[i]15th of Rain’s Hand, 5E150
Windhelm, Skyrim[/i]

The underbelly of the Temple of Talos was empty, dark, and damp. It was precisely those things that meant it was a perfect place for Caeliana to remain undisturbed. People didn’t like to be in empty, dark places like that that lay under the shadow of a Divine who had not prevented the Calamity, and seemed to have long forgotten his worshippers. In a lonesome corridor, Caeliana had made a small den - the walls illuminated by a series of torches that lit up the stone with an orange glow. 

The flames flickered and moved from the motions and gusts of air she was creating with her sword as she danced around with it. The echoes of the swishes sounded down the corridor - the only other sound being her breath with each jab and thrust. She wasn’t as fast today. Wulfharth had let his guards do just enough of a number on her that she still felt bruised and sore. She had still sat high enough in his favour to let the incident with the bear slide and not result in open wounds - or lashings like Biruk the guard had suggested. The whole thing had gotten her out of the pit for a few days though, and that was a blessing. Maybe Talos was watching over her after all. 

Her bust lip was sore and her ribs ached enough to prevent her from moving as freely and aggressively as she wanted to. Armour was out of the question too, much too heavy right now. At least she’d had that damn jersey patched up though. Only the flames of the torches kept her warm now. She would slip back into her cloak when she had sufficiently purged the remaining agitated energy from her body.  “Damn this place...” she huffed, expelling air from her lungs and anger too. “Fuck Windhelm… Fuck the guards… Fuck Biruk…” she continued, slashing at the air as best she could - her balance near perfect all things considered. 

The door to the Temple opened and a gust of cold wind shot into the undercroft. Backlit by the featureless, pale daylight was Crimson-Eyes-Killer-Viper, the eccentric and irritable Dunmer scavenger and hunter that called Windhelm, begrudgingly, his home. Viper closed the door behind him and descended the stairs. The sounds of Caeliana’s voice and the slashes of her sword carried through the halls and corridors of the subterranean Temple and Viper followed the noise until he came upon the torch-lit corridor where the Imperial gladiator was practicing. Viper leaned against the wall and a spark of flame appeared between his fingertips, lighting the tobacco in his pipe and briefly illuminating his distinctive eyes. 

“Got yourself in trouble again,” he growled. His voice was as deep and raspy as the rest of his kin. “What did you do this time?”

There was one thing that the Dunmer always managed to do, and that was to sneak up on Caeliana. Whether it was on purpose, or just the way he was - she was never fully sure. As if on cue, he had appeared in the darkness to startle her, back from whatever weary adventure beyond the walls he’d been on this time. She slowed down from her practice to catch her breath again, she was feeling rather tired of the fast pace by now. She began to step as slowly as she could, still swiping down at invisible foes - only now as if she was moving underwater. “Killed a bear. Put him out of his misery.” There was no sense in lying to Viper, he had a keen sense for sniffing out the truth eventually. “Hello to you to, by the way,” she grumbled back at him while she waited for his usual lecture. 

“In the ring?” Viper shook his head and rolled his eyes. “You have to stop breaking his toys. He might break you one day. I've said it so many times: keep your head down, don't do anything stupid,” he continued before a sigh escaped him. “Bet you thought it was worth it, too.” 

To explain or not? The thought did cross her mind but by now she knew better than to try explaining her reasoning to him. She simply looked him dead in the eye, with the same look she always had when something was important to her, eyes narrowed and hardened.“It was the right thing to do.” She rolled her shoulders, softening her stance at last. “What did you get up to this time anyway? You were gone a little longer than usual.”

Putting an animal out of its misery at the expense of one's own health hardly seemed like the right thing to do to Viper, but that's how Caeliana was. All these lofty ideals and morals from those damned books. He decided to let the topic go and answered her question instead. 

“The usual.” The tobacco in his pipe went out and, annoyed, Viper paused to light it again. “Last site I hit gave me some trouble. On the tundra. Old watchtower. Pack of reavers showed up at the same time. Took down two of them, no problem, but the other two waited inside the tower ‘till nightfall.” He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, blowing out rings of smoke that drifted lazily throughout the air. “Long story short, I was shittin’ myself less than fifty yards from a vampire killing two grown men in seconds. Waited ‘till it left, grabbed what I could and scrammed. Took a different route home. Left my fucking bear trap, too.”

“A vampire?” that grabbed her attention. Her fingers closed tighter around the hilt of her sword as if she thought the offending creature would descend upon them there and then. “Where did it come from?” she asked as she paced towards Viper. “Was it just one of them? Have you told the guards? Did the vampire have a nest?” Her eyes flitted back and forth as she considered the scenario. She barely gave him time to register a question before she had another one locked and loaded and ready to fire at him. “Do you think he saw you? Followed you?” Her body tensed up again. [i]A fucking vampire![/i] She thought to herself as she paced back down the corridor again, finally relaxing the grip on her sword. 

“Great gods of nowhere, woman,” Viper mumbled, exasperated. “Do you ever stop asking questions? No, it didn’t see me and it didn’t follow me. I’ve no fucking idea if it has a nest. You think I’m gonna risk my neck to find out? It went back the way it came, up the hills and into the forests ‘round the Throat of the World. This happened two days out from Windhelm, Caeliana. Don’t worry about it.” 

“I’m only asking to gather information, do [i]you[/i] have to get so short about it?” She smirked over at him, but only a little. She ran the sword back into its sheath and took a seat on a rock by the wall, resting her elbows onto her knees. “It just might be dangerous to have vampires coming closer. If you need someone to come out and help you… I can help.” The Imperial looked up from her seat at him, eyes wide. It wasn’t the first time she’d made the suggestion.

Viper couldn’t help but flash a wry smile. “And by [i]helping,[/i] you’re talking about tracking down the vampire and killing it, right? You know that’s not what I do. Nobody does, and with good reason. It’s suicide. The only way I’ve survived so long is by minding my own business. I know what you’re thinking. What about all the poor people out there? Why don’t we do anything to help them?” The Dunmer scoffed and pointed in the direction of the Palace of the Kings through the walls of the undercroft. “That’s on Wulfharth, not us. He keeps the gates shut. I’m just an old elf trying to scrape by, and you’re a girl with a sword. No offense, but you’ve never been outside. You don’t know what it’s like. Not really.”  

Her arms folded over her chest at his words and her foot began tapping at the ground. Next, the eyebrows furrowed and a scowl appeared on her heart shaped face where a smile had been just moments ago. “You could do with being less sardonic. If you weren’t you might not have to find company with a disgraced gladiator under a Temple, you know?” She huffed again, standing back up from her seat sharply. “When was the last time you saw me fight in the pit? You [i]know[/i] I’m more than a girl with a sword.” 

Her fingers rapped over the handle impatiently and she began pacing again, blowing a hair from her face as it fell from her bun. “Besides, you used to give me books that told stories of how one sword can change the world! [i]One sword![/i]” she repeated to him, coming closer to his face, wafting some of the smoke away with the back of her hand. “You’re right about one thing though… I have never stepped outside the walls. But I’m never going to stop asking until you take me, and if you don’t - I will go it alone.”

Viper groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. He was silent for a long time. “How old are you now?” he asked suddenly. 

“I’m… 27 in just a few months,” she responded, the drama of her speech wearing off and her own temper calming back down again. She might have gone overboard this time. 

The Dunmer nodded to himself. “Old enough to decide things for yourself,” he said. “By human standards, anyway.” He squared his shoulders and put out his pipe. “Can't believe I'm saying this. [I]Fine.[/I] But!” Viper pressed a finger against Caeliana's sternum forcefully. “You do everything I say. If we have to fight, we fight, but if we don't have to, we don't. Survival is as much about avoiding danger as it is about defeating it. If you cross someone out there they won't just rough you up a little. They'll eat your liver. Got it?” 

She frowned at him, at the jabbing of his finger and she swatted it away before a smile came to her face again as she realised what the Dunmer was saying. “I swear it on Talos himself…” Caeliana stepped backwards to a statue, where she got down to her haunches to reach behind, scrambling around - feeling her way through the dark until her fingers found a leather strap that she dragged out of the hidden space. She had been hiding it for some time. A bag, filled with supplies, hoarded rations, and a bed roll. “I'm glad you've finally gotten on board,” she sighed and her smile faded. “There's nothing here, Viper. I'd rather die out there than in here.” 

Laughing in earnest for the first time in weeks, Viper laid eyes on the bag Caeliana conjured from its hiding spot. “You really weren’t kidding when you said you would’ve gone out there by yourself, eh?. Now you’ve left me no choice.” He was grumbling, but there was a glint in his eyes that showed he was still amused. “Can’t let you go out there by yourself. This Talos of yours would never forgive me.” 

He looked back at her and frowned at her last words. “Don’t say shit like that,” Viper hissed. “A lot of people before you have had the same thoughts. Trust me when I say they all regretted it when they were crying for their mothers with their guts in their hands. You have to go out there with the mindset that you cannot and will not allow yourself to die.”

Her eyes broke from his gaze as she thought about the severity of his words. “Sounds like those men needed a girl with a sword on their side.” There was no arrogance to her words, and she half smiled back up towards him. “You already said Wulfharth will break me sooner or later, who is to say he won't spill my guts. Danger in here, danger out there. I'd rather risk it. I mean that. I mean, imagine his stupid fucking face when he realises his number Nine crossed the wall.” 

“Would you even be allowed back in, once you’ve done that?” Viper asked skeptically. “There’s no real sanctuary to be found beyond these walls. Longest I’ve ever gone without returning to Windhelm is three weeks. You’ll be signing up for a lifetime of fear, stress and danger, if Wulfharth wants to make an example out of you and refuse you.”

“Yes, I have good warrior's blood, he'd find a way to use that.” She fell silent, averting her eyes from Viper once more, turning her face away now while she pretended to look for something in the bag. “And you're wrong, there is something out there. I know it, I [i]feel[/i] it.” She knew he would have something cynical to rebuke it with, but she didn't care. He had said yes, that's all she needed.

Rising to the bait, Viper huffed indignantly. “Like what? I’m one-hundred-and-twelve years old, Caeliana. You think you can feel something out there that I haven’t seen yet? You’re not a mystic, you’re a woman with a dream. It’s admirable, but mistaken. You can come with me and see for yourself, but don’t be surprised if you find me telling you ‘I told you so’ before long.”

“Oh simmer down,” she called out at him, “take another puff of your pipe already.” There was no malice in her tone as she attempted to disarm him and have him wind his irritation at her back in, she even made a winding motion with her hand, mischief in her eyes. “You're right, I'm not a mystic. And if we go out there and you are correct then you can be hold it over my head forever that you were right. [I]But[/i], if I'm right… If I'm right and we do find something out there, then don’t be surprised if you find me telling [i]you[/I] that ‘I told you so’.” The Imperial rose to her height, the bag looped over her shoulder and a dimpled smile on her face.

“Bah.” Viper waved dismissively. After a second or two, he lit up the pipe again. “Say what you want.” He looked at the bag over her shoulder and shook his head. “I still have business here. Meet me by the gates at dawn tomorrow. Don’t do something stupid again in the meantime, alright?”