Tides of Oblivion, Running never solved anything, but it sure puts it off Options

[liliandra nadiar]

With the several other high quality fics floating around the board, I thought I'd give a shot at one of my own.


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1:1 - What do you do with a drunken sailor?
27th Last Seed, 3E33

The poundings pulled me from Vaermina's grip; sadly, I was familiar with each one. The pounding behind my eyes was the wages of stupidity for accepting Filch's challenge of a drinking contest at that cheap tavern behind the Docks. The pounding along my hands and arms would be from the brawl that Filch started after losing said contest to some brown-haired Bosmer girl. I think I saw her lift his coin purse as well. The last pounding was along my jaw from the fist of some guards arriving to 'restore peace'. I'd felt the first types of poundings several times in the year I had been aboard the Seatub Clarabella though not the last since I left Water's Edge.

Feeling the inside of my mouth with my tongue, I assured myself that the oh-so-important Imperial's steel fist hadn't removed any teeth while I sat up to look around. This is not a guard lockup, I realized with a hiss. From a narrow window set well above easy reach of all but the tallest of Nords, light danced along molding stone. Of course that could just have been an effect of the hangover that was making things hard to see. Across the room a rickety table, more like a stool with ambitions, held an earthenware pitcher, cup and plate. Rolling off what felt like hay under a coarse cloth, I got to my feet, very aware of the hangover pounding behind my eyes. I absently managed to notice I was no longer in the simple olive vest and leather pants I had on the night before. Someone had put some prison clothing on me, a thought I dearly wished I hadn't had. A metallic rattle followed a bump to my shoulder and, with growing feeling of dread, I looked over to see two pairs of very rusted chains hanging from the ceiling, an obscenely cheerful torch burned my eyes behind them, prompting a spin that also didn't help my head. Still, one thing managed to percolate up from my mead-soaked mind.

"Cacat." I exhaled. How, in the name of the Nine, did I end up in a fetching prison?

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"I must surely be dead, and in the halls of Azura to look upon such a vision." A voice sounded from beyond the bars that made up the door of my new room. I, slowly, turned my head and pushed a lock of flame-colored hair behind an ear. It seemed my neighbor was a Dunmer as well, between my blurred eyesight and the shadows he was in, I couldn't make out much. I didn't really want to; his voice was sending waves of revulsion down to an already rebelling stomach. "You are so beautiful, my dear Dunmer maiden," He cooed, which sent a fresh wave down, "One of the guards owes me a favor, you know. I could get us put in the same cell. Would you like that? You should have some fun before the end." This time I had to keep my mouth closed and force the nausea back down. Fun? With him? I'm pretty sure he's older then Minx, probably even dad. The idle thought of my elder sister helped settle my nerves some. Even though I hadn't seen her since she took off one night, memories of her had helped see me through the long days in the small village before I left myself. The mer's invitation, as well as any others, was something I had managed to avoid. It helped that the crew of the Clarabella knew I was a Witch, it was, after all, the reason I managed to get hired. It was also something they spread about at every port we stopped in. The reputation was good to avert unwanted attention, but it was also very problematic in getting wanted attention.

"Yeah, you heard me. No matter what the law says. No matter what they told you. You're going to die in here! You're going to die!" The hysterical, vindictive laughter brought me back to the present and I sent an irritated glare to the mer. Really, yelling around a hung over sea Witch was not the best of ideas. Or maybe it was, I certainly couldn't focus my thoughts well enough to do anything to him anyways. Deciding to ignore the perverted, crazy old mer, I trudged over to the stool and gracelessly flopped down and put my aching head in my hands. Maybe in an hour or so I'd be able to focus enough to cast some healing and recovery spells.

I had no idea how long I sat there, could've been hours or seconds for all I was aware of the rest of the world. I just kept practicing the mind exercises Gaspar taught me before he left for the Imperial City.

"What's this prisoner doing here?" A strident and very annoyed voice shattered what peace I had managed to gather. It seemed my cell had become a popular place, three humans in armor and a fourth in the over-embellished robes of a noble stood on the other side of the bars. There was a minor protest from one before the woman cut him off.

"Prisoner! Stand back, we won't hesitate to kill you if you get in our way!" The woman, a Breton if I was hearing her accent right, demanded. Wait... they're coming in here?

"You! Prisoner! Stand aside. Over by the window." One of the two armored men demanded as he slipped a key into the lock. Yep, they are. Just what I need. A rutting noble to deal with in addition to everything else. Never the less, I staggered off the stool, banging my knees against the solid wall as I pushed my back into the stone under the window. Apparently now satisfied a ragged teenaged Dunmer girl in equally ragged clothing posed no further threat to three armed and armored men, the procession filed in, the gate opener standing right in front of me with a further admonishment to not move. The noble, a white haired Imperial, passed by and what at first was an idle curious look, rapidly turned into such a razor sharp focus I almost jumped back from it.

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"You ... I've seen you...You are the one from my dreams..." Great, another perverted old man I thought, right before the gleam of red on his chest finally registered. Wait... that's the Amulet of Kings... he... this is... Cacat! It's the fetching Emperor! Oddly the fecthing Emperor(!) seemed to be waiting for a response from me. What did he want? Should I bow or curtsy? Oh I hoped not, if I bent over I was going to be sick on the ground and that would definitely be a bad move.

"W-what's going on?" I managed before a quick glance at the irritated face of the Imperial watching me had a tentative, "Sir?" added to the end.

"Assassins attacked my sons, and I'm next." Oddly, he didn't seem too bothered by the latter as I would've thought. "My Blades are leading me out of the city along a secret escape route. By chance, the entrance to that escape route leads through your cell." Of course it did. A cell I was apparently just tossed into a few hours before. Insanely, for a moment I wondered if Lord Orius had arranged this to get back at me before I cast the thought away. It was followed by an equally insane urge to ask the fetching Emperor(!) why I was in his prison. As if he would know, or care, about what some unnamed guard did to an equally unnamed sailor in the hind-end of one city in his empire.

Before I could have anymore 'bright' ideas, the Breton pushed at an apparently random stone next to the bedding and I felt a surge of magicka being released. I gaped dumbly as the bedding stone sank and the wall behind it ground open.

"Better not close this one, there's no way to open it from the other side." The Breton instructed the other two Blades; they had to be Blades, the Emperor's personal guards. The Imperial growled at me once more while the other man, a Redguard I noticed, said something about it being my lucky day. I'm pretty sure he was being facetious. I stood there, blankly looking at the hole in the wall before looking back, they had closed the gate out, and the pervert in the other cell was back at his and... Okay, not staying here to look at that. Down the hole with the heavily armed and nervous humans and the fetching Emperor(!) it was.

With only a slightly halting stride, I set off after the humans.

This post has been edited by liliandra nadiar: Nov 11 2011, 07:20 PM