Caligo

Slipping away

Living my whole life in a village, without traveling anywhere left me clueless about the world. For the first four years in my self proclaimed exile, I aged and developed normally, reaching my 20th summer, I looked like a young woman. There were a lot of changes about me, physically and mentally. For one, I never once saw another human being in those four years. Woods I was familiar with, and my longing for company hadn't appeared yet. I explored different parts of our land, all the while avoiding villages and cities. So in four years I've seen waterfalls of crystal water, lakes that were bluer than the sky, mountains forever encased in snow, valleys emerald green, and waste lands with nothing but sand stretching for miles. But I knew there was far more to see in this world.

First came the physical changes. I grew taller, my once straight white hair was now slightly wavy, my skin was paler, and there was a light purple hue forever present on my eyelids. Even though I was slim, I could feel the muscles under my skin become more define. This changes came slowly and with time, so it was easy for me to get use to them.

Mental changes came few years later, as the years passed, I realized that I haven't aged a day from my twentieth birthday. I was frozen in time, immortal. So I wandered around in the wilderness, alone and unchanged for many years. It took me time to realize, but I was slowly slipping away. First came longing, I longed for a conversation, for a friend, a human contact. Every day I slipped deeper, and by the end I was so paranoid that every sound made me think that they were coming for me, to kill me. I was so far gone that I was waking at night screaming, with the picture of my sister stabbing a knife in my heart in my mind. At day, the prophecy constantly echoed in my mind. 'Black heart, black heart, black heart...' I could hear the raspy voices chant.

It took me about hundred years to snap from my self pity. Took me five more to get rid of the voices and nightmares. I changed my tune, so to say. I found my inner strength, and was more confident about myself and my powers. I used them freely. I could manipulate shadows into various forms, I felt the energy around me and was connected with the nature. I could heal plants and animals, but I could also take their lives with a touch. I was deadly, but also well aware of myself.

So, two hundred years after I gained my powers, there was one more step to tackle. Humanity. I was going to change my destiny, and the last step was going back to civilization. That's how I found myself standing in front of the stone gates of a village, village because I was starting small. I took a deep breath and walked closer to the entrance, painfully aware I stood out in the crowd, all the women wore dresses made of some sort of material, while I wore an outfit made of animal fur. I had a stack of finest lion and gazelle furs in my hands.

I found a man selling furs on the market, turns out lion fur was really valuable. I got a fine amount of gold for them, and with that I bought a hunting outfit, but unfortunately there wasn't much choices for women when it came to hunter outfits, as I will learn later, times have changed, and roles in society were different than what I remembered them to be.

I left the village wearing black pants made of tight but sturdy leather, black tunic that came to my mid tight and fit snugly around my curves, black boots that reached my mid calf and black cape made of heavy materials that will keep me warm as well as the furs did.

I kept traveling, except I wasn't avoiding humans anymore, and through the years I witnessed civilizations rise and fall. It was a beautiful feeling, too see the history unfold, and to know you are part of it. Though I never took side in any of the wars, and believe me there was many, I laso never showed my powers to humans. Until one day day...