coryn's intentions had matured and twisted. She now wanted to hurt herself for the sake of hurting herself. Leth was punishing her, and she would punish herself as well. She deserved it, she needed it.
But now her body had defrosted slightly, and the nerves in her arm no longer numb to the pain she would inflict on herself. Something needed to be done about that, so Coryn, holding her now beloved shard of glass, edged further into the sea. Laviku's cold embrace made her shudder and clench her muscles. It was unpleasantly freezing, the water, but she held tight and did not move.
Sitting upright, Coryn could see her two arms thinly veiled under the water. Clasping the shard, she scraped the glass across her arm once again, and was drunkenly gleeful to feel absolutely no pain. She had, once again, tricked this stupid mortal body into feeling nothing. But Coryn saw the damage she was inflicting to herself, and with grim determination, she repeated the movements. Now, when she raised her arm out of the water, it became streaked with thin lines of red: a beautiful sight to behold in the milky moonlight.
She was finally satisfied -- for a chime. Like an addict, Coryn found herself craving more. This damaging of her body bought with it minute ticks of relief, but when they subsided her intial desire came back all the more intensely. She needed more damage, more, more.
So she turned her legs, far longer and thicker than her arms. This time, when she scraped the glass shard up her calf, she did it in a twisting motion, resulting in an almost decorative bloody spiral. Briefly she admired her handiwork, but then set about doing more damage on the opposite leg. Then her thighs, her stomach. With each slash, Coryn submerged herself deeper into the water to maintain the numbness she needed.
But eventually, like all addicts, what she was doing was not enough. Her entire body, from her neck downwards, was decorated with flecks and slices and cuts that she had made, with growing skill and intricacy. The scars on her left foot, for example, looked almost like dark lace. Someone might later think it was a tattoo, but for Coryn it was proof of her punishment and her fall from the most graceful of graces.
She craved something more. Something more permanent and effective that would, once and for all, free her of this abyss she had found herself in.
Coryn wanted to hurt herself to the point of death.
Temporarily dumping her shard of glass, she inspected her original artwork, that on her forearm. The salted water stung her flesh slightly, but she paid the sensation no mind. Instead, Coryn was captivated with the veins that ran under her wrist. Of all her petty knowledge of this world, she knew that veins were important. SHe'd overheard the medical professionals stating so whilst they worried over their many patients. A man who had been shot in the thigh had been deemed 'lucky' for not puncturing a vein in his leg.
If Coryn punctured this vein under her wrist....
She tried it, lightly catching the glass on her skin horizontally across her wrist. Again, numbness. This time it frustrated her though. Not enough damage, not enough pressure. She tried again, pressing harsh until her skin whitened under the pressure of the blade. There was blood everywhere, an impressive amount of it. But the scars were still too thin and shallow for Coryn's self-destructive liking. She began to pick at the skin, flicking pink flesh and copper skin as she dug for the irreversible pain she so desperately desired. Progress was being made, blood was there, everywhere...
But then a hand snatched at her, and Coryn felt her precious shard of glass being swiped from her hands“What are you doing?!” She demanded furiously, her hands slashing through the air like she was still armed. Her legs baulked and bent, trying to grip onto the silky underwater sand. But an anchor they were not, and Coryn could do nothing but allow herself to be dragged onto the dry sand, beside the pile of her earlier abandoned clothes.
“No, Coryn. What were you doing?”
The voice was unfamiliar to her, but she presume it was one of the do-gooders who had tried to save her, a woman who did not want to be saved. “I need to hurt, to die.” She retorted poisonously, twisting to see this unwelcome heroine. She was surprised to see a lone woman standing over her, also puzzlingly naked save for the dark mask that clung to her eyes and concealed her appearance. “Who are you?”
The woman crouched down and extended a hand towards Coryn, who leant away and made a disgusted, ungrateful sound at the undesired familiarity. Despite her frantic dodges, she felt the woman’s light and warm fingertips touch her jawline. The stranger said nothing, and beyond her mask, Coryn watched her eyes. They were exquisite, holding a world more beautiful and familiar to Coryn than she could possibly describe. But as she soon she looked away from the stranger’s eyes - because to look at such beauty for too long would surely lead to blindness - Coryn could not quite recall what she had seen, or indeed why she had been so enamoured with it. Another loss, another slipped memory.
“Leave me alone.” She grumbled, but the intense pain and desire to die that had clung to Coryn had been hushed. No, she would not kill herself tonight, not anymore.
The woman’s hand brushed her jawline again but then moved downwards, as if trying to dry Coryn’s otherwise sodden skin with mere touch. Neck, collarbone and chest were touched, until finally the woman’s fingers traced along the curve of Coryn’s right breast. This time, the Ethaefal did not move away, but remained perfectly still.
“I will elevate you, Coryn. But not in the way you expect.”
She should have asked questions, demanded answers from this bizarre woman and her even stranger words. But Coryn was stumped and rendered temporarily mute. She merely watched as the woman rose graciously and pointed to the pile of clothes that lay beside the sodden Ethaefal. The desire for warmth and safety and life suddenly overcame her, and Coryn scrambled to her feet, flinging her clothes back on. Her own desires for death and punishment had been replaced by the mysterious woman's desires, and Coryn suddenly wanted to do all she could she fulfil this woman's wishes.
She wants me to live? I'll live. I'll live forever, I'll live for a tick. I'll live for however long she desires. There was no saying 'no' from that point onwards.
![[Verified by Astator]](./images/checkmark.png "[Verified by Astator]")
