DATE UNKNOWN - MORTHAL ___________________________________________________
She could not even stand herself. Fool.
She'd never seen the sun in her unlife. The very idea terrified her, as the words of her Maker seeping through her mind. "We are not for the day. Many have tried in stubborness, but do not tempt fate little one. There is no question or argument. Sun is for the living." And with the lesson done, her Maker strode off in his new boots deeper into the cave, leaving her alone to accept it. Back then she was nothing, but more recently everything was moving along so well she'd scaracely had time to crave his company until now. But she knew what he would say, with the look of disdain he reserved for the foolish or unlucky. She had gotten herself into this. She was undeserving of his gift. She should have found shelter.
With a muffled hiss she slumped back, pressing her small form against the wood in efforts to vanish, blocking out the mutters of forlorn voices around her. She couldn't move and couldn't breathe, paralyzing fear leaving her gasping under her hood. She relived her mistakes over and over. It had all been so simple! She was just as bad as the bandit thralls. Weak, stupid and useless.. Roggevir. It was his fault, foolish Nord, hopeless loser. She never should have returned there. Much easier to lay blame upon him. When earlier, just hours before she had burst into the house she had immediately felt it. He wasn't home, and she leaned against the heavy door to crane it open, waving the Argonian mage in with a rare chuckle. A tiny voice in the back of her head told her this was foolish, but her whole life was foolish. She silenced Sinnis within her head with a growl. She needed to learn. She turned to slam the lock and waved the thrall down the cellar stairs. There were hours of deep night left for her to experiment before she required rest.
She was lucky she had even got the mage. He was certianly nothing to look at, with rotting wounds and flaking scales.. and that horrid stench. She did not see any of that, so used to the company of the dead was she. He wielded ice like a weapon against his bandit cohort, and later she discovered also controlled electricity with his clawed hands. After she escaped the open plain (which was southeast of Whiterun, although she did not know this) the two had sat in the forest for hours, with her forcing the corpse's hands up and mimicing his movements again and again. Virhalla had barely got away with this one, and was tired of the risk of casting Fury. It was too unpredicatble, but this.. this Destruction magick was something else. It's power called to her. She slipped down the earthen staircase with a fluid hop, almost childlike in her excitement. The lifeless one shuffled behind her, groaning and sending crumbs of dirt pittering down around her as his arms rubbed against the walls. She reached the thick door and stood on her toes to wretch the handle back, a long creak sounding as it opened slowly.
It was not meant for her. They stood in the corners of her room, surrounding her coffin, the crypt she'd fought for. Roggevir's voice, raised and shrill with worry called suddenly from upstairs, seeking. Smooth long helmets lent the guards a sort of unhuman facelessness, yet she could feel her hunger burst up inside along with seething rage, hear their very hearts beating, taunting her with their steady tresspassing thrum. They would ruin it again for her. Bastard Nords. She shrunk back against the wall, hood slipping down to reveal her pale eyes, narrowed angrily and glaring like an animal. Slender fingers splayed against the wall, she forced herself to think, gaze darting over the three guards one by one. The thrall's claws hung at it's sides, oblivious. fluffing bandit idiots!
The guard just ahead of her stepped forward, lifting a booted foot to kick her coffin closed with a slam. She instantly recignized him as the pervert from the tavern. "Aye, we see why you work the evenin's now, not a whore but a beast! Arkay have mercy upon you, we'll make a whore outta you yet.." Perhaps her stature made her less intimidating then her vampre brethren, because he then stepped up, looming over, gigantic and sneering although his face remained concealed. Her anger peaked, glaring up into his helmet. He raised an arm to reach for his dagger, and she noticed the ones behind him unfurling a rope. She would not be captive again! Virhalla slammed her fist up and grabbed his burly hand, snapping her neck down to sink curved fangs into the thin skin that covered the underside of his wrist. Blood slapped onto the floor and down over her dingy robe as the sudden attack brought the Argonian to his duty.
The second and third guards charged forward but were hindered by the tight space. The thralled mage flicked his wrist before they could manuver around the coffin that dominated the room and stepped aside, planting a smooth circle of rune shaped ice between them and the struggling Virhalla. For the first one who stepped it was too late, and his face twisted bracing as ice as stiff as steel erupted from the rune marking and completely through his body, shattering his armor and shooting him into a corner in a gasping heap, clinging to life. The second stumbled and threw his hands up to shield his face from the raining ice as the mage shouldered into the guard that held Virhalla. She was being swung with such force that her legs cracked into the door, cheeks stretched taut as she gnawed into the wrist flesh, ignoring the shooting pain. The guard was hollering madly, digging his stubbly fingers of his free hand into the side of her face in attempts to pry her off and tearing her flesh in the process. The door slammed into him as Roggevir entered, dagger poised above his head and screaming urgently "VIRHALLA!" The look of pained fear marked his countenance as he spun, finding his basement in total chaos. Virhalla gurgled and spat bits of flesh, face smeared with blood as she finally released the guard's wrist and dove for Roggevir's feet. The badly bleeding guard stepped after her, hand reaching over his back to draw his warhammer. Roggevir had never been worth anything to her, but still she winced at his fate, curling herself around his feet and scooting back on all fours with chest heaving and spattered with crimson.
In the far corner, the Argonian lurched forward and locked blades with the other guard, his small dagger pressing useless against a curved war axe. She cursed and screamed, her voice screeching through the small room as she blindly reached up, ripping the torch from the wall and heaving it at the human who was soon sure to end her thrall's second life. Why! Why could she not get a break?! The torch caught him aside the head with a burst of orange, and the scent of burning hair and singed flesh joining her screams as he shook himself and kicked away the torch, his face blackened and burned but still holding his weapon to the Argonian's. Roggevir had been circling with Virhalla staying behind him as he tried to calm and reason with the first guard. "She's my only family! I love her, she means no harm, please please please! A sickly girl! PLEASE, MERCY!" Even in what would surely be his final moments, Roggevir still came across as a total pussy. The guard fumbled with his helmet and ripped it free, bloody handprint sticking to the metal as he tossed it to the floor with a clang. Then he turned his face up, hulking shoulders forward, a twisted grin bearing his missing teeth and dirty face. He glared around Roggevir, deep Nordic voice ringing in gruff laughter at her "protector". Embarassed, she hissed at him, and he swung his hammer with all his might. Roggevir dodged this and ran with a shriek at him, dagger raised.
The dagger sunk into the mage's chest, slicing down to it's gut and clean through matted fur armor and dead scaled chest, slipping into unbeating heart and still veins. Congealed blood and swollen innards sprang forth as the Argonian slumped to the floor on it's knees, dancing lightning spinning over it's still raised hand. It had somehow killed the other guard, but the first one turned, having dodged Roggevir's clumsy charge easily. Still grinning to Virhalla he bellowed, "Too bad yer boy cannot aim, ay?" She snarled and scrambled past his legs toward the Argonian. He followed, heavy boots banging on the stone floor. Roggevir turned to stop him, screaming wordlessly at Virhalla to run, but his voice was cut as the massive warhammer thrummed into the side of his face. It punctured his temple, popping bits of brain and blood out of his nose and eye sockets as his body fell back, useless as ever. Virhalla swallowed hard. She had to leave the thrall. There was no time to cast.
And then she ran, she fled the cellar, whole body pushing away from another failure like oil dropped on water. Her otherworldly curse lent her speed and she rocketed forth, spinning to slam the door at the top of the stairs and lock it. She never stopped until chest, bed and bookcase stood jammed before that door, with the guard pounding his fists endlessly on the other side.
Glaring around, forehead wrinkled in agonized thought, her mind raced. She grasped up a knapsack and stuffed whatever lie around into it, 13 septims, a book on visiting Solitude and several piles of salmon meat, a dagger and hat, two potion bottles. She threw herself outside, whirling as she got an idea. Glancing left and right, she guaged it was near one in the morning, still four or five hours until she surely would perish. Virhalla staggered back inside and grabbed the oil lamps, smashing them unceremoniously acrosss the floor and pouring the remaining oil out on the steps outside. She dropped the torch with a grunt, mind creating images of that lowly guard burning alongside her thralled mage. It made her smile, and she lifted her arm to wipe her lips of the blood that stained them deeply red before vanishing into the forest. Other guards voices drifted behind her, alerted to the fire behind her in cursed Morthal.
She knew these trees, these swamplands.. but she did not know much else. At one time long ago she knew a little of her homeland of Skyrim, but those memories had been starved and beaten out of her. She didn't care to think of where to go but she knew the sun was not long away from it's rise, and so she slipped among the bogs until the land changed and forests grew dryer. She was heading west but didn't know it. A camp lie ahead, and the new morn as well.. Virhalla shuddered, hoping for a feed, trying not to let her urgent fear break her. Helpless in this land again, she wanted so to run to her Maker.. but she had learned her lesson well. Slipping forward she could smell the sweat and life, men asleep in their tents under a banner flying the Imperial dragon insignia. She never saw the night watch soldier behind until he was right there, lifting her by the back of her head kicking and shrieking. She was too weak to fight again, and dawn was near. The carriage awaited.
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