Soon, I was thrusting my chest out to him, as I moaned. Moaned out loud. Trying to give him unhindered passage to my breasts.
"Please" I moaned. "Please..."
His scorching mouth persisted, without mercy, on my rack.
He pulled back. Panting heavily...
To be honest, before arriving here today, I knew what the soldier in there suffered from. The way he was completely isolated from everyone else, not because of a crime he committed, was a dead giveaway. Few illnesses were as feared as the mage bane - a dreaded affliction that can not merely be cured by a Gifted healer touching the ill patient.
It was as though the ailment was made to resist magic. To heal it, the healing mage had to first scrape off the layers and layers of scaled skin, filled with pus and the gods know what.
If while scraping, the Gifted healer happens to be not very meticulous, a boil on the patient's skin could burst, with the pus from it, touching the healer, and once the pus touches any bare skin of the healer (including the healer's eyes, which no amount of clothing can cover, since he would need the eyes to see what he was doing), he too gets infected automatically.
More so, after scraping off the hundreds of foul layers, the healer gets to the reddish raw skin below, on this, the Gifted healing is then used. But by then, most healing mages are already exhausted, and Gifted healing required energy in vast amounts.
If the healer chooses to wait till the next day, or for a few hours, to do the Gifted healing when she has regained her energy, by then, the scaled skin would have started growing back, twice as much as before. And in most cases that have happened, the healer would have become ill the next day, 'cause the mage bane pus that somehow touched his body was already weakening him. For the mage bane pus, once it touches any person, the individual starts to manifest symptoms within a few hours. That was how potent the malady was.
"I must help him" I said to Griffin "I have to".
He stepped back. Staring at me, like I had gone crazy. Lost a nut in my brain and now was, completely and totally insane.
"You don't want to turn this place to Marjol, do you?" he said, and grief stabbed me in my stomach, "a whole nation wiped out after mage bane spread among them, like a plague" he said.
Marjol. Everyone believes we're gone.
"And because of how dangerous the malady is, till this day, no new people has either entered Marjol or settled there" he said and stressed his next words, "what you're considering is a death sentence, my lady".
His fears. I understood the reasons for it. Who wasn't afraid to die? However, someone has to help the soldier in there. For if everyone decides to always run and hide, and never to have courage, then who will be the soldiers going to war? Ready to sacrifice their lives to protect the common citizens.
Or if it was during the time of a pandemic, and everyone chose to hide away in their homes, then who'll be the healers, willing to take a step out and help those suffering?
Death, we can't avoid. But our life, either a long or short one, must be lived with purposefulness and courage.
I breathed in. For over a year now, the afflicted soldier in that manor has been separated from everyone and everything he loved. He has neither seen nor spoken with his wife and kids, for over a hundred weeks, because of his ailment. He feared that he would infect them.
When food was to be delivered to him, a bell was rung from afar, signalling to him that he should stay in his room, so that the person coming to drop his food at his gate, remained more than forty feet away from him.
His pain deeply reminded me of Ingrith. And I may not understand the agony of what they've been through, as much as them, but I've experienced that self-isolation. Being alone in your head and environment for days! Very long days.
After Randall took me from Marjol, for weeks, he had me locked up, separated from people and the world. And all I had, was the thoughts in my head, and at one point, I thought I would die. That the thoughts in my head would somehow murder me. Be the end of me!
Mortals were not made to dwell alone. We need touch, the compassion and love of others. To exist alone, locked away somewhere forever was even far worse than being a state prisoner, at least, prisoners could talk to one another and even love and care for one another.
But this? What this soldier was going through (no one would come close to him!), was a very slow painful way to send his mental health over the bridge.
I shook my head. If there was any possibilty that I could save that man so that he could get to hug his kids and kiss his wife again, then, by all means, I had to try.
"You promise not to tell Regalis?" I said "I'll be done in an hour or two".
"Yes" he muttered after a while, looking away from me. And I knew he was lying through his teeth. He still believed this was foolhardy, so, he'd scream this moment out, the second he sees Regalis.
Good thing, I didn't mention where Regalis was, in our earlier conversation.
I looked at the gate I would cross soon. Mage bane or not, killer of all healers or not, my Gift can still set this man free, if I acted meticulously. And I'd gladly risk all for him to taste sound health and freedom again!
After all, wasn't it for the freedom of Marjol that I was in Armalith? So, I knew how important it was.
To gain it, one must be willing to risk all things. Including their own life!
I turned to Griffin "my medical tools! Now!"
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