The Love of Blood and Magic

Twenty four

Warning: blood and infections and stuff, not a lot though

Jaemin woke up in blinding pain. the cuts and whip marks on him throbbing. He opened his eyes to see a maid cleaning some of the worse cuts on him. They were red and swollen, and a few had yellow pus coming out of them, one of the worse ones was sizzling and had turned green. 

"I'm almost done," the maid said seeing him wince as she pressed one of his cuts to ease the infection a bit. 

He lifted his head up and looked at the cuts that covering his body. He saw a swollen one on his leg in the shape of an "R". He assumed that it stood for renjun, but he really didn't remember much, seeing he had lost a lot of blood and had been passed out for the past 12 hours.

A servant came in after a few more minutes of his cuts getting cleaned out with what looked like a bowl of soup and a piece of bread.  He sat up with the help up the maid, wincing when the cuts stretched on his skin. Jaemin leaned against the cold wall, sagging at the mere effort it took to sit up. He took the tray of food and slurped the soup. It was almost tasteless and was a bit more than broth. The bread was better. 

He fell back asleep after eating. 

Jeno sighed at the sight of a village up a head, it would be hard to explain why a group of light and dark creatures were traveling together in broad daylight. he looked around catching marks eye and said "How are we not going to attract stares from others that might not be used to seeing us traveling or hanging out together, especially the town authorities?" he had added that last part when he looked up to see they had come quite a bit closer to the village, that would now classify as a town, to see a guard tower and a gate to get into the city. 

"I don't know," mark shrugged.  

"we could go in one group at a time," came jungwoos quiet voice from near the back of the group where he was walking with winwin and haechan. 

"Or we could just go in all at once and if they ask questions we kill them all," haechan said.

"You're violent for a faerie," mark said turning around to look at haechan.

"Thank you," haechan said bowing sarcastically to the werewolf. 

They had reached the gate and a guard had come out to question them and ask for payment to get into the city/town. 

"Who are you and what's your business in this city?" the guard huffed out. 

"We are students traveling, and we are just passing through," jeno said.  

"Where are you going?" the guard asked looking at each of them suspiciously. 

"Why do you need to know that?" haechan asked scrunching up his nose at the guard.

The guard sighed and said "Look kid, i don't know about you but i have a family to feed at home and i need to make money somehow and i want a place to live. Now where are you going to need to pass through here?" 

"we are going to visit a friend," jeno said. 

"Ok now that that's settled it will be four gold to get into the village," the guard said.

"Four gold!" mark whined "we might as well just camp in the woods again."

"I could make it five, now are you going to pay or go away and have me waste my time," the guard snarled.

"We'll pay," jeno said taking  out enough gold to get six people into the city and a bit more for the guards trouble. 

"Ok you can go in," the guard said moving aside to let them through the gate. 

They walked into the village to and found a cheery inn to stay at. the group split up and half went to the market to get more food and half went to the inn to bargain with room prices for a night of staying. 

Jungwoo, haechan and lucas went to the market and jeno, mark and winwin went into the inn. They got three rooms at a reasonable price and the other half of the group came back with food and a bit of money from what they took out of their stash they brought. 

"How will we divide up the rooms and people?" winwin asked looking around at the group.

"How bout we pick straws?" lucas suggested holding out random twigs he had found tangled in his hair at times and had not bothered to throw them aside. They all liked the idea so they shortened two of the sticks really short and two of them to a medium length, two they kept the same. Then they drew.

Jeno got a large stick, haechan drew and got a tiny stick, jungwoo went next and got a large stick, lucas drew and pulled a medium stick, mark got a tiny stick, and winwin went last and got a medium stick. Then they went up stairs to their rooms and got settled in, not really knowing what to do until dinner time. 

~hello, i hope you enjoyed that chapter! i kinda didn't know what to write and the stick thing is kinda gonna play into what i have planned for next chapter. I hope i cant update again soon!~