As children my friends and I used to dream of the glory we would win when we were old enough to go to war. We each grudgingly took our turn as the enemy of the great Dominion, only to be turned upon should we actually manage to win our childish game; for how could the great Aldmeri Dominion ever lose to the inferior races of man?
We were fools. No that’s too harsh; we were ignorant, ignorant of the world around us, ignorant of the realities of war.
By the time of the “Great” war I was old enough to fight. I remember being confused by the grim looks of the veterans as I sat excitedly awaiting the battle the next day. As a mage in our great army I would be away from the front lines, so as long as everything went to plan I would be in no danger.
I quickly learned that even the best plans are useless once blood is shed. The sounds of metal striking metal and the screams of the soldiers as they were struck down emanated from where the two armies had met. Unable to see the results of my actions I along with the mages around me started to hurl balls of magicka into the mass of imperial soldiers; where they were either set alight by our will or became frozen blocks of ice capable of splitting a man’s skull.
I stood horrified as my flames melted the flesh from a nord that had been about to crush my skull with the unrefined mass of steel that passed for a mace among humans. This shouldn’t have happened; that nord should never have made it past our foot soldiers, yet looking around I found that it had become hard to tell our two armies apart. Everywhere I looked there were soldier’s fighting for their lives, all thoughts of their causes fled from their minds only to be replaced by an almost animalistic need to survive.
A sudden explosion of pain snapped my attention away from the horrors around me. Looking down I watched as the tip of a blade was pulled back through my stomach leaving a hole where there had been smooth skin and cloth moments ago. As I watched my robes were starting to turn red as blood poured from the wound; time seemed to slow as I fell to the ground and my panicked mind struggled to remember the healing spell I had been taught.
After what seemed like hours I finally managed to cast a severely weakened form of the spell I was hoping for. I felt a momentary tingling sensation as my spell knitted my flesh back together and then nothing.
I don’t know how long I lay there surrounded by the dead and dying, but when I finally woke the battle was over and neither army was in sight. My robes were soaked in blood; both mine and that of many others, I was caked in mud from where I had been lying on the blood soaked ground. But I was alive; as I made the effort to stand I felt a minor twinge from my stomach, in a panic I tore open my robe to get a better look at where I had been stabbed. All that remained of the wound was a smooth silvery scar a hand’s breadth across, so my spell had worked after all that at least was something.
Walking through the chaos that the field had become I did my best not look at the bodies that I walked past and occasionally over, with every step more and more blood soaked through the souls of my shoes…
*****
‘Umm excuse me sir, are you alright?’
Looking up from where I sat in the back of the Bannered Mare, I saw a young nord woman standing in front of me.
‘It’s just that you haven’t moved in quite a while and you’ve been mumbling to yourself; it’s starting to disturb the other customers.’ I say young but I’ve never been good at judging the ages of the short lived human races.
‘Just trying to drown out some old memories…’ I gestured at the table in front of me that was littered with several empty bottles of Nord Mead ‘…and failing at that.’
She gave me an look full of pity, then opened her mouth as though to say something but I cut her off with a wave of my hand ‘There’s nothing you can do, so don’t bother. I’m starting to think that asking that nord in the steel armour to knock me out might be a good idea, so if you’ll excuse me I must be going.’
As I stood and started to make my way over towards the nord I’d mentioned, I felt a firm hand grip my shoulder and force me back to my seat. ‘I’m sorry sir but I can’t let you do that, but perhaps I can offer you something that will help.’
I looked up at her sceptically and then gave a slight nod, what did I have to lose? Even if it didn’t work being a little more drunk might help with the pain of being knocked out by a nord in steel plate.
‘You stay right there, I’ll be back in a moment.’ As she said that she was already moving. As I waited I looked around the room to see if that nord was still there and if not whether there was anyone else that looked like they could give me a good blow to the head.
Before I knew it the woman from before was back and had placed a large purple bottle down in front of me ‘What’s this?’
‘Does it matter if it helps?’ To my mead addled mind she was making sense. So I reached over and unstoppered the bottle then took a mouthful of the sweet liquid inside. Even after only that much my mind had gone fuzzy and I was having trouble seeing clearly, but my memories were retreating so I raised my hand in thanks in the direction that I thought she was in.
*****
I awoke to the dimly lit interior of a cell, looking around I had no memory of how I had gotten there. All I knew for certain was that I couldn’t open my left eye and my head was killing me; reaching up I gingerly felt the left side of my face, my hand came away bloody.
‘Hey would you look at this that damn elf’s awake already’ Looking up I saw a guard standing outside my cell, as I watched he turned back to me and grinned.
‘Who’d have thought an elf would be able to hold us off with only his fists?’ If there was anyone else there I didn’t hear an answer, but the guard seemed to get the response he was looking for as he spoke up again ‘Looks like you’ll be in here for a couple of days, considering you left Rigel over there…’ he gestured over his shoulder at whoever this Rigel was, probable the man he’d been speaking to before ‘…needing to see a priest.’ Once he finished talking he turned and left me to sit and wait.
Looking down at my hands again I noticed that they were slightly swollen and my knuckles seemed to be bruised, just what had she given me?
*****
Thanks to Dragonborn, Chris, Alice and those two non blog friends that I talked into proofreading this for me, thanks for the help.
