A Study in Velvet Options

[Marcel Rhodes]

I am not particularly good at judging people. However, despite the considerable time it took for my thoughts to slowly grind together like a rusted Dwemer contraption, I became aware extremely quickly that the individual shooting at me could conceivably wish me harm.

Weapons were rare here. The Senchal police, such as they were, technically did patrol this area; however, their primary method of engaging with the local community involved little more than beating it with the flats of swords and confiscating anything ‘thief-ish’ from its person. On their priority list, unsurprisingly, weapons came an unquestionable first. What this meant, in the deductive sense, was that this was not a local. What this meant, in the more pressing sense of not dying young, was that I was unarmed.

In theory.

A set of claws, propelled by ancestral memories, flipped out like the arm of a catapult. My father - a pretentious know-it-all if there ever was one - insisted that our claws were made of the same ‘essence’ as our fur, but given that I have never seen a man impaled on hair, I have since discarded this theory in favour of what they actually are: bone.

With their tips scraping across the stone ground, I dived to my left as another arrow swept past me, carrying a gust of wind with it. This one was good.

I rolled as I landed, and I scooped up a good-sized splinter of rubble in my hand. I flipped slightly clockwise as I did so, the momentum of my body flinging the stone at my attacker far better than a mere throw. It whistled towards her, and I swear that the term was literal.

She caught it right out of the air with her right hand, slammed it downwards into the fountain that now separated us, and notched another arrow.

---

Hunger, as has already been explained, does odd things to the psyche. It is, in its most primal form, our natural state of existence, the cornerstone of our mad struggle for survival; with this in mind, it is unsurprising that it reduces you to the level of an animal.

---

So I charged her down.

Launching myself at a full run towards the fountain, I raised a hand and muttered a word; as I leapt onto the surface of the water, I stayed above the surface, my feet staying dry as I made the final lunge-

At which point, her arrow caught me in the left shoulder. If it weren’t for my near loss of balance, I would not have noticed, but as it was the shock prevented my claws from getting a good grip on her throat as I drove her to the ground.

So I settled for pinning her against the stone flags, claws at the ready, with the heavy breathing that comes from a torso wound.

Si’valit (although at this point, we had not been formally introduced) simply looked me in the eye and said, “you’ll do.”