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Shertul was loosely aware of being dragged across a hard surface, or at least he thought he was. He could only barely feel someone's grip around his arms. His heart threatened to beat right out of his chest. He tried to open his eyes, but all the world was painted like blurred watercolor. He tried to hear, but the voices of a crowd came through as slow, dripping echoes. Everything was distorted. He wanted to escape. He couldn't remember where he was. [i]Is this real?[/i]

Time passed. He didn't tell how long or how short, nor could he hear and see in more than fragments.

[color=skyblue]"Don't worry..."[/color]

Was someone comforting him?

[color=skyblue]"... If it dies, it dies.... I have not much care for... monstrosities..."[/color]

Apparently not.

He was a bit more aware now. He felt himself freed when he was carried away from the power of those stone spires. One sharp, deep, painful breath brought life back to him. The watercolors drained away from his sight, and he could feel the grainy road beneath his back again.

A woman spoke through a young voice. [color=F08080]"A-Are you okay? You're not gonna die on me, are you?"[/color]

He opened his mouth to speak, but ended up spewing out slimy blood instead. Half landed at the girl's feet, half stayed to glue his throat shut. He was forced to rip off the short scarf and let his backup organs take over. Normally he would hide the blood-red, fish-like slits running along his neck, but if this woman was willing to save him, certainly she could handle his appearance for a few moments.

He drew the deepest breath his gills could draw, for the energy to slam a fist into his sternum with monumental  force. The wall of blood caught in his throat reluctantly broke and oozed out. If he were younger, or more human, the blow would have felt hard enough to bring tears to his eyes. But after over seventy years of slow and agonizing bone growth, there was little left that could cause Shertul real pain.

Except, obviously, whatever those runes did to him.

He felt like such a fool. How many classes this the Monastery instruct on rune magic? How many books had he read on the Nephilim? He should have recognized the runic symbol for "magic" paired so close to the one meaning "cease". 

Fleshspinners imbue magic into their very being: they fuse it with their flesh and bone and muscle. When he stepped into a magic-killing barrier, it tried to kill [i]him.[/i] He's practically made of magic, as it were. It is in his body.

He was still shaken, but he would never show it.

Shertul briefly wondered if Raziel knew what his monoliths had done to him. He briefly wondered if Raziel cared.

More importantly, he realized that the whole world was suddenly brighter- he was taking in all the light. The rune's torture must have turned his eyes into black. How frightening that surely looked! He turned his gaze to his savior for the first time, a young girl with tight clothes and the body of a farmer, and let them fade into a gentler pink. Who would have thought that a Wastelander would have such a love of pink? With some effort, he managed to recede his claws just a bit.

Speaking was still more difficult than he thought it would be. He croaked out a rough "Thayngou, uh". He cleared his throat. Tried again. "Thankyou."

Unless this girl had a secret past at the Monastery, and her body was far too "normal" for that, she would probably ask for a bit of explanation. 

Speaking of her body: it was wrong. Shertul was still disoriented, and he couldn't put his finger on it, but it was if there was some presence about her. Something that shouldn't be there. Something wrong.

He leaped up to his feet in a motion far too fluid to be humani.

[color=DimGray]"Thankyou,"[/color] he repeated for the second-and-a-half time [color=Dimgray]"You saved more from more pain than... than you can possibly realize. I... I suppose you have questions? Or at least,"[/color] he coughed out the last bit of flim-mingled blood, [color=DimGray]"I hope you do. There's something very strange going on if a teenage farmgirl knows what I am."[/color]

Her clothes were a little revealing, he noticed. Bar clothes. Sights like this one always made him wonder. Afterall, he was prepubescent when he became a Fleshspinner, and the bodily distortions stopped him from ever hitting puberty. He has never felt physical attraction. 

Either way, he looked her up and down: he wanted to know who it was that rescued him from death. Whore or not.

Then he noticed something strange.

Down on her thigh, just barely exposed, was the mark of the Revenant.

[color=DimGray]"Or maybe... you've already heard of the Fleshspinners."[/color]