## Story 1 ![3-1.png](/uploads/3_1_8a85f52f51.png) A small, remote village sits nestled in the face of a steep cliff. And in it, there once lived
a young girl. She always sulked as she watched the village children playing outside her window.
She wasn't sick. Instead, she had a mark on her leg that made her different. Her parents told
her to hide the mark. If she did not, they would not allow her to go outside. But the mark was
a part of her. Each time they told her to hide it, it was like they were asking her to deny her
very being.

The girl hated the thought of hiding it, and the more they told her to, the harder she
resisted. She and her parents had been having this fight for several long years now... ## Story 2 ![3-2.png](/uploads/3_2_71127fd9c3.png) The girl was locked in her house so others would not see the mark on her leg. Unable
to contain her discontent, she decided to disobey her parents and sneak out of the house.

She ran through the village like hell itself was pursuing her, but when she crested a hill,
she found someone was already waiting there. It was a warrior with flowing white hair. She sat
quietly on a boulder, her swords stuck into the ground nearby. Her pale skin was crisscrossed
with wounds, as though she had just finished a battle. But it was the warrior's left side that
truly drew the girl's attention. It was covered by bandages that had slipped to expose a patch
of inky black skin. Skin that looked like a larger version of her own birthmark. She's just like me,
thought the girl. Suddenly, she felt a deep ache to be like this woman, a person who did not
even flinch when someone stared at her mark. "I want to be like you," said the girl. As the woman
turned to look at the girl, her gaze fell on her leg. A curious mixture of sadness and anger flitted
across her face like a wraith in the dark.

"There's nothing good in a life like mine."
This said, the warrior turned away from the girl as if she had never noticed her in the first place.
She then tightened her bandages and walked away. ## Story 3 ![3-3.png](/uploads/3_3_85f097cf8a.png) After parting ways with the warrior on the hill, the girl returned home. As she made her
way to her parents' room to tell them what happened, she heard whispered voices from the
other side of the door.

"We've caused her so much pain by telling her to hide her birthmark like that."
"But we did it for the right reasons. You know what would happen if people saw that and
thought she was possessed!"

My parents are actually worried about me.
"Possessed." When she heard that word, the girl recalled a conversation she had with her parents
when she was but a child.

It was a story of a warrior who had been cursed by a Shade and turned into a monster.
And about how horribly she had been treated in this very village. The girl remembered the mixed
emotions on the face of the woman she met earlier. She had lived through things the girl could
not even imagine. Feeling ashamed for imposing her own desires on the warrior, she began to
think about the hidden meaning behind the woman's expression.
## Story 4 ![3-4.png](/uploads/3_4_2f99eec066.png) To the girl, the mark on her leg was a part of her. And her parents accepted that. But
if the other villagers saw it, terrible things would surely come to pass. And not just to her,
but to her parents as well. Caught between her parents' love and her own pride, the girl was
in anguish.

Soon thereafter, she began hiding her mark. In so doing, she hoped to acknowledge
the love her parents had blessed her with. But though she disguised her birthmark with
bandages, she refused to hide the wrapped leg. In this way, she hoped to mirror the pride of
the warrior. The girl stands at the top of the hill, bathed in sunlight. Looking out, she makes a
firm resolution: Once she is as strong as the warrior... Once her parents no longer have to fear
for her safety... She will remove her bandages and walk the world as she was meant to. As the
girl gazes over the plains, reflected in those eyes is the sky that leads to her future.

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