A Skyrim tale - Vengeance and Redemption, Eilidh MacAuley's Tale Options

[PhonAntiPhon]

HELGEN

"What's your name, Elf?"
The shouts of soldiers and the clatter of weapons echoed around the windblown courtyard. Someone's discarded linen shawl blew between the legs of the small group of guardsmen standing lazily to attention beside an old and scarred desk set up in the middle of the wide space.

Behind this desk, holding a quill pen poised over a ragged sheet of parchment, sat a hard-eyed and angular woman of maybe 50 summers, bedecked in the regalia of a captain of the guard.
She sighed, and waved the quill at a soldier standing behind the prisoner.

With a grunt of acknowledgement the soldier lifted his spear and slammed the butt end of it into the small of the captive's back.
She fell to her knees on the hard dusty ground, sucking a pained breath in through between dirty, clenched teeth.
"Your name." Demanded the captain once again.

After a moment longer, the prisoner looked up at the captain behind her desk; regarded her with large, nearly black eyes set in a gaunt face framed by lank, straw-coloured hair from which protruded the pointed tips of distinctive Elven ears.

The Elf opened her mouth and said in a low, cracked voice; "Eilidh."

The Captain regarded her a moment longer.

The Bosmer - (who, incidentally smelt... well she smelt terribly, but she also smelt like a wolf or a bear; slightly "meaty" and "musty"; sour and rotten. All her kind did, it was as distinctive as it was unwholesome; a result of their twisted diet. And yet, the Captain had to admit to herself, she found this one more than a little fascinating) - The elf's face and body betrayed no small degree of history and hardship; thin she was and yet beneath the ragged sackcloth shirt her body was nevertheless sinewy and bowstring taut, the compact muscles hard and surprisingly powerful; at least one of her men had found that out the hard way when they had attempted to capture her.

Her skin was heavily freckled, beneath a layer of greasy filth, and marked by innumerable abrasions, pocks and marks of all shapes and sizes. She was heavily tattooed with any number of vulgar designs.
But it was her face, more than anything, that told of the hardness of her life until now, it's end.

The left side of the Bosmer's face was a mass of scarring, the damaged skin pale and livid against the dirt that covered her. Dark warpaint was smeared across her cheeks and the sockets of her eyes, which were black and moist; vastly deep like some animal's and rimmed with a livid red as of an incipient infection.
The woman's mouth was set in a thin hard line, the lips bloodless.

But enough of this.
She sighed, waved the quill again and once more the butt of the spear connected with the kneeling Bosmer, hitting her shoulderblade with a crack barely muffled by the thin material that covered her.
"ALL of your name, bosmer." She said, spitting out the last word like an insult.

"MacAuley, Eilidh MacAuley." Said Eilidh finally, her dry voice heavily accented.
The captain grunted in satisfaction and carefully wrote down the name on the parchment, poking out her tongue in concentration.
When she had finished she looked up at Eilidh again, saying; "So, bosmer, have ye anything to say in ya defence, afore I pass my judgement?"
It was a pointless question, and she knew it.

Eilidh knew it too.
"Téigh gnéas féin agat soith..." She hissed through yellowed and gritted teeth.
"Speak Imperial!" Snapped the Captain. Eilidh winced as the guard behind her applied his spear to her back once again.
She glanced hatefully at the woman behind the desk and then, a cold half-smile flickering across her lips she said; "Go **** ye'sel' *****."

There was an audible gasp from the men around her at this display of blatent insolence, and for a moment even their leader looked taken aback.
The Captain gathered herself.
"Even if you were not already dead, bosmer, now you are for sure..."

Silence held sway for a moment and Eilidh, naked but for the thin cloth shivered a little in the chill air blowing through the garrison's courtyard.
She ached all over, or at least more than usual. Her brains were pounding in her ears and her mouth had a dry and phlegmy taste in it. Her condition was not helped in any way by the fact that she had not had wine for some 3 days now.
More though, was the pain of what that pig of a legionary had done to her.

Hers had been a hard life, she had had to fight every inch of the way barring a few brief patches of respite. She looked, she knew, every one of the 173 seasons that she had spent on this Gods-forsaken world.
During her time she had committed... dubious acts, both physically and morally, and yes amongst those had been the auctioning of herself, when money had been tight and survival the only factor.
But that was different, she had been in control; calling the shots she had run the game and come out the victor in those encounters.
Yesterday though, that had been something else entirely, that was evil even by her standards of behaviour. There had been a wrong visited upon her the likes of which should never happen.
Ever.

And then, out of the corner of her dark eye she saw him, standing just behind the guard Captain's entourage he was.
He was a big man, broad of girth; fat, sweaty jowls, and sallow oily skin. He was wearing a helmet and facing slightly away from her but she knew him; his stinking greasy body, his breath hot and sour against her, his little piggy eyes.
Oh, she knew him alright.
The blood in her veins ran cold as ice, her heart pounded against her ribs.

He turned then, and saw her.
His plump mouth spread open in fat grin, the thick lips pink against his pale cheeks. He pointed at her with a stubby finger whilst with his other hand he made a sign, the meaning of which was only too clear to the Bosmer.

The sound of the Captain's voice droning on - a litany of her crimes, chief amongst which was simply of having been born a Bosmer - had long since faded into the distance, to be replaced by one repeated thought:
"HE MUST PAY. HE WILL PAY."
Over and over and over, a cold and hard nugget of vengeance.

Had she been able, she would have leapt at him then and there even though her hands were bound.
Indeed, even as she thought it, her body moved of it's own accord, her mouth twisting into a snarl...

...Then hands grabbed her and lifted her roughly to her feet, through a red haze of bloody murder she vaguely heard the Captain's voice; "...for the crime of being an unwelcome element in the Imperial Province of Skyrim, for numerous

breaches of our laws, I hereby refer you for summary execution."

Her captors walked her across the courtyard to the block that sat lumpen and solid; bloodstained and chipped, in the centre of the courtyard. A mute symbol of oppression and arbitrary justice.
She passed him and their eyes met - his, mocking and leering and hers, hate-filled.
She kept her eyes on him as she was led away, maintained contact even as the tendons in her neck began to creak and ache.

Finally she faced the front, faced her future.
173 years.
He Would Pay. Even if in Death she made a pact with all of the Daedra themselves to send her back, He Would Pay.

173 years.

They forced her roughly to her knees, pushing her head onto the block.
Rage boiled within her.

173.
He Would Pay.

She sensed the headsman raise his sword.
1...
7...

The world exploded into roaring fire, and everything around her went insane.

-x-

This post has been edited by PhonAntiPhon: Mar 10 2014, 08:42 PM

[PhonAntiPhon]

TO RIVERWOOD
PART 1 - DEPARTURE
[The Flesh, Starlight, Unwelcome Attention]

Had Eilidh picked butchery as her career of choice, she would undoubtedly have made a really very competent butcher.
Working fast, she had within thirty minutes of Ralof's departure skilfully flensed the skin from the buttocks and thighs of both corpses and sliced herself off some reasonable cuts of meat.
They weren't exactly fresh but she'd had worse. She wrapped the meat in some rags and stowed it in her pack. She would continue to use it until it was putrid, her stomach long since being hardened to such things.
Rolling the woman's body over, she busied herself with the corpse's chest and, having cut out the heart, dropped the knife on the floor and squatting back on her haunches took a bite, chewing thoughtfully as cold, dark blood ran thickly down over her chin.

She'd always preferred her meat raw. Who had time to stop and cook the stuff anyway?
There seemed little point and besides, she liked the taste of uncooked flesh if she were honest. Unlike her kin she'd never eaten of anything other than Elf or human, certainly as an adult.
She'd tried Orc once, when there was nothing else, but it had made her very sick. At a pinch she would take animal meat, but only in desperation.

Certainly in her youth her diet had been more consistent with her Bosmeri peers, but when you're a carnivore and you are surrounded by the bodies of the dead on some desolate battleground - Wull ye'll b'takkyn' th'moast perlentyfull stuph, wull ye noe?
Why let it go to waste? There was more than enough for both her and the carrion crows.

So it was that her reputation, even amongst her mercenary and soldier comrades, was a fearsome one indeed; and, when she had lived in State and been trusted a confidante, shield maiden, and mistress to her lord - (oh for such a brief time!) - the kitchens of his house had been sore pressed to provide, and times were when more than one prisoner had found that he or she was destined for a fate as unconventional as it was gruesome.

She stood up, kicking out her legs to loosen them. Walking silently over to the open doors, she looked out into the night. Shortly after Ralof had left she had extinguished almost all of the candles in the chamber, so that as little light as possible would spill out into the world. It made little difference to her, her Elven eyes were more than satisfactorily adapted to seeing in the gloom of a badly-lit space.
She picked out the immediate details; the pit before her, straggled trees on its far rim. Beyond that lay her quarry, out of her view for now, but she would have him.
He was out there.
Somewhere.

She tore off another chunk of her meal, dropping the uneaten waste into the darkness at her feet. A human heart was a weighty thing indeed to partake of and it was seldom indeed that she could finish a whole one.
In truth, though it was practiced, instances of routine cannibalism amongst Bosmeri were rare; a fallen enemy for example, or a ritual feast at a funeral.
Eilidh was an exception amongst exceptions, even if she mostly dined nowadays on humans, and therefore was a hardly a cannibal; not that it bothered her, one way or the other.
She wiped her face with the back of her hand and licked her lips; turned back to the darkened room.
"Tyme tae goe." She said into the gloom.

Gathering her pack she slung it onto her back; hefted the warhammer over her shoulder, after having attached to it a makeshift sling fashioned from some discarded leather strapping.
Then she set out into the night.

She skirted the rim of the pit, ignoring the sickly sweet smell of putrefaction that wafted up from it. Keeping low, she kept going until she reached a point opposite the door from which she had first exited.
She was pretty certain that there was nothing about - alive at any rate - but it always paid to be cautious, and with that in mind she peered gingerly over the rim of the pit, and looked out on the world.
The land below sloped almost continuously downwards from Helgen as it approached the river by which the town of Riverwood lay, the closest decent settlement to her in a northerly direction. As was in the name, the land around it was forested and green, the ever-present rocks covered with moss and grass - Lying by the banks of the White River which flowed northeasterly through the flatlands on it's way to the sea and spawned in the vastness of Lake Ilinalta to the south and west - Riverwood was a pleasant enough place to stop off at, for most people.
That was a way to go from where she was though, and the land about her here was bleak and cold, bare stone with little in the way of vegetation to soften the chill winds that blew down from the peaks around about. Eilidh shivered and wished she'd managed to pick up more in the way of warm clothing.

Indeed, she figured that it was to Riverwood that she would first head, and from there to Whiterun. Her aim ultimately was to get to Solitude, where she knew a couple of people who might help her in her search, she hoped - it was far to the north obviously - but she had nothing but time and it was not as if she had not traversed the length and breadth of the province before.
For all of her confidence though she was nonetheless very aware that her prey could be anywhere, could even have left the province altogether; not running from her mind, but simply running from the dragon, or the army, or for any of a number of reasons.
Whiterun would be a logical place to kick things off though, there was a garrison there and for all of the Jarl's studied neutrality it was an Imperial City. She had been unpopular in Whiterun, but tolerated, and she did have friends there. Tullius' decree could have changed all that though, and for the worse too. Eilidh's friends were not the sort for whom loyalty meant much more than a few gold and maybe a quick one up against the back of the Bannered Mare.
Still, you had to start somewhere.

"Ruvva Woode thenne Whyte Runne 'tis thenne." She said to herself. "Buit fust..."

Unbuckling the straps that secured the crotchpiece of her armour, she let it hang lose between her thighs and adjusting her position slightly, relieved herself onto the chill ground.
It was painful and she winced, and from between her feet there arose a strong, acrid smell. Ever since her experience at (mostly) the hands and feet of the guard whom she was so assiduously seeking, she'd noticed her piss had taken on a somewhat thick consistency with the occasional streak of blood.
She was fairly certain that he might very well have broken something inside her body.
Maybe she would die.
"Ai wul fxxxyn' tek 'im wythe meh i'en ai doo." She thought sourly as, grimacing, she buckled up her armour, pausing for a moment to scratch at herself.
She was also reasonably sure that she had lice, a shave and a wash were definitely in order, at some point.

Tutting under her breath, she adjusted the warhammer and with a weather eye on her surroundings and what may or may not be about in them, she set off downslope into the frosty darkness.

++++

It is roughly twenty five miles to Riverwood from Helgen, maybe a little more. Eilidh had made that journey in considerably less than 9 hours before now, even allowing for the terrain and taking the odd break.
Some two and a half hours into her journey, she stopped, hunkering down in the lee of a sizeable boulder. There was a cold wind blowing down from the peaks and though she was undoubtedly hardy enough, she had been pretty comprehensively beaten about over the last few days or so and without a cloak, save for the rather shabby furs she'd managed to pick up from the torture chamber, her body was feeling the rigours of the environment rather more than usual.
The boulder provided some cover but not really enough and she was shivering as she unslung her pack and put it on the ground in front of her, laying the warhammer next to it.
"Ah'm gettyn' tae owlde fer thus." She grumbled to herself as she rooted around in her pack, looking for the wine.
Having located and withdrawn it, she took a big deep swig before recorking the container and replacing it in the pack.
She sat down on the ground then, long legs outstretched, back against the rock. The earth was damp beneath her buttocks and thighs and she pulled the furs closer about her.

Scratching behind an ear, she blew out her gaunt cheeks and looked up into the night sky.
There were no clouds and the stars in the vault shone brightly down, with neither moon to outshine them. They sparkled distantly; she'd always loved the stars, ever since she was a child.
They looked to her like precious white stones twinkling in black velvet. They made her want to reach out and possess them.

As a young girl she had often lain on her back on the grass outside her house on clear nights and, holding a thumb and forefinger up above her, had amused herself by imagining that she was plucking the stars down from the sky.
On a whim, she did it now, chuckling to herself.
"Ye byg gurl..." she said under her breath. "Wut star wuid evva fall onne yoo?" She smiled a small, wistful smile.
"Haowe phar d'ye thynke ye've cum anneewai?"

Dropping her hand to her lap, she thought for a moment, chewing on the tip of her tongue.
"Lessee, aboot tenne 'o' th'clokke ai rekkyn... mebbee syx myalls." She sighed and made a face. "Yer ryte, an' prollee harf tha'..."

The events of the last few days had surely taken their toll on her, she ran a hand over her belly; it felt bruised inside from where she had been repeatedly kicked.
"Ah'm nae yntae thus..." She muttered.
She'd rest up at Riverwood for a little, get her strength back. She would be no good on the road or anywhere else as she was.

Suddenly she froze.
Off to her right had been a sound, a stealthy sound; not like the other night noises with which she was surrounded - the sighing of the wind, the rustlings of small animals.
Again it came, slightly further round this time. Unless she was very much mistaken it sounded like someone or something was trying to flank her.

"Fxxx tha'"
Very slowly she stood up, the downy hairs on her arms and the back of her neck standing up.
She put a hand to the hilt of the knife sheathed at her belt.
The sounds were definitely moving round behind her, on the other side of the boulder.
Eilidh's guts may have been in a mess but there was nothing at all wrong with her hearing and she was certain she heard a whispered voice, hastily cut off.

-x-

This post has been edited by PhonAntiPhon: Mar 26 2014, 06:13 AM