Hank

The Witcher: Dance of the Cobra and the Wyvern

Kraeg’s Hill, Kaedwen
Summer, sometime in the 13th century

The witcher rode into the village astride his black steed halfway through the morning. The sun was not yet at its peak but the peasants had already begun to gather in the shade of the trees that dotted the valley, the lone suppliers of mercifully cool shadow between the amber fields of grain. Kraeg’s Hill had been constructed on top of the eponymous highland that rose towards the far end of the valley. Forests dominated the edges of the valley and snow-capped mountains rose beyond them on all sides, for such a land was Kaedwen; large swaths of it were uninhabitable mountain ranges. The wind, always a powerful force in the valley, was coming down from the mountains in the east and brought warm air with it. Even this far north, the summers could be hot. Clouds sailed lazily overhead like pieces of white cotton candy and the trees bowed their canopies gracefully. It was an idyllic sight, but appearances could be deceiving. Valker of Kerach knew this well.

He dismounted from his horse, a fine Mahakaman stallion that he had christened Charles after receiving it as a reward from a grateful baron in Velen about four years past, upon reaching Kraeg’s Hill’s inn. With trees in anything but short supply, the village’s houses were fashioned from wood and featured straw rooftops. Children were playing on the muddy main road, chasing after loudly protesting gaggles of geese, while the elders watched them from their porches. Their eyes were sure to find Valker as well and the witcher’s sharp hearing picked up on their mutterings without trouble. Peasants always thought they were being clever.

“That be a witchman, sure as sure. Two swords on his back. Bad omen, that.”

“Oh hush, Kerd. Might be he’s here about the contract. Nothing wrong with that. It’s honest work.”

“Finding out where that whoreson buggered off to? We’re all better off without him, and you know it. Damn waste of the lord’s coins, I say.”

Valker looked up from Charles’ saddlebags to glance in their direction. The sunlight brought out the blond in his hair and his beard and reflected brightly off the polished pommels and crossguards of the swords sheathed across his back. He stood out amongst the village’s population as much as a siren would be out of place in a forest. Every inch of him, from the steel toes of his sturdy boots to the midnight blue fabric of his robes, was decidedly extraordinary. And yet he seemed modestly and practically dressed, without vanity or pretense. Not fit for a village and not fit for a ball. A true outsider.

“Work,” Valker muttered to himself, a trait common to witchers. “Good.” He was in need of crowns. Well, he was always in need of crowns, for a man like him could never have enough. His feline eyes fell upon the notice board that had been erected outside the inn’s entrance. Having made sure sure that Charles, who carried the foreboding skull of a dead leshen on his flank, had enough water to drink and hay to eat from the inn’s modest stable, Valker made his way to the notice board and inspected it, his hands on his hips, spine straight as an arrow. As usual, the notice board was mostly filled with the kind of insignificant trifle that peasants bothered themselves with, but there was also an important looking piece of parchment signed with a genuine wax seal.

To all denizens of Kraeg’s Hill,

One of my guardsmen has gone missing two days hence. As my men are a reliable and professional regiment, I suspect foul play -- or worse. A full purse of crowns awaits the man that can discover his whereabouts and, if possible, rescue him from his predicament, whatever that may be.

Come to the manor for details. I wish to speak with all who attempt to complete this task personally. Men without a sword need not apply.

Signed,
The Right Honorable Lord of Kraeg’s Hill, Karthwin and Kingfisher’s Hollow,
Reeve Aunsellus

“Foul play, or worse,” Valker repeated under his breath. Peasants were liable to see monsters everywhere and blamed all their misfortunes on them -- if they weren’t too busy blaming mages, non-humans or even witchers -- but for the lord of the area to suggest such a thing, there might actually be a tangible reason. He turned around and looked behind him at the valley as it winded away into the distance, his eyes scanning the forests on either side. He had known monsters to hide in less ideal places. And even if there was no monster to be slain, finding out what happened to the guardsman should prove to be an easy task for one of the best trackers of the Northern Realms. And that meant easy coin.

First things first, however. He was both hungry and thirsty and did not trust the lord to provide nourishment or refreshment for every visitor. Valker turned back to the inn and stepped inside, the wooden doors swinging shut behind him. Predictably, everyone in the establishment stopped what they were doing and looked up to gawk at him. Four men were sitting at a table playing gwent, the innkeeper was pouring an old man at the bar a drink, and a gaggle of girls that barely looked old enough to be drinking rye were seated in the back. One of them giggled, staring at Valker with eyes the size of saucers. Another one shushed her.

Expertly sensing the tension in the room of her inn, the keep spoke up and cut through the silence with a warm voice. “Master witcher, welcome. What can I get you?”

After a further second or two of meeting everyone’s gaze with his own stern, piercing stare and forcing them to look away, Valker rolled his shoulders and stepped up to the bar, taking a seat on a stool on the opposite end of where the old man was sitting. “A stout and a meal. Your recommendation.” His voice was deep, pleasantly so, but bereft of mirth -- he spoke with the same commanding tone that a general might use, expecting to be obeyed. He looked up at the woman with a furrowed brow, his expression somewhere between silent judgement and mild impatience.

The innkeep, looking to be in her thirties, blue-eyed and with long brown hair down to her waist, flustered for a moment and cleared her throat while she fiddled with her fingers. “The grilled chicken with a side of mushrooms,” she said, regaining her composure. “Best we have, master witcher.”

Valker nodded. “Very well. Make it so.”

As people picked up their conversations in the rest of the inn Valker adjusted the tilt of his head slightly in order to overhear them, but found himself rudely interrupted by the old man at the bar, head devoid of hair save for a few straggles round the sides but sporting a magnificent mustache.

“What brings you to these parts, good man?” he asked, his voice as shaky as the hands with which he was nursing a drink that Valker did not recognize.

“The Path,” Valker said dryly without looking at him, not expecting -- nor wishing -- the man to understand him.

“Witcher’s lot, eh?” the old man retorted unexpectedly. He grinned a gaptoothed grin. “Name’s Mandring. Folks call me Manny.”

Valker looked at Manny for a few seconds, his face unchanged from when he had sized up the innkeep. “Valker.”

“Gods preserve ya, Valker. I hired one of your kind once when I was a young man. Was the ealdorman, y’see. Had a problem with one of them big… whatchamacallit? Rooster’s head, dragon’s wings, screams like a dying pig?”

“Cockatrice.”

“Aye, aye, that’s the one. Had a problem with a big cockatrice. Funny name, that. Either way, whole village pitched in to hire a witcher. Fellow killed the beast in a day. Slept with my daughter, gone the next morn. Good man,” Manny said, wheezing at his drink. Valker deduced that must have been laughter. “Now my Clara has young’uns of her own that are ‘bout the size of you! Ah, how time flies, eh?”

Valker nodded slowly. “On wyvern’s wings.”

Manny grinned his grin again and pointed a finger at Valker. “That’s just right. On wyvern’s wings. Nice turn of phrase, that. Have you read the notice yet? One the lord posted?”

“I have, and I’m going up to the manor to speak to him after my meal,” Valker said and glanced in the direction of where the innkeep had disappeared off to -- presumably the kitchen. “Couldn’t help but overhear people talking about the guardsman outside. Not a popular man, I take it?”

“Oh, no, no.” Manny shook his head and took a sip of his drink at the same time, turning both simple actions into a needlessly complicated procedure that resulted in him spilling some of it down his tunic. “Normally I wouldn’t be one to speak ill of the dead and all that, but Jon’s a right rotten bastard.”

“Mind your manners, Manny!” one of the gwent players said without looking up. The others laughed.

Valker ignored them. “He’s dead?” he asked. The innkeep finally returned with his stout and his meal. He ignored her too, save for the crowns he dropped on the countertop.

“I hope so,” Manny said darkly, dabbing at his tunic after having finally caught up to the mishap with his drink.

“Hm,” Valker hummed before he turned to his order and set about the task of devouring it in short order. The conversation was clearly over and even an old fool as daft as Manny could tell. He muttered something under his breath while he continued to dry himself with his handkerchief.

A few minutes later, Valker’s ravenous appetite sated and the stout having been downed in a single gulp that prompted a smattering of applause from the gwent players, the witcher heard light and trepid footsteps approaching from behind him. He looked over his shoulder to find the same wide-eyed girl standing there that had giggled at his arrival earlier.

“Sorry to bother ya,” she began, her arms wrapped around herself. “But -- but are you a real witcher? From the stories, and all that? You look like one, with the swords and all that, but the other girls -- they don’t believe you are.”

Valker sighed, an almost imperceptible exhale through his nose, and turned on his stool to face her. Without a word, he simply held up his medallion for the girl to inspect.

Her eyes widened even further, an act Valker had previously thought impossible. Her grin was almost painfully enthusiastic and her stare flickered between his medallion and his eyes rapidly. “Ah! So it is true! Have you killed many--”

“My turn. Are you a real whore?” Valker interrupted her, dropping the medallion back to his chest. “You look like one.”

The girl’s excitement turned to offense in the blink of an eye. “Nay!” she huffed and took a step back, hands on her hips, all her knowledge about how dangerous witchers were forgotten in sight of this affront to her decency. “I’m a good and proper woman, thank you very much!”

“My mistake,” the witcher replied dryly. He got to his feet and towered over the girl for a few seconds. She took another step back, her indignation turning to uncertainty beneath Valker’s slit-eyed stare. Without another word, Valker strode out of the inn.

“Don’t ask witchers stupid questions, girl,” Manny piped up, shaking his head.

The Witcher: Dance of the Cobra and the Wyvern

Name: Valker of Kerach.
Age: 54.
Gender: Male.
Birthplace: Unknown.
Profession: Witcher of the School of the Wyvern.

Appearance:

Image

Portrait of a Witcher
Van Rogh
1267, Oxenfurt
Oil on canvas

Like so many other witchers, either the result of his mutations or decades of experience in his tough line of work, Valker is an imposing presence. At first glance one would be quick to notice his above average height, measuring six feet from toe to tip, and while Valker is not as bulky or broad-shouldered as some, he is certainly not lanky either. His complexion is fair but his skin has been tanned somewhat by the many long days in the sun on the trail of some monster or other. Witchers work hard but they are not poor, and this is visible in his robust, healthy physique, unmarred by malnutrition or disease. The effect is immediately undone by the plethora of scars on his body, however. Claws, fangs, acid, flames and blades have all left their marks on Valker’s skin, and it is only through good fortune that his face has been spared, save for a few faint and old scratches left by an angry griffin in days long past.

The instantly recognizable cat eyes of the witcher caste peer out from beneath Valker’s stern and often furrowed brow with a healthy mixture of distrust and piercing perception. Nothing escapes his notice and many a man that considers himself tough has been known to avert their gaze from Valker’s own, unsettled by the keen edge of his slit pupils. His hair, kept short on top and shaved on the sides of his head, is a dark shade of ashen blond and the same goes for his eyebrows. Unlike most witchers, Valker wears a full beard, sideburns included, that wouldn’t look look out of place on a king of the legends of old. His straight nose, high cheekbones and flawless mouth, free of crooked teeth, invoke an air of aristocracy. Combined with the way he carries himself, his movements deliberate and sure and his head held high, Valker has an unfettered regality about him; for witchers fear nothing and bow to no man.

Personality: Witchers are generally considered to be a heartless bunch of hard bastards by the general populace and Valker does nothing to dispel that notion. His origin as a Child of Surprise has left him with faint, pleasant memories of a carefree infancy with a doting mother and candles and flowers carefully arranged throughout a warm, comfortable home, that were brutally and abruptly interrupted by the arrival of a witcher and a grueling childhood in his keep -- the keep of the School of the Wyvern. The hard years that followed and the horrors of the Trial of the Grasses, including the death of most of the friends he had made among the other boys, affected him deeply. When the mutations stripped him of most of his emotions and feelings (or so he believes), it almost came as a relief. When all was said and done there was nothing left for Valker to do but to accept his fate in life as a witcher and to devote himself to the Path, he did. To the letter. As it is generally understood that witchers don’t work for free, Valker has never deigned to lift a finger to help anyone, be they peasant or lord, without the promise of a reward. He has become proud of his abilities and achievements and considers it only fair that the blood and sweat of his toil is compensated with shiny, clinky coin. Crowns give him access to the simple pleasures of life, from good food and drink to a good book or a night with a shapely courtesan, and those are the only moments of respite Valker knows.

While he is nothing but a steady, unflappable professional on the surface, level-headed and cool in almost every situation, Valker has never truly come to terms with the fact that the responsibility of killing monsters had to fall to him. That the world is becoming ever smaller, the last blank spots of the map filled in, with well-trained and well-equipped armies being able to fulfil a witcher’s task more and more, makes him question the necessity of his own existence. It is likely that Valker is among the last group of boys ever trained and mutated by the School of the Wyvern. Often he wishes that they stopped one batch earlier. Buried deep behind the stone-faced mask of the enigmatic Valker lies a bitterness that would make even the most ancient devil grin with delight. The cold, hard truth is that Valker believes his life was stolen from him and that nothing, no amount of coin, fame, success or pleasure can set things right.

In personal interactions Valker is curt and to the point, even when dealing with people that are technically his superior. The mistrust and xenophobia expressed by most of the peasantry towards witchers is a mutual feeling as far as Valker is concerned and he avoids mingling with them unless they know something he doesn’t. He gets along much better with scholars, mages, merchants and lords; the educated of the world, in other words. Ignorance is something he has little patience for. Still, even when they are concerned, Valker plays his cards close to the chest and is almost universally described as taciturn and aloof. The friends he does have came into his life by happenstance, their friendships forged in the fire of danger and adventure, and none of them would say that they know the heart of the witcher known as Valker of Kerack truly well.

Despite his conflicted feelings towards his own fate and the old witcher, Bram, responsible for invoking the Law of Surprise that saw him taken away from his parents, Valker harbors absolutely no ill-will to his other fellow witchers and sees them as brothers. He will always be proud to be a wyvern. It is only with them, playing cards and drinking the night away, that Valker truly lets his guard down and bares his heart. They are the only ones that understand their shared suffering (even though most of them were orphans without a future when the School took them in, unlike Valker, and do not resent their lot in life as witchers) and it is this unspoken bond that creates the most powerful personal attachments Valker knows. He would lay down his life for any of them in a heartbeat and always looks forward to wintering in the mountaintop retreat that functions as the School’s keep.

He has been intimate with plenty of women, from courtesans to village whores to peasants to the occasional lord’s daughter or two, but Valker has never come close to being romantically involved with any of them. The Path keeps him on the road and he doesn’t feel like the mountain keep where he spends the winter is a place fit for a woman. Those are superficial excuses, of course. The truth is that he has never opened his heart to the idea. He is a witcher, a mutant, merely a personal code of honor away from being a monster himself. What would a woman truly want with something like him? He is fun for a night, an exotic and mysterious warrior, a bastion of masculinity, that much he knows, but not lover material. It will take time and a very special woman to draw him out of that shell, if at all possible.

Speciality: Alchemy.

Able to resist high levels of toxicity, allowing the imbibement of two decoctions at once in combination with potions as needed. Able to brew superior potions, oils and bombs.

Skills:

Combat, Wyvern School techniques: Witchers are amongst the best swordsmen on the Continent and Valker is no exception. He is, however, not exceptional amongst witchers themselves and the most complex maneuvers, such as the lethal and elegant whirl or the powerful rending strike, are beyond him. He will still handily outplay most human foes and has enough power, poise and agility to tackle the various monsters of the world -- assuming he does not rely solely on his swordplay.

Alchemy: Instead, Valker’s forte is most definitely his prodigious skill with the various alchemical brews and creations that are unique to witchers. He can create potions of superior quality to do things as diverse as replenishing his vitality, enhancing the strength of his blows, accelerating the regeneration of his stamina, empowering the potency of his Signs, increasing his perception to truly superhuman levels, see in the dark and even turning his own blood so unpalatable and harmful to vampires and necrophages that it hurts them to merely be in Valker’s presence. Using the remains of slain monsters, he has brewed decoctions that give him a variety of their supernatural powers like hardening his skin against damage or siphoning vitality by wounding an enemy. Oils, used to coat his blades, make their wickedly sharp edges even more deadly against specific types of enemies -- as long as Valker takes the time to prepare. And last but not least are the bombs in his arsenal, useful for blinding foes, blanketing an area in fire, freezing it instead or releasing a cloud of noxious gas.

Signs: The five signs of Aard, Yrden, Quen, Igni and Axii are all present in Valker’s magical arsenal. He has not devoted his time to developing their potency and can thusly only use the simplest versions of these signs. Igni is not a stream of fire but just a wall of sparks, Quen is no defensive dome around him but merely a simple shield, and so on.

Equipment:

Silver sword: The primary tool of the trade of any witcher and often their second-most prized possession, Valker’s monster-killing blade is no different. It is a mastercrafted longsword with the trademark hand-and-a-half grip and outward-angling crossguard of witcher swords. The pommel is sculpted in the shape of a wyvern’s head, strongly resembling the medallion he wears around his neck, indicating its origin as being one of the School’s own swords, created in the cavernous forge beneath the keep. The blades are fitted with Devana runestones to increase the cutting edge and cause heavy bleeding in the monsters it strikes, allowing Valker to hamstring his prey and weaken them over the duration of the fight. It has no name.

Steel sword: For humans, who are often just as monstrous as the beasts that Valker hunts. It is a blade once forged for him by a grateful elven blacksmith and, while suitable for a witcher’s hand and needs (featuring a long hilt, a flat crossguard and a straight blade), has elements of their graceful craftsmanship in it. Because humans invariably fear fire, the blade is fitted with Dazhbog runestones.

Medallion: The title of most-prized possession of any witcher goes to their medallion. More than just a mark of their guild and School, these items are enchanted to detect magic and will vibrate when doing so. Valker’s medallion is shaped like a wyvern’s head with its maw open wide, looking ready to devour something whole.

Armor: Functioning as both travel attire and armor, Valker relies on this outfit for almost everything. It consists of a gambeson padded with chainmail beneath a set of knee-length, dark blue robes (almost black, really) that are split down the middle from the waist down, armored vambraces, leather greaves and steel-toed boots. It is neither too heavy nor too light, being classified as medium armor, balancing protection against mobility in equal measure. He wears a high-collared poncho, clasped at his throat, over his shoulders to further protect him against the elements, but that can be removed and stowed in his bags in warm weather. He has a bandolier of pouches around his torso with straps on his back to hold up the scabbards of his blades and a belt around his waist with even more pouches on it. An alchemist needs to carry his materials, after all.

Concept art inspiration

Potions: All listed potions are of superior quality:

• Swallow
• Thunderbolt
• Cat

Decoctions:

• Ekimmara decoction
• Griffin decoction
• Doppler decoction

Oils: All listed oils are of superior quality:

• Necrophage oil
• Vampire oil
• Hanged man’s venom

Bombs: All listed bombs are of superior quality:

• Northern Wind
• Dragon’s Dream
• Grapeshot

Misc:

• Valker plays gwent. Quite well, too.
• He reads a lot of books, be they practical in nature (such as on alchemy) or just as a diversion, including fiction. He is often annoyed by the romanticized depictions of combat, however.
• Total rubbish at both singing and dancing. Probably because he’s never practiced either.
• He is aware of Master Dandelion’s ballads about Geralt of Rivia and his various lovers but doesn’t believe a word of them.
• Valker does not actually hail from Kerach. Like so many other witchers, he only added the suffix to his name because it makes him appear more trustworthy, and Kerach is sufficiently out of the way from his usual stomping grounds that nobody questions him about it.

The Witcher: Dance of the Cobra and the Wyvern

Placeholder.

The Elder Scrolls: Vengeance of the Deep

Lazarus

I am the resurrection and the life.
He who believes in me will live, even though he dies;
and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.
_{- Jesus of Nazareth}

Gregor awoke with a start.

His eyes shot open and he saw the sky overhead. It was almost dawn and the last light of the stars was slowly being chased away by the imminent sunrise. “Raelynn!” he called out instinctively and he sat up straight, looking around for his lover with frantic eyes. There was nothing but desert around him. The copper hues of the sandy dunes spread out in all directions, up to the horizon, and a deep blue, utterly cloudless sky hung suspended overhead. The Alik’r, he remembered. He was in Hammerfell. That much he knew. But something was wrong. Everything was wrong. Why was he here? Why was--

Looking down on himself, Gregor saw that there was a dagger stuck into his heart all the way up to the crossguard. He stared at it, uncomprehending, and at the dried blood that caked his bare torso. “Raelynn?” he whispered, softly, breathless, pleading, and tore his gaze away from the impossible towards the dunes, the horizon, the sky. She was nowhere to be seen. There was nothing to be seen.

“Am I dead?” he asked himself, eyes wide and mouth agape. No answer came, nor any pain, darkness or oblivion. He was not dead. Not anymore, at least.

He became aware of the fact that he was sitting in the middle of… something. Gregor climbed to his feet and took a few stumbling, uneven steps, away from whatever unnaturally smooth surface it was that coated the ground -- something told him it was vile and corrupted. After he was clear and his feet touched naught but sand, he turned around and looked back.

The sand had turned to glass in a wide circle around the spot where he had lain, a perfectly flat plane with a reflective, mirrored surface. Upon the glass, placed along the arms of an invisible pentagram, were the shattered remains of five soul gems. Upon closer inspection, the glass did not reflect the sky of the Alik’r desert. It reflected a dark sky, devoid of stars, with a black hole that slowly consumed everything--

Gregor recoiled. Panic began to set in. He couldn’t remember how he got here, or what he’d done. What was the last thing he could remember? “Think, Gregor, think,” he hissed and grabbed his head with his hands, eyes furtively searching for answers, explanations, hints, but his mind wouldn’t cooperate; it was like trying to run or fight in a dream. None of this made sense and he was alone. He was alone and it was his fault. “Why?” he whispered.

Something came to him and he snapped his fingers. “The prison!” That’s where the party had gone after Gilane. That’s where he had gone. What had happened in there? It was then that Gregor remembered the dagger that protruded from his chest. He cursed and grabbed the hilt with trembling fingers. Why didn’t it hurt? Why was he still alive? How was he still alive? Gregor wasn’t sure of anything but the fact that he had to get that thing out of him. Fear twisted his insides. He closed his eyes and grit his teeth and pulled.

The dagger came loose without a fight. Gregor had been holding his breath and gasped. He opened his eyes again and looked down. The dagger had left a thin wound behind, a clean thrust, but no blood came from it. He had just pulled a dagger from his own heart without bleeding.

“What in Oblivion…” he stammered.

He hadn’t been holding his breath. His fingers hadn’t been trembling. There had been no fear in his gut. Sure as sure, Gregor looked upon his hands and saw that they were still. He checked his breathing and realized he wasn’t breathing at all. He hadn’t been since he woke up. And the fear he felt… it was real, but it was distant, almost like it belonged to someone else that was merely watching him. Inside his body, Gregor did not feel anything.

The sun rose over the horizon and the first rays of dawn touched his skin. The light was just as cold as the rest of the world and brought no warmth to him. Slowly, damnably slowly, Gregor realized the truth of the situation. He wanted to laugh but the joy died in his throat. Why couldn’t he laugh? It was done. He had succeeded. He was beyond the reach of Arkay now, beyond the reach of his family’s curse. Everything he had worked for over the past decade had finally come to fruition. Gregor looked at the dagger in his hand and, after a few seconds of deliberation, stabbed himself in the stomach.

It hurt, but only vaguely so. He pulled the blade free and, once again, no blood came from the thin slit in his skin. Gregor took a closer look at himself and saw that he was pale. His hands were darker and their skin was mottled somewhat… like a corpse, Gregor realized, of which the blood had pooled in its extremities. He stepped closer to the pool of glass and peered into it, deliberately avoiding looking at the black hole in the sky and focusing exclusively on his own face. His skin was ashen; only a hint of his tan remained, there were dark circles around his eyes, his lips were bloodless and his cheeks were gaunt, as if the skin had pulled taut over his cheekbones.

He was most definitely undead. Once more he cracked a smile and tried to laugh in celebration, and once more was he halted by the unassailable feeling that something was dreadfully, horribly wrong. Something he couldn’t remember. Only the feeling of the memory remained. It was cruel irony for him, of all people, to forget the circumstances that surrounded this very moment. It was a deeply uncomfortable realization and Gregor’s smile faded into nothing. What if he was alone out here? What if Raelynn was gone? He needed Raelynn. “I’m sorry,” he heard himself say, as if he was talking to her. Why was he sorry?

After grabbing his belongings -- Gregor found his backpack and the rest of his clothes next to the glass -- he located a trail of footsteps that led away across the dunes. His own, presumably, that would hopefully lead him back to wherever he had come from. He hoped, wished, prayed that she was there. None of this would be, could be, right without her. Gregor got dressed, hiding the caked blood beneath his shirt as best he could, shouldered his backpack and set off, eyes squinting against the rising sun.

[Hr]

It had been a near endless night. When she had finally set out into the desert to track him, it was already halfway between midnight and dawn. The silent hours had kept her company on the lonely trek across dark sand. Her mind on one thing only, her hand wrapped over the hilt her sword. If she had a mirror, she would be horrified at herself. Her eyes were red and bloodshot, dark circles sat underneath them on her pale skin. Her hair was unkempt and hidden under a purple scarf worn around her head and face as a mask.

She had dirt across her fingers, buried in her nail beds. Her clothing was not fitted to her figure, it allowed movement - kept her cool, but it did not flatter her body. Just simple, white linens over her tiny frame. Her expression had thus far conveyed a silent fury, that was until she came across the clearing in in between the rocks, where the winds seemed to die and sand sat still. Still enough for her to see Gregor's footprints, finally. She bent down to place her fingers against one, to brush at the carving in an almost scholarly fashion. He had been here. She continued forwards, finding respite in the long and narrow gap between the tall rocks, it was cool, and the ground was almost hard for a while.

As she came to the end of the walkway, where once again the desert was all that lay on the horizon, she saw in the far distance a dark shape - a person, walking alone through the vast ocean of sand. “Gregor…” she breathed, the grip tightening around her sword but it was as if the very sight of him swayed her heat and she began to tremble. If she could see him, then he would undoubtedly soon see her. They were the only souls for miles around.

He did see her. The loose clothing and the scarf made it hard to tell but something in Gregor's heart told him that that was Raelynn. Her name escaped his lips in a desperate whisper and he sped up his pace, but it was like his legs refused to run. He could only go so fast. It was bizarre -- he felt stronger and simultaneously slower than before. Nothing made sense. “Raelynn!” he yelled, the same urgency in his voice as when he has called out her name after waking up. “Is that you?”

She didn't know how to respond to him. She could only see him begin to move faster but it wasn't fast at all, it was as though he was putting power into his movement and still nothing. She was entirely overcome as her mind went blank. She could only think of the man who had left their tent, her jaw shook and she took a single step back, she didn't want to leave, but she was anxious over whom that was. She stopped thinking about the sword, so much so that her grip weakened on it immensely, a feeling of relief moved through her hand and she looked at it. What a heavy thing to have carried all this way… She did not wish to speak, but she could show him. Slowly, with trembling hands she unwound the scarf from her face, and let her hair shake out from under it. Long waves of hair, almost golden in dawn's new light.

“It is! Oh gods, Raelynn,” Gregor said, his voice hoarse. He was overwhelmed by a great and terrible sorrow, a tsunami from far away that had finally reached him, and he stumbled and fell. Something was so wrong. With great effort, he got to his feet again and trudged onward, fighting through the sand, while an indescribable pain in his soul almost drove him to tears. Only she could make it better. “Raelynn, please, come here, why won't you come here?”

She watched him carefully, she could hear him begging her to come near and yet her feet stayed where they were. She reached out a hand towards him, she didn't feel frightened, just unsure. Eventually she took a long breath and began to move, she started forwards with all of the hesitant grace of a curious doe, her heart beating fast in her chest. She was ready to bolt like a doe at the first sign of something being amiss too. “Gregor?” she croaked - realising that her voice was about gone and her throat dry. Still she moved, as he had asked.

Gregor nodded as vigorously as his strange, unwieldy body allowed. “Yes, it's me,” he said and redoubled his efforts to close the remaining distance between them. “Of course it's me!” He stumbled again but remained upright this time. “Have I been gone long? Where are we? Raelynn, baby, what happened?”

“Hours,” she began, unable to take her eyes off him. Now that he was coming closer she could make out the details of his appearance, how his skin was tight around his face… how it was no longer full of warmth, but looked cold. His fingertips… “you left our… you left the camp.” She stopped moving, her fingers barely touching the sword now, so much so that it slipped from them and hit the sand with a light clatter. “I left later than you… You left alone, I don’t know what happened.”

At last, Gregor reached her but something stopped him from pulling her into an embrace. He saw the sword she'd dropped and the look on her face. He stared at her, helpless and forlorn. “Which camp?” he asked eventually. His despair was evident in his voice. “I can't remember. There was the prison… my mind, Raelynn, it doesn't work right, it won't cooperate. I woke up with a dagger--”

He fell silent and covered his mouth with his hand, eyes alight with fear and magic. With his free hand, Gregor undid the buttons of his shirt and let it slip off his shoulders. The slit in his stomach had disappeared, evidently already repaired by the same forces that animated his undead form, but the wound in his heart and the blood were still there.

“The camp with me… with our friends and the prisoners…” she uttered softly in a toneless voice as she continued to take him in with her eyes. Seeing his chest like that gave her a reason to step forward, closer to him. She raised a hand, alight with small golden wisps to the wound, not pressing it, just hovering over it. Nothing happened and she gasped. “It worked…” she finished with a sigh, pulling her hand away - her senses continued to be alert to him making a sudden movement, but there was something about him that made her confident that he could not.

They were over an hours walk from the camp. Gregor had to have been here for a long time, how long had the ritual taken? How long had he been unconscious? “I don't know what I should say…” she admitted, finally meeting his eyes with her own, a sad look of concern sitting in them. “I don't know what I must do…”

Gregor stiffened. “I did something,” he whispered. “Didn't I? I felt it before when I couldn't find you. I… I don't remember, but I'm sorry, my love.” He sounded both heartfelt and heartbroken. His arms dropped uselessly by his side. “I don't know what to do either. It worked… whatever I did out there, but something's not right. It's… I'm…” he stammered, unsure, but the longer he looked at Raelynn the better he felt he could put into words what he feared. “It's like I'm not really here,” he managed at last, an expression of confusion and desperation on his face. “Does that make sense at all?”

So he did not remember. She could not ascertain whether that was a better or worse outcome for her. The spiteful, still hurting parts of her wanted him to know exactly what he’d done. But the part of her that recognised Gregor already in pain and disarray just wanted to get him to safety before anything else. “Shhh shhhhh…” she uttered gently, to indulge him in his confusion would only make matters worse. The medic in her took over, and she placed a hand gently below his chin - the coldness of his skin, still a surprise to her. She rose to her tiptoes to be level with his eyeline, waving a finger in front of them. She could feel his apology, but there was little she could do for him here. Soon enough, the sun would be hotter than she could bare, and she looked at him - knowing she had to take over now. “Camp is an hour or so away, can you make it back?” she asked in a voice laced with concern, her eyes soft and delicate now.

It was an immense relief to see kindness and compassion return to Raelynn's eyes and he nodded slowly. “I think so,” he said, voice unsteady. “Gods, this isn't how it was supposed to be. They've… there's…” He sighed in frustration and shook his head. “Let's go.”

She saw exasperation in his expression, and she had no understanding of any of this. It was completely other-wordly and outside of her realm of understanding. What can I do? she thought to herself, watching him. She had to be his strength again. That she could do. “We will figure this out. I can help you… If you would like me to,” without thinking, she plucked the sword up from the ground and sheathed it once more. Then she took his hand into her own. She would lead the way, she would get him back to camp. That is what she could do.

“Yes, yes, please,” Gregor said gratefully and squeezed her hand when she grabbed his. He could not feel the warmth of her skin anymore. Gregor bit his lip and looked down at his feet while they walked. Was this really what he had been hurtling towards for ten years? He was cold, not just to the touch but down to the bone, and slow and disoriented. This was no state to be in. Perhaps it was all just aftereffects of the ritual that would fade with time, the rational part of him thought. There was no way of knowing. Only time would tell. And that, at least, he had more than enough of. Finally.

After half an hour of walking in silence, Gregor saw movement from the corners of his vision and watched with wide eyes as he saw the spectral shape of a caravan pass them by, nothing more than transparent, white silhouettes trudging through the sand without disturbing it. He could hear them, the braying of their horses and their chatter, but it sounded like it came from underwater, or from very far away. He almost stumbled again as he forgot to look where he was going, turning his head as far as he could to keep his eyes on the apparitions, until they disappeared into thin air. It was like they hadn’t been there at all.

Even in the slow manner with which he had been walking Raelynn sensed a change in his movement still. She stopped in her own tracks to look at him, watching his head move and turn. His attention pulled to something she could not herself place, sense, or see. “What is it?” she asked, instinctively stepping in front of him, releasing his hand to touch her sword again, not fully aware of herself. All she could think about was getting him back to the tent.

Gregor opened and closed his mouth a few times before he found his words again. “Ghosts,” he said with certainty. “Souls that were lost wandering the desert. I can see them now. There was a caravan…” He finally pulled his gaze away from where they had vanished and looked at Raelynn again, only then noticing that she had stepped in front of him with her hand on her blade. It was touching. “It’s fine, there’s no danger. We can keep going.”

She glanced sidelong at him, rapping her fingers over the handle of the blade before nodding, taking from her side a canteen of water which she drank from. It was beginning to get drastically hot, they still had a way to go, and shade was gone. As she took a gulp, she considered whether he would need some too. She recognised that this whole time she'd felt… awkward. Not knowing how to address his situation, not understanding a lick of it. She felt out of her depth, maybe the reason she wanted to urgently to find her way back to the camp was to come back to tangible familiarity. This walk through the desert was like a strange dream. Nothing was right. “I'm just… Alert,” she confessed to him, holding out the water towards him, half out of curiosity and half out of it just being the normal thing to do.

“I understand,” Gregor said. He accepted the canteen without thinking and took a swig of water. He blinked in surprise when he barely felt it going down his throat and the expected refreshing sensation that he associated with a sip of cool water in the desert sun withheld itself from him. There was no parching thirst to soothe, he realized. Gregor muttered a curse to himself and gave the canteen back to Raelynn, holding it out as if it had personally offended him. “Thank you,” he remembered to add.

Raelynn observed him quizzically, taking it back and hanging it back over her shoulder at her side. “Let's keep moving.” Once more she took his hand in hers and continued through the sands.

---

Finally they reached camp, and fortunately it was still quiet. She was once again grateful to have pitched the tent far from the crowds. As they walked toward it, she could see a white hot light burning on the ground, just a few feet from the entrance of the tent which she recognised as the plate she'd tossed out. She glanced at Gregor quickly before heading with an increased speed towards their tent at last. As she lifted the flap, she looked at him as if to give him permission to enter first.

Gregor bowed his head and stepped into the tent. Even if he could no longer feel heat, it was still pleasant to get out of the glaringly bright sunlight. That small relief was immediately undone by seeing several of his belongings strewn about somewhere that he could not remember ever visiting before. “I have no memory of this place,” he said and turned to Raelynn with weary eyes. Now that they were in the half-gloom of the tent, she would be able to see that there was the slightest hint of something cerulean twinkling behind his pupils, not dissimilar from the reflection in a cat’s eyes at night, but entirely out of place in a human. He sighed and sat down against a pillow, letting his exhaustion wash over him and dropping his arms limply by his sides. “I’m sorry,” he said in a repeat of his words from before. “About… earlier, and about this. I… I think I’ve made a grave mistake.”

She quietly followed him in, her footsteps soft. As he lay down she reached to a bowl of water and passed some over her face, wiping away the tan-coloured dirt that had set across her forehead. Now that her face was clear again, the redness of her eyes appeared darker and more harsh. She ran a brush through her hair and tied it all away from her face in a single ponytail that practically pulled her face back it was so taut.

She carried the bowl over to where Gregor had chosen to sit. Her eyes glancing across at the mess of the tent. “Damned dogs must have got in here for food…” she lied with conviction, not wanting to admit that it had been her own fury. Her fingers tentatively hovered over his chest, the buttons of his shirt that he’d haphazardly fastened. With an almost ritualistic grace she began to unbutton them. A far cry from the many times she’d torn them open with reckless abandon. The wall of professionality sat between them now, and she took an almost clinical posture by his side, taking a damp cloth to wipe away at the blood on his chest. Her eyes briefly met his as he made his apology again, “don’t apologise, you have no memory of it...” She hadn’t meant it to sound callous. God’s no, she was just so… unsure of it all. She only knew she couldn’t show him that, she had to give him reassurance that she knew what she was doing. That she could help him, that they could get through this. “We don’t know that yet… Let us just clean you up and… We’ll know the next step then…”

Even in his current state Gregor could tell that things had changed between Raelynn and him. It was obvious in the way she relieved him of his shirt and set about cleaning his skin. He could hardly blame her. Gregor wasn't the same person, or even the same type of creature, that she had known before. There was a large void where Gregor's lurking anger and mortal fear had been, the place in his soul where the Pale Reaper had made his home. An enormous weight had been lifted off his shoulders and he would have been able to breathe freely and stand tall if it weren't for the new and almost as equally unpleasant fears that had wrapped themselves around his throat. What if he was never going to be the same? What if Raelynn would never get used to it? What if he was going to lose the rest of his memories too, despite all his efforts? And why oh why did he feel so deeply and thoroughly violated?

“You're probably right,” Gregor said at length and conjured a wan smile. He could see himself in the mirror on the other side of the tent. It was an unsettling sight. He did not feel like he was looking at his own body at all, but just a vessel that happened to occupy the space around his eyes. Somehow, Gregor was convinced that he was somewhere else, and not inside his own head. That this was all just… a window into a world he no could no longer call home.

“Are you afraid?” Gregor asked softly, forcing himself to look away from the mirror and down at Raelynn while she worked.

As she continued to work in cleaning him, she listened to his question and thought about it. It didn’t take her long to find the answer; “I’m not,” she said truthfully, slowing down to look up at him, she too was able to find a small smile for him before she got back to work, nearing his heart now - the open, bloodless wound. “I mean, I don’t think you’ll do anything that should make me or anyone be afraid of you, or of this...” She continued on, noticing that the water in the bowl was starting to get too dark for it to be effective at cleaning. “I’m worried about you…” she confessed as she placed the cloth down. “Worried about me… But no, I’m not afraid.” She cleared her throat and turned back to look at the wound again, almost fascinated by it. “Are you… in pain?”

“No,” Gregor replied and followed Raelynn's gaze to the mark on his chest. He thought about what she'd said. It was good that she wasn't afraid, because he was. “In fact, I don't feel much of anything. No thirst, no hunger, no heat… nothing. Even if I injure myself it doesn't really hurt and then the wound disappears by itself.” He frowned. “Except this one.”

“I can close it for you, if you’d like” she said as her eyes met his. She felt his words and they stung her. She hadn’t considered the changing and loss of senses in undeath. “And your memory is clouded?” She knew from her own experiences that it was likely temporary, a reaction to his trauma. Simply having been stabbed through the heart would have been enough to kickstart such a reaction. “If it is any consolation to you, I don’t think the problems with your mind will last,” Raelynn said softly, placing a hand on his - hoping it would comfort him.

Close the wound… the thought hadn't even occurred to Gregor yet. For some reason, he had just assumed he would have to deal with that being on his chest forever. “Yes, please,” he said and placed his other hand over Raelynn's. “As for my mind… it helps to hear you say that. I'm glad I can put my faith in you. I'm… really happy you're here.” Gregor gave her hand a squeeze before he sat back and allowed Raelynn to get to work.

“I made a promise to you, it meant something to me... I don't intend to break it,” the Breton said clearly towards him. She began to lift her hand as if to stroke his cheek but caught herself before she did. “Do you remember anything at all? Maybe talking… I don't know, you don't have to…” Raelynn bit her lip, it was too much and suddenly she felt awkward for asking. She reached over to her satchel, carefully combing through the contents until she came across a small velvet pouch. She took a specialist needle and spool of thread from inside. “I should, uhm, bring fresh water, I'll be back.” With that said, she took the bowl and swiftly got to her feet, leaving him alone in the tent while she fetched it.

With Raelynn gone and the rest of the camp still quiet, Gregor was left with nothing else but the silence and his thoughts. What did he remember? He remembered the prison, that was for sure. The image of a large man he couldn’t remember having seen anywhere else came to him, with blue eyes and a messy beard, stepping out of a prison cell. He remembered being afraid for Raelynn’s safety and how Jaraleet had come with him to search for her. But after that… he closed his eyes and rubbed his temples in a futile attempt to stimulate his memory. Nothing beyond that revealed itself. He could not remember the outcome of their sojourn into the prison, nor the journey to this camp, and most certainly not any time spent here. He realized he had no idea which day it was, or how long it had been since the prison. People could have died in there, people he considered friends, and he had no way of knowing. It was frightening not to be able to rely on his memories. He clung to Raelynn’s words of encouragement, that it was something temporary and that his memories would return to him.

But she had recoiled from touching his cheek. That stung, and yet at the same time Gregor could no longer find it within himself to be upset. Despite the fog that permeated his mind he felt a certain sense of clarity. Not cognitively, but emotionally. He thought about things that had angered him before and had continued to anger him up until his final memories and felt… peace. Zaveed was no longer a monster to him, but just a broken man that had been pushed into a corner by forces beyond his control. Gregor wondered if Zaveed was still with them, and if not, if he would ever see him again. He almost felt like he wanted to apologize. It was strange to feel this way and yet deeply familiar. It took a minute of musing and rumination before Gregor realized why; it was reminiscent of his old ways, before his father died, before he took up arms, and before he started practicing black magic. Without the incessant fear of death hanging over his head he felt more at ease than he had in over a decade, despite all the current causes for concern.

He thought about Raelynn and felt nothing but love. It was hard to imagine now that he’d done something to hurt her. Gregor looked around the tent. She’d said something about dogs, but he didn’t see the snout of some animal looking for food in this mess. He saw anger. Fury, even. Had she done this? Had he? Gregor bit his lip, pulled up his knees and wrapped his arms around himself, waiting for Raelynn to come back.

As she re-entered the tent, clean water in hand, she saw that Gregor had moved and despite having been relatively calm until then, the sight of him like that gave her a start. “What's wrong?” she asked, stepping back through towards him and resuming her seat. What a stupid fucking question to have asked. Everything was wrong. “Sorry, a silly question,” the Breton whispered before he could answer. She picked up the needle from beside her and pulled at the spool to free the thread. She did not want them to be here, she wanted to take him into her arms and tell him everything would be okay, but truthfully she did not have that certainty.

Small talk? Would idle chatter about anything alse ease the strangling tension? “It's hard to know what to say right now, isn't it?”

“Yes, it is,” Gregor said. It was a small relief that Raelynn acknowledged it. He smiled again, more sincerely this time, and relaxed so that she could stitch him back together in more ways than one. “Maybe…” he began, unsure, and continued with more certainty after a few seconds’ pause. “Maybe we should just focus on something else, talk about something else. You could fill me in about what happened in the prison and afterwards, for example.” He kept his tone light and casual, as if he was merely asking to be informed about his shenanigans during a drunk night out.

She smiled back at him, threading the needle, deciding where to start. Give him all of the details? No, she'd tell it as she remembered and in no other way. “Well, I remember breaking out Fjolte in the lower levels when you appeared with Jaraleet - swinging your sword through the guards just to reach me…” She smiled again, wider this time and a soft blush appeared on her cheeks. She placed a finger either side of his wound and gently pushed it together. “I went with him to collect his clothes, when I returned… Something had happened in the room. We'd been separated you see. A fight had broken out down there… With a prison torturer, I guess that's what he was.” Her voice grew quiet with concentration as she pushed the needle through his skin for the first time. “Does any of that sound familiar yet?” Raelynn was unsure of how much to tell him in this state. On the one hand, he would remember eventually - but on the other, this is the point where she had known him to change. Maybe poking too much at that might stir it all back up for him.

Gregor chuckled when Raelynn regaled how he’d fought to be by her side. That sounded like something he would do. But the rest of her story didn’t ring any bells just yet. He looked up at the roof of the tent and tried so very hard to picture the scene--

“Sevari,” Gregor muttered and looked back down at Raelynn. “I remember him pointing his pistol at me. What was that about?”

She didn't want to tell him what had happened, she didn't fully know or understand it herself. She'd only heard the story last night from Gregor's mouth anyway. Was she the most reliable source? She gave a resigned sigh. Honesty was the best policy. They'd promised not to lie and hide things from each other. “You took the torturer's soul. He was… He was a necromancer.” As the words fell, she swallowed back a lump in her throat, and the hand holding the needle almost began to shake.

“Ah.”

Gregor sank back into his seat with the resignation of a man who finally received bad news he knew was a long time coming. His memories weren’t really gone, just inaccessible, and therefore he failed to be surprised. He thought about it for a bit and rubbed his eyes as if he could massage the weariness out of his soul. “I doubt I was very tactful about it. Right?”

“I wasn't there. I don't fully know, but when I came back you were… Your Wrathman, and the torturer… They were there too, under a spell.” She sighed again, her forehead creased as she concentrated on telling him in the easiest way possible. “There were more soul gems and you took them all... I took your hand and led you out. Sirine found her brother and we all escaped. We travelled and I did not really see you until last night…” Raelynn was rushing through it with a nervousness on her voice. She took a deep breath to let the words ruminate and steadied her hands to perform another stitch. It was then, in the silence, that she felt the absence of a heartbeat.

It was so easy to picture himself in that moment, snatching up the soul gems for his own dark purposes, that it felt like a memory. Gregor felt concern rise when Raelynn neared the end and the silence that fell afterward spoke volumes. Something had happened last night, before he had presumably set off into the desert to make his sacrifices and perform his rituals. “If you don’t want to talk about what happened here,” he said softly and gestured towards the rest of the tent, “that’s fine. If you do, that’s also fine. Whatever you need.”

She didn't. Not yet, not now. But her eyes followed his hand and she looked out over the mess. “I did it, it wasn't you,” the words came out sounding defeated and she felt a pain in her gut that was just shame. “You know, I'd like to hear something you do remember…” Raelynn pulled the thread taut at the final stitch, tying it off masterfully. “Something beyond all of this, something good… I can start, if you'd like? Maybe it will help you clear your mind. Stop focussing on it for now, my love, and we'll come back to it later.” She spoke her endearment so naturally, not realising that she'd said it either. If she had she might have gotten flustered again, but her hands were busy cleaning the needle in the freshwater.

There was no hesitation. “I remember when you first told me that you loved me,” Gregor said. He briefly brushed her cheek with his fingers before lowering his hand again. “You looked so beautiful on that mezzanine, towering over me…” His smile was almost enough to restrain the melancholy in his eyes. “I remember that when things were bad, we overcame them.”

He looked down at his chest and saw that the wound was stitched shut. “Thank you.”

His immediate answer brought a smile to her face too, and she brought both of her hands down to hold his. Raelynn relaxed her posture and let her legs stretch to the side. “I remember the first time I saw you. I'd been helping a wounded ranger, and through the smoke of cannonfire I saw you.” Her grip on his hand grew tighter, and her eyes grew warm as she recalled the memory. She took in a deep breath through her nose as if to even call the her mind the scent of the scene. “I saw you, and I just felt something, I don't know if you did… The way you looked on that battlefield…” she stopped, suppressing a girlish giggle. “I've never looked at another man the way that I looked at you that day.”

“Seems so long ago now, doesn’t it?” Gregor mused and laughed to himself. “You gave me a look when we talked for the first time, when you were healing Jaraleet. I noticed that. I was so busy with my own problems that I didn’t give it much thought until I ran into you again on the streets of Anvil. It took me a little longer than you, but I felt something alright. The price of being old and obsessed, I suppose. Asking you out for dinner was the best decision I ever made,” he said and smiled sheepishly. Suddenly the lazy, pleasant expression on his face vanished and he sat up straight, like a man alarmed by his own fluttering heartbeat. “Gods, Raelynn,” he stammered, close to panicking. “Don’t leave me. I need you.” His hands grasped at hers and he stared at her with wide-eyed desperation. “I know I’m all fucked up but you can’t leave me. Please don’t leave me.”

As he sat upright, a stream of golden light hit his features from the cracks in the flapping door as it moved against the breeze. In that sunlight, his ashen skin warmed up and he looked like he had before in just a flashing moment. He was still Gregor, somewhere. Just as quickly as the illusion came, it disappeared and he appeared cold again. But she was neither afraid nor deterred. He was still Gregor, his desperate grasping at her reminded her of that. “I won't, I'll be here, I'll be right here. Always.” She took his hand and squeezed again. “But don't you… You can't leave me either, when I'm… When you're…” A breath was catching in her throat and she noticed her own chest rising and falling rapidly as panic set in for her too. “If I stop being enough for you… Tell me, I'll understand. I'll understand…”

He looked like he had been unexpectedly slapped very hard in the face. “What?” he asked, barely more than a whisper. Gregor leaned forward and shifted so that he was sitting on his knees and he put his hands on her shoulders. When he looked Raelynn in the eye again, the expression on his face was nothing but serious. “You won’t,” he said. “How could you? Having you is like… catching lightning in a bottle. How can that ever fail to be enough?” His voice was strained and he sounded nearer to tears than anything else. “Don’t say that. Come here.” He took her in his arms, as strong as ever despite everything, and kissed her forehead -- not at all like the false and cold kiss from the night before, but an outpouring of love, as best he could. “Don’t say that.”

That was all that she needed to hear, and hearing it was enough to give her the faith to reciprocate his passion and love. Her arms wrapped around him too, tightening around his chest. “I love you, Gregor. I love you, and I won’t give up on you or leave you. I will find out how to make you well again. I promise.” His kiss was invigorating, and as much as she did not want to, she slipped free from his strong embrace so that she could look him in the eye. Finally she let her hand caress his cheek. “We’ll do this together.”

Name Change Request - Opposition

Done.

The Elder Scrolls: Vengeance of the Deep

Harmony
and
Balance

Between the 15th and the 16th of Midyear, 4E208
Above the Oasis, Alik’r Desert, Hammerfell

In the midst of the night Mazrah had stepped out of the oasis, her bare feet carrying her silently through the camp and out of the mouth of the cave. She took in the sight of the endless stars that hovered silently above the desert dunes and placed her hands on her hips, a smile on her face, her golden eyes shimmering with the reflected light of the night sky. Masser and Secunda were both full and looked down on her from directly above, the crowning jewels of the incredible tapestry. It was as magnificent a sight as ever. While she had been more used to seeing the same stars between the snow capped peaks of the mountains that surrounded Orsinium, the Orsimer huntress had to admit as soon as she moved south into Hammerfell that there was something even more grand about the unobstructed view that the desert provided.

But she hadn’t come just to stargaze. Mazrah had offered help to Latro, the gentle man that carried a rabid wolf in his heart, but she couldn’t do that without proper preparation. It had been many years since she had received the necessary lessons from her mother to control her own beast, the sulphur and fury that burned within all Orsimer. Mazrah turned her back on the sky and began to climb the rocky edifice that stuck out of the sands beneath which the oasis lay. Her movements were easy and effortless and the stones were comfortably warm to the touch, still slowly releasing the heat that Magnus had instilled in them during the day. Her spirits high, Mazrah began to hum a tune to herself during her ascent. It only dawned on her after a few seconds what that tune actually was; an old Orsinian war-song. “Fitting,” she muttered to herself. The accompanying war-dance would help her with her task. Spontaneous inspiration was how Mazrah got most of her ideas and this time was no different.

She crested the top and saw the hole in the rock ahead of her where she knew the natural light filtered into the oasis, illuminating the river that ran through their camp. Feeling around with her toes, Mazrah nodded, satisfied. It was reasonably flat and smooth. She was going to need the space to move around. But first she sat herself down, cross-legged, and placed her hands on her knees and closed her eyes, just like her mother had taught her. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. She thought of Sora’s Moonpath, the mystical journey she could undertake through the power of moonsugar to speak to her ancestors. Mazrah had no such talents available. But she could definitely remember, remind herself, of who she was and where she came from. She thought about the streets of Orsinium where she had played with the other whelps, boys and girls alike; long summer days when the day seemed to never end, and when it did, the sky burned like a campfire for what felt like hours more as the sun set behind the peaks of the mountains. The woods, the valleys, the steep cliffs, all the places that she had roamed and explored as a young woman, bow and arrows on her back. Mazrah thought about Maulakanth too, and about their father, and how he would push Maulakanth so hard she feared that he would break. In the end, of course, he had, but years after their father had already died. She sighed and pushed her thoughts about him to the side -- he was long gone, probably dead and buried in an unmarked grave in High Rock by now.

After that, she opend her eyes and looked down at herself, her arms, her chest, her legs, eyes tracing the white lines and shapes across her green skin. Mazrah ran her fingers down her arm, remembering the pain she had felt when the wise women had worked the ink into her skin. It hadn’t been a cause for suffering, but pride. She felt sympathy for Latro well up in her chest as she thought about how scared he must have been to be subjected to his own most violent self without the proper guidance. Durash, Mazrah’s mother, had been there every step of the way, and Mazrah saw her in her mind’s eye -- hair so long it came all the way down to the small of her back, slightly shorter but stockier than Mazrah herself, but eyes that were just the same. Every time Mazrah had been disobedient or stubborn or just plain annoying, Durash had been unable to resist laughter, which never failed to disarm her adolescent daughter. “It is just like looking in the still water of a pool,” Durash had said with the warm smile that only mothers can muster. “I see myself in you so much.” And as time had passed and Mazrah had grown into the body of a woman with the same tattoos as her ancestors, it had happened multiple times that Orsinium’s rabble had mixed up mother and daughter. Mazrah snorted at the memory.

That was her anchor. As long as she did not forget where she came from and the warmth and guidance that her mother had given her, Mazrah knew that she could not lose control of herself. She had a lifetime of knowing exactly who she was behind her. She didn’t need a Moonpath for guidance: her mother had already given her all the guidance she needed to become one and whole. Latro hadn’t. From what little he had told her, it had sounded like he had been on the run from himself and his past for a long time now. Mazrah’s heart ached for him, for his suffering, and for Daro’Vasora’s too. Even the Khajiit had not been one with her heritage until recently. Mazrah could hardly imagine what that must have been like, to be caught between worlds and to feel out of place in both of them. As much as she liked Hammerfell and the Redguards and their funny, rigid ways, she was glad that she had been born and raised in Orsinium and by ancient Orcish tradition. It made her an unmovable object, for the bedrock upon which she stood was impenetrable.

She saw Maulakanth sitting at the table of their longhouse, his back raw and bloody, his head between his hands, trying not to cry.

Mazrah bit her lip and shook her head, trying to rid herself of the image. Their father and his treatment of her brother wasn’t representative of Orsinium as a whole. Mazrah only had to think of her mother to know that there was so much more to the ways of the Orsimer than harsh cruelty and senseless violence. Frustrated, she fiddled with the hem of her loincloth. How was she supposed to use the foundation of her own harmony and balance to help Latro if it was being undermined by other memories? She needed to have faith in the things she had been taught, in the indestructible spirit of the Orsimer and the way it had been tamed for generations. Latro could not stand on the same bedrock… but at least she could teach him how to stand.

In one smooth, fluid movement, Mazrah uncoiled her legs and got to her feet. She hummed the war-song again, slowly at first, making sure she was getting it right this time, before she dropped into a loose and flexible pose, her hands at the ready to greet an imaginary enemy. She remembered the roaring bonfires of Orsinium’s celebrations and the way she had seen her mother dance with the other huntresses as a child, and remembered the feeling, the urge, to join her. It was like a rising flame in her chest, a call that could not be ignored. That was how how her mother had first guided her in releasing her rage. That was the thing -- it wasn’t just rage, or mindless anger, but passion. To do something with every fiber of one’s being. She felt the feeling coming and opened herself to it. That is how the Orcish women danced: their eyes crimson and their blood singing, until the earth shook with the reverberations of their singular thought in that moment.

Here I am. All of me.

Gold turned scarlet and Mazrah danced, her voice soaring over the dunes, the rock trembling, a cloud of dust kicked up all around her, her muscles burning. This was not a fight. It was a release. And this was how she would make Latro whole again.

The Elder Scrolls: After the Calamity

16th of Rain’s Hand, 5E150
Eastmarch Hold, Skyrim

Night would be setting in soon, she figured they had around an hour of good sunlight left. She felt it too, the air was growing colder and she couldn’t decide if she had ever felt so dangerously cold before. Windhelm was icy, but the walls, buildings, and torches must have been allowing some warmth because this was so much worse. This was just emptiness and so yes, it felt much colder. She wrapped her cloak around herself even more. It had always felt like a such plush garment, but right now it felt like paper. She wasn’t going to tell Viper that, he’d latch onto her first complaint like moths would latch to a flame. She was not going to let him have the satisfaction. Even if he could probably hear the chattering of her teeth.

They had found a relatively sheltered area that sat at the bottom of a large hill. It was protected by some crumbled stone walls and surrounded by trees and overgrown brambles bearing fruit, it was at least partially walled in. This was adventure, this was how it was! As she took her seat on the ground, she smiled, forgetting about the cold for the time being.

The trek had been both exhilarating and horrendous in equal measure. The nature was beautiful, and still the novelty had not worn off of finally being away from Windhelm. The horrendous part had been the grumping of Viper every time she took a step too far ahead, lingered too far behind, meandered too far from his side, asked too many questions, or pointed out another tree, leaf, or rock… Speaking of, “do you think this ruin might have been someone’s home?” Caeliana asked with a curious grin, propping up her chin on her hands. It had been a while since she had last asked him something, and so she felt she’d earned this one.

Viper had immediately set about to the task of preparing a campfire to warm themselves up with, cook some dinner over and, most importantly, boil some canis root tea with, when Caeliana spoke up. He was prepared to grit his teeth again but he found that, to his surprise, it was a fair question. The Dunmer straightened up and looked around, taking in the remnants of the building’s walls, the layout, the foundations.

“Could be,” he said with a nod. “Farmhouse, maybe.” Viper considered the ruin’s location, situated as it was at the bottom of a hill and looking out over a relatively flat, now featureless field. Trees clumped together in the distance, marking the beginnings of the foothills of the closest mountain range, and high above the canopy snow-capped peaks loomed, their silhouettes distorted by mistbanks and wisps of fog.

He turned back to the pile of dried firewood from his backpack, arranged it properly and gently coaxed a small flame into existence in the palm of his hand, which he then used to light the campfire. It crackled to life almost immediately. Satisfied, Viper sat back on one of the stones that littered the ruin’s interior and began rummaging through his backpack.

“I bet they were happy here,” she said quietly with a forlorn sigh as she allowed herself a long look at the scenery ahead. The field ahead was practically barren, save for some dry, patchy grass. The Imperial could quite easily imagine those same fields filled with soil growing wheat and vegetables in abundance for a happy family. Shadows were starting to seep in now as the day faded. Caeliana wasn't afraid, and she looked to her shield and sword, places out on the stone by the fire so that she could sit comfortably for their campout.

She watched the trees in the distance for some time. Each of them unique in their own way, some of them were leaning more at an angle - they must have been blown by the wind. Some of them stood straight, reaching for the sky like towers of branches and leaves. To Viper they were probably just trees, but to Caeliana they were much more. They were proof that things could grow out here, and that while life may not have been thriving, there was life. There was a note of melancholy to the view too, the contrast of the emptiness and the pockets of life littering sporadically through it reminded her that there was also death and decay, and that the decay was more prevalent.

The woman reached into her own bag to find a contribution to the dinner. She had a handful of dried berries that sat in her palm like jewels, and a corner of bread. The bread had seen better days, so it was best to eat it now before it became just more decay to leave behind. “It feels quite humbling to sit here, actually,” she remarked as she placed the food beside Viper. Maybe he would make something of it, maybe it would remain as a snack for after.

“Good,” Viper grumbled as he emerged from the foraging session throughout his own belongings. He placed an iron grille over the fire and a cooking pot on top of that. “Hold onto that feeling.” He glanced up at Caeliana and gave her a weary smile. “Humility will keep you sharp. I don’t much like to dwell on the past but if that’s what it takes for you to… I don’t know, be aware of your own insignificance out here, be my guest.”

After that, the Dunmer poured some water into the pot, along with a helping of scrag ends and seasonings. His eyes fell on the berries and the bread and after a moment’s deliberation, he threw the berries in the soup as well. He gave the bread back to Caeliana. “Dip that in the soup. Helps you forget that it’s stale.”

“It’s our responsibility to remember and honour the past. The old ways of life. You’re right, it keeps us sharp… Keeps us from becoming monsters.” Suddenly she shuddered, drawing her cloak around herself again, leaning to the fire, her eyes transfixed by the flames. She never had managed to learn destruction magic, it was a regret of hers. Viper’s command over fire must have been one of the many reasons he had such impressive survivability.

She began to pick up the scent of the soup he was making, and she nodded at the pot, “smells pretty good, we should share this bread, there’s enough for us both.” With that, she tore it into two pieces, and left the second half beside him. “I remember a few years ago now, Wulfharth roasted a whole pig just for us fighters. By Talos I’d never eaten something with so much flavour. It was so rich in fact that it almost made me sick...” She was watching him stir the soup and how the steam rose in clouds around his face, he looked as weary as ever.

“You’re the one with all the muscles,” Viper said and met Caeliana’s gaze through the swirling vapor. “Gonna need that bread more than I do. Suit yourself, though.” He lifted the spoon and had a taste of the soup. “More seasoning,” he mumbled, seemingly to himself, and he sprinkled another pinch into the pot. He then realized that she would’ve heard what he said and he added: “No, it won’t be as rich as the pig. Don’t worry.”

“You could use some muscle, to keep up with me on this journey,” she said with a smirk. “It’s only fair… I share things, we need to do that now.”

Having Caeliana here, talking about responsibility and honour, was such a sharp contrast to Viper’s usual experiences in the wasteland that it was almost surreal. It wasn’t a topic that was ever brought up in conversation outside Windhelm’s walls. On the occasions that Viper had talked to people while he was out ranging, survival was the only thing on anyone’s mind. He was about to speak his mind on the topic and opened his mouth, only to immediately close it again. He held up a hand and his knife-shaped ears twitched. Something was on the move outside the ruin.

“Hear that?” he hissed while his other hand reached for Heartseeker’s grip.

She had heard it, and she moved slowly forwards from the rock getting low to the ground, a hand on the hilt of her sword. She moved so precisely that it was in front of her in no time at all, without having made a sound. She did not need to say anything to him. Right at dinner… Couldn’t have been before… she thought to herself as she moved to the edge of the ruin so slowly that her cloak just dragged behind her, making no movement of its own. Her eyes narrowed as she tried to make out shapes on the perimeter, but there was nothing.

A blue aura formed in her hand, and her shield lifted from the place she had left it and came floating towards her until she took it into her hand. The silence was broken by a long and low howl outside. A horrifying howl that sent an immediate shiver down her spine. “You ever hear a wolf like that?” she asked under her breath, turning her head to look at him - a concerned and intense burning look in her eyes.

“Yes,” Viper whispered back, but it was bad news. “N’wahs get bigger every year.” Even after having left one at the watchtower, he still had two bear traps left and the Dunmer wasted no time installing them just behind two of the openings in the half-collapsed walls of the ruin. The wolves -- he doubted there was just one, the beasts traveled in packs -- had multiple angles of attack and the two of them couldn’t cover them all. Having installed the second trap, Viper looked around, mind racing, wondering if they were ready, where he could best position himself, what he needed to do. His eyes fell on the remnants of an interior wall, located squarely in the middle of the ruin, covered in moss and lichen. Despite its crumbled state, it was still a good way to put nine feet of extra space between him and the wolves and it allowed him to maintain overview of the situation. Quick as a spider, Viper pulled himself up and crouched on top of the wall on one knee, crossbow at the ready.

Outside, the wolves began to growl. “Not long now,” Viper breathed.

“Hmmm” She hummed, still low to the ground. She’d fought wolves in the pit before, they hunted in packs and they were smart about it. It would only take one of them to knock Caeliana or Viper down, she would be a fool to believe that it wouldn’t. How many? Was what she needed to find out, and she needed to break them from their cover so Viper could get his eyes on one and take a shot. But first, protection. Her hand came to her chest and she closed her eyes, focussing her magicka to her palm so that she could cast her Stoneflesh. She would be taking the hits - not Viper. She thought to throw a dose of Courage at him, but she figured he’d lay into her for it later.

Her eyes focussed on a rock just a short distance from her and she gave a nod to Viper, to let him know she was about to do something, her hand gesturing to the very rock she was about to throw into the clearing, and smack it into the bark of a tree. The noise might startle the wolves, and allow Viper to get the overview he needed.

It happened so fast. The spell was cast and the rock was lobbed forwards and into the trunk of the tree with such a force that it become lodged there. Out of the shadows sprung a single wolf - but it was much bigger than the ones she had seen, it had to be three or four times the size. “Oh shi…” she spat, coming up from the ground with her shield clutched in one hand, sword held out in the other. “That’s a big wolf Viper…” she said quietly, watching it sniff aggressively at the source of the noise.

Viper's eyes watched the trajectory of the rock with great interest. He had to admit to himself that he was pleasantly surprised with Caeliana's tactics. For someone who had only ever fought in the ring before, she took to this type of asymmetrical combat quickly. When the huge wolf appeared as if conjured by the rock, Viper clenched his jaw and raised his crossbow in position. Caeliana was right. It had to be among the biggest wolves Viper had ever seen. He'd have to strike the animal right in the skull to kill it instantly, and that was easier said than done.

But that's why all his bolts were poisoned.

He squeezed the trigger. The bolt hit the wolf in the flank as it took a step back from the tree and it yowled in surprise and pain. Growls came from two other directions in response. While Heartseeker's mechanics cycled to load another bolt, Viper followed the movements of one of the wolves with his ears, tilting his head to keep track of the source of the sound. It sounded like it was going to step into his trap any second now. Viper whistled to grab Caeliana's attention and he pointed to the right side of the ruins. With the Imperial at the ready, anything that triggered the trap could be slain immediately.

She moved quickly. A nod was all that was needed before she dove with precision in the direction Viper had alerted her to. She heard, and felt, the trap spring. It was so forceful that it vibrate through the earth and even the stone under her feet. That was a big one too. She came to the wall, and used the very rock she had been sitting on as a stepping stone of sorts to propel her leap to the top of the crumbling wall.

The wolf had his front leg in the trap. Good. It was big enough to mount, and so she did, hopping down onto his back, the sword in her hand slicing gracefully through the flesh of the neck in a downwards motion. It wasn’t enough to kill the beast, as she was to learn when he shook her free from his back, lunging at her. Mistake. She may have been on her back, but she held the sword at such an angle that the wolf came down on it with its own weight. “Hnnngrh,” she grunted as she pushed it off herself, realising her sudden predicament - she could no longer see Viper, and thus she could not receive his instruction until she got back over the wall. In this scenario, every second would count.

Viper opened his mouth to call out to Caeliana after she disappeared from his line of sight when the third wolf leapt into the interior of the ruins through one of the other openings, avoiding the bear trap by jumping over it. “Clever girl,” Viper growled and whirled his crossbow around to shoot at the beast. He was too slow, however, and before he could take aim and fire the wolf crested the wall he was kneeling on in a single bound and swiped at him with a huge paw, claws out. With nowhere else to go, Viper jumped backwards and off the wall, one hand extended in front of him, dousing the wolf in a shower of flames before he slammed into the ground nine feet below. The wind was knocked out of him and he winced, gasping for air. Above him, the wolf yelped in pain. The fire singed its fur and burnt its nose but the brief burst hadn’t been enough to set the wolf alight completely, and Viper could see its glowing eyes stare down on him menacingly, a guttural growl in its throat and drool dripping from its slavering fangs.

“Fuck,” Viper groaned.

She had to go around this time, the drop had been further than she could jump back up, and so she moved back around the wall, the scent of smoke filled her nostrils to her lungs and she almost stopped in her tracks to avoid it - but Viper was backed up. It was the third wolf, but the first was up and moving to the camp too. It was slower, with the poison coursing through it but it was still moving. She had a choice to make, hit number three or number one - she was dead centre of the two of them.

Viper came first, and she turned her back on the other one, something she was sure to get a lecture about when all was done. She intercepted the attack the burnt wolf was about to make on Viper with a rounding smack to its face with her shield. That got the attention she wanted, she moved to bring her blade down onto it with all of her weight, but the wolf snapped at her sword arm and nipped at her, it was enough to cause the Imperial to flinch and fall back, her sword dropped to the floor and her arm was left feeling sore. The steel bracers and Stoneflesh had nullified most of the damage but it had still taken her by surprise, worse yet, she hadn’t landed a blow.

As it lurched forwards at her again, she pushed back with her shield and made a blunt thudding contact with its nose. “Might need some assistance,” she called out through gritted teeth as she continued to shield bash the wolf, guiding it back and away from Viper with each whack.

After a few excruciating seconds, Viper was finally able to breathe again and he sprang into action, rolling onto his abdomen. The first wolf, the one with the bolt sticking out of it, was still approaching, but slowly, as if it couldn’t find the opening it was looking for. Viper quickly raised Heartseeker to his eye before pulling the trigger. The second bolt hit the beast right between the eyes and it collapsed to the ground like a marionette with its strings cut.

Only one wolf left. Viper scrambled to his feet and with a loud thwang and a wicked snick, Blackblood sprang from its sheath in Viper’s vambrace and into position. The serrated blade gleamed menacingly in the light of the campfire. Caeliana hit the wolf in the face with her shield one more time before Viper dashed forward, taking advantage of the wolf’s pain and disorientation, and slashed at its soft belly. Blackblood cut through the wolf’s hide like it was nothing, leaving behind a horribly jagged wound. Blood and guts spilled to the ground with a sickening splash and the wolf let out a bloodcurdling scream. It would be dead within a minute but Viper feared what it might do with the time it had left, prompting him to back away as fast as possible, his outstretched hand at the ready, fire coming to life in his palm. “Back off!” he yelled at Caeliana.

She did as he said once more, taking a hop backwards and dropping to the floor, the shield held up in front of her to protect her from stray flame. She stayed down until she was sure it was done. She could smell the flesh of the wolf burning. That, mixed with the smoke and the blood smell was almost too much and she had to put a hand over her mouth.

“I think you got it!” She yelled out from behind the shield still as the flames died down. At least, if nothing else, she had warmed up now. Not only that, but she was sweating and her heart was pounding from the adrenaline. Each breath was a struggle to catch and she flopped down onto her bottom now that the coast was clear. Caeliana let go of the shield and let it clatter to the ground. “Looks like we have meat for the soup now then,” was all she could think to say in between each breath and she looked over at Viper with a raised eyebrow.

The fight was over but that did not mean that the danger had passed. Viper flicked his wrist in a particular way and Blackblood retracted and resheathed itself while Heartseeker hung from a shoulder strap, leaving his hands free. He pulled a dagger from his boot and knelt down to skin the roasted wolf. “Pack up your stuff. You’ll have to carry the cooking put. Put the lid on it. We have to get out of here as soon as possible,” Viper said, his arm moving up and down with a sawing motion as he relieved the wolf of its hide. “Something will have heard this racket and I don’t want to stay to find out what it is.”

“You think it’s safer on the road in the dark?” She asked, reluctant to believe him, despite his experience. “You want me to walk on the road with a pot full of soup and you covered in blood?” The Imperial folded her arms over her chest, shaking her head. While he was right, something may have heard this - they would have heard it regardless, being on the road like this wasn’t really going to help them, was it? “Where will we go? We need a better plan than that. We can't just walk out there, surely.” The woman got down to collect her sword from the ground, the weight of it straining her wrist as she sheathed it.

“Not the road. Fuck the road.” Viper looked up at Caeliana with irritation in his eyes. “You're supposed to do everything I say. Trust me that we do not want to stay here. We'll go across the field to the edge of the forest. Go, grab your stuff.”

She grumbled under her breath back at him, doing as he asked in an indignant fashion. She lifted the shield over her shoulder and fixed it to the clasp so that it sat comfortably - and as he had requested she rolled up her things and stuffed them into her bag at a fast pace. “I’ll do what you say, never promised I wouldn’t ask questions about it.” The lid went back on the pot with a clatter and she lifted it up. “Lead the way then.”

And so they went, dashing across the field with naught but moon- and starlight to guide them. Viper, unencumbered by the pot, reached the edge of the forest first and used Blackblood to cut down severallow-hanging branches of the ubiquitous pine trees. He used some of the rope in his backpack to tie the branches together and in doing so created a makeshift shelter, like an open-topped pine-igloo. He beckoned for Caeliana to step inside and motioned to stay low. He knelt himself down and created a small gap in the thick wall of needles to stare out over the field, towards the ruin they had just abandoned. A quick look at Caeliana conveyed the need for utter silence.

Nothing happened. Ten minutes later, nothing continued to happen. At last, Viper exhaled slowly and turned back to Caeliana. “Looks like we’re in the clear,” he muttered. “And don’t tell me I’m paranoid,” he added quickly and held up an accusatory finger. “We only need to be unlucky once out here and that’s it for us.”

“Yeah. I know,” she whispered in response, watching out across the field, making out as much as she could in the dark. It wasn't easy to make anything out, or perhaps there was just nothing there. She reached into her bag carefully and took out the bread crust she'd stowed away in there. It had managed to pick up some dust from the ground of their last camp. Caeliana blew it off, wiping it against her cloak before she began to eat it, without the soup.

She had imagined that there might have been more roaming, exploring and adventure on her first day out - but it had been sneaking and vigilance and fighting. There had not even been a soul out with them. The only life having been the wolves that she and Viper had slain. She didn't want to feel deflated, it had only been one day - and yet she felt that this would be the first of a string of days like this. She stretched her legs so that they would poke out of the igloo that Viper had made, and she sighed quietly, wondering what the Dunmer would do next, and whether it was time to eat yet.

The Elder Scrolls: Vengeance of the Deep

The Night Needs the Starlight

Alik’r Desert, Oasis
16th of Midyear, 4E208

featuring @Stormflyx

---

Having left Latro to his devices now, and satisfied with the work they had accomplished together - the Breton made her way back through the mouth of the cave and headed with a smile to the tent she had been sharing with Gregor. There was a lightness to her step today. Rest, water, and shifting baggage had done wonders for her spirit. There was only one thing she wanted to do, and that was to spend the morning alone with her Knight, and make sure he was feeling good too.

She observed him sitting with a cup of something warm, his Claymore in hand and a cloth to oil it with. Even in the desert heat, it was good to start the day with something to warm the chest and soul, and she knew that for Gregor, routine work on his blade was also something that warmed his soul. As she drew closer to him, she wound the top section of her hair into a loose bun on the crown of her head, fixing a beaded pin from her pocket to hold it in place right at the centre.

“You’re up,” she said as she approached, reaching down to take a sip from the cup next to him. It was a honey tea, sweet and somewhat luxurious. “Can we take a walk? I want to show you something…” There was an air of mystery on her tone, but her eyes had lit up when she saw him and she wore only an expression of pure joy upon her face.

Gregor had been about to protest by saying that he wasn’t finished with his routine yet when he looked up and saw the look on Raelynn’s face and the gleam in her beautiful eyes. There was no resisting that, so the Imperial put his belongings away and got to his feet with a curious smile on his face. He had found the time to wash his hair and his clothes sometime before and he looked well-groomed, if still tired.

“Lead the way,” he said and took her arm in his own.

The two walked arm in arm down the same passageway of the cave that she had walked through just the day before with Daro’Vasora. She traced the memory of her footsteps carefully until she could feel the breeze again, and it was then that she gave Gregor a knowing smile. “I came here yesterday with Sora, we did some exploring…” She began to hurry to the source of the sound of water, and walked the two of them through the gap in the wall that lead out into the hot spring of the Oasis. It looked even more radiant in the morning somehow, every crystal in the wall glimmering and glittering, the water an even brighter blue that seemed unnaturally beautiful, but ever so inviting regardless.

“I thought it was time we talked,” she said to him softly. She knew that such words were often the signal for serious discussion, but there was a breezy tone in her voice that would refute any notion of such a thing.

“By Kynareth,” Gregor whispered involuntarily as he laid eyes upon the crystalline walls of the cave and the pure spring at its heart. He had not seen natural beauty like this in many years. Possibly ever. He thought about Shakti’s words from the day before and smiled. It wasn’t hard to imagine that someone who had lived their whole lives in the Alik’r was so attached to it.

Raelynn’s words brought him back to the present and he nodded, catching on to the fact that she meant nothing malicious by it. The water of the spring was so inviting that Gregor held up a finger and slipped out of his linens with a mischievous sparkle in his eyes. He lowered himself in the spring and let out an audible groan of satisfaction. “Now we can talk,” he purred and motioned for Raelynn to join him.

She beamed at him, watching as each of his garments fell the rocks around the spring piece by piece. She couldn’t resist making a show of her own undressing for him, unbuttoning her blouse almost painstakingly slow until it slid from her shoulders and arms like liquid. She smiled flirtatiously at him, turning to face away as she removed her bottoms, and began a slow walk backwards into the spring - meeting him there with a sigh.

The water was once again so refreshing and invigorating, that she felt any sleepiness that was still sitting within her was washed away. “You’ve been quite popular the last couple of days… I feel I’ve barely seen you at all. I do hope Jaraleet doesn’t round the corners for another interrogation…” she chuckled roguishly to herself, as she waded to the edge of the pool.

“Missed me, have you?” Gregor said in a slow drawl. He felt the tension in his muscles begin to unwind a little and he allowed himself to rest, almost slack, against the side of the spring. “I like Jaraleet but I’m not ready for him to see me naked just yet.”

After a few more seconds he took a deep breath and sat up straighter, splashing some water in his face to freshen him up. “Was there something specific you wanted to talk about?”

“I just don’t like to share you,” she smiled while inching closer to him, “is that so bad?” The thought of Jaraleet walking in tickled her, and Gregor’s comment did nothing to stop her giggling. It was a childish and silly thing to think about, all things considered, but the image of it in her mind was amusing and she couldn’t help it. At the end of her laughter, she found her words. “Actually yes,” she tipped her head back against the edge, thinking of how best to say it. The best way was to be out with it, she finally decided. “I spoke to Zaveed yesterday, twice in fact.”

“The first time was not good, he was abrupt and forceful with his choice of words. A short conversation and I told him to kindly fuck off.” Raelynn lifted the lengths of her hair that were loose and let them hang over her shoulder, away from the sharp surface of the rocks surrounding her. “The second time was different, I had been feeling unwell and I suppose that made me more cordial.” Turning her head to face Gregor, she placed her hand on the back of his, “I wanted you to know about this.”

Gregor had to resist the absurd urge to pull back his hand from hers, but he could not hide the grim frown that settled on his face. The severity of his expression, combined with the droplets that rested in his beard, made him look like an old god that rose from its pond, displeased with intruders. “What is there to be gained from talking to him?” he said. “When I talked to him he was just as insolent and vulgar as he was during his taunts when he tried to kill me, and he evidently did not heed my request to leave you alone.” Gregor’s simmering anger momentarily parted when he realised that it could have been even more unpleasant for Raelynn. “Are you alright?” he asked, softer.

Where just days ago, she may have remained in her spot as Gregor grew tense, today it did not deter her, and she moved closer to him still, a small smile on her lips. “He’s vulgar by nature, I’m sorry he was like that to you. If it makes you feel better I scolded him for being a shit at the caravan.” She began to run her hands over Gregor’s shoulders, fingers tracing over the lines of his muscle. She thought on his question, and nodded in response. “It’s strange… We argued, and I refused him and it was as if I felt immediately better… I felt a little lighter. To not have to anticipate that very conversation, knowing that it was done and it didn’t kill me or hurt me… I felt better.” She gathered by Gregor’s expression and hints that he had not felt better. “Then last night we spoke about… Changing and being better… It was stranger still, after that I felt even more free of him. The first thing I was able to think about was… You.”

Some petulant, childish part of him grew jealous at the idea that Zaveed could do anything at all to make Raelynn feel better where he had not, but that idiotic notion was squashed with her last few words. Slowly, Gregor’s frown disappeared and he smiled as he studied her face and enjoyed the sensation of her fingers on his skin. He placed his own hands on her waist and pulled her a little closer, until their noses were almost touching. “I can’t say I entirely understand,” he murmured, his chest vibrating with the deep thrum of his voice. “But if you say that it made you feel better, I believe you. It’s…” He looked around the cave and sighed. “I wish it worked like that for me. When I see him, talk to him, all I feel is anger and bitter resentment.”

Her smile did not fade when he made his confession, but it was not out of disrespect - more so that it came from the most comforting parts of her, the parts that had been released from the cloud of Zaveed now. She placed a kiss on the tip of his nose and wrapped her legs around his waist, to be as close to him as she possibly could. “It’s okay if you don’t understand. You don’t have to understand it, and I wouldn’t expect you to right now. He is not my friend, we have spoken, but he is not my friend.” She said reassuringly to him as her hand dropped over his shoulder to gently stroke the area of his back where his shoulder blades met. She stroked him as softly as she would the petals of a flower, her eyes never leaving his, her smile warmer than ever.

“Of course you are angry, he hurt us, and I was the one who sent you after him. You did that for me,” her voice was quietly resonant and with her free hand, she began to play with the strands of hair that were framing his face. “I put that there, and there it stays until I can take it away. I want to take it away.”

It was like a lockbox in his chest was opened, its bonds uncoiled by Raelynn’s soft words and touch, and a sharp inhale of air preceded Gregor burying his face in the nape of her neck. Like she had done to him so many times before, he clung to her for strength and support now, and he bit back a trembling curse as the agony of all the wounds Zaveed had dealt him flared up again. “I want that,” he whispered, eyes closed and hands trembling. “It’s so heavy…. I have nightmares about it, about everything,” he said, words tumbling from him with increasing urgency. “Zaveed, when I was dying, inside the palace, Rourken -- I dream that I gun myself down with a volley of bullets, that it is my own blade that cuts me, that the souls I capture are just my own…”

He ran a hand up the back of Raelynn’s head, his fingers digging deep into her hair, and he gasped for breath as hot tears ran down his cheeks. The outburst of emotion was sudden and painful. Calen’s sincere question had created an opening in the steel walls Gregor had built around himself and now Raelynn had burst the dam entirely. “I don’t feel like myself anymore,” he stammered. “My hands… and all these scars,” he continued, his voice tinged by disgust and fear. “I thought I was fine. When we went to the palace… I was strong, confident. I don’t regret going there, or what I did, but maybe… maybe it was too much.”

Gregor swallowed hard. “I’m not getting better. I’m still so tired. When I talked to Calen he asked me how I was doing.” Gregor laughed, but it was an ugly, strangled sound that startled even him. He planted a kiss just below Raelynn’s ear to comfort her, and himself. “I wanted to cry. I can’t let go of my anger for Zaveed because I don’t know if--”

A few seconds passed in silence while Gregor’s shoulders shook. “I don’t know if I’ll be okay,” he managed eventually, his voice small and weak.

Raelynn had just been massaging the back of his neck while he spoke, she let him talk, she let him release - and she could feel it in his body when he had done so, the way he wilted when it all left him. She held a pause for a while, working her fingers harder against his shoulders. She rose up from the water so she was then looking down on him, piecing together her phrasing internally. “Then I will make you okay again.”

“Now that… Now that the shadow and pain that had been left by Zaveed has gone,” her fingers found each side of his face and she gently turned him to look up at her, thumbs brushing through his beard tenderly, her smile still there. There were no tears in her eyes. “The weight that was crushing me from inside has gone, and it left a void in me - space to love, and room to nourish.” The Breton kissed his forehead softly. “I have so much love in me now, so much to give. It’s all yours, all of it.”

“When I first met you, Gregor… I was just a girl, with no direction and little in the way of purpose…” She began to slide her hands down the sides of his neck, to his chest where the scars lay and boldly she ran her fingers across them, unafraid. “You gave me a purpose. You made me feel special. You make me feel special. When I’m with you I’m the strongest woman in the world.” She swallowed back a wave of her own emotion, taking his hand and placing it on the place where he would feel her heart beating. She placed her own on his. “So yes, I will heal you everyday - I will never give up on you… When everything feels dark, and everything starts to fall around you… I will be there. I will be your strength. I will always be there to save you.”

Like ugly strands of oil, Gregor’s anger seeped out of him. He became acutely aware of Raelynn’s heartbeat, his splayed hand pressed against her chest, and felt how his own heart thundered against his ribs, as if it wanted to leap through his skin and into Raelynn’s hand. He took a deep, shuddering breath and wiped away his tears.

With everything stripped away, his walls, his anger, his bitterness, his fear, Gregor was left with nothing but his deepest emotions. He felt two things: his love for Raelynn, bright and overwhelming, but a twinned darkness as well -- the things he buried deeper than anything else. Shame and regret.

For a moment, it was like he was a young man again, his beard too big for his face, his scars unbecoming, and he looked up Raelynn with insecurity in his eyes. “Am I a monster?”

“No,” she said calmly, brushing his hair again with the very tips of her fingers. “You’re just a man,” Raelynn smiled down at him, longing to take the pain and insecurity that was sitting there away with a snap of her fingers. But she knew that’s not how it worked, it required time, and affirmation, and work, and love. All of these things she had in abundance, for him. “But you’re a remarkable man, with a devastating past, doing everything he can for those he loves.”

Her fingers once again found their way to his beard, to his chin and she pulled him closer to her - close enough that her lips touched his and she held him there, kissing him lovingly. She pulled away slowly so that she could look into his eyes that were darker than ebony and told her his haunting story with only a glance, the remnants of his past life lay in those eyes. “I love you Gregor Sibassius.”

He nodded, almost imperceptibly, and mouthed the words after her: ’just a man’. She was right. Even if the mask he had put on when he strode into Rourken’s throne room and paraded her undead lover in front of her had been that of a monster, he was just a man on a quest. Raelynn saw that, the love he had for his siblings that had been the impetus for it all, and looked past the cruelty of his methods or the violent nature of his crimes. If she could love him, then… all would be well.

“I love you too, Raelynn Hawkford,” he whispered back. The weight of his life filled out his face once more but it was different now. It was neither the impassive mask of a killer, nor the fragile, soulful face of a weakened creature. It was the determined, noble countenance of the man he had been when he had met Raelynn in Anvil, a man who was so strong in his convictions, born from love and willpower, that he had denounced the gods, for their judgement was beneath him. He was righteous and he knew it. He was still damaged, and he probably would be for a while, but now he had what he needed to keep going. This would not be the moment where Gregor succumbed.

Suddenly he rose from the spring, his muscular torso shimmering with water, until his gaze was level with Raelynn’s, his strong arms around her. “You make me feel alive,” he said, power having returned to his voice, and he couldn’t suppress his grin. It felt like his chest was going to burst. “Like anything is possible. Together, we will take what we want and what we deserve.” He kissed her back, passionately and with force. “Thank you.”

The flutters from the night before had returned to her, and her smile became playfully devious, but there was an elated feeling inside that lit up her eyes as he looked at her. His passion, his words. She felt his spirit returning, and although she knew it would continue to take them both some time, she knew that they were on their way now, together. “So let’s be alive then,” she remarked in a honeyed whisper, kissing him back with a hungry vigour, tantalised by the very thought of them taking what was theirs - even if she was unable to picture what exactly that was in the current moment.

“Let’s,” he hummed, but there was something else in his eyes -- something deeper and more meaningful than the mere return of his spirit. A tenderness and a desire that was more powerful than any call to action. “And when all this is said and done,” he said, voice restrained but laced with love, as if he had never meant anything more in his life, “let’s build a home.”

That was it. That was the dream, right there. The very image she had pictured when she had first been set free - a home, and he had just put it into words and made it real. Suddenly, the air of cool and happy confidence she had been exuding to get her man back upright dripped from her and she just about melted with it. She was no longer holding him up alone, he had her too. Her head found its way to his neck, where she whispered into his ear, a feeling of euphoria sitting in her heart, “you’re already my home.”

The Elder Scrolls: After the Calamity

15th of Rain’s Hand, 5E150
Windhelm, Skyrim

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. A fucking vampire! 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 you 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 helping, 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 know 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! One sword!” 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. Fine. 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 feel 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. But, 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 you 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?”

The Elder Scrolls: After the Calamity

Reavers.

The drug-addled, psychopathic maniacs that roamed the wilderness of Skyrim in small packs, armed to the teeth and too crazy to be afraid of the monsters that they shared their land with. Crimson-Eyes-Killer-Viper knew them all too well. Rejected by the civilized settlements -- or what passed for civilization anyway -- they made their home in abandoned forts and other ruins of the old world. Just like him, they scavenged for supplies, gear and valuables. Unlike him, they also raided farms, made the roads unsafe and killed innocents for sport. Viper narrowed his eyes at the sight of them and pulled his cloak a little tighter around himself.

He was perched sixteen feet up in the branches of a huge pine tree, scoping out the watchtower in the valley below him. There were signs of recent settlement around the tower but the place looked to be abandoned now. Knowing that appearances could be deceiving, Viper had settled into the tree for the day. If nothing else, he was a patient elf when it came to his work. His experience paid off once again when the reavers showed up. There looked to be four of them. Viper was unsure whether they were the ones that lived in the watchtower and were coming back from their own mission, or whether they were currently still on one. As far as living arrangements went outside of the massive walls of Windhelm, they could do worse than the watchtower. Viper snowly nibbled away at a piece of dried meat while the reavers fanned out across the tundra that surrounded the watchtower. The way they overturned the tents and cooking pots that were scattered about told Viper all he needed to know. They were on the prowl, same as him.

“Good,” Viper muttered to himself. “Unfamiliar with the lay of the land, distracted by their search. Easy.”

Slow as slow, the Dunmer climbed down and out of the tree. Once on the ground, Viper kept low and crawled down the hill towards the tundra, using glacial boulders that had been deposited there since before the time of man as cover to stay out of sight. At the bottom of the hill Viper peeked out over the top of one of the boulders, his face hidden by the hood of his cloak. One of the reavers kept watch outside while the other three had entered the watchtower. Even from here, some hundred yards away, Viper could hear them hollering and whooping to each other.

“High on something. Hist sap, maybe. Won’t feel pain. Shoot to kill.”

With practiced ease, Viper’s fingers unfastened Heartseeker from its strap and gently laid the crossbow across the boulder. The Dunmer never took his eyes off the reaver. Now that he was a little closer he could see that he was a male Nord, and a strong specimen too. His torso was bare and he kept rolling his jaw while his head shot this way and that, looking around but not seeing anything. Viper closed one eye and rested his cheek on the crossbow’s stock. The other eye was aligned with the iron sights on the weapon. Viper slowed down his breathing and improved his aim with a few minor adjustments. He had one shot.

With a loud thwang and a sharp metallic sound, Heartseeker fired. Viper’s aim had been true. The Nord immediately keeled over as soon as he was struck, the bolt sticking out of his face, having pierced through his nasal cavity and into his brain stem. Viper inhaled deeply -- he’d held his breath for the shot -- and burst into action. He dashed out from behind the rock and towards the watchtower, his soft leather boots carrying him across the frozen ground almost silently. Inside, the remaining reavers were still loudly tearing through whatever they had found. They had not heard their companion’s death. As soon as he entered the watchtower’s shadow, Viper’s deft fingers unclasped one of the bear traps from the side of his backpack and he knelt some ten yards in front of the watchtower’s entrance. He prepared the trap and placed a Fire Rune right beneath it. Then he sprinted away at a ninety degree angle and took cover behind a piece of rubble that had been smashed loose from the top of the watchtower in some long-forgotten incident, some forty-five yards away. He had deliberately left the corpse of the reaver and the bolt stuck in his face outside. The angle at which he had fallen made it clear where Viper had shot him from. He was counting on the other reavers to realize that. If they stepped out of the watchtower now -- and hopefully one in the beartrap, hidden in a clump of grass -- and looked for him in that direction, they would leave their flanks exposed to crossbow fire from his new position.

Seconds turned into minutes as the reavers continued to fail to realize that their watchman had been shot dead. Viper didn’t budge. There was nothing to be gained by moving. He had an advantageous position. Waiting was his best option. So there he remained, still as a statue, his breathing slow and even, barely even blinking.

At long last, one of the reavers finally stepped outside after calling out what sounded like a name repeatedly and, predictably, receiving no response. Viper could hear the woman curse when she saw the corpse of her erstwhile companion and she ran over to him.

“Rookie mistake,” Viper whispered.

Her brief scream of pain as she stepped into and triggered the bear trap was cut short by the explosive pillar of fire that engulfed her. Normally the force of the Fire Rune’s detonation threw its victims clear of the blast zone. That’s why Viper used bear traps that he firmly anchored into the earth. Caught in the cast-iron teeth of the trap, the woman’s body had nowhere to go. She was immolated within seconds and continued to burn as the magical flames created by the Rune latched onto anything flammable -- fur, mostly -- and roared with supernatural hunger. She died slowly and in extreme pain.

The two remaining reavers realized that they had been outmaneuvered and refused to step outside. That was annoying. Still, without anywhere else to go, Viper knew that the reavers would eventually hope that their invisible assailant had grown bored and left. Prey always did. He quickly glanced up to judge the position of the sun. Three more hours until nightfall. That was cutting it close, he reckoned, but he knew that he was practically invisible in the dusk, pressed up against the rubble, his cloak covering every visible inch of him. He had more time than they did. If something had heard the Fire Rune’s detonation or the woman’s screams, it would be drawn to the tower, not to him.

He waited.

As the sun slowly began to disappear behind the mountain ranges that fenced off the western side of the tundra plain, Viper became acutely aware of the shape of something moving towards the watchtower. It descended down the same hill he had first observed the reavers from. Viper’s eyes flitted between the newcomer’s presence and the watchtower. He tried to make his breathing even more silent and made himself even smaller, barely keeping his head high enough to peer out over the rubble. As he had done so many times, Viper wished he had been born as a Khajiit. It had quickly become too dark for him to make out the exact nature of the humanoid entity. In the wastelands of Skyrim, such a person or creature could be anything, or anyone. Whatever it was, it moved entirely silently and almost seemed to fade into its environment. Viper had to squint his eyes and concentrate to the fullest extent of his considerable mental acuity to keep track of its movements.

It paused at the half-collapsed, charred corpse of the woman, as if it was inspecting her. Then it moved into the watchtower without hesitation.

Their screams only lasted a few seconds. Viper clutched Heartseeker’s grip and trigger more tightly. Silence fell over the tundra and nothing continued to happen for several minutes. Above it all, the stars slowly twinkled into visibility, as eternal and uncaring as ever, while the last remnants of the sun’s light receded. Then, after what felt like an eternity, the shape emerged from the watchtower and left the way it came. Viper watched it leave and even after it disappeared from sight on the top of the hill, he waited for a few more minutes.

“Gods above,” he muttered and exhaled slowly.

A grisly sight greeted him inside the tower. The two reavers had been killed with what looked like a rapid succession of blade or spear thrusts. More importantly, however, was that they had been entirely exsanguinated. Fear and revulsion made Viper recoil involuntarily. Someone had once told him that the vampires of the old world only drank a little bit of blood and left their victims alive. They were a part of the continent-spanning society that had allegedly existed and preferred to hide in plain sight. If that was true, Viper thought to himself, vampirism had developed far more abominable forms and practices since the Calamity. Reluctant to stay more than a second longer than was strictly necessary, Viper was relieved to find that the reavers had put all their findings together in a single pile on top of a broken table. There were some old septims, two swords, fresh loaves of bread, salted meats and a selection of ores, probably mined from somewhere local. It looked to him like the watchtower had been inhabited by ordinary people of some kind until very recently.

“Maybe the vampire got them all. Fuck.”

After selecting the most valuable items among the reavers’ haul and stuffing them into his backpack, Viper snuck out of the watchtower and left the tundra as fast as he could, pausing only to collect his crossbow bolt from the Nord’s face. He would feel safer once he was under the cover of some trees again. That said, he made sure he did not go back the way he came. Sharing his trail with a vampire was absolutely out of the question.

He would not breathe freely again until the gates of Windhelm closed behind him, two days later.

“What’s the matter, Viper?” Fenrir asked as he looked up from his inspection of Viper’s backpack. Everything that went into and out of the city was carefully searched, and Wulfharth Backbreaker made sure that he got his cut. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

The Dunmer scowled at him. “No. It was a fucking vampire, alright? Are you done?”

Fenrir exchanged glances with Adunya, his Bosmeri colleague for the evening’s watch. “Yeah, we’re done here. Go on in.”

With an annoyed grunt, Viper snatched his backpack out of Fenrir’s hands and was just about ready to stomp off when the guard held up his hand.

“One more thing. Go visit Caeliana. Said she missed you and your stories. I’m sure she’ll wanna hear all about this vampire of yours,” Fenrir said, not unkindly.

“Fuck off.”

Fenrir sighed. Adunya covered her smile with her hand. “Just go and talk to her.”

“Hmph.”