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Steam curled up from the water’s surface, twisting to and fro in the light of the lantern. The comfortingly familiar verses of prayer kept Junia company as she stripped, setting her vestments carefully to the side. Across the pool, she could see the Flagellant doing the same, though she heard no utterance of prayer from him. All the same, as she stepped into the water, he set his ragged garments to the side with an unexpected care.
The water was a little more than waist deep when she had waded out to the centre of the pristine pool. Junia loosed her hair from its braid as she went, letting the locks tumble over her shoulders. The Flagellant waded in, standing not five feet from her, the water only just reaching his protruding hip bones. Trying to keep her peace, she washed the grime of the road from her limbs, relishing in the clean warmth. The water seemed to hold no dirt, remaining clear and fresh around her. If only there were time, how she would have loved the hearty perfume of incense to be added to the steam.
Her gaze did not slide to the Flagellant as she washed; she did not watch as he slowly rinsed the blood from his skin. The water seemed not to hold that, either, for each time he did so, she saw none of it clouding the pristine water around him.
Junia ducked underwater, cleaning the dirt from her hair, the heat of the water pressing into her with a powerful weight until she surfaced again. When she opened her eyes to the cool air, he stood before her, looming out of the water with a ghoulish figure. There was a calm to his features she had not seen before.
“Would you aid me, Sister?” he rasped.
Junia regarded him warily. “What aid do you require? I will do no harm to you, if that is what you hope for.”
“I would cleanse the blood and blight from myself. You can perform such ministrations. I would aid you in kind.”
She needed no such help from him. But a refusal of her practice was unbecoming of her station, at best. She inclined her head.
The Flagellant sank down before her, kneeling in the steam. The water reached nearly his shoulders now. He looked up at her, hands clasped in front of him. A soft spoken blessing fell from her lips as Junia reached down, cupping her hands to bring the water over him.
Having him so close, devoid of his garb, he was simultaneously more and less human to her eyes. Without the hauntingly familiar silhouette, she could see him free of the imposition of her memories. But the tattered holy cloth hid so much of the horrors done to his flesh. Scars cut through each other, deep and ragged, a mess of stories. And over those, new wounds. Junia circled him as she continued, the hymn she sang almost swallowed by the steam. The wounds on his back were the worst of them, still bleeding sluggishly, turning the water to rust as it ran down his back. She washed them again, feeling the comfort of the Light as she watched them heal before her eyes.
Determined, now, she continued her work, letting the water cleanse blood and wound alike from him. When she stood before him once more, all marks to his skin healed over, she saw his eyes were closed, a sort of smile on his mangled face. He looked nearly death-like in his peace.
“A reprieve allows the pain to blossom fully once again,” he said after a moment, eyes slowly opening. They locked upon hers, and Junia suddenly felt every ounce of effort it had taken to heal him, her heart thudding, adrenaline thrumming in her veins. “What use is it, if one does not appreciate it fully? Even I must cleanse my palette on occasion.”
Junia sighed. “I suppose I have healed you just to allow you better chance to take new injury, haven’t I?”
He tilted his head. “Have you not done the same for yourself? You are no innocent unfortunate, never meant to take fearsome wounds. You will bear new agonies over again, and know the pain afresh.”
“I take what wounds I must, with no intent nor pleasure from them. They are an unfortunate occurrence on the path we walk. I do not wish them upon any, myself included.”
The Flagellant rose slowly, steam curling around his limbs, staring down at her. His gaze was sharp, piercing to her core.
“You could learn,” he said. “I see the potential in you. You could understand this devotion, in its depths.”
Junia frowned. “I have experienced such things as you inflict before. It showed me nothing but cruelty. Misguided punishment driven by sadism. I would not willingly endure such things again.”
Water ran along the valleys of his scars, gathering in the divots until it spilled over. There was no blood there, now, all the pain healed over to memory alone. Behind him, the lantern shone, casting its warm light upon the water. With the light gleaming behind him, the Flagellant appeared almost holy, insisting to some part of her that she ought to kneel before him and accept his communion, her heart racing in anticipation. But even as that called to her, the flickering flame cast his grim countenance into sharp relief. He looked like the haunting undead they battled in the dark, a reviled creature.
He moved, then, and the spell was broken. His gaze was heavy and appraising as he circled her, and Junia did not move, save to tilt her head enough to watch him. When he returned to face her, their eyes met again, and she raised her chin, refusing any shame or fear.
“I am certain you are familiar with the cause of such marks,” she said simply.
“Inexpertly taught,” he rasped, reaching out to trace a long finger along the scar that curved along her shoulder, dipping down onto her chest. “For what can be taught without being understood, if there is no passion beneath?”
He bowed down, cupping his hands in the water as she had, and letting the water wash over her. It felt nearly hot enough to burn, searing against her skin with every drop. She did not watch him this time, as he began to circle her, eyes falling shut instead, sensation taking over sight.
Where she had kept from touching him, the Flagellant did the opposite; his hands reached for her scars, rough fingertips mapping out their shapes, finding each one without fail and lingering only a moment before cleansing it and moving on. The tiny line above her elbow from a childhood fall was given the same consideration as the messy scar where a hound had bitten her not a month prior. And each time he touched them, flickers of memory rose and faded, the pain of them -however large or small- passing like a ghost over her.
His touches stayed longer as he began to find the marks left by his peers. When he pressed his fingers against the dull, flat lines of an old, well-healed burn, she hissed at the sudden memory of its pain, gone before the sound.
“Poor placement for such an experience.” His voice came from just behind, close enough to feel his breath. “Better inflicted here, or here-” he pressed his fingers along more sensitive skin, and she tensed against the feeling, “-to truly inspire the blinding ecstasy of flame.”
“It hurt well enough where it was.” Junia exhaled slowly.
“Perhaps,” was all he said, washing the memory from her skin.
His hands moved to her back, running along her skin with no lack of care. It brought tension and relaxation in equal measure, and she shivered despite the warmth. She felt his presence close against her as his fingers ran along the deep gash on her hip, the worst healed of any scar she had.
“When they carved this into you, did you feel it? The boundless void of sensation, calling out for more?” His touch radiated fiery pain. “Did the searing agony lift you towards enlightenment, if only for a moment?”
Junia remembered the pain - remembered it even without the memory of it being pressed into her skin. There had been nothing else, all sensation lost save for that white hot spot, the discomfort of her restraints forgotten, the leering gaze of her tormentor lost. Nothing had come from her but a desperate prayer pulled from her throat, ragged and pure.
“There is a cleansing fire to the pain,” the Flagellant continued. “Did they give you even that?”
“They gave me nothing,” she said, voice harsh against the phantom pain. “I took my freedom and my lesson for myself, by the Light’s will.”
He washed the memory from her once more, and she let out a shaky breath. The relief of its absence was powerful even as she waited for the next aching reminder, his hands once more mapping out her skin.
“If I had had you in my care, I could have given such a gift of understanding.”
“I need no such understanding. Your deviant tastes are your own, I have no need of them.” His thumb pressed against an arrow’s puncture like a reprimand, and she could not help the small gasp of pain.
“If you had been brought to me, you would have followed me into the depths of this devotion.” Junia couldn’t even remember what some of the small scars he lingered over now were from. “You already stand upon the precipice of understanding, whether you accept it or not.”
The Flagellant took her hand, seeing to the tiny scars that littered her knuckles, and the deeper one that cut across the pad of her index finger.
“My faith allows me to heal the wounds you seek out. I would not defile it.” Water ran from her palm and down her arm, hot as blood, though she did not open her eyes to check.
“Do I not take such wounds from them? Heal them as you do? I simply accept the gift of their pain whilst I do so.” He lowered her hand back into the water, drawing a breath of relief from her. “You may yet understand.”
Her very nerves were alight as she waited for the next agonising touch. The pain blossomed from a tiny line on her cheekbone, barely more than a papercut. It was nigh invisible, that scar, old enough that she often forgot it was there.
The Flagellant’s hand moved, cradling her jaw as he tilted her face up. She opened her eyes slowly as his forehead pressed against hers.
“You will seek me in your divine ecstasy. I will wait.”
He raised his other hand, catching a tear from the corner of her eye. She hadn’t even noticed it.
The Flagellant pulled away, leaving her trembling in the warmth of the water. He did not look back as he returned to his things, nor as he dressed. Only when he had reached the exit did he glance back to her.
“Return when you are ready, Sister. We have work to do.”
With that, he was gone, and Junia was alone in the curling steam and steady light.
The lack of sensation on her skin felt almost empty, leaving her waiting for something more. Junia caught herself wishing he had not gone, craving more of the ebb and flow of pain and relief, and shook her head, banishing the thought.
She looked down at the water, considering. It would be easy to scrub his touch from her skin, if she wanted. To rid herself of his influence. But despite the strange craving he had wrought upon her, there was a lightness to her, like a weight lifted from her mind.
Junia breathed deeply and made her way out of the water, wringing out her hair as she went. She would return to the others and perform her duty. There was no need to linger on the words of such a man.