Chapter 128: Pain Covering Pain
Kara kept a cloth resting on her lap because, every so often, blood mixed with ink would drip down the girl’s arm and it was hard to tell where she was supposed to poke next.
The old woman started with the outline of the three interconnected triangle tattoos before filling in the rest.
The outline was hard enough as it was for Irene. Even when they filled it in, Irene asked for a couple of breaks just so she could move around a bit and stretch out her shoulder. Merely moving and air passing against the freshly poked skin felt like she had an open wound exposed to the world. The desire to touch it was hard to resist.
However, even when Kara was done filling in the tattoo, there was still much to go over just in case there were blank patches that would make the prayer and the symbol not protect her. It was meant to be a flawless, unbroken shape to ensure that it worked.
This is where the true pain struck the girl. It wasn’t only fresh skin being poked anymore but skin already stinging being stabbed with bone.
They had to use three different bones so that they would remain sharp. When the needle seemed to take a while to poke through the skin, that’s when a new bone was used to ensure it wouldn’t drag so much.
Rochelle eventually traded Arthur places because Irene was squeezing her mother’s hand so hard that she needed a bit of a break. In the meantime, Rochelle had brought the restorative tea meant to replenish Irene’s blood and keep up her body temperature so she decided to brew a bit for the girl and hopefully comfort her.
Arne was bored of sitting around so he eventually went back outside to play with the horses and ride them through the hills as long as he didn’t get into trouble and go to the rocky points of the mountains where avalanches were more prevalent.
By the time Kara got to the final poke, the sun was already headed toward the shorter mountains in the west.