Reincarnated into a Snow Griffin
Chapter 36

Chapter 36: Chapter 36

My eyelids, still closed, twitch as my consciousness comes back.

I hear the cracking of the wood being consumed by the fire, the constant drip of water somewhere within the cave, joined but the cold wind coming from deeper within this still cave, and as the rocky humid smell hits my nostrils I slowly start opening my groggy eyes. I was inside of a cave still, and it seems to be in the middle of the night, so even though the orange flame burned beside me it is still hard to see the place clearly, the uneven walls and ceiling made from the natural formation of this cavity.

I swallow dry, closing my eyes and regretting trying to move, grunting in pain and my body flares up, only to hear someone say beside me:

"Don’t move, you are still very hurt. Are you thirsty?"

I try to look over my foggy vision and the darkness but I don’t have the person in my line of sight and that bothers me, but as moving hurts too much I’m unable to change that, so in the end I mumble an agreement that makes the other busy himself in bringing me water, I presume by the sound of water juggling inside a container.

I only see them when they reach out to support me up so I could drink without choking, but as much as I curious my throat is so distaff and rusty that it gets precedence above truly looking at him face.

Or at least I thought at first, before light shone on his face.

"Drink it slowly now, no need to rush." He says, but I do not go straight for the drink for his figure is finally close enough for me to see, only for me to realize that... it was just a kid.

A kid wearing a strange mask, that is.

I’m so shocked by not only the presence of the mask right up my face but by its design that it takes me a few moments to recover, more than enough to see the intricate details of the disguise, resembling a raging frowning demon with thick eyebrows, big sharp eyes, mouth full of razor teeth open to give me glimpses of the face it covered, two pair of teeth being too big to fit the row as the poke out from the upper and down lips, curving back a little as well as the horns on top of the mask.

Looks heavy and hot, perhaps made of metal, but no color has been added to it, giving a stern metallic look to the fierce demon portrayed on it, almost as if being part of an armor set than being some sort of adornment, and I might have thought so if it wasn’t for the lack of armor at the rest of the boy’s body.

Still, a very odd mask for a child to wear, not that wearing a mask on itself isn’t odd enough, that is.

Covering his body is a black long vest that resembles a tunic, big opening sleeves covering his arms and almost his hands, tighter around the chest and waist by a thick big black leather belt, but that’s the only part close to his body since the vest opens up once more over the legs all the way to the floor, flowing with movement and hiding his body movements underneath, the type that would cover the slight changed of his body in a fight and help obscure his next move from an opponent.

A fighter then...? Is hard to believe looking at the kid, probably a little older than the image the rune produced out of me since beasts grew quicker than most, but my mind is still too fuzzy to realize how his moves are precise and fluid, and that he may have a child’s body still but it had been clearly built up upon hardship and training.

Although I may be overthinking things as I take the oddity of his being in, muddled mind and all, finding danger where there is not after all that happened in rapid succession in a matter of seconds back with the lion, keeping me on edge even though it is only for a black vest and a mask in the end, a strange one, but for me all there is on the ground level is bound to be weird too in the end, after all.

It is almost with an excruciating pain what these thoughts keep coming without stop, but this one screams at my ears.

That I was far from home, on lands I thought to meet one day with mother, only to be engulfed by it without mercy.

Without mercy...