Chapter 1 - Partners
Falkreath Hold, 12th of Hearthfire, 4E 201
Her gasp of surprise was lost in the noise of the bard's song. The woman quickly controlled her reaction before the patrons at the next table managed to dig themselves out of their sodden stupor. Her look of surprise quickly turned to a grin of wry amusement, "Niiiiice, so I managed to steal a vampire's coinpurse. Arissa Acies Aufero, queen of finding the absolute best marks."
Gaspard Renelle quickly raised his hood to cover his face again. With a slight tone of disappointment in his gravelly voice he responded, "I just needed you to know. I am-" he paused to collect himself, "I am not entirely certain why you offered to travel with me, but I will understand if you no longer wish to now."
"You didn't turn me in to the guards when you had the chance," she shrugged dismissively and absently drummed her fingers on the table. "That makes you good in my book."
Gaspard stared at the table. He pondered the deep pits in the wood, evidence of countless daggers having been plunged into it. He wasn’t certain why he had shown Arissa his face. Maybe he had sensed in her someone who, if she knew what he was, might not care. It had been a very long time since he had found someone who didn’t care about his condition. Most who discovered his secret either ran screaming or called for the guards and tried to kill him. Not that killing him ever worked, for early on he had certainly tried to let them; to end this existence. It always hurt though. The Divines may have cursed him to remain as he was, undying for eternity, but they didn’t see fit to remove the pain. Arkay apparently had a sense of humor.
He looked up to find Arissa watching him intently and hastily asked, "You are not afraid of me?"
"Well, you are a little scary looking, I won't lie. Red eyes." she grinned once more and held her hands to her mouth with the index fingers pointed down, "Fangs. Rawr!" Her laugh was a light tinkle.
A resounding shriek of anger and loss rang out from the other side of the taproom as a patron dancing and clapping to Delacourt’s song managed to stumble drunkenly into the bard and knock his lute onto the open fire. He scrambled to retrieve his prized possession before it could be damaged beyond repair, nearly burning his hands in the process, before calling out “Show’s over,” and stomping angrily to his room like a child commanded to go to bed early.
Arissa glanced around, "Besides I'm quite certain you won't attack me in the middle of a crowded taproom. Truth? The only thing I’m afraid of is boredom. So take another walk with me." Putting words to immediate action she slipped from her chair and headed toward the door.
Gaspard was at a loss for words. Shaking his head in bemusement he rose to follow her outside. The night was a mix of clear, starry skies to the west and a misty fog rising in the east. Falkreath was known nearly as much for the omnipresent fog that pervaded the hold as its ancient graveyard. It had been decades since he had last passed through Skyrim, and Falkreath had not changed much. Only the graveyard grew in size. Truth be told he felt almost comfortable here.
He wondered, not for the first time, what it would be like to be able to settle down in one place for more than a few weeks at a time. Someone always discovered his secret which forced him to move on. The worst had caused the massacre at that village in the Colovian Highlands. He preferred not to remember those times. His life had become one long trudge along the roads circling the Empire since then.
Arissa had already sauntered a few yards up the road from Dead Man’s Drink. She walked with short but quick strides and a slightly hunched gait, as if she were tightly coiled and ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice. She looked back to make sure he was following her, before slowing so he could catch up. Gaspard matched his strides as best he could to hers, though he was several inches taller with a naturally longer stride.
They walked in silence for a few moments before Arissa turned to Gaspard and asked, “You aren’t actually planning to bite me are you?”
“No. I do not like to bite people.”
“But you do bite them?” she stared intently into the shroud of his hood, catching his eyes.
Gaspard hesitated, but this seemed an important question to her, “I enjoyed it long ago. But now? Only when I absolutely must; when the pain of my blood hunger is too much to bear.” He sighed heavily, “I no longer kill anyone when I bite them. I only take enough to sate my hunger for another few days.”
Arissa didn’t respond, instead she turned and began to walk in silence again, deep in thought. Gaspard noted with mild amusement that they were headed for the graveyard, though he didn’t think Arissa seemed to have any particular destination in mind. Coincidence? Perhaps she enjoyed graveyards too, though in truth it was virtually impossible to wander in this city for too long without stumbling over a grave or two.
They wound around the Hall of the Dead where Gaspard had paid his respects to Arkay earlier in the day. That whole experience had rattled him more than he had expected. As the very antithesis of His teachings, praying to the God of Birth and Death was never an easy undertaking for Gaspard. Maybe that was why he had fallen so easily for Arissa’s con job earlier. This time though was different. Arkay had blessed him with a vision. Or cursed perhaps. But what did it mean? A wolf skull? Was he supposed to go kill wolves for Arkay? That didn’t seem a task the mighty god would be interested in.
Arissa stopped again, bringing Gaspard’s thoughts back to the present. In a quick rush, as if she needed to get all of her thoughts out at once, she started speaking again, “Look, I know that vampires usually lie to get what they want. But so do I, so I usually can recognize when people are lying to me.” She held up her hand to wave him off as Gaspard drew a breath to respond.
“I don’t believe you’re lying to me. If you had I would have been gone already instead of leading you to a secluded place where you could try to overpower me with no one to hear me except for the rest of the dead.” She smiled again and her teeth showed brightly in the distorted light of the moons that made it through Falkreath’s haze. For an instant Gaspard felt her smile appeared almost predatory, before she continued, “At least you would have tried to overpower me. I do have skills, you know, and I’d like to think I wouldn’t have made it easy for you.
“In any case, I’d still like to accompany you for a while. I owe you. I won’t promise that I won’t leave if I feel I have to, but you intrigue me. And Falkreath is boring me anyway.” she rolled her eyes. “So what do you say? Partners?”
Chapter 1
Art Credit:
Comments
I'm about 2/3 of the way finished with writing chapter 2 right now. Then some editing work. I hope to have it post ed tomorrow, but no guarantees.
Mathias, I'm curious about this Jake the Orc. Is that a personal creation of yours that I've missed?