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 24, 3E413


All things considered, it was turning out to be a pretty tetchy day.

As soon as she woke up, her senses were assaulted by her body's fury over the way it had been treated the night before. Her thoughts swam sluggishly in a drug-induced hangover, and her throat, stripped raw from the generous amounts of skooma (Probably laced with something else, stinkhorn or kanet, like as not) in which she had indulged, ached at the residual smell of stale smoke that clung to her body and hair. Upon standing, she had immediately barked her shins against an overturned bone-and-leather chair in her tree-hut, and broken both the chair and a fingernail in the resulting indignant fury.

She had made it to her water basin without further casualty, and as her world slowed from its jumbled spin, she clambered through the outstretched branches of her tree and its neighbors, heading toward the lake to bathe. She was nearly there when a bustle of activity caught her bleary-eyed attention. Creeping closer to have a look, and nearly tripping on an unseen knot in the branch in the process, Maredhel saw a gaggle of people clustered around a dwelling not unlike her own.

“Heigh! Maredhel!” called one of the Bosmer. Maredhel didn't recognize him, but then, she didn't usually recognize men who called out to her. Oblivious to his questions and the chatter of the people around her, she had crept to the doorway of the hut and nearly regurgitated what little of the last night's rotmeth that remained in her digestive system. The floor of the hut was painted with blood, and in its center, faceup, eyes staring into the calm midmorning sky – or rather, they would have been, had they not already been eaten out by a family of zealous insects – was the redheaded boy who had lately been Maredhel's nighttime companion. His throat gaped open like a second mouth, and Maredhel found herself vaguely wondering whether his current condition was the reason she'd had to make do with her second-favorite boy the night before.

She left as muddled as she'd come, and by the time she had made it to the lake, she had managed to convince herself that the bad memories of the previous night were primarily attributable to a bad serving of skooma. Having congratulated herself for the sense to hold up under such conditions (and resolving never to permit Jakan to supply the narcotics for the evening again), she scurried up the branches to her tree with never a foot amiss.


And then she saw the envelope on the table.

For a moment she just stood there, openmouthed, gaping at the ancient calligraph that decorated its surface. Such a thing could not be. That dark-haired elf had been a figment of her imagination, a ghost conjured by her subconscious as a result of a bad trip.

Yet there the envelope lay, almost cheerfully benign atop the rough leather skin of the table that made up the meager furnishings of her shack. Maredhel reached out a finger to pick it up, and shivered when she realized it was made from paper. Tree-paper. Not parchment or vellum, paper. She swallowed bile, refusing to admit to herself that this particular atrocity did more than even the sigil on the front to confirm the sender's identity.

Maredhel turned away, a storm of thoughts brewing inside her head. How did she get this here? She's not supposed to be able... and who was that elf last night? Is she still around? She quickly glanced around herself, a the hairs on the back of her neck prickling as she realized what might have happened to her erstwhile redheaded friend. Then her eyes fell on the envelope again, and the confusion and fear gave way to anger. Who does she think she is? She's supposed to be dead to us, Mother and Daddy and even They said so, where does she get off waltzing back and expecting me to... to... what?

Maredhel snatched the envelope off the table, furiously ripping it open. The red wax shattered, and she semi-consciously made sure her fingers weren't touching the ancient sigil on the front. Her eyes read her name at the top first, penned in a dark reddish ink by a practiced hand, and then flew past the body of the message to the signature at the bottom.

She had meant to sit down in her chair in a grand flourish of defeatist resignation, but in the confusion, she had forgotten that she had demolished it earlier that morning. Rubbing her backside and massaging her aching elbow, she picked up the letter again and looked at the name.

She had never wanted to see that name again. She was never supposed to have to see that name again.

Reading the letter's contents and digesting their meaning – for with such a sender, the words were ever only half the message – Maredhel felt a flicker of indignation as she reached the name a third time.

It was turning out to be a pretty tetchy day.

This post has been edited by kementari: Aug 13 2008, 12:10 PM