1.
I awoke in pain and confusion. My head throbbed, my side ached, and I wasn’t sure where I was. I cautiously opened my eyes and saw my Keeper. I was safe. I didn’t have to be back in the world just yet so I closed my eyes and slept.
Later Keeper Carcette cleared up the confusion but increased my pain when she began to speak. She told me I had been found on the road not far from our sanctuary. I was alone, wounded, and infected. There was no sign of my partner, of Lucien. I have been healed and cured but I am not whole. I may never be whole again.
I resumed the daily pattern of life in the sanctuary. I became like the vigilants that don’t wander. That are too old or too frightened to do their duty in the wilds. I washed and dressed each day, I prayed, I cooked, I ate, but I did not truly live.
The other vigilants offered condolences with their eyes, but their words spoke only of Stendarr’s mercy for me and no mercy for the Daedra. I found no solace in these hollow mantras that once flowed so naturally from my own lips. Carcette’s eyes offered no condolences however as she watched me closely. I believe she knew I was changed. My robes felt weak and thin, my mace too small for the evils that lie outside. Nothing in the sanctuary fit any more. Nothing in the Vigilants fit any more. I could not find the strength in my broken heart to pledge it anew to Stendarr. He didn’t help us on the road.
I knew it was time to find my own way.
Carcette required me to wait with them for a few days to ensure I was fully healed although, I knew it was to make sure the cure had worked and I did not turn. But then she cleared me from duty and provided me some gold and food and bade me good bye.
2.
I stood outside in the blowing snow and realized I didn’t know in what direction to walk. Where could I go? I couldn’t go back home to High Rock a disgraced former Vigilant. I had no other friends or family here in Skyrim outside of my order. I couldn’t turn around and go back inside the sanctuary. I’d rather die first. And as the frigid wind blew around me, I understood that death was exactly what happened to foolish people who stood around outside with no direction.
I would go to the Stumbling Sabrecat and decide from there. Besides Baral Sendu always knew what was happening and where. He could give me some ideas. I trudged through the deep snow towards the abandoned Fort Dunstad.
The driving snow hid the fort until I was almost at the wooden gate, then an arrow struck near my foot and I knew the fort was abandoned no more. There was what could only be a bandit on the tower before me! I ran to the wall to protect myself from her arrows then moved towards the gate to wait for the first foolhardy bandit to stick his head out of the opening. There was never just one bandit. I had not long to wait. I could hear the heavy clump of armored boots coming near. Must be a big one!
I peered through a gap in the wood to see an orc with an iron warhammer thundering towards me. Luckily he was charging as berserkers tend to do and I was able to sidestep his attack and smash his unarmored skull with my mace as he passed me. He fell with a rattle of heavy iron armor at my side. One down. How many were inside?
Back to the wall! The next bandit was a little smarter. He exited the gate with his hide shield held high. Damn. He was tall and lean with long flowing blond hair and bright, blue eyes. I would have found him handsome if not for the look of hate and the angry sneer on his mouth.
I struck his shield to give him something to think about as I pivoted to his exposed side for a backhand smash to his axe arm. It was a good hit. I heard bones break and he dropped his axe screaming. But my dancing took me too far out from the wall and the archer’s arrow found my shoulder. Damn these robes! I slammed myself back against the wall and hoped I’d have enough time for my healing spell before the archer decided to brave the gate. The handsome Nord was still down in a crouch and I had no idea if he had a healing potion. Better make this spell count. I hung my mace on my belt and used both hands to fully concentrate on healing.
Ah the cooling blue light! I could feel the bleeding stop and the tissues start to knit back together. I was almost there...the arrow was starting to disintegrate when the archer came sprinting out of the gate. She ran so far past me that I had time to re-equip my mace before she turned to loose another arrow.
I can hold my own in a fight, but i’m no arrow dodging Khajiit! I dove behind the crouching Nord and ripped the hunter’s bow off his back. His quiver had spilled and I grabbed an arrow from the ground while I crab-walked around the now very angry, wounded Nord to keep him between me and the archer.
She grew tired of our little game and shot her bandit compatriot in the neck. His possible possession of a healing potion no longer mattered. As he slumped, I stood and fired my arrow before she could nock another of her own. I watched in amazement as the arrow pierced her left eye with a sickening wet crunch and she dropped like a stone. Beginner’s luck? Or was Stendarr protecting me now?
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