Forest Arc: An ordinary day spent bathing

"The bread's stale.'" Sven mumbled to himself, dipping a portion of his loaf into his morning soup. He was seated in his humble home out in the forest, a little ramshackle hovel built inside of a hollowed out tree. The modest furnishings were all things he had fashioned himself or had bought on sale; a simple rickety chair, a slightly lopsided table balanced out by a discarded brick, a straw bed and most essential of all; a rusted old bucket for carrying water and uh, other stuff.

It had been a week since his trip to the academy, he had so many questions but no way to ask them without rousing suspicion. After all, how could he ask people about being a Mystic when all of that information should have been explained to him since birth? He could claim amnesia but how many lies would he have to tell to keep things consistent? Lying to Dew was already too much for him, he had seen how often people lied to one another and it always sickened him how self serving it all truly was.

'A Mystic should be honest.' Sven thought to himself, finishing up his soup he set out of the house being sure to check that the coast was clear first. Monsters weren't partial to day time hunts but sometimes food shortages meant a lot of unpredictable behavior and it never hurt to be careful. Confident enough that he wasn't being prowled Sven set out to the nearby waterfall where he would bathe and also hunt for pebbles. How many people can claim that their bath tub is their workplace?

Following the path that he had established years ago, Sven made his way through the otherwise dense foliage with little resistance uphill to the banks of the water that pooled around the foot of a gentle but voluminous waterfall. It was close to the rivers mouth enough that the water was considerably pure but also in a spot where denser materials such as Mystic Gems might sink and get caught in the shallow lake. Since he was a young boy Sven would come here every morning to bathe and search for gems, sometimes finding a lot, sometimes finding none at all.

Leaving the canopy of trees and breaching into the open skies Sven took in the aquatic majesty of the scene before him. Birds chirping, insects humming, water splashing - the city was nice and all, a true testament to human ingenuity - but mother nature was the grandest of architects. Taking off his clothes and discarding them onto a nearby tree stump Sven began to wade into the clear shallow water. The trick was to not walk too fast so that you don't kick up too much sediment, slow enough that the water wouldn't be dirtied but fast enough so that you can extract the most resources within the wilting hours remaining before the mid day sun got too bothersome.

Spotting one, Sven bent down to pry it from its resting spot. "Black and white." Sven commented aloud - the shop owner would appreciate ones like these as they were considered to have more mystical energy within them than other colors. Washing it clean Sven deposited it into his shoulder pouch that he had kept on after stripping. Sven had maxxed out his mystic power from such stones ages ago and no longer had any use for them himself, past a certain age they were useless anyway but if you wanted the best results from Dire or Ward then you needed to maximize the mystical energy these pebbles provided. Everyone's maximum energy was different; a variable passed on genetically at birth so sayeth the Mystics at any rate.

Time passed on like this until the sun was beginning to beat down on him a little too fearsomely for his liking, deciding to make his way to the foot of the waterfall to finally take that bath he stumbled across a peculiar sight.

Before him there was a bird that was white as snow, it even shone with the light of the overbearing sun - it was at a size to himself, a giant great thing whose wingspan almost tripled that of himself. Sven had never seen a creature like it before, it's head bobbed up on the waters surface, neck long like a swans but with a fearsome beak with jagged rows of pseudo teeth. As if detecting it was being watched, the great big bird reared it's head up off of the water and hissed at him, it's eyes were a bright silver that shone with fear and Sven could only feel pity.

He didn't know how or why, but in that moment Sven no longer looked at the beast like it was a threat and instead felt as if he needed to help it. Wading forward Sven ignored the beasts warnings and reached out with both hands, showing his palms to the creature.

"It's ok, I'm not going to hurt you." Sven tried to sooth the bird, however as he got closer the creature began to thrash its wings beating water onto him, but still he persisted in approaching. Close enough now that the hisses became more frantic and it even started darting its head forward trying to bite off its perceived attacker. As it reared it's wings back Sven noticed a projectile wound, a small dart was sticking out from its body - a dart with a green plume, a plume Sven knew belonged to a small tribe south of here made up of snake people known as the Apepi; they were a tribe that utilized in poisons to hunt their prey and it just so happened that he had a vial of antidote that he had traded with them for a few copper coins last winter, the vial should still be potent enough to fight off the toxins coursing inside the beast.

That being said, the fearsome beak of the bird was snapping too close for comfort now, it was now or never for his nerves if he was going to go through with this. Sven was tired of cowering away, running and hiding, now was the time to truly commit to something and go through with it until the very end, he had to do this for his own self respect at this point. Pulling the vial from his shoulder pouch, Sven held the lithe glass cylinder firmly between his teeth, and then instinctually held out his arm for the bird to latch onto - and latch onto him it did.

Fire coursed through his body as he felt the creature dig into his skin with its sharp hook-like teeth - quickly Sven grabbed the beasts neck with the injured arm so that it couldn't pull back, knowing that if it did it would tear a large part of his skin free from his flesh. As the beast struggled with its coordination caused by the toxins, Sven quickly went to pull out the dart and tossed it away from him, then with the same hand he pulled the vial free from his mouth using his teeth to pull the cork free.

As the beast bit down harder Sven poured the antidote through an opening in the beasts beak and held it there until the thrashing began to slow, the beast looked at him with its silver eyes full of doubt, questioning him, hesitation to trust. Biting down harder again Sven only winced but made no move to retaliate.

"It's ok, you're safe now." Sven stroked it's neck calmingly, the bird flinched at his initial touch, but opened it's eyes to look at him again, the doubt was beginning to fade, soon those eyes closed again as it gave into its exhaustion. Releasing his arm from its grasp the creature practically fell into his embrace.

Looking down at his wound he could see that it was bad, blood was mixing well with the waters below him and the hooks had penetrated pretty deeply into his arm. He had bandages and medicine back at home, but he couldn't exactly leave the bird here or else it would drown - but how was he going to pull such a giant bird out of the water? However it turned out Sven needn't have troubled himself over the logistics, because in a cloud of smoke the giant and dangerous bird transformed itself into a tall, built woman.

As Sven held her in his arms his brain went numb at what was happening. One moment he had a giant beast ripping his arm off, the next he's holding a physically fit bird woman in those same arms. She was a harpy at a guess, he had never seen one but she looked exactly like he had heard tell of. She had white plumes for hair that went up and down her body, her eyes though shut were the same silver as before, her wings were smaller but now had arms and hands that were fused to the same limb - her hands were yellow colored talon-like appendages with two 'fingers' and one 'thumb', same goes for her feet except that her claws were sharper and more pronounced down there. She was around six feet tall at a guess, her body was bulky and well defined with muscle, but still displaying her feminine curves. With what little patches of flesh that showed through her ripped clothes Sven could see scars here and there littered across her. She leaning on him meant that he could feel her boobs pressing into him, they were pretty soft despite her bodies definition and they were a sizable pair to boot.

This made carrying her easier, but she was still very heavy. Heaving her over his shoulder firefighter style he waded through the waters and back towards his house, walking past his discarded clothes he decided that those were going to have to wait.