Chapter Text
(Name) | The Vessel
Vessel's body is biologically set to hold this concept. A carrier. A container. A being capable of generating life. However, such extraordinary capabilities are only possible because of his non-human side, which, in contrast, urges a different source of nourishment. The only way to remain firm and stable is to devour the essence of life itself—latched onto one's body. Though not from himself, but rather from others. "Sanity" is a word foreign to the vessel. Yet, he's bound to a nameless hunger.
You were born with the soul of the changeling, meaning you never embraced another life apart from the one imposed on you. Your fake persona—the mask—was adopted as the real you since the beginning of your adolescence. You came to the world at a place called Vinland, closer to the tensed shore hidden by the mist.
Despite possessing male genitalia, your body was shaped quite differently from other males. It started flourishing hastily.
Instead of a strong physique caused by numerous amounts of testosterone, your body was shaped with cursed, unwilling curves. Instead of a sharp jawline belonging to a raging warrior—to a man who conquered lands—your semblance was as delicate as a petal of a flower growing in the southeast domains. Your skin, no matter how used or dirtied it became, never seemed to get rough like a fisherman's; it was always soft to the touch.
You became an orphan at an early age, losing your mother to an illness impossible to heal. The hollow took over your heart that day, bringing you to tears. Despite that, as if an invisible force embraced your surroundings, you became an unmoving wall that refused to decay on the battlefield. Even with painful bruises and open wounds, you found a way to stay alive, against your will.
The depths of solitude slowly drained you, almost managing to make you leave the living world in utter despair. But a caressing soul saw your misery and pitied you like a mother looking at her own hungry son. In a lapse of mind, she took you under her wing, teaching you some of her skills. You remember what they were, but what you were most proficient at was...
➡ Cooking
➡ Sewing
➡ Cleaning
Since your clothes were constantly torn, thrown away, or mysteriously disappearing, knowing how to do your pieces was vital to your survival.
You learned Mender's Stitch.
You now can sow bruises, which removes the bleeding status effect on yourself or others—restoring a bit of HP. You now have access to a personal shop to create armor with a sewing kit. By expending a significant amount of mana, you can also reattach lost limbs, permanently leaving them corrupted.
No matter how many times you prayed to the gods—for Sylvian, to heal your body and reshape you correctly—the horrifying heat always came to haunt you like a knife of truth piercing a delusional heart. Hypnotizing pheromone scents, a fever worse than any illness, a warm, odd liquid lubricating your anal region, and an excruciating, uncontrollable need to be bred.
And the bizarre thing of it all... the local healer made you learn that those symptoms came once you were fertile to give form to a uterus—like any maiden discovering her womanhood for the first time.
Whatever medicine she mostly had for the women of your small territory was given to you, alongside a recipe to calm the uncontrollable scent of your body. But above all else, she told you to hide, cover, and conceal this information like the most precious secret on earth—warning you of the possible consequences that could come. So you obeyed, afraid of the potential possibilities to unravel.
All of these factors were crucial to forging the person you are today. However, in a place like Vinland, where even the sun refused to show its power, to be prey was as simple as breathing.
Especially for fresh meat.
So it happened.
Your virginity was stolen by the 'friendly' charming neighbor, the man instantly lured to your pheromone attack one peculiar morning where you risked getting to work without drinking your special tea.
He ravished your secret heaven without much effort, your imperfect carnal desires feeding the satisfaction of a masculine figure making you submit under him. You felt grossed out once he finished, ashamed of your lack of proper security and agency.
And the worst that could happen, the event that could be named a miracle or curse, happened.
Your first experience at sexual intercourse bore fruit. The villagers soon learned about your intricate biology in a span of weeks, once your swollen belly and constant visits to the healer became impossible to hide in the upcoming months. No pain you felt over your short existence could ever compare to the piercing contractions of pregnancy that tingled your spine. The fetus tore something within your anal canal, forcing you to push it away from the womb. Throughout the entire process, you just knew there was blood everywhere, a humongous amount.
The crying newborn—your first son—whined within a mucous substance, his umbilical cord hanging still between you before being cut.
Knowing what to feel—what to think—was impossible, lacking a better word. Tears fell from your eyes as if you were crying with him but far from a place of happiness. You wanted to hold him and assert that it was real, to touch his frail figure to scan your creation. Yet your skin crawled back just by staring at his mild body, something akin to unfamiliarity crossing your senses. Eventually, reality faded from your eyes, your body falling victim to a warm, relieving exhaustion.
You weren't allowed to meet your mother again that day, but once your pupils shrank with the beaming light of the sun, the gates of hell were long awaiting you to cross them.
Property soon became your only name in the territory. The scoundrel known as the father of your disowned son spread word about that day—detailing every divine pleasure, sparkle, wince, and warmth, as if you were a gift forged by Sylvian to be cherished and used. Tension exponentially grew when the men of the village looked at you with hungry eyes, almost salivating for the same pleasures that were so exaggerated. The main leader, however, craved something that only greed could offer. Money. The possibility of profiting with you.
As his brain transcended beyond empathy, an idea popped into his mind, a plan architected soon after reuniting any villagers with the same ambition.
Rumors had to be spread; stories had to be told beyond the wicked continent where Vinland ominously stood. And so, after facing the dangers of the sea, a group chosen by the leader left the land, searching for spreading the tale. Outside your personal agonizing bubble, an invisible virus was planted inside perfidious hearts with cracked minds.
It didn't take long for the coins to gather in their sacks and, of course, for them to pay those in return.
Common men, warriors, mercenaries, and thieves—from all continents, regions, and small towns—faced the challenges of the sea to reach the earth marred by the Old Gods, desiring to have their own personal taste.
Many didn't want just pleasure from you. They wanted to see, to prove with their own eyes, your fascinating ability to bring life—a power Sylvian universally gave only to the female gender alone. For them, curiosity spoke louder; their paternal needs screamed at them to get the heirs they always wanted; or perhaps their hidden inability to feel attracted to any female boosted their secret breeding fetish tenfold.
However, once the babies were out of you—healthy, normal, cold from the womb, all things considered—they would be swooped out of your arms without a second thought.
Never to be seen, never knowing the truth of who their progenitor was.
It was a repeating routine.
They would come. Take off their clothes. Pin you down or indulge you in their hidden fantasies. And fill you to the brim.
Pregnancy didn't frequently happen. After all, your heats came at specific cycles of the moon.
But when it did happen... it hurt so profoundly that it looked like you were being burned alive.
You developed erotophobia—the fear of sex and genitals.
Despite all the aching pain below, torturing you throughout the passing days, you were still the same wall refusing to crumble. They bred you, chained you, and dominated every aspect of your young life. But you kept on breathing. Unfortunately, such prolonged agony turned numb—common for you. The very existence of sanity vanished entirely from your soul, the colors you once possessed draining out of your irises. Only the certainty that life had to go on in one way or another prevailed in your consciousness.
In your story, you became...
➡ A shadow
➡ A voice
➡ Hope itself
Clinging to a better future—as insane as it seemed at that point—was the best you could do. Those were the wishes that stuck with you when your mother died. But you knew it could take some time. You were a mere object for pleasure after all, not allowed to even think for yourself or speak without permission.
But, meanwhile, you sought to help the ones punished by the village to suffer the same fate by your side and the ones who secretly cared about your precarious condition. You decided to be their safe haven, nothing more, nothing less. Even if you felt like you didn't have one, they too tried to appease your tired spirit.
You learned Hope's Sigh.
You now can restore the minds of others by sacrificing 25-35% of your mana.
Regardless, your legacy—your presence—subtly painted multiple lineages in the shadows. Some suitors—of course—wouldn't exactly be satisfied with the given gender at birth every so often. It meant that aside from you being to 'blame,' they would make sure to expose the truth to those babies in the future. You could only pray for their safety regardless of the situation, to plead they had a better life and freedom you could only dream to have.
Years passed by, and your body developed for the better—unfortunately for you. You became some sort of prize, the fallen angel to amuse them at a fair. You had a price to pay to those men who desperately searched to experience the pleasure paired with the level of divinity. Your sanity vanished eons ago, but your emotions stayed as an anchor to remind you you were still made of flesh.
You knew your patience was wearing thin, that every service, sound, adoration, and moan started frustrating you day by day. You didn't know what was to come, what sort of path would unravel before you.
You just knew this boiling fury was reaching its peak, closer to bursting out of the pan at any moment.
Until the minor control you kept to yourself shattered into pieces. On a fateful, calm evening, a day your mind filled itself with regret, sorrow, anger... the submissiveness—that apprehension of rebellion set upon you—broke. It snapped something inside you, something living in the depths of secrecy throughout decades.
You just had the mischance of this happening right in the middle of a private session with another guest. Everything was going the same. The warrior took his robes out, freshened his stern, broad chest in the chilling breeze, and pinned you with his eyes—saying what he wanted without a single word.
You naturally allowed it to happen, leading him right where he wanted. The familiar sharp pain was about to be felt in your anal canal for the third time that day, caused by the shaft of the male husk searching to fill his empty mind with carnal desire. He would immediately regret ever stepping foot on the coast of Vinland, of dropping his sword so dangerously far from him.
A primal force possessed you—taking control of your body, as if you were a doll at the hands of a child. An enraged, boiling sensation ignited in every muscle, every tendon.
There, naked and exposed, you touched the fighter's face with an iron grip, confusing and exciting him more, as he thought this was the start of a mere sexual dance.
In the next second, you felt...
➡ A surge of raw force coursing through your body
➡ A cold clarity piercing your senses
➡ A sudden, overwhelming warmth spreading from within
You pulled something out of the man, creating a powerful jolt of pain in his entire system that overjoyed your mentality. A pitch-black mist left his body, invading the pores of your skin restlessly. For some reason, you knew this texture was tied to his soul—not being devoured, but drained. The man's once shiny, veiny, thick body decreased under your fingers, his vitamins, his color, and his youth depleting as if you accelerated his aging process in seconds. All you heard after that was his bones bending and cracking beneath your feet, his face paralyzed in a torturous pose forever.
You learned Corrupted Warmth.
You now can drain the life of your enemies. By sacrificing a piece of their souls, you can restore 10-15% of their life as your own and regain 15-25% of your mana.
Screams. Bloodshot eyes. Horror. These negative emotions, reactions, and defense mechanisms spread to the villagers and visitors. It was clear they knew what they had done, that they had turned you into a pathetic sexual slave. The massacre you created could be compared to the bloody zones of war. Dozens of bodies fell on the ground just when you looked at them—all lifeless, empty, and darkened by the touch of your new power.
You understood what was happening.
You were pulling the very essence of their being like a rope closer to snap, stealing their freedom to live as they pleased if they ever dared to fight back against you.
And once their vitality reached you, you felt whole, fed, for some reason. You couldn't remember the last time you felt your body swell with food, but this could very much be the same. It happened without thinking; you didn't care who came closer or who crossed paths with you. You just had to do it to reach your freedom whenever it awaited you.
Though, you eventually came to a stop. You realized, within those hot breaths puffed in the cold air, that the moans, whines, pleas, and screams all stopped. In that moment of clarity, you could see your exposed skin trembling with the cold night, painted with the blood of the ones who twitched and contorted with your malevolence.
Realization hit closer to home than ever before, and something started tugging at your head—hammering with abnormal force.
What you felt... what you saw was...
➡ Fear
➡ Vengeance
➡ The Remains of Vinland
The other reason you were shaking was out of utter fear, which clung to your head as the last thing your victims felt before they died. It repeated over and over again like a violent sea, crushing against other sentiments that came back to your brain as you processed everything at the same time. You whimpered and cried on the ground like a terrified baby, overshadowing the shrieks of the murder of crows that fled when you roared a guttural scream of pain.
Your cries ultimately brought the help you needed from the remaining villagers that managed to hide and escape your wrath.
Yet, even those were afraid to step ahead and pull you in as easily as you did with them in the past.
You learned Pale Terror.
You now can unleash the horrifying fear within you, causing enemies to recoil in terror. This reduces their accuracy and makes them more susceptible to your attacks.
It was enough. Many moons passed since you were rescued by the caressing soul from that traumatizing experience. The main source of your imprisonment was gone; you took care of all of them. The leader, the elders, and, most importantly, the clients and visitors couldn't spread word of where you were anymore or the price needed to meet you.
Thankfully the culprit's ignorance of wanting to keep the locations a secret was beneficial after all. So even if many clients were out there in the world, they, too, couldn't know how to find you.
Though... it also meant most of your children would also never know about you if they ever wanted to meet you in person one day. But that was just impossible. You made sure to think they hate you more than anyone else in this world... you would too if you were them.
Yet, aside from these turbulent thoughts, the past few months were, for the first time, calming in your life. You had peace; you could freely walk around covered in handmade clothing. The survivors respected you in a way they never did before—some still living in fear, while others simply possessed shame for not helping you before. You didn't blame them; it was very complicated. However, it wasn't enough.
This dreading feeling lingered in your mind ever since the massacre occurred. Their voices, screams, faces, bodies... all of it returned when you remembered which land your foot was standing on. The personal losses of loved ones you had were also a big factor, piercing your heart with might.
So you decided to leave, far away from the cursed earth of the gods. You had nothing more to do in Vinland, nor even that much left. Even with the caressing soul taking care of you, your loving mother was still dead. And the other friend you ever made, despite your circumstances, was drowned in the vast, cold waters of the sea—a fate met after trying to free you from your horrible lifestyle.
The caressing soul was prepared for this day, knowing the thought could probably cross your mind if you ever managed to be free again. Everything was surprisingly set for your departure. An available direction, a home, or even your studio to earn your own honest money with a proper talent for the first time. Nonetheless, with so many wars raging everywhere, your caretaker still advised you to conceal yourself—to dress as something you were not, to hide from the perfidious eyes of the royal military.
On one side, you hated the idea.
It was unbelievable that you would still have to hide yourself despite not living in Vinland anymore.
But, on the other hand, she was right.
God knows what these people would do to you if they ever discovered what you were... or what you're capable of doing. Especially considering the Kingdom of Rondon as a place to live.
Before leaving, you took with you...
➡ A keepsake from your mother.
➡ A shard of the cursed coast.
➡Nothing—you wanted to forget it all.
You received the Mother's Pearl Medallion.
With tears and hugs, you departed, leaving your previous life behind for good.
When reaching the borders and entering the kingdom, at last you settled in. Rondon wasn't exactly as you imagined it would be, as poverty and a lack of color reminiscent of Vinland shaped the walls of the territory. But it was infinitely better structured than your village, even with the few renovations they made with the money earned with your body.
Yet you didn't judge it poorly, not when you had yet to feel and explore whenever possible. After all, you possessed your store and house; you were lucky enough for that. You only had to work hard to make everything clean and keep it the way you wanted. Supplies, cloths, mannequins, sewing materials, and a spindle all awaited you to put them to good use. You soon opened the store, displaying a few pieces of dresses you worked hard on through your sleepless nights.
It wasn't the grandest studio in the big capital, but you were satisfied with the simplicity.
And with time and effort, women of all statuses went to buy your work and spread the rumor that it was one of the best shops Rondon had had in a while.
It was easier and more comfortable to deal with them than with men. Your mind was still unsure about their presence in your store—around you in general. You wouldn't stop them from wandering around your street, but if you kept yourself in the shadows, perhaps things could go smoothly. You had to... because, sometimes, your body craved something other than common food.
Those who searched for injustice around town—thieves, assassins, drunks, rapists—would suddenly appear dead the next day, their bodies unnaturally drained of any health.
Witches, dark priests, and sorcerers—they all fell on the suspect list, except you. Rondon has been known to be surrounded by death and decay, so such a thing wasn't to be worried about.
That was until, even around darkness, an unwelcome individual noticed you with his glimmering aura.
As the weeks came to assert that you could call the kingdom a place to call home, one of these men seemed to be really adamant about coming to greet you and buy your work. Even if he wasn't married or entirely in need of clothing. You noticed it started slow. He politely greeted you; you politely answered back. He offered to help carry supplies, and you cautiously guided him in.
He praised you non-stop, sometimes more than once for the tiniest things, and you couldn't help but get confused.
However, what he tried to indulge in the most was engaging in conversation, seeking any history of your life.
Your patience started depleting again, and you worried this could lead to something irreparable. You didn't hate him, and he wasn't necessarily causing much harm. But his boldness to simply ignore whatever he was doing just to speak to you got annoying fast. Thankfully, he seemed to get the message and started directing the conversation to himself.
You learned he was an honored man of Rondon, captain of the royal soldiers. He brought quite the wealth through the years and still earns it to this day, turning into someone of importance in the ranks of the military. Such knowledge made your blood freeze a few times—nothing loud, but secretly there.
But something didn't add up whenever he said that. He had royal crests whenever he approached in armor, commanded guards right in front of you, and had the authority of a captain. But he was a very strange man. Prepotent, too charming, and too confident in his skills, he has drawn the women's gazes to himself, some of them important clients of yours. And what stood victorious among all was the fact that he was too hopeful in humanity. The sense of justice he had was like a gigantic wall, unbreakable and stern.
He wanted to make sure to eradicate the impurity of the capital, regardless of where it went or how it forged itself.
His devotion and curiosity toward you persisted because he noticed something through your eyes. For him, it was obvious you kept a secret. Whenever you changed the focus back to him—refused to speak of yourself—he noticed every flinch, frown, curl of hands, and even the nervous way your finger clung to your (H/c) strands. The captain became too persistent, putting you against the wall with casual smiles and sincere thoughts.
At that point you wanted to hate him, to reason with yourself that he needed to go or else things could get worse for you.
Yet, differently from the eyes of everyone, even your previous victims, when he looked at you, there was something far softer you recognized but denied with every ounce of your being.
Slow, careful touches of the hand. A softness in his voice. The way his irises seemed to glow whenever you crossed his peripheral vision. You—as unbelievable as it was—understood his feelings well. And so did he in little time. He was diagnosed with an illness you've learned to be dangerous, perfidious, nonexistent, and torturous for a long time.
With love.
Your rejection was immediate. Just the thought of allowing your heart to feel something akin to romantic affection made you shiver instantaneously. At this point, your purpose wasn't to be loved like this by anyone, for that matter. You didn't have a tormented soul, yet your reality just brought the destiny cast upon those who have it over and over to you. It didn't help that the captain made sure to prepare such an intimate time to spend together, only to drop a cannonball straight to your chest.
Your body—your brain—felt such a devilish denial that your heating cycle unexpectedly appeared off schedule.
You only ran as fast as you could back home, knowing it wouldn't take long before the pheromones attracted any individual of the male gender miles away. Though, eventually, your only concern was with the captain himself, who immediately set on his pursuit after you. In that hellish night, once more the exposition of your secret was caused by none other than you. You reached your studio but didn't have the strength to close the door—especially with such a trained fighter standing right in front of it as an obstacle.
Your mind could only tell you that fate was decided once again by someone else, apart from you.
However, as impossible as it could be, your annoying admirer held himself together and fought the strong, supernatural need to take advantage of you against your will. He simply closed the shop's door, took you upstairs, and let you be alone in your chambers. The next few days you could only live on herbal teas and the giant amount of dread—worrying that the man had already spread word around the kingdom. Instead, what you didn't expect was him knocking on your door entirely red from shame.
You had no choice but to reveal the truth of your nature; he was set on finding out what that weird phenomenon was. All your thoughts lead you to believe you would be chained and imprisoned if you didn't answer his questions.
To say he was flabbergasted was one way to put it. But you noticed how he only seemed... confused, rather than disgusted. And... for the first time in years, trusting someone with this secret because you wanted to was... refreshing. As ominous as your very existence in itself was. He sternly spoke his mind about the murders you committed, strictly saying he could arrest you because of that. Yet, he knew that in your case, nothing could be solved lightly with warnings. So, he agreed—swore on his honor and position to keep your identity a secret.
He just thought changes needed to be made about your hunger needs, which he would aid to assist with as best as he could.
And that provided a genuine smile from you, one who apparently enchanted the captain more than it should.
A new, funny, strange chemistry slowly builds between you two after that day, far too grand to ignore or conceal.
He was a friend you never thought you actually needed again. His perseverance in meeting you almost every day—staying by your side whenever convenient—never disappeared. It only grew the more he learned about you and you about him. Now all those signals he was giving were reciprocated, sometimes even without you realizing. More promises, life-changing ones, were made. Throwing you into wars, even with the overpowering weapon you had, was out of the question.
He didn't find a problem in teaching you self-defense, but he couldn't bring himself to drag you to the battlefields, even with all the challenges of the kingdom.
The realization he had, an enlightenment impossible to achieve with his true soul, led him somewhere else. He needed you by his side, he needed your presence, and he needed your love. And it didn't matter that you were a man portraying a woman, that you actually had a penis, or even the fact that you were a biological anomaly. He just needed to be with you, no matter what. And for that, you had to stay alive, far from danger and blood.
Marriage was never a position you held closer to your imagination, nor even the fact of you being chosen to be someone else's forever in matrimony. Yet, after a few more months together, you two ended up married—privately so.
It happened so fast you thought you were dreaming in one of your feverish heats, worried that this would all be but a fragment of your imagination. Yet, you soon realized it wasn't when he embraced you in his arms every night, shushing you with sweet words. Your nightmares of Vinland never stopped, but *she* was there to calm you back to sleep. Even when doing something wrong, he never hit you or called you useless—he enjoyed whenever you lost composure closer to him.
And he made the impossible turn possible.
He showed you what the act of 'marriage' truly meant, far from Sylvian's perverse mentality on sexual intercourse. And the absurd thing is that... you loved it—savored it like never before.
Everything was fine and peaceful. You found an immeasurable stability in your mind, even with the kingdom suffering from a plague.
But then, the dungeons of Fear and Hunger came in, finally deciding to lurk out of the fog and straight into your life—with the simple purpose of taking your husband away.
He said something needed to be done about the illness spreading around, that he couldn't afford to imagine you infected like the other citizens. Especially with conversations about expanding your family. So he sought a solution: to clean everything himself, as it was believed the origins of the plague came from the catacombs of the dungeons. You thought he was capable; you knew he was capable.
He was the captain responsible for the area, so it was certain he knew the place inside and out. So you kissed him goodbye with confidence, knowing he wouldn't appear too often in the past few months but would send a messenger crow with one of his letters so you could know he was fine.
The letters were consistent every night, filled with other promises and dreams he came to realize. But then, the crow suddenly started coming with less frequency. The words started to seemingly be worried that they'd ever reach you, and the last message certainly seemed like a joke. Eventually the crow did not appear anymore. And you never saw him again. His disappearance was known in every gossip column, possessing 'truths' that couldn't possibly be real.
You heard it said that nobody escapes these wretched dungeons alive, and if they do, either a life marked with trauma awaits them for all eternity, or they return with one limb missing. Everything was shocking... unbelievable. The emptiness of your house only made that familiar primal urge to pound relentlessly in your chest—waiting to get out and fiercely hold on to your tight grasp of reality.
Once you started delivering the idea of going there to see what happened to your husband, most people discouraged you from the idea—not wanting another 'innocent woman' of theirs to be corrupted by fear and hunger and even bringing up the audacious idea of marrying another man.
You could only hold your lips in a thin line every time, keeping a laugh to yourself.
How could an old, reeky place take away your sanity if you didn't have any to begin with?
The dungeons took something it never should, or rather, someone. You needed to go there and retrieve what's rightfully yours so you could feel what being sane again meant. But you didn't know the location of the dungeons. Your love never told you before he left, afraid that even the knowledge of its location could cause you to disappear from his sight.
Yet, when you heard about a search party made by the king to go look for his whereabouts, one that included a known relative of his, you couldn't resist asking him to bring you together with him.
It didn't matter if he wanted something in return.
It didn't matter if you had to sell your body again.
And it definitely didn't matter if you were pregnant.
You just needed to find him.