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]

Fort Vlastarus; Second Seed 23, 3E413

Lily pursed her lips, squinting in the dank air of the ruined fort. She had woken from nightmares of her last visit to the Valenwood-Elsweyr border and risen with a determination to distract herself until Vasha returned. She had made her way northward to an old fortress about which she had heard some intriguing rumors.

Only partially consciously, Lily touched the scar on her right cheek with the bare fingertips of her arrow-hand. The rumors were true - half a dozen of the undead fiends had already been laid low by her bow and knife. Lily had been bled by one vampire, months ago, and if she wasn't careful now, another might eagerly take the role Vicente had graciously declined to fill.

She gazed down at the cluster of bodies around the fire below. Bodies, not people - though they walked, laughed, and spoke, they didn't breathe.

But they killed.

So we share one thing in common, Lily thought, and leapt.

She landed almost silently behind the body that used to belong to a Dunmer. Her gamble had paid out - the robed one with only a knife at his belt had been some kind of sorcerer. Red and gold lightning crackled over Lily's fingers as her blade passed through the vampire's throat. Disconcertingly, no spray of hot blood followed the magicka discharge from his veins - the blood left in him had congealed and rotted long ago.

His companions had reacted almost before Lily's boots had touched the ground. The body of an Altmer female sprang back, unsheathing a matched set of wickedly curved shortblades. Yelling a curse, she charged Lily, blades a blur of silver.

Lily, with only a dagger in her hands and one eye on the third walking corpse in the room, hesitated for a fraction of a second too long. The left sword clanged harmlessly off the jet blade of her dagger, but the right, wielded with more power and accuracy than its mate, found its mark in Lily's upper arm. She roared in pain, spinning under the Altmer's upraised left arm and plunging her dagger upward into the sensitive flesh connecting arm and torso. A good strike, Lily knew, but not enough - these fiends died much harder than living beings. Still, it was enough to stagger the vampiress for a moment or two while Lily sought the third corpse.

A short human, he had backed into a corner, cowl over his face, while brandishing a longsword and light shield before him. He seemed to be chanting something, and for a moment Lily saw a glimpse of white fangs beneath the hood.

Unable to give more of her attention to the non-immediate threat, Lily spun back to face the Altmer, ducking just in time to dodge a deadly blow from her right-hand sword. The left, Lily was gratified to see, had been discarded, her left arm now too weak to use. Clotted blood seeped from the wound - So she's a young one, then! - and the arm hung limp at her side. As Lily and the Altmer traded blows, Lily was dimly aware of the chanting from the corner growing in volume and cadence. She feinted left one last time, and slipped suddenly within the Altmer's reach, close enough to embrace her if the fancy took her.

An embrace of sorts, at least, she thought. The younger vampire, off-balance and surprised by Lily's invasion into her personal bubble, stumbled backward, her sword arm coming around in a wide arc ... exactly as Lily had anticipated. She caught the vampire's forearm and wrist in a bone-snapping grasp, and twisted the sword hand cruelly. Momentum and a gentle push did the rest. The vampire wheezed, gaping down at her ruined arm and the blackish fluid flowing in lumps down her chest, and died.

And then Lily ran out of time.

The last vampire finished his chanting, and before she could even fully turn to face him, Lily was lost in a world of blazing white. Lightning leapt from her blade to her jewelry to the metal buckles on her armor, and seemed to fill her ears, mouth, and nose like water. She screamed, soundless in the holocaust of her senses, but the onslaught continued. Faintly, Lily was aware of the gold-hilted dagger in her hand, outstretched like a lightning rod toward her attacker, and her grip tightened lest she lose it in an involuntary spasm.

The barrage let up for a moment, and Lily focused seared eyes on the body that had once been a man. Wincing, she took a step forward, but crumpled to one knee, and then forward onto her hands. The thought entered her head that she might die here, on the floor of this ruin, and a multitude of faces flashed through her mind. Then the breath of respite was over. The magicka storm flashed toward her again, and she writhed facedown on the ground. But it had barely begun to crackle over her again when it stopped abruptly.

Through blurry eyes, Lily watched the last vampire in the fort crumple to the ground. Exhausted, she let her head fall forward onto the blessedly cool flagstones of the fort. Presently she heard quiet footfalls, and then a rough hand pressed against her neck. Lily smelled blood, old and new, a sweaty musk that wasn't her own, and the distinct fragrance of cedar smoke. Inside her head, her subconscious strained to place the familiar scent-memory.

With a moan, she lifted her head and opened protesting eyes. The chestnut gaze that shone down on her was unmistakable.

"S-Speaker," Lily gasped.

"Quiet now, my little shadow," came the reply. Then Lucien knelt beside her, drawing her up to rest against him as he bandaged her arm.

"Patriarchs," he murmured quietly. "Clan leaders, and especially old vampires. They know deeper magicka than our paltry Mages' Guild realizes exists. You must be careful, grey one." He brushed a lock of hair out of her face, and chuckled. "Look, my little shadow -" his hand came away wet with living blood. "You opened my gifts again."

Lily tried to laugh, a weak sound. "Tell... Vicente," she managed, and Lucien's roar of laughter filled the fort.

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

Vasha washed her hands before leaving the victim's home. A short, strapping young Bosmer, with a shock of red hair that stood up like a sheaf of wheat, he was in the running for the easiest kill of her career.

Badly hung over, with a touch of moon-sugar, Vasha guessed. He'd come stumbling through the door at nearly dusk, reeking of yesterday's rotmeth and skooma, and boasting some vicious scrapes on his hands and knees - tree climbing gone awry, she supposed. He'd died soundlessly. The drugs and scrapes would make for an interesting autopsy - If one even occurs, she reminded herself.

As she made her way back to the center of town, Vasha marveled again at how different the border cities had become in just ten short years. Following the Simulacrum, life expectancies and the quality thereof had dramatically declined for the once-noble Bosmer. The War of the Blue Divide and the Five Years' War - the latter of which had been Vasha's personal reason for leaving the province - had left the province stripped and demoralized. Rumors of the return of the Wild Hunt had reached her ears even in Cyrodiil, and the inhabitants of Valenwood seemed to have a fearless, even careless, attitude toward the implications such a rumor held. The inn ahead was no exception. Even a block away, the rowdy noise of the tavern beneath the stars was well audible.

She pushed open the door, reflecting that if she had simply arrived before the wee hours of the morning the night prior, she might have met this Maredhel and be already on her way back to Cyrodiil. She was greeted by a raucous crowd of whirling Bosmer; boy and girl, young and old, all seemed to have a place in the frantic dance.

The bar was a madhouse, but Vasha was gratified to see the old proprietess behind the counter, reaching around and over her sour-faced night attendant as she kept rounds coming for the insistent crowd. The crone recognized her at once and brightened. "Jagga?" she asked, not waiting for Vasha's assent before filling a mug. If the black-haired Bosmer didn't want it, another of them would.

As she pressed the mug into Vasha's hands, she gave a significant glance over to the far corner of the room, where a partially-dressed blonde elf sporting the most impressive pair of legs Vasha had seen in years sat immersed in a cloud of smoke, surrounded by no fewer than ten attractive Bosmer lads.

As she approached, Vasha was assaulted by the unmistakable, heavy smell of moon-sugar, heated to release inhalable fumes. The cloying smoke clung to everything, and nobody in the inn seemed to give any indication that they realized the stuff was illegal by Imperial law. One of the boys next to the girl that Vasha hoped was Maredhel glanced up as she neared the table.

"Hey-hey, darkie, come sit with us for awhile," he jeered, half turning and patting his knee. "Got a seat for you right here, black-hair! Pretty blackbird, come sit!" Vasha ignored him, but as his friends joined in the mocking catcalls, she could feel the points of her ears reddening. The girl still hadn't looked up, nestled as she was on the chest of a well-built youth.

Vasha reached down and tapped the blonde on her exposed shoulder, as the jeering boy next to her turned his pleas to mock dismay. "Excuse me," she said loudly, wondering if the intoxicated girl realized she was about an inch of leather away from being a public exposure. "Are you called Maredhel?"

The girl stirred. "Who wants to know?" she snapped, languidly lowering her shoulders in a pout that indicated she knew precisely how much was on display. She looked up at Vasha...

...and Vasha found herself staring down into a very familar pair of steel-grey eyes, bordered by an identical pair of delicate cheekbones, fine eyebrows, and petite, slightly upturned nose.

Speechless, Vasha could only blink in amazement while the girl cursed her in heavily accented Bosmeri. Lily?! she thought, dumbstruck. Then her eyes fastened on the short hair, the voluptuous curves more at home in a negligee than armor, and the perfectly smooth, unmarked cheeks and chest - no sign of the scars Lucien had put there months ago.

Somewhere Vasha found her voice. "You...are you Maredhel?" she repeated, stupidly. What a question, her mind admonished her. The girl rolled her eyes.

"Yes, for the tenth time. What the tetch do you want?" She looked annoyed, and the boys around her sympathetically continued their harassment of the newcomer.

"I...You...I need you to come with me. Outside. Need to speak to you alone." Vasha mentally cursed herself for her lack of verbal acumen.

The blonde looked even more irritated. "Sure, I'm not doing anything right now. In fact, I was hoping someone would come along with something stupid to take away all my boredom." The boys laughed appreciatively, and Maredhel lay back across the laps of several of the most attractive of them. "Go on out there and wait, I'll be out when I'm done."

Vasha had almost fully returned to herself, but the idea of arguing with someone who looked so much like her dangerous friend was nibbling at her. Still, nothing ventured... She unsheathed her sword and put the tip of it through a couple of inches of table, on a level with Maredhel's eyes.

Those grey eyes widened, then, and the table abruptly fell silent. For all their bravado, it seemed that Maredhel didn't keep the bravest of fighters as her companions.

"I said," Vasha repeated, straightening her back and allowing her full height to lend authority to her words, "that I need to speak to you outside. Now."

Maredhel blinked, and was standing up a second later, tugging the leather cords of her top back onto her shoulders. She was out of the room in a flash, and Vasha tugged the sword out of the table and followed. The little knot in their corner had sobered up quickly.

Hope they didn't pay too much for that skooma, she thought as she left the tavern.

This post has been edited by kementari: May 30 2008, 08:35 AM