Tyura looked towards the gray sky, around him lay corpses. Human and demon alike. The cold air burned his lungs as he forced himself to inhale. He couldn’t feel anything else aside from that. He prayed he could feel something more. To let him know he was alive.

To let him know he wasn’t dying. 

He didn’t want this. His mind flashed back to the conversation with Lainy. His promise. 

He hadn’t even made it to spring. He would never feel the heat of the sun again.

Tyura could have laughed, but he was forgetting what that even meant. 

His mind felt fuzzy and he couldn’t focus on anything anymore. His regret his indignation. What did it matter anymore?

Tyura finally gave in closing his eyes, feeling something wet burn trails down the sides of his face. He took his last breath.

….

Do you want to make a deal? 

Tyura woke with a start. His heart hammering painfully against his rib cage. He gasped clutching chest as he rolled over into…dirt? 

Tyura took a few deep breaths trying to calm himself. The last thing he remembered… that’s right! He had defeated the demon lord, there were a lot of casualties and-

He died.

Yes but.. something happened after that. A voice…

Searing pain shot through Tyura’s skull. All thoughts vanished as he screamed clutching at his head. As soon as it started it was over. But it had definitely happened, tremors of pain still coursed through his body. 

Tyura was no stranger to pain, all his life had been a repetition of training and actual fighting. The masters at the church didn’t go easy on him just because he was a child. In fact it seemed they beat him harder, trying to remove any childishness out of him quickly. He remembered how bloody his hands would become, how many splinters he had to remove, from holding a wooden sword from day in to day out. His hands eventually grew thick callouses.

Tyura raised his hand absentmindedly over his face and froze. A small pale hand that was more like bone with skin stretched over it. 

He sought up, ignoring the wave of nausea that came with the sudden movement, and examined his entire body. He could feel every rib of his rib cage. In fact, he could feel all the bones in his body without much effort. And his hair was not his usual shoulder length hair. It was short and brittle. Just moving his hand through it caused a few strands to break off.

“What is this?” Even his voice had changed. It was hoarse and light. The voice of a young child.

Maybe he was dreaming. Maybe after the battle he was only injured and was unconscious. Tyura stood on thin quivering legs and looked around at the tall trees with leaves lime colored leaves.

Yes a dream, where he was lost in a bright and warm forest. He reached out to a nearby tree and felt the rough bark, tilting his face up towards the sun.

It was so warm. This is a nice dream. The battle had taken place in the winter and he didn’t think he would feel this again.

It seemed like it just happened, but then again the memory was so fuzzy like it happened a long time ago.

Thwack! 

“Oh I missed!”

Tyura turned slowly to the tree he was touching. An arrow embedded it self into the wood right next to his head. And where it struck, orange crystals were beginning to form and spread. He then wiped his face. Blood. He couldn’t delude himself. This wasn’t a dream. This blood was real. This pain was real. He had died but somehow he had come back in another body in some strange place and now, he was about to die, again!