Can one ever prove master of one's nightmares?
This question I have asked a thousand times, it seems, during those uncertain nights within Bruma. Weeks slipped past as I remained inside the walls, each morning the reports of activity in the wilderness increasing - as though something had been awakened through my hapless step. Howls echoed across the tundra; backed by clump of hoof and snicker of claw. Many a guard fell slain, including those of my own.
For each human blade bloodied, two were relinquished unto the darkness.
For my part I remained in study, daily improving upon my humble feats. Fire and thunder leapt freely from my fingertips; by the same token turned inward, I could soothe my weary limbs and banish the bruises gained in my training alongside Elias and the men. The knowledge of my stalking propelled me to a sense of sure-minded mastery that saw my former self dismissed as easily as a bastard welp from the king's kitchens. My father's coy courtesan would never come to pass, of this I was sure.
Marked by the scheming Daedra, then? So be it, said I, thus then avowed to rise in challenge. Nobility was my birthright; and nobility means nothing if not power. Each day I was left gasping, sore of body and soul. Betwixt death and a snowy mountainside I was placed - the only route out was to rise.
The fearsome beasts of my dreams began to fall before me, the tide turning slow and sure to mine favour. I'd still awake in the midnight hour, yet gasping now with risen passion in fevered tears' stead.
Each morning, I broke my fast heartily - as though I'd spent the past hours in frenzied activity. So was I occupied when the knight-errant approached me, perhaps five or six weeks after my dalliance with Namira.
"Grave news, Cel."
The passing time had eased the violence of our meeting that fateful night; we were upon decent enough terms. Yet I suffer few gladly, and so I cast him with a wary eye, drawing a hand back across my mouth as I set down my cup. I made him wait as I restocked my plate from the hefty spread laid across the tabletop, then gestured to the carved wooden seat opposite my own. He hesitated, quite noticeably. His face was redder even than was common, beads of sweat eking shimmering rivulets down his pockmarked forehead.
"No news should interrupt a meal, sir knight. Please join me, then pray tell."
His reluctance resulted in a tense staredown between us; or tense, I supposed, for him. I am accustomed to having my ways obeyed, to treading what pathway I choose. None are more stubborn, nor more bold.
Slowly he began to eat, at first, then more rapidly once he believed my restriction would relax. I allowed him this much, and timed my meal to finish alongside his. Perhaps twice or thrice he cast a baleful eye toward me, the depth of his expression hoping to be lost amidst that stoic mask he so favoured. A brat I may be, but surely in the telling it has become apparent I am - in the last - observant and cunning, in my way. I could read this questing warrior like a book. I knew when he would begin to outpour; I knew to the very second.
"There are forces massing in the pass south; it is thought to be the Altmer."
Ah, the Altmeri menace. I admire them as a race, and surely their right to conquest cannot be denied once comparison be drawn with the rapidly-collapsing Empire. The high elves bear greater intelligence and majesty than the regimented, unimaginative morass of Cyrodiil could ever hope following the fall of Septim. But to see them as some mythical bogeyman is beyond me - they can be reasoned with, for they are a race of reason.
Naturally, then, I was amused.
"And from whence comes this news? What man hath seen the golden-skinned peril?"
"This man, milady-- I have been patrolling alongside the countess' troops, and we are trapped here."
"Hardly trapped."
I batted my eyes at that interruption, which cut clear across my own unspoken response. Jaw clenching, I looked toward the doorway; to the emergent figure of Elias, bloodstained and heaving inside his leathers, propped against the stone frame in his weariness. I wished to hear more from him; a fact made clear by raisèd brow.
"But he's right, Cel. I've not seen them myself, but the men all speak of Altmer, and sure enough something moves to the south; the skies are aflame. We've been idiots, believing your little excursion was the sole cause of our problems, when much larger things are happening. The long and the short is, we need to move from here. The land has been inhospitable enough, without an invasion to deal with."
"Where would you suggest we go?" I asked, my mood somewhat ebbing at the affirmation of the knight's word. It was he that leaned forward now, quick to answer with an eager air that I found uncommon-strange.
"North, up and across the border to Skyrim."
"Further north? Where it is even colder? Where simple-minded Nords mourn into their mead-cups? Bad enough this pox-ridden, ice-infested hellhole; I wish not to spend a single day in Skyrim."
It was the first time I had seen the knight completely free from his mask; he practically recoiled from me, a vein in his neck protruding for an instant before he could regain composure. With a rush of winds, his fist descended upon the tabletop - only at the last moment twisting into an open palm, this still adequate in rattling the stout furnishing, sending an emptied jug skittering off the edge where it shattered.
"We have no choice! We remain here and we risk it all; we risk..."
He faltered. Why did he falter? When his speech rejoined, 'twas almost timid from his lips.
"...we risk your life, milady."
I laughed, breath catching in my throat such that it become a cough. A hand lifted to my breast, patting against my sternum as I glanced to Elias, expression caught betwixt amusement and dismay; and finally settling for a frown as I glimpsed the Redguard's own. Perhaps this once, I thought, I could not have my way. Besides, whilst I doubted the Altmeri touch in this matter, death held no attraction for me. Still doesn't, even now. Once more I raised an enquiring brow to my rugged friend, and he answered with the ghost of a bow.
"His counsel is sound. For what's it worth, I promise we'll not stay long amongst the Nords. If an invasion comes, it will stop at the border; we need only cross there and skirt westward until we reach High Rock. From there we can escort you home, or find refuge in a friendly court, as it please you."
I sighed. Truth that I hated Bruma, the cold worse than any I had known at that time. Moreso, that along the way I'd found nowhere preferable to my place of birth - I wished only to gain my identity, and perhaps I'd accomplished this as best I would. It was time to confront my father.
"Very well. Clean yourself, Elias, then prepare the men. I suppose we must ride."
Ride we did, driving our well-rested mounts through ever-thickening sleet and snow. The higher we climbed toward the northern edge of the province, the harder it became to breathe; as though in spite of the deathly chill ever-encroaching, our lunges were aflame by the ethereal glow in the southern sky. I had never felt so trapped as I did then, heading from one strife to another, knowing that what awaited in Skyrim was nothing but bitter misery touched - worse still - by the malediction of a populace without rulership. We'd heard of the rebellion, that civil war was coming, but the reports were hazy. We knew not what to expect.
Soon enough we discerned the truth. We could not have been less prepared.
The border was patrolled by a mixture of proud, frostbitten Imperials and downcast, ruddy-cheeked Nords - all clad in iron and steel, bearing longsword and axe in defence of a realm that needed defending from itself. Riders approached our small column down the road, at their backs the sweeping majesty of a landscape I might have appreciated in a storybook; in reality, I knew it would be a harsh, unfriendly place. I breathed a prayer to Akatosh, glancing askance at the knight-errant as he - I assumed - did the same. His lips did not move.
He did, however, shift closer, twitching upon the reins of his mount as it skittered across frozen rocks. The winds howled against the hood of my leather cloak, masking the words he uttered to me then, but I could miss not the touch of his hand upon my shoulder. The Imperial before us was beckoning, indicating we dismount.
I did so, watching Elias do the same to our fore, the other men and women of my guard descending in turn.
The next moments I have pieced together from memory tainted by hatred and sadness alike. At once, they move in my mind's eye at so rapid a pace I cannot truthfully track them; and also so slowly I cannot help but relive them. The knight-errant stepped before me, a hand tugging upon his sheathèd blade as the other lifted from its resting place 'pon my shoulder to fling heavenward. I wondered what he was defending me from; of course I did, and in confusion I looked this way and that. A shout rose from the fore, stealing my attention not quite enough to divert from the slender shafts suddenly streaming through the air. Arrows, by Akatosh!
Disoriented, unknowing the nature of our peril, I flung a hand forth and screamed an incanation. Magickal fire sprang to my palm and then ebbed outward and back, forming a loose and primal shield about me for the instant in which I assumed vicious barbs would land upon our number. But that instant never came; for the snowfall tricked me, and those arrows dropped before us, impaling the mounted Imperial and those that backed him.
With urgent immediacy, his comrades at the border's line made formation, some nocking arrows of their own as others raised shields and alternately took up position to either flank - and charged toward us. I tried to call out, but my voice was lost in the winds, and it was action that caused them to judge us. Not mine own, nor those of my bondsmen; but those of a traitor, a man whose name I curse and condem.
A man whose name I refuse to speak.
The Order of the Hour? He was no such thing. That swarthy face, the creased skin and stalwart frame should have told me from the beginning; the bastard was no Breton, but a Nord born. Screaming a battlecry, he sprang to take captaincy of our staggered line, meeting the charge with his broadsword a shining arc. A guard's helmet fell neatly severed as his skull split in far messier twain, and then the unthinkable happened. Forgive me if I falter, stranger, for I shudder still that this could ever occur, that such a knave could...
May the Daedra that follow me in my wake curse and burn him, the so-called knight deflected a clumsy axe blow, then danced backward at speed belied by his heavy plate. A mailed gauntlet darted out to seize at Elias, who had scarce drawn his own weapon to form a counter when he found himself flung forward, pirouetting with that uncanny, catlike grace I have remarked on before... only to find his enemy upon both sides.
His armour shattered as razor-sharp iron penetrated deep, a bloody longsword's tip emerging through his chest. He fell forward almost as suddenly, collapsing before a stamping foot belonging to some Nordic warrior whose name I have never had the pleasure of; but I blame him not, when I have the subject of my vengeance in mind. It was by his association we were branded and condemned. By his hand did my friend die that day.
My last vision of Elias saw his face buried in the filthy snow, a crimson pool spreading beneath him in hideous contrast to the dirt-streaked whiteness flung about. They say there is poetry in death, yet I saw none here. Just horror, and injustice. So aghast was I, that my own demise was circumvented, for I was no threat when I could not move or speak; let alone raise the flashing blade from my side. Let alone evade an incoming fist. Rigid knuckle met yielding leather hood, struck temple, and pitched me to the gory ice.
What next I remember, I stood in line for execution. A Breton branded witch, branded Stormcloak. By law, even the most useless of rebels deserves to die. An example, to quell the rumbling of uprising. I agree with the philosophy and the means, if not their depth of judgement. Agreement would not save me, however.
And yet I speak to you now... so dead I am not.
True, I was spared. But I was not spared for what I was. I was spared for what I am.
So, again I ask, what am I? Ah, me. Therein lies the most unlikely portion of this tale...
