205 The Feelings Of The Skin Changer
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Ninhursag escaped the tent.
She ran away into the forest and continued running and running.
Her body glowed with bright yellow light, and she turned into a beautiful gray wolf, which continued running across the forest floor swiftly.
Wolves usually don’t cry unless they got something in the eye, but Ninhursag, as someone that wasn’t truly a beast, but a person, began to cry with the eyes of a fierce wolf.
Her tears mixed with the rain, as her entire fur got wet quickly.
Ninhursag’s entire mind was filled with countless feelings of regret.
Of what she had said, and of what she had done just now…
She knew deep down that they were all right. She knew that the heroes were doing what heroes should truly do, prioritize the life of the people.
…..
They were dedicated to them and preferred to abandon everything than to give up the life of so many innocent lives.
Because the duty of a hero is not given by gods, it is given by the people.
A hero will always be a hero, even without a blessing, even without the strongest magic, as long as they dedicate everything, they have to save the people of the darkness of this world.
They were dedicated to a single thing, and that was something that the gods or anyone else would never be able to make them change…
The gods? Who cares… not even Ninhursag cared about the gods.
But her family… her precious family… and the other tribes she met, all those warriors that prided themselves in their own strength, and that loved the forest and nature… that they loved life and everything on it…
That they found the most precious treasure in the nature and life of this forest… they were willingly gave away their lives for it, without even faltering for a second.
Although some died later than others, Ninhursag didn’t remember a single regret in their faces, aside from their words of hope…
“Survive, Ninhursag…”
Their words were imprinted into her heart, and she had been living while trying to protect the place they called their homeland… while surviving as much as she could.
Survive…
“But what’s the point of surviving so much if I will always be alone?”
Ninhursag stopped running, as she gasped for air, tired, she went back to her humanoid form, and rested below a tree, the large branches that covered the light from the sky also covered her partially from the torrential rain.
Her body covered in scars and tattoos was already soaking wet… as her tears were camouflaged in between all the water flowing through her face.
Ninhursag, deep down, had very terrible thoughts.
Very so often she thought that one day, she would finally be able to sacrifice herself so she would be able to move on and join her family, wherever they went…
Most of them believed that after death, the warriors of the forest would go to the heavens, to live with the gods, and would be able to have all the land and nature they could had ever wanted.
Those that died bravely and fought for the forest and nature would die honorably, and would go to this “heaven”, a treasured plane of existence where they would all be happy and live in harmony with nature and its wonders.
Even though she believes this heaven… at some point, her loneliness began to make her question things, to grow angered at her own fate, and at the fate of everybody.
Why did they all had to die for the gods? Why did they left her all alone just to protect this place?
This forest that brought so much life and sustenance, but… even then, it was just that, a forest.
She knew about the runes, and the core that was resting in there… she knew that it was an artifact of ancient times that the demons wanted to gain power, enough power to rival the heroes and destroy humanity.
She always thought that they died for such stupid things… but there was also another cause of their death… her.
They wanted to protect her from danger, and let her survive above all else… it somehow conflicted with their original meaning, with their original duty, but it aligned at the end, because they also protected the forest in the process.
But wouldn’t it had been better if she died with the protecting that very forest?
However, deep down, her family couldn’t bring themselves to sacrifice them life of a young little girl like her… they wouldn’t be able to bring themselves to see her little body dying as they fought… freeweɓnovel.cm
It was something horrendous, even as religious as they were, they couldn’t bring themselves to do such a thing. And ended making of Ninhursag, the “exception”.
And in a way, they also left her for the future, the last Skin Changer, that would protect the forest even when all her race was gone.
She knew they did it for a duty and to protect her… But why did she got so angry with the heroes when they said they were leaving behind everything for the people?
Because… she felt as if they were insulting the resolve of her family.
Of sacrifice… a concept that emerged in living beings as they developed, sacrifice your own life for the greater good of others, for the life of your family to continue, for your descendants to continue…
Perhaps… to protect a legacy as well.
All these races that had done everything they could to protect this place and perished, all the Skin Changers, down to almost the very last one of them…
But the amazon tribe that was still rather big had decided to go against their own duty and not use their strength to sacrifice themselves for the greater good of the forest and the legacy, they were not willing to protect it…
They were not willing to honor the death of all those that did it, they decided to selfishly think about their own well beings first.
But was all that truly selfish?
Was the desire to live… selfish?
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