Shade-Eyes, One elf's descent into Oblivion. Options

[kementari]

Hey, all.

So, long time lurker, first time poster. I've really enjoyed reading all the stories you guys have put up over the years.

I've been working on chronicling a group of vignettes on and off since 2006, and it's still a work-in-progress. Some disclaimers:

First, it's all quite long, so I sincerely apologize if anyone gets TLDR syndrome from reading it. Additionally, I tend to take a little free license with lore where Bethesda has been silent, so please don't crucify me for some of my inventions passed off as "world fact" in the story. Finally, I do draw some of my plots from game elements, but I change them where I think I can do better. Please don't let either of those admissions become the basis for hating me. Writing these stories is cathartic to me, and in some small way, I feel like fanfiction is the highest form of glorification I can give the story guys over at Bethesda.

I'd also really love feedback (CRITICISM! PLEASE!) on characterization, prose, pacing, or anything else, if any of you have the time or willingness to give it. While I of course appreciate even small affirmations, "hm, good work" doesn't really help me grow as a storyteller.

Anyway, here goes. Hope you enjoy it.

This post has been edited by kementari: May 27 2008, 12:31 AM

[kementari]

Ornilomea; Second Seed 23, 3E413

The long-legged elf stretched languorously, kicking off the furs that covered her as the morning light seeped through the branches of the roofless Valenwood hide-house, built in the crotch of a tree several hundred feet up. She snuggled deeper into her feather pillow, trying to hide her eyes from the light. A movement to her left brought her fully awake, squinting in the brightness.

Maredhel raised a naked leg and unceremoniously shoved the snoring Bosmer - his hair, red as fruit and stiffened to stand upward in the latest fashion, had looked much nicer last night - out of the bed. He grunted as he hit the tree branch below, but merely curled up in the giant tree's embrace and went on snoring. Maredhel raised herself onto an elbow and groaned, covering her forehead with a slender hand. The hangover would last until noon, at least, she decided.

Pulling herself awkwardly out of bed, she stumbled over to a shard of looking-glass strung up against one of the hide walls by a bit of leather cord. She scrubbed vainly at her face and unruly mop of blonde hair for a minute or two before giving up. Pulling on a suspiciously moist set of leathers - How much dancing did I do last night, anyway? - she stumped through the hide flaps onto the east-facing limb of the great tree.

Surveying the forest below, Maredhel felt a little of her headache drain away. I live in heaven, she told herself, as she did every morning. Hell on every side, and it'll be on us tomorrow, but for now, it's heaven.

She began the descent to the forest floor. She moved slowly at first, so that her hangover-dulled senses wouldn't betray her to a long drop and a quick stop, but as the thick morning air of Valenwood flowed over her, she began to pick up speed. A hundred feet from the ground, she leapt into empty space, catching the familiar branch of a neighboring tree with her deft hands and thick leather gloves, and she used her momentum to swing fully around the branch, landing neatly atop it, where she scaled the gentle slope of the older bole, facefirst, toward the ground.

I live in heaven, she thought again, the hide-house and its sleeping inhabitant forgotten. She couldn't remember his name or how they'd met, and he wouldn't be there when she returned in the evening - with another male, as likely as not - so there was no sense in bothering with silly courtesies. She took off sprinting toward a pristine little pond nearby, intent on washing away the previous night and preparing for the upcoming one. After all, six hundred years is far too short a lifetime to worry about who you're with when you're thirty.

****************************************************************

Less than a mile away, another Bosmer awoke in a similar, though empty, bed. The clay-walled inn boasted a roof of hides, but its proprietor had frowned at the dark-skinned elf when she had asked that it be unrolled for her the night before. "It's a spring night," he had grumbled. "Tetcha ex-pats, going native in Cyrodiil." At length, he had agreed to unroll a portion of the skin roof over Vasha's room.

But he had charged her double for the room, she noticed, though she wasn't sure whether it was because of the roof or because of her color. Whether he thought her a halfbreed or not was irrelevant; far preferable, in her mind, for her countrymen to think she had some Redguard blood in her, than the alternative.

Vasha left the room quietly, wearing a simple leather jerkin, finely tanned hose, and crude leather slippers instead of her usual armor. The Bosmer near the border weren't nearly so strict about the Green Pact as their fellows deeper in the forest, but Vasha was acutely aware of the layers of plant-based fabric that pillowed the brassy metal she usually wore for a job. As she entered the common area of the inn, she noticed that behind the bar was an older woman, not the snotty young mer she had met last night. The woman glanced up as she approached.

"Rotmeth?" she queried, reaching for a steaming pitcher.

Vasha blanched. She had forgotten about that. "Just... just a cup of jagga, please." The woman had almost begun to look suspicious, but her pleasant smile returned as she trundled off to fetch the chilled milk wine. Vasha sat down, closing her eyes for a moment. How could you forget that? Ten years, and you forget rotmeth? she berated herself. Every young Bosmer can remember their first experience with the bilious liqueur, and Vasha's was not one she wished to repeat.

When the woman returned, Vasha laid a handful of septims on the bar, enough to cover the charge, tip, and a generous apology for foreign currency. The crone smiled and pocketed them. Change wasn't offered in Valenwood - if you put it down for someone else to pick up, you had no claim on any part of it.

"I need help finding someone," Vasha began pleasantly, with the air of a courier. "I'm passing through on business, but I got roped into delivering a letter for an associate. He spoke of a mer in this town by the name of Maredhel... I don't suppose you'd know her?"

The old woman cackled. "Maredhel? Merry Maredhel? Everyone knows her, girl," she replied, with a sly wink toward the men at the other end of the bar, "some better than others."

Vasha's cultured smile almost faltered. "Merry" Maredhel? She tried to picture Lily - reticent, straight-laced Lily - friends with someone who went by such a description. Still... it's not a terribly uncommon name, but then, it is a rather tiny town... "Do you know where I can find her?"

The woman's grin disappeared. "Depends what it's about. I won't have anyone troubling her. Who is this associate of yours? How does he know her? He'd better not be that sleazy Breton what slipped through here a year back; dear girl, what with her mother gone and father gone off, where does he get the nerve to do some'n like that..."

Vasha interrupted her, grasping for words. "It's... it's nothing like that. He was never... I don't think they ever met but briefly. Friend of a friend kind of thing."

The old woman looked skeptical. "Well... all right, but if I hear differently tonight, you'll catch it from me. Don't think I don't know how to give it out to a young stripling like you, even if you are too tall." She rapped her cane on the bar soundly, eyeing Vasha up and down.

"Tonight?" Vasha paused. "What do you mean, tonight?"

"Tonight! Tonight, last night, tomorrow night, every night." The crone grinned. "Dancing, fire, rotmeth, and all the young men you could ever want to choose from, tall one. Maredhel's in here most every night, the envy of the town. Ah, but I remember those good old days, being young..."

Vasha cut her off again. "So I could just meet her tonight, rather than go off looking for her? I have some business I could attend to today, and I'd much rather put the time to good use."

The crone eyed her, chewing on her bottom lip. "Suppose that means you'll want the roof up again tonight, hm?"

Vasha rolled her eyes. "If it'll make you happy, old woman, I'll sleep under the stars."

This post has been edited by kementari: May 30 2008, 08:19 AM