Mira pushed the door open, and I followed her inside. A large tub big enough for thirty people sat in the centre of the room. Another, much smaller tub was positioned directly to its right. At the back of the room was a gate that looked to be ten meters tall. I wondered what purpose it served until Mira interrupted my thoughts.

“Strip.” She said plainly. I balked for a second. This woman wanted me to get naked in front of her? I wasn’t even sure I was comfortable enough with my body to be naked alone. Her patient smile started to fade as I stood, unmoving and unsure what to do.

“Bad girl. I didn’t want to have to resort to this…” She pulled out a small silver orb from her cloak, “Strip.” She stated again, this time much more harshly. I didn’t know what the orb did, but I knew that remaining still would be unlikely to aid me.

“Um, could you give me some pri-“ My words were cut off as a blistering pain radiated from my neck. It felt as though someone had taken a hot iron directly to my skin. I panicked as the pain slowly started growing increasingly more intense. I pieced together the purpose of the metal orb: it was what had given Mira such confidence in the collar, and likely the reason she hadn’t bothered to restrain me on our way to this room.

I fought through the pain in my neck and began to remove my clothes. With each article of clothing I took off, the burning sensation diminished. Granted, all I had on was a tattered, crop-top-sized piece of leather armour, a muddy-brown shirt, short-cut trousers, and itchy undergarments so it did not take long to be stood stark naked in front of Mira.

I had been acutely aware of my new body ever since coming to this world, but that paled in comparison to how immensley self-conscious I felt in that moment. I shivered, both as a result of the cool air caressing my exposed skin, and from Mira’s cold stare. I held my gaze high, not out of confidence, but to prevent myself from seeing my bare body.

“Good girl.” She took a step towards me and placed a hand on the top of my head, causing me to flinch. A cold chill ran down my spine at her words, contradicting the warmth of her touch. She silently petted me between my ears, inducing a whirlwind of mainly uncomfortable emotions. On the other hand, my body seemed to enjoy it. Without me realising, my tail had once again stirred to life, swaying contently back and forth. To my horror, I had also seemed to lean into her touch.

As relieved as I was when Mira had finally stopped, my tail drooped. The instinctual fear of Mira I had felt earlier was completely gone. Inversely, my own rational mind was beginning to question her instead. Her sudden shift in mood upon my apparent disobeyal was incredibly disconcerting if the lessons from shows I watched in my previous life rang true.  

Having been lost in my reverie, I hadn’t noticed that Mira had already moved towards the smaller of the two basins. She was humming to herself as she reached into a concealed pocket on her mantle from which she removed a spherical blue stone. I did a double take when Mira dropped the stone in the tub because the moment the stone touched the bottom of the basin, it filled to the brim with water. There were no flashy lights, no sounds – one moment it was empty, the next, it was not.

“You can wash yourself off in there, I’ll sort those out myself.” She said, gesturing at first to the bath, then to my clothes. I was glad for the opportunity to finally rid myself of the blood and dirt that had adorned my body for all this time. With my gaze still still towards the ceiling, I placed one foot in the bath. The water was warm but by no means hot to the touch.

I submerged myself fully under the water, already feeling soothed. Holding my breath, I sat at the bottom of the basin with my eyes closed until I couldn’t hold my breath any longer. The experience made me wonder briefly how my Curse would react to me drowning but I was far too tired of the discomfort and pain of my new existence to bother testing it during this brief reprieve.

The bath was yet another volley of new experiences. My much longer hair and bushy tail felt heavy. With my eyes still closed, I carresed my scalp, attempting to remove whatever hadn’t come out in my initial venture underwater. My ears sat upright, still twitching at every little sound. I massaged them too; satisfaction poured through my body from the top of my head. Letting out a content sigh, I looked over in Mira’s direction.

She was by the door of the room, placing my clothes into a rectangular box. A few seconds later, she pulled them back out again – all traces of muck completely erased. I was still completely puzzled by the way the ‘magic’ of this world worked.

Some of the magic clearly worked via a system of chants, demonstrated by the sleep spell that was cast upon me when I had arrived, as well as the chant to display what your Gifts were. However, other magic was a little less obvious. The washing machine-esque box that Mira had used, as well as the collar and the blue water stone all did not require any chants. I ran through some ideas as to how they might work in my head and settled on the idea that this world had some kind of ‘rune’ magic.

Like most things I had encountered so far, I applied pop-culture and video-game logic to the things I had seen. Seeing as so far, most of my assumptions have been correct, I had no reason to believe I was too far off in my guesses. Bringing my attention back to the bath, I steeled myself and slowly looked down. The water slightly obscured my figure, but it was still obviously identifiable as one belonging to a woman.

The mental shock from seeing myself was not as strong as the first time, however, it was by no means small as I still could hardly fathom that the body of this toned young woman belonged to me. Bathing in my past life consisted entirely of short, hot showers. I would scrub myself anywhere on my body without a second thought, often half asleep in a morning stupor. This bathing experience was nothing alike in that regard.

Once I had finished washing myself, the once clear water of the bath was a dark maroon shade. I stepped out, noticing a towel on the floor that wasn’t there before. Eyes bore into the back of my skull as I dried myself.