HELGEN

"What's your name, Elf?"
The shouts of soldiers and the clatter of weapons echoed around the windblown courtyard. Someone's discarded linen shawl blew between the legs of the small group of guardsmen standing lazily to attention beside an old and scarred desk set up in the middle of the wide space.

Behind this desk, holding a quill pen poised over a ragged sheet of parchment, sat a hard-eyed and angular woman of maybe 50 summers, bedecked in the regalia of a captain of the guard.
She sighed, and waved the quill at a soldier standing behind the prisoner.

With a grunt of acknowledgement the soldier lifted his spear and slammed the butt end of it into the small of the captive's back.
She fell to her knees on the hard dusty ground, sucking a pained breath in through between dirty, clenched teeth.
"Your name." Demanded the captain once again.

After a moment longer, the prisoner looked up at the captain behind her desk; regarded her with large, nearly black eyes set in a gaunt face framed by lank, straw-coloured hair from which protruded the pointed tips of distinctive Elven ears.

The Elf opened her mouth and said in a low, cracked voice; "Eilidh."

The Captain regarded her a moment longer.

The Bosmer - (who, incidentally smelt... well she smelt terribly, but she also smelt like a wolf or a bear; slightly "meaty" and "musty"; sour and rotten. All her kind did, it was as distinctive as it was unwholesome; a result of their twisted diet. And yet, the Captain had to admit to herself, she found this one more than a little fascinating) - The elf's face and body betrayed no small degree of history and hardship; thin she was and yet beneath the ragged sackcloth shirt her body was nevertheless sinewy and bowstring taut, the compact muscles hard and surprisingly powerful; at least one of her men had found that out the hard way when they had attempted to capture her.

Her skin was heavily freckled, beneath a layer of greasy filth, and marked by innumerable abrasions, pocks and marks of all shapes and sizes. She was heavily tattooed with any number of vulgar designs.
But it was her face, more than anything, that told of the hardness of her life until now, it's end.

The left side of the Bosmer's face was a mass of scarring, the damaged skin pale and livid against the dirt that covered her. Dark warpaint was smeared across her cheeks and the sockets of her eyes, which were black and moist; vastly deep like some animal's and rimmed with a livid red as of an incipient infection.
The woman's mouth was set in a thin hard line, the lips bloodless.

But enough of this.
She sighed, waved the quill again and once more the butt of the spear connected with the kneeling Bosmer, hitting her shoulderblade with a crack barely muffled by the thin material that covered her.
"ALL of your name, bosmer." She said, spitting out the last word like an insult.

"MacAuley, Eilidh MacAuley." Said Eilidh finally, her dry voice heavily accented.
The captain grunted in satisfaction and carefully wrote down the name on the parchment, poking out her tongue in concentration.
When she had finished she looked up at Eilidh again, saying; "So, bosmer, have ye anything to say in ya defence, afore I pass my judgement?"
It was a pointless question, and she knew it.

Eilidh knew it too.
"Téigh gnéas féin agat soith..." She hissed through yellowed and gritted teeth.
"Speak Imperial!" Snapped the Captain. Eilidh winced as the guard behind her applied his spear to her back once again.
She glanced hatefully at the woman behind the desk and then, a cold half-smile flickering across her lips she said; "Go **** ye'sel' *****."

There was an audible gasp from the men around her at this display of blatent insolence, and for a moment even their leader looked taken aback.
The Captain gathered herself.
"Even if you were not already dead, bosmer, now you are for sure..."

Silence held sway for a moment and Eilidh, naked but for the thin cloth shivered a little in the chill air blowing through the garrison's courtyard.
She ached all over, or at least more than usual. Her brains were pounding in her ears and her mouth had a dry and phlegmy taste in it. Her condition was not helped in any way by the fact that she had not had wine for some 3 days now.
More though, was the pain of what that pig of a legionary had done to her.

Hers had been a hard life, she had had to fight every inch of the way barring a few brief patches of respite. She looked, she knew, every one of the 173 seasons that she had spent on this Gods-forsaken world.
During her time she had committed... dubious acts, both physically and morally, and yes amongst those had been the auctioning of herself, when money had been tight and survival the only factor.
But that was different, she had been in control; calling the shots she had run the game and come out the victor in those encounters.
Yesterday though, that had been something else entirely, that was evil even by her standards of behaviour. There had been a wrong visited upon her the likes of which should never happen.
Ever.

And then, out of the corner of her dark eye she saw him, standing just behind the guard Captain's entourage he was.
He was a big man, broad of girth; fat, sweaty jowls, and sallow oily skin. He was wearing a helmet and facing slightly away from her but she knew him; his stinking greasy body, his breath hot and sour against her, his little piggy eyes.
Oh, she knew him alright.
The blood in her veins ran cold as ice, her heart pounded against her ribs.

He turned then, and saw her.
His plump mouth spread open in fat grin, the thick lips pink against his pale cheeks. He pointed at her with a stubby finger whilst with his other hand he made a sign, the meaning of which was only too clear to the Bosmer.

The sound of the Captain's voice droning on - a litany of her crimes, chief amongst which was simply of having been born a Bosmer - had long since faded into the distance, to be replaced by one repeated thought:
"HE MUST PAY. HE WILL PAY."
Over and over and over, a cold and hard nugget of vengeance.

Had she been able, she would have leapt at him then and there even though her hands were bound.
Indeed, even as she thought it, her body moved of it's own accord, her mouth twisting into a snarl...

...Then hands grabbed her and lifted her roughly to her feet, through a red haze of bloody murder she vaguely heard the Captain's voice; "...for the crime of being an unwelcome element in the Imperial Province of Skyrim, for numerous

breaches of our laws, I hereby refer you for summary execution."

Her captors walked her across the courtyard to the block that sat lumpen and solid; bloodstained and chipped, in the centre of the courtyard. A mute symbol of oppression and arbitrary justice.
She passed him and their eyes met - his, mocking and leering and hers, hate-filled.
She kept her eyes on him as she was led away, maintained contact even as the tendons in her neck began to creak and ache.

Finally she faced the front, faced her future.
173 years.
He Would Pay. Even if in Death she made a pact with all of the Daedra themselves to send her back, He Would Pay.

173 years.

They forced her roughly to her knees, pushing her head onto the block.
Rage boiled within her.

173.
He Would Pay.

She sensed the headsman raise his sword.
1...
7...

The world exploded into roaring fire, and everything around her went insane.

ESCAPE

Instinct took over.
As the firestorm erupted about her she sprang to her feet and barged into the startled headsman with a bony shoulder. Caught off balance he fell backwards in a heap as in one smooth motion she vaulted the execution block and hightailed it to the shelter of the closest piece of shelter that she could see.
Headless of the sharp stones under her bare feet, she let her long legs carry her rapidly across the open space, bound wrists held out in front of her.

The distance to the relative safety of the garrison wall was further than she had thought, her destination seeming to fade into the distance as all around her came the sounds of panic and confusion, shouted orders and the constant roaring of flames.
From off to her right she was aware of one of Helgen's watchtowers collapsing in a cloud of dust and rubble, sparks from it's burning wooden platform spreading around it like fiery snow.

Finally she reached the stone alcove in the wall that she had been making for.
Hunkering down she entered the alcove and pressed as far back into the shadows as she could get. Turning, she peered out at the scene beyond the opening and tried to take stock.

Beyond her hiding place utter confusion reigned. Everywhere there were flames, men and women ran screaming and shouting hither and yon amidst the steady rumble and crack of crumbling, flaming buildings.
"Think Eilidh!" She said to herself.
venturing out as far as she dared, all the while conscious of her near nakedness and vulnerability, she looked around until she spotted the entrance to the still standing keep, just across the way from her position.

She needed armour, weapons, and drink; food she could harvest from the corpses - (though normally she preferred her meat raw) - she was about to make a run for it, cursing her still-bound wrists, when a vast shadow blotted out the sun, already patchy from the clouds of smoke and haze from the many fires about the settlement.
There was a stench of bitumen and methane and a foul wind washed over the ground.

"Dragynne!" Her heart leapt in her chest. "A Dragynne!"
There had been no dragons for many centuries and she herself only knew of them from the old fireside tales of her youth many years ago. She spared a moment to look up as a huge shape, long neck and tail and massive ragged wings, swung round far above her. It dropped like a stone and opening its mouth washed the town with a stream of roiling liquid fire.
Eilidh threw herself into the back of the alcove as the dragon passed over once again.

The keep! She must reach the keep!
She bolted out of the alcove towards the doors of the rough brick tower opposite and was almost bowled over by a running Imperial Guard, his torso and head well alight, burning arms outstretched, he was shrieking like a monstrous tea kettle.
He fell just beyond her, his dagger popping from its sheath as he hit the ground twitching and spasming. On impulse she grabbed the dagger and resumed her flight to the keep.

By the time she had arrived she had managed to cut through the bindings on her wrists and had freed them.
Mercifully the doors were not locked and hanging off of the latch she heaved them open and tumbled inside, pushing them shut with her feet, heedless of who or what lay beyond.
Inside, the keep was relatively still and quiet, the dragon had not yet breached it and the thick walls muffled the sounds of chaos and carnage from outside..

Eilidh squatted on the floor breathing heavily. She needed to think, to plan.



As she had flung herself against the door her senses, attuned as they were to His presence, had directed her eyes briefly across the the courtyard just in time to see the Fat Pig disappear with two others into the smouldering wreckage of a house near the wall.

She would venture deeper into the keep for now, wait for the attack to be over and when the dragon had passed, having marshalled herself and her thoughts, then she would see what was what...

Ralof picked his way through one of the tunnels of the underkeep. A Stormcloak sergeant, he had been detained for questioning and had been on his way to be "interrogated" when whatever had happened, had happened.
He had in fact no idea at all as to just exactly what had occured on the surface. At the first sign of trouble the two imperials escorting him had left him and headed at speed towards the surface.

In the ensuing confusion, with further Imperial troops pounding past, he had thrown himself into the nearest room and waited for the sounds of running iron-shod boots to pass. An airy silence, down there in the keep's vaults, held sway with the passing of the troops to aid their comrades in whatever calamity had struck the fort and the surrounding settlement; a silence broken only by muffled thumps and cries.

He had tried to convince himself it was a Stormcloak raid but something just didn't feel right with that line of reasoning. Whatever was going on he needed to be somewhere other than where he was, and he needed to be there fast.
Casting around some nearby rooms he turned up a cache of confiscated weapons and was able to more-or-less equip himself to at least a reasonable standard; although the loss of his own sword was more than a little bothersome.
Still, no help for that now.

Having taken a sustaining swig from a discarded ale flagon, and without more ado, he set out further into the now deserted complex looking for the door that he knew existed, a back door; as far as was possible from the courtyard above him and whatever was happening there.



And so here he was, in the corridors under Helgen keep.
After no small amount of searching and backtracking, he had finally found a downward-sloping corridor that seemed familiar to him. The passageway was dark, away from the main body of the castle; the light fading along with the sounds of conflict and strife.
At the far end however there was light, bright and yellow-flickering. He headed for it.

The air was chill in the narrow passage, and the rough walls were damp against his fingertips as he traced them over the stonework to either side of him.
He had recognised where he was now, from the stink of faeces and stale urine, the rusted and pocked iron bars that passed with a certain regularity under his fingers, he knew he was in the deepest cell block, the one in which the "Special Prisoners" were kept; important ones, political ones, or simply ones who needed to disappear.
The room at the bottom, to which he was inexorably heading, was reserved for the questioning of these particular prisoners, questioning that might require certain... rather more "emphatic" methods.
He knew this was the case because he had been brought down the passageway to the interrogation chamber as a threat - (or a promise) - of what would happen to him if he did not cooperate. The chamber, he also knew, did indeed have a set of doors leading outside, it needed them; it was how the bodies of those who were no longer required were thrown out of Helgen and into the grateful maws of the waiting wolves.

He supposed it was fortunate that the cells were empty, Following an official decree - (of which there had been many during his incarceration) - the high level prisoners, including a number of Bosmers who had been picked up in the Cleansing Operations, had been taken out and executed topside, the last of them had gone that very morning - presumably.
The only inhabitants of these cells now were their ghosts.
The thought was an unpleasant one and Ralof was just superstitious enough to say a small and silent prayer as he passed onwards and downwards to the lighted room at the end of the passage, the site of so much suffering and pain.



he arrived at the entrance at the bottom of the passage and sticking to the shadows that abounded at its threshold he waited silently outside and to the left of the doorway, back against the wall, ears straining to pick up any sound, one hand gripping tightly the hilt of his sword.

At the very edge of his hearing he could just detect muffled noises, crashes and thumps; impressions of heavy objects falling or being thrown down.
They were not healthy sounds and whilst he was not in the least bothered about the death of the Imperials there was the small point that there were still many of his comrades-in-arms being held in the fort and that, potentially, a large proportion of them had now perished.
He needed to get away, to rejoin his unit if he could; to see what had happened with the perspective of distance. There was a worry in the back of his mind however, that he had no clear idea where his unit actually was - it being a number of days since he had been captured.
This concern was exacerbated more than a little by the knowledge that his family; a wife and two sons, were in the caravan accompanying the troops...

There in the silence and the shadows he found himself hoping that they were far away from Helgen, and whatever unknown force had visited the place.

Finally satisfied that all was clear, at least where he was, Ralof cautiously moved out into the corridor and within it's narrow confines and sticking to the darkness, performed a small arc from one side of the doorway to the other, sword half drawn, investigating the room beyond as much as he could; eyes jumping from morbid detail to morbid detail.

The room was brighlty lit, evidently the Commander's Chief Inquisitor was a man who liked to be able to see what he was doing.
The floor and walls were whitewashed, to make cleaning them easier Ralof supposed; that being as it may, the old stains still showed through, adding macabre shadows within and around the more recent marks, the remains of Gods Knew what.
Spaced along the left wall were three cages, one of which contained a skeleton, ragged clothing still partially covering the dirty bones.
The wide double-doors that opened onto the charnel pit - (and his ironic salvation) - took up most of the far wall, whilst to the right hand side his gaze swept over several tables covered with numerous implements and bottles containing liquids of various shades and hues.

There were chests, one of which was open and into which had been cast several swords and a mace. Some coins and a little jewellery were scattered about a small pile of armour that had been deposited carelessly in one of the far corners.
The room itself was brigthly lit still by many candles, in stands on the floor and in sconces on the walls. Between two of the tables on the right a brazier glowed with a sullen red. The ceiling was darkly coated with soot.

Cautiously he moved to the doorway and peered inside, his sword half-drawn. He did not trust Imperials further than he could throw them and would not put it past any of them to be hiding in the chamber. A coward he or she might be, but a cornered coward is a dangerous one.
In the near right hand corner were two corpses, a man and a woman, both naked and covered in blood and filth; a fair amount of which had pooled around their bodies, coagulating to form sticky puddles.
The male appeared to be missing an arm, Ralof noted.

The place was clearly devoid of life, but still Ralof could not shake the feeling that something was... not quite right.
The doors were there in front of him however, and rebuking himself for acting like a mewling infant, hand on his sword he strode into the chamber.



Something fell on top of him.

It wasn't very heavy but it was, as it turned out, extremely powerful as the startled Stormcloak discovered when a pair of long muscular legs wrapped themselves around his waist, and an arm closed around his neck.

Ralof could not have been more surprised if the Goddess Dibella herself had shown up with her t*ts out.
He opened his mouth to shout but his cry was strangled in his throat by the tightening of the sinewy arm around his neck. Further, a greasy long-fingered hand clapped itself over his eyes, completely blocking his vision.
Arms pinned to his sides, his sight cut off, choking, and surrounded by a noisome fug of stale body-odour, he staggered blindly forward into the chamber lurching like a ship in a stormy sea.
Then, from just behind his left ear, came a grunt of effort and a sharp intake of breath; a momentary pause followed, and then he found himself jerked violently backwards.

The next few seconds were a blur, quite frankly. Ralof was aware of falling, of hitting the stone floor of the room with a crash, the back of his head bouncing off the flagstones.
Dazed, he was conscious that something had climbed around his body even as he fell to the floor and was now, as he lay on his back staring blearily up at the ceiling, sitting astride his chest, pinning his arms to the floor with its hands.

There was a shifting of weight, and a shadow appeared in his field of view that resolved itself in the brightly flickering light into a gaunt, filthy and warpaint-smeared face from which with extreme inscrutability, two large, moist black eyes regarded him unblinkingly.

++TEASER++

"For what seemed to Ralof to be an uncomfortably long time, the elf regarded him silently.
She was pinning him to the floor with a force far beyond that which she should have been able to. He tried to shake her off but she remained frustratingly where she was; silent and unmoving, and about a third of his weight and a good several inches shorter.

What made things worse was that she was was topless; depending from her freckled chest and pointing to left and right between her tattooed arms, were a pair of small, firm-looking XXXXXXX, the XXXXXXX dark and hard. they were as tattooed and dirty as the rest of her, and more to the point given her position, they were uncomfortably close to him.
Under other circumstances the proximity of a pair of shapely XXXX attached to an athletic body - even that of a Bosmer - would have been a fine thing, but this was hardly the time or the place..."

[context is everything ]

Oh dear, Ralof is stuck between a dragon and a shapely pair! He might choose the dragon...

We shall see...

[Next installment coming shortly]

ENCOUNTER

For what seemed to Ralof to be an uncomfortably long time, the elf regarded him silently.
She was pinning him to the floor with a force far beyond that which she should have been able to. He tried to shake her off but she remained frustratingly where she was; silent and unmoving, and about a third of his weight and a good several inches shorter.

What made things worse was that she was was topless; depending from her freckled chest and pointing to left and right between her tattooed arms, were a pair of small, firm-looking xxxxxxx; the xxxxxxx dark and hard. they were as tattooed and dirty as the rest of her appeared to be, and more to the point given her position, they were uncomfortably close to him.
Under other circumstances the proximity of a pair of shapely xxxx attached to an athletic body - even that of a Bosmer, from the look of her - would be a fine thing, but this was hardly the time or the place...

"Ha!" Said a voice above him.
He realised that he had been staring at her chest and snapped his eyes back up to her face.
The elf was grinning. It was not pleasant.
"Ye thynke wi'yer cocke, lyke annee manne. S'whye ye makke se much noyze..." She continued, still grinning horribly.
Her voice was harsh and heavily accented.

She shifted position slightly and the flickering light of the candles in the chamber fell more squarely upon her features.
Whatever potential her body might have had, it was undone by her face.
It was lined and scarred and there was a redness around the eyes and nose that implied some sort of incipient infection. Her lips were thin and pale and her eyes, set far back in her head in deep dark sockets were themselves black pools; black in black, in addition to being more animal than those of any elf or human that Ralof had ever seen, they made her expression almost impossible to read.
Like the rest of her body - (or at least the bits he could see) - her face was heavily freckled and pocked, each dark mark serving to highlight the paleness of her skin under the dirt and crusted dark warpaint that was smeared over it, covering her cheeks and further masking her eyes.

"Wull?" She said then. "Air ye gonnae sae 'nethin'? Oar air yez gonnae jes' lae theya an' b' stairyn'?"
She bent closer to his face and he grimaced at the unpleasant odour of rotting meat and sweat that seemed to hang about her like a fusty cloud.
"Ye looke lyke a manne hooz ne'er sin a wummyn afore." She nodded her chin briefly, indicating her naked torso. "Nor a pear a'theez neetha."
She grinned again, exposed yellowed teeth, cocked her head to one side.
"Oar 'm'ah no too yer lykyn?"

He tried again to throw her off; bunching his muscles and bucking underneath her.
It was useless however, she clung to him like a limpet and worse, she had pulled a dagger from her belt and before he could react she had brought it to his throat, pressing the blade painfully against his flesh.
"Trye tha'agynne, Pal." She hissed from between her teeth. "Ai dair ye..."

After a moment he relaxed and nodded his acknowledgement.
She seemed satisfied with this and released the pressure of the dagger from his neck, but not by much.
"hoo air yez? Wut's yer nayme?" She demanded.

"Ralof." He replied. "My name is Ralof, I'm a Stormcloak."
"Oh, air ye noo? Stormcloke, eh? Wull ai gesse ye hae tryed te kylle me less'n th'othaz." She turned to the side and spat on the floor. "Oar xxxx me wyowte ma sai-soe..."
This last was under her breath, an aside that was not meant for him to hear, he thought.

She looked back at him through narrowed eyes, appearing to think for a moment, sticking her tongue out a little between her lips. Finally she seemed to come to a decision.
"Awreet..." She began. "Ai'll lette ye uppe, buitte." And her knife pressed just a little bit harder against his windpipe. "Wun wronge moove an' ah'll cuitte ye; an' yez noez it too, duznae ye, eh, Pal?"
He did as well.
This was clearly not a woman with whom to mess about, the Gods knew that. He felt a certain respect for her, albeit grudgingly and as much as he could given the circumstances. He was a Nord though and Nords respected action and strength and whatever other qualities this Bosmer lacked she certainly had them in spades, that and a very definite "[censored] You" mentality.

The Elf tensed and sprang away backwards over his legs, flipping in midair to land on her feet a safe distance beyond his.
She remained crouched for a moment, fingertips of one hand pressing lightly on the stone floor, her knife still held in the other.

Apparently surmising there was no further threat she then stood up, sheathed the dagger, and looked at him.
"Ye shuid beste b'gettyne uip, Hyumanne, layinne ther wull d'yez nai guid."
Ralof climbed gingerly to his feet, his skull was throbbing painfully where it had clashed with the floor when she had jumped him.
He rubbed the back of his head, wincing. She had turned away from him, and squatting down on her haunches was busily rooting through the pile of discarded armour. He watched her a moment, in silence.

Like all her race,she was fairly short with a compact body and long rangy arms and legs, but unlike those Bosmeri he had encountered before this was a Proper Warrior, bearing all of the signs of having fought many battles and been through much hardship. She stood up as he watched, having found a suitable cuirass and he was impressed at the smooth fluency of her movements.
Her physique was extremely impressive. She was not big by any means but she was taut, toned and sinewy and that she was strong beyond her size was at once self-evident and additionally given Ralof's recent experience, very much beyond a doubt.
She was quick too, but more than that she had dismounted him with lithe and sinuous grace like some... creature or other that was part cat and part snake.
He watched the play of muscles under the tattooed and freckled skin of her back as she buckled on the cuirass.

She bent again and grabbing a strip of leather from the pile, placed it between her teeth and turned then to face him.
Her black eyes, impossible to read, remained fixed on his face as she reached behind her and bunched her hair into a rough ponytail high at the back of her head. Her arms and legs reminded him of forged steel bows, slender but filled with incredible energy and power. all her limbs were heavily marked by designs drawn in variously-shaded dark inks.

With her hair back - (it was greasy and dirty, the colour of wet straw and he could not begin to imagine what might be living in it, or on the rest of her for that matter) - her features were revealed as gaunt and angular with high cheekbones and shallow sunken cheeks; ears large and pointed much like those of all elves although these too were scarred and nicked, bearing the marks of previous fighting.
She was, by no means attractive, and yet there was...

She blinked, her too-large eyes glistened wetly in the flickering candlelight.
"Hae ye sin inuffe?" She asked him bluntly, brushing a stray hair from her face in a gesture somewhat incongruously feminine given all he had seen of her thus far.
"onnlee fer 50, yez kanne hae yesel' a go, eh?" She walked over to one of the tables by the wall, grabbed a wine flaggon from off of it and took a deep draught, not bothering to wipe the top first.

"Tha's beytta." She remarked, then; "Don' ye go thunkyn' tha' ai go eroon' wi' ma tyttes oot al th'tyme. Yez gotte meh ynne th'mydst o' sortyn' mesel' oot." She shrugged, gesturing with the flaggon. "If ye up fer ytte tho', ai min tis no rillee th'tyme an' al buitte if'n ye hae th'coyn then ah'm openne, heh heh..."
She laughed unpleasantly, and placed the container back on the table.
Ralof actually backed away slightly, raising his hands. "No! No..." He said and then, his need for information overcoming his caution, he asked; "Bosmer, do you know what happened? Above?" He pointed upwards.

The elf had started casting around the room again and, noticing the weapons chest, she wandered almost casually over to it and began to sift through the collection.
Ralof followed her with his eyes. It seemed as if that now, she was completely unconcerned by, well, anything. He found it both fascinating and frustrating in equal measure to see.
Though unhurried, her movements were concise and uncluttered, targetted to an objective at all times.

"Twas a Dragynne." She replied after a moment. She stopped searching through the cache and looked over her shoulder at him.
"A Dragynne nae lesse. A Wyrm frae th'Owlde Tayles. Wuddaya thynke o' tha'? Eh?"
In truth, Ralof had no idea at all what he should think of the news.
"A Dragon...?" He said increculously, his eyes wide.

She sighed and stopping her search, turned to face him.
"Air yez deefe, Ralof Stormcloke? Ai, a Dragynne ai sed. A mitey Beesty too, fare neyar bernd mesel' alyve!"
She went back to ferreting around in the weaponry.

Ralof sat down on a nearby stool. He was finding this information rather difficult to take in.
A dragon? There had been no dragons in Skyrim for generations! This was clearly important; it could be a sign, it could be...
...Ralof didn't know specifically what it could be but the return of even one of the legendary beasts was a significant event in itself.
"I have to get this news to the Jarls," he said, standing up, "it must be important! Significant."

"Ye shuid dae wut ye must." Said the Elf casually. She had evidently found a weapon to her liking, a steel warhammer of all things.
She hefted it experimentally, muscles moving like snakes beneath her skin, before leaning it against a table.
Ralof was becoming irritated now, not least because she did not even seem to consider him enough of a threat to bother properly acknowledging him in any way anymore. It was as if he was simply now another piece of clutter in the room.
More than that however,the sudden appearance of a near-mythical creature in the province appeared to be an event that held no particular significance to her whatsoever.

"This may not be important to you, elf," he said angrily, "but my people, the people of Skyrim, must know of this event. Who knows," he continued, waving a hand in the air, "maybe it will signal a change in our fortunes; a release from war and our oppression by the Imperials, I..."
"Ai hae go' a nayme, ya noe..." She said quietly.

Something in her voice made him stop abruptly.
She was standing, long legs slightly apart, arms folded across her breasts. Her dark eyes glinting.
"Aye Ralof Stormcloke, ai hae go' a nayme." Her cheeks flushed darkly. "Atz Eilidh MacAuley. 'M a Bosmer, an' ah'm ryte prowde o' tha', eh?"
She stabbed a finger at him angrily.
"Ai am 173 yerz owlde, Solja boye, an' ah'll wejja tha' yoo wuz stull sukkyn' a'yer mutha'z teet wun ai wuz 130!"

Ralof raised a hand. "Wha..." he managed.
But Eilidh had built up a head of steam now, and would not be stopped.
"Shutte tha Fukke Uppe! Yoo noe nuthyn!" She made a slicing motion in the air with her hand.
Surprised and slightly alarmed, ralof took a step backwards.

"Yoo tak aboot yoor peepul an' yer oppereshunne an' yet ye cannae see tha' yezsel' an' they Ymp'ryalz air jes' twae sydes a' th'sayme coyne, eh?"
She spat disdainfully on the floor.
"Lyke kydz aregyn' aboot sum toiye ye passe th'land an' al tha's ynne ytte bak 'n' forthe an' al th'tyme tis me." Here she jabbed a thumb into her breastplate. "Me an' myne. Mai Kynde. Ma Peepul, hoo gette th'ruffe end o' ytte!"
She stopped for a moment, breathing hard, scratched at her wrist; a distracted look on her face.

Ralof felt he should say something, should stand up for himself and his people in turn.
"You tar us with your brush unfairly. It's the Imperials who oppress us both, they hunt us and you."
He held his hands out in a placating gesture.
"All we want is a free land, where we can live as we please."

The Bosmer sneered at this.
"Och, aye; 'Skyrim Belongs To The Nords!'" She flounced in front of him, her voice taking on a mocking tone as she impersonated a Nord's accent. "An' an' 'Yez shuidde nevva hae cum heyar, Elf!' Oh aye, Solja Boye, ai noe al aboot yer 'Lyvyn' as ye pleeze'...!"

This angered him, she was plainly being unfair.
"You have your own land!" He shouted.
"Ai hae nai lande!" She yelled back, her cracked voice hoarse with effort and emotion. Grabbing the flaggon of wine from the table she dashed it with all of her might onto the stone at her feet, sending broken pottery flying every which way and coating the floor in dark red wine.
Ralof could only stare at her, rendered immobile and speechless in the face of her searing anger.
He was becoming genuinely afraid that the noise being made in the chamber would attract unwelcome attention and cursed himself for rising to her ire.

But Eilidh continued; "Ai kayme frae nuthyn!
"An' al ai gayned frae longe hard fyte, an' moore, wuz tekken frae meh."
She was silent for a beat, catching her breath. When she continued, her voice was quieter.
"Averthyn' els ai sold, e'en me." Here she cupped a tattooed hand over her crotch, squeezed it. "Eh?"
with the same hand she then pointed at her flat, muscular belly, the pale skin of which was marked by a livid red scar that extended over it from under her chestpiece. She moved her finger up over herself, pointing at the marks of violence and the designs that nestled amongst them.

"Yez see theze, Solja? Dae yez?
"Ai wear ma lyfe 'ponne mai skynne."

"We all have our scars." He said, softer now. That her suffering was real was beyond doubt, but he had his crosses and upon his body were writ the marks of war. So she had fought and been herself marked for her pains; but she was not unique, for all she might think.

She was silent for a moment, then looked at him from eyes hooded by furrowed brows.
"Fukke Yoo." She said sullenly, the taking a deep breath; "Mai owne peepul tooke ma chylde frae mai. A Kynglee boye he wuz too, nowe gonne.
"Ai hae fort, 'n' stoal, borte, soled, 'n' xxxxxx fer coyne, an' fer mai servyvul. Thru al th'yerz..." She continued; "'Twas hard enuff ernin' a crust afore, buitte noo wuthe mai kynde wantid deid an' al a nid tae mak masel' scerse fer a tyme."
She paused for a moment.
"Buitte fers' a hae a nid tae kull a manne - a hyumanne manne."

It seemed somehow strange that she should be so focussed on one individual, when everything else appeared to be falling apart, and her own very existence was in question.
"Why?" He asked. He had relaxed now. She seemed calmer, if no less defiant.
"B'coz he tuk frae me th'wunne thyng ai hadde left tae sell asyde frae my weppynne armz - suthynne waye moare ov me." She said, pointing to herself, her eyes boring into his. "He tuk ytte cuz he cud an' he didnae gi' a xxxx howe."

Ralof looked uncomprehendingly at her for a moment, and then the septim dropped.
Something that she had said before now came back to him and together with what he had just heard, he assembled the pieces to create an ugly picture.
"One of the Imperials here raped you?"
She nodded.
"Aye. Fatte Bastyd dydde me ohva thair..." She pointed at the floor by the wall on the opposite side of the room.
"Aye, xxxx'd me and xxxx'd offe, nevva pay'd neetha noar nuthynne."

Ralof found himself a little confused; "But how did he...?" He was unsure how to finish the question.
She smiled mirthlessly.
"Howe dydde 'e o'ercumme meh? Hei'd gi'en me a beetynne such tha' a' wuz nae kaypubul, tha's howe." She was still staring at Ralof. "Lytarallee beet th'shytte outta meh." She added, raising her eyebrows.

It was the wrong thing to say and Ralof knew it, but he simply could not help himself. In his world there was no grey, only black and white; you sowed a storm and you reaped a whirlwind. he was smart enough to know it was wrong but not wise enough to not speak it.
"But... you sell your body for gold..."

Her body stiffened and her black eyes glittered with rekindled fury.
"THAIR'Z A DUFF'RENCE!" She shouted. Clearing the space between them seemingly instantaneously she pushed him backwards so hard that he had to grab for a table to keep himself from falling.
"D'ye thynke tha' jes' cuz ai whoar masel' frum tyme t'tyme tha' gi's th'ryte t'sum fatte pygge tae hae hysse wai jes' cuz?! D'ye?!"

She grabbed the neck of his armour and pulled his face down to hers, Ralof felt the blood literally drain from his face.
"LURNE TH'DUFF'RENCE!" She growled through gritted teeth. her breath hot and sour on his face. "Ah'm Chip, bu' ah'm no' Free. 'Sides," She said, releasing him and stepping back aways, "he gotte mai am'lette. Ai hadde ytte since ai wuz a chylde. 'Tis mai burthryte," she raised an eyebrow and concluded, her voice low and quiet, "an' ai min tae hae ytte bak."
Ralof nodded, his eyes still wide with the shock of her reaction and the meaning of what she had said.
He would not have wanted to have been that Imperial guard for all of the gold in Skyrim.



For some moments there was silence in the room; heavy and oppressive.
Ralof was deeply uncomfortable - not a state of mind he was used to - and if he were honest he just wanted to get away, from Helgen, from the Bosmer, and from the truth that he knew that she spoke; what she had said to him had shocked his conservative Nordic mind; her passion and anger and will and affected him deeply in those moments.
Learn the difference.

Who was she really? What was she?
She was beyond his frame of reference. He was unfamiliar with the thoughts that she had brought into his head, she had in a few short moments profundly upset his view of the world and the strict compartmentalisation which he applied to himself and everything in it.
But more, he knew that the reality that she had revealed; of more than one path, of variations and shades, was something that he had always knew but had staunchly never acknowledged, he felt ashamed and sorry for what he had said.
Add to that the fact that as a Bosmer, she might as well have fallen from the skies for all that he knew of her customs and her people; out of his depth and floundering did not begin to describe it.

His eyes focused on her again, she had her back to him now, was staring at the double doors, arms hanging loosely at her sides.
She was humming quietly, tunelessly, and every so often would shift her weight from one booted foot to the other.

Ralof shook his head.
She was muscular in a hard, wiry way, tattoed more than any man he knew, her body devoid of curves and any real femininity. Her face was distinctive by it's very lack of any softness; careworn and as beaten about as the rest of her, she looked ill and tired.
She looked like she'd seen too much.

Ralof had spent his fair share of time with military women; Gods, his wife had been a soldier when they had met, and even after birthing his twins she could still wield a sword like a man. But this Elf, Eilidh, though, she was the least female woman he had ever met, and it confused him. She seemed neither one thing, nor the other.

The silence stretched out. Eilidh walked to the doors and squatted, began peering intently at the lock.

And that, thought Ralof, was the problem. He did not know how to react to her. Their introduction to each other had been violent, and subsequently all had mostly been rage. Through it all she had the upper hand; through it all she had been stronger than he felt.
She had been through an experience the like of which Ralof could not conceive. Attacked and forced to perform Gods knew what for the pleasure of her captors.
Ralof was no angel but he would never, could never touch a woman like that, despite his - (now admittedly shameful) - thoughts regarding Eilidh having made her own bed.

Yet she had not reacted to it the way he would have expected her to.
he did not know whether to respect her for her spirit or to be shocked by her lack of anticipated "normal" reaction; he supposed that it was just one more thing in a life clearly harsher than most, even by soldiering standards.
He supposed that after 170-odd years he might be as she now was, with her life and her history.
And that was another thing, he found he wanted to know more about her story, more about that life.

He looked at her crouching form again. She was intriguing, that was an understatement!
There was indeed a story there, and like most Nords he had been brought up on stories and there was a part of him that just wanted her to tell hers.
In his heart he wanted to understand.

But this was not the time and besides he lacked the words to say so.
He felt lumpen and stupid, like some... stuffed troll.
he had been unmanned by a woman who was herself more of a man than any two of his brothers in arms.
And now?
Now he was left in a corner, beaten, forgotten, and unneeded.



"Hey, solja boye!"
He was awakened from his navel-gazing by Eilidh's harsh shout. Brought back to reality with a start.
She had turned from the door and was standing looking at him, hands on her narrow hips.
"Ye sleepy, eh?" She asked, waving a hand at him. "Wull thairz nae tyme fer that'! Ai've playcez t'be an' thus doar uz lokked."
She swung a leg backwards and kicked the door, it rattled but was otherwise unmoved.

Striding across the chamber to him, she prodded him in the belly.
"Hae ye go' ennee noewin's o' op'nynne lokked doars, Ralof Stormcloke?"
He looked down at her and shook his head. "No, no I don't."
She huffed.
"Figgaz. Yoo'z jes' a byg lump fer feyetynne..." Then she prodded him again. "S'a guid jobbe tha' ai noe, thenne. Buitte," She held a long finger up, the nail blackened and chipped, "Ai hae nae pucks."

It took him a few seconds to work out what she was saying.
Eilidh's accent was so thick and convoluted as to be almost unintelligble at times and trying to follow all that she said was starting to give him a headache.
She was not waiting for him to catch up though.

Pointing at the doors she said; "So, solja boye, ye'll t'be ma puck, so ye wull. Gi'ytte 30 mynnez an' thenne gi' yon doar a beltynne. Shuild be eezee fer ye, bein' sae byg an' stronge an' al.
She reached out and squeezed one of his biceps, nodding appreciatively.
"Guid stock, eh?"

"Why 30 minutes?" He asked.
She sighed and scratched her nose, inspected her finger.
He could not really tell, given that her eyes were black on black, but he thought that she might have rolled them at him.
"Becoz, nukkelhed," she spoke with the exagerrated care of someone speaking to a child, or a very old person; "'T'wull be darrke be thenne, eh?
"Oar dud ye wannae gai owte noaw, wenne yon beesty an' wut al cuid stull see yez?"

Again he felt stupid, swept along on the wave of assured confidence and energy that this strange and fascinating elf seemed to exude.
"What'll you do when you leave this place?" Her asked her, feeling the need to try out some normal conversation.
She was casting an eye around the chamber.
"Kyuryus, eh?" She looked up at him.

She was still standing in front of him and he was once again aware that she smelt not unlike an overfull and seldom-emptied midden.
He did his best to hide his feelings regarding her cleanliness as she tapped the side of her nose conspiratorially.
"Tha's fer me tae noe, Mr Stormcloke, tha's fer me..."

She turned then, made as if to head towards the corner of the room where all of the discarded equipment and armour had been piled; ready to resume her search for anything useful, no doubt.
She stopped though and turned to face him once again.
"Oh," she began, "An' wut th'xxxx di'ye thynke ah'd smelle lyke, afta spendyn' tyme inne heyar, eh?" She prodded his cuirass with a finger. "Ah've bynne beetin uppe, xxxxxx ova, an' lef' tae rotte, notte tae menshunne gi'enne a gwynne ova doon heyar!"
She leant forward scowling.
"Ye'd stynke a' pysse 'n' shytte too if'n ye'd bynne lef' tae lye ynne ytte fer 3 xxxxxx' weekes!"

She backed off, lowered her finger.
"Dydnae thynke ai sore, dyd ye?" She grinned, then waved a hand dismissively.
"'Tis nae botha. Tho' yesel' iz nae floower sent neetha, mynde."

She stood to one side then and indicated the door, shrugged.
"Mai as wull go tae ytte Ralof Stormcloke, gi' yon doar a beetynne'."
Ralof, trampled under the weight of her character, did as she bade him.

Eilidh watched Ralof as the big Nord battered at the door with a hammer he'd picked up. She'd noted with some amusement that he had explicitly avoided the hammer she herself had chosen earlier.
He was your standard big dumb fighting man, all blond hair and beard, blue eyes and muscles.
She'd walked all over him from the off, which wasn't really a selling point but to be fair neither was it exactly his fault. The Bosmer had made a career of getting the upper hand and recent events, if they had done nothing else positive, had undoubtedly spurred her to greater efforts on that front.
He might come in handy at some point, she thought, who knew?
It never even occured to her she had no idea where he would be.

Whilst Ralof hammered at the door, grunting with effort, she grabbed some bits and pieces that looked like they might come in useful, bundling them into a makeshift pack; some furs, a flaggon of wine, a few other things that she found scattered about, jewellery and the like; stuff to sell.
She dropped the pack by the warhammer she had selected, and made a face. What she really wanted was a decent bow and a quiver of arrows; or any bow for that matter. Never mind, she'd just have to do without for the time being.

Presently there was a crash and the doors finally gave way and swung open. Just as Eilidh had said, it was indeed now dark outside, and chill too.
Ralof, sweating from his exertions, dropped the hammer to the floor and stood before the exit breathing in the cold air. Though stinking of the charnel pit below them and as a result hardly fresh, it was better than the cloying stale fug that had filled the torture chamber.

There was a sound from behind him and he turned to see what it was. The Bosmer was clapping her hands, she stopped and raised an eyebrow.
"Wull dun, Mr Solja, ye hae yer yooses. ye hae bustyd us outta heyar."



He left before her in the end.
As they parted he found himself wanting for something to say; "Goodbye" or "Farewell" did not seem enough somehow. He settled for "Good luck", for want of anything else.
She huffed and made no reply. He stood at the exit for a moment though, he ddn't know why.

It was with a shudder Ralof left ultimately; and not because of the chill night air.
His last sight of Eilidh had been of her dragging the naked corpse of the female he had seen earlier into the centre of the room, where she had laid her knife. He knew what Bosmers ate, and he would have bet good gold on this particular one being far less fussy about who and what than most.

Whoever that legionnaire she was after was, he thought to himself as he headed off into the night, he had better hope that death found him before she did.
If she was anywhere near as implaccable and tenacious a foe as she seemed, then Hope might very well be all he had left.

Had Eilidh picked butchery as her career of choice, she would undoubtedly have made a really very competent butcher.
Working fast, she had within thirty minutes of Ralof's departure skilfully flensed the skin from the buttocks and thighs of both corpses and sliced herself off some reasonable cuts of meat.
They weren't exactly fresh but she'd had worse. She wrapped the meat in some rags and stowed it in her pack. She would continue to use it until it was putrid, her stomach long since being hardened to such things.
Rolling the woman's body over, she busied herself with the corpse's chest and, having cut out the heart, dropped the knife on the floor and squatting back on her haunches took a bite, chewing thoughtfully as cold, dark blood ran thickly down over her chin.

She'd always preferred her meat raw. Who had time to stop and cook the stuff anyway?
There seemed little point and besides, she liked the taste of uncooked flesh if she were honest. Unlike her kin she'd never eaten of anything other than Elf or human, certainly as an adult.
She'd tried Orc once, when there was nothing else, but it had made her very sick. At a pinch she would take animal meat, but only in desperation.

Certainly in her youth her diet had been more consistent with her Bosmeri peers, but when you're a carnivore and you are surrounded by the bodies of the dead on some desolate battleground - Wull ye'll b'takkyn' th'moast perlentyfull stuph, wull ye noe?
Why let it go to waste? There was more than enough for both her and the carrion crows.

So it was that her reputation, even amongst her mercenary and soldier comrades, was a fearsome one indeed; and, when she had lived in State and been trusted a confidante, shield maiden, and mistress to her lord - (oh for such a brief time!) - the kitchens of his house had been sore pressed to provide, and times were when more than one prisoner had found that he or she was destined for a fate as unconventional as it was gruesome.

She stood up, kicking out her legs to loosen them. Walking silently over to the open doors, she looked out into the night. Shortly after Ralof had left she had extinguished almost all of the candles in the chamber, so that as little light as possible would spill out into the world. It made little difference to her, her Elven eyes were more than satisfactorily adapted to seeing in the gloom of a badly-lit space.
She picked out the immediate details; the pit before her, straggled trees on its far rim. Beyond that lay her quarry, out of her view for now, but she would have him.
He was out there.
Somewhere.

She tore off another chunk of her meal, dropping the uneaten waste into the darkness at her feet. A human heart was a weighty thing indeed to partake of and it was seldom indeed that she could finish a whole one.
In truth, though it was practiced, instances of routine cannibalism amongst Bosmeri were rare; a fallen enemy for example, or a ritual feast at a funeral.
Eilidh was an exception amongst exceptions, even if she mostly dined nowadays on humans, and therefore was a hardly a cannibal; not that it bothered her, one way or the other.
She wiped her face with the back of her hand and licked her lips; turned back to the darkened room.
"Tyme tae goe." She said into the gloom.

Gathering her pack she slung it onto her back; hefted the warhammer over her shoulder, after having attached to it a makeshift sling fashioned from some discarded leather strapping.
Then she set out into the night.

She skirted the rim of the pit, ignoring the sickly sweet smell of putrefaction that wafted up from it. Keeping low, she kept going until she reached a point opposite the door from which she had first exited.
She was pretty certain that there was nothing about - alive at any rate - but it always paid to be cautious, and with that in mind she peered gingerly over the rim of the pit, and looked out on the world.
The land below sloped almost continuously downwards from Helgen as it approached the river by which the town of Riverwood lay, the closest decent settlement to her in a northerly direction. As was in the name, the land around it was forested and green, the ever-present rocks covered with moss and grass - Lying by the banks of the White River which flowed northeasterly through the flatlands on it's way to the sea and spawned in the vastness of Lake Ilinalta to the south and west - Riverwood was a pleasant enough place to stop off at, for most people.
That was a way to go from where she was though, and the land about her here was bleak and cold, bare stone with little in the way of vegetation to soften the chill winds that blew down from the peaks around about. Eilidh shivered and wished she'd managed to pick up more in the way of warm clothing.

Indeed, she figured that it was to Riverwood that she would first head, and from there to Whiterun. Her aim ultimately was to get to Solitude, where she knew a couple of people who might help her in her search, she hoped - it was far to the north obviously - but she had nothing but time and it was not as if she had not traversed the length and breadth of the province before.
For all of her confidence though she was nonetheless very aware that her prey could be anywhere, could even have left the province altogether; not running from her mind, but simply running from the dragon, or the army, or for any of a number of reasons.
Whiterun would be a logical place to kick things off though, there was a garrison there and for all of the Jarl's studied neutrality it was an Imperial City. She had been unpopular in Whiterun, but tolerated, and she did have friends there. Tullius' decree could have changed all that though, and for the worse too. Eilidh's friends were not the sort for whom loyalty meant much more than a few gold and maybe a quick one up against the back of the Bannered Mare.
Still, you had to start somewhere.

"Ruvva Woode thenne Whyte Runne 'tis thenne." She said to herself. "Buit fust..."

Unbuckling the straps that secured the crotchpiece of her armour, she let it hang lose between her thighs and adjusting her position slightly, relieved herself onto the chill ground.
It was painful and she winced, and from between her feet there arose a strong, acrid smell. Ever since her experience at (mostly) the hands and feet of the guard whom she was so assiduously seeking, she'd noticed her piss had taken on a somewhat thick consistency with the occasional streak of blood.
She was fairly certain that he might very well have broken something inside her body.
Maybe she would die.
"Ai wul fxxxyn' tek 'im wythe meh i'en ai doo." She thought sourly as, grimacing, she buckled up her armour, pausing for a moment to scratch at herself.
She was also reasonably sure that she had lice, a shave and a wash were definitely in order, at some point.

Tutting under her breath, she adjusted the warhammer and with a weather eye on her surroundings and what may or may not be about in them, she set off downslope into the frosty darkness.



It is roughly twenty five miles to Riverwood from Helgen, maybe a little more. Eilidh had made that journey in considerably less than 9 hours before now, even allowing for the terrain and taking the odd break.
Some two and a half hours into her journey, she stopped, hunkering down in the lee of a sizeable boulder. There was a cold wind blowing down from the peaks and though she was undoubtedly hardy enough, she had been pretty comprehensively beaten about over the last few days or so and without a cloak, save for the rather shabby furs she'd managed to pick up from the torture chamber, her body was feeling the rigours of the environment rather more than usual.
The boulder provided some cover but not really enough and she was shivering as she unslung her pack and put it on the ground in front of her, laying the warhammer next to it.
"Ah'm gettyn' tae owlde fer thus." She grumbled to herself as she rooted around in her pack, looking for the wine.
Having located and withdrawn it, she took a big deep swig before recorking the container and replacing it in the pack.
She sat down on the ground then, long legs outstretched, back against the rock. The earth was damp beneath her buttocks and thighs and she pulled the furs closer about her.

Scratching behind an ear, she blew out her gaunt cheeks and looked up into the night sky.
There were no clouds and the stars in the vault shone brightly down, with neither moon to outshine them. They sparkled distantly; she'd always loved the stars, ever since she was a child.
They looked to her like precious white stones twinkling in black velvet. They made her want to reach out and possess them.

As a young girl she had often lain on her back on the grass outside her house on clear nights and, holding a thumb and forefinger up above her, had amused herself by imagining that she was plucking the stars down from the sky.
On a whim, she did it now, chuckling to herself.
"Ye byg gurl..." she said under her breath. "Wut star wuid evva fall onne yoo?" She smiled a small, wistful smile.
"Haowe phar d'ye thynke ye've cum anneewai?"

Dropping her hand to her lap, she thought for a moment, chewing on the tip of her tongue.
"Lessee, aboot tenne 'o' th'clokke ai rekkyn... mebbee syx myalls." She sighed and made a face. "Yer ryte, an' prollee harf tha'..."

The events of the last few days had surely taken their toll on her, she ran a hand over her belly; it felt bruised inside from where she had been repeatedly kicked.
"Ah'm nae yntae thus..." She muttered.
She'd rest up at Riverwood for a little, get her strength back. She would be no good on the road or anywhere else as she was.

Suddenly she froze.
Off to her right had been a sound, a stealthy sound; not like the other night noises with which she was surrounded - the sighing of the wind, the rustlings of small animals.
Again it came, slightly further round this time. Unless she was very much mistaken it sounded like someone or something was trying to flank her.

"Fxxx tha'"
Very slowly she stood up, the downy hairs on her arms and the back of her neck standing up.
She put a hand to the hilt of the knife sheathed at her belt.
The sounds were definitely moving round behind her, on the other side of the boulder.
Eilidh's guts may have been in a mess but there was nothing at all wrong with her hearing and she was certain she heard a whispered voice, hastily cut off.

As quietly as she could she took off her boots, laying them on the ground next to her pack. Turning, she felt on the rock's surface until she found some points where she grip, and hauled herself up onto it's top, squatting as low as was possible.
The boulder itself was maybe six or seven feet high and about half that much again wide. It was roughly circular in shape, although the passage of time had scarred and eroded it, leaving it irregular and pitted. The surface was cold under her bare feet, but the discomfort was worth it for the added grip and relative silence that being barefoot granted her.

Given her position, she could not see very well around the close perimeter of the boulder; but she could hear plenty. Brushing a windblown hair away from her face, she stilled her breathing a moment and listened.
"This way..." A light voice, a woman or maybe a child.
There was the faintest sound of boots moving through the scrubby grass at the base of the rock, off to her left. She was fairly certain that whoever they were, they were unarmoured; she was also fully aware that that would not necessarily make them any less dangerous.
"She was right here, Atticus; here's her things."

There were sounds, furtive and nervous; someone was fiddling with her pack.
"Check it, Atticus! She might have..."
"By the Gods Larellee!" A second voice, deeper than the first. "Be quiet, she could be anywh..."
"...what if..."

Something landed almost silently between them and before Larellee could react, she found herself lying on her back staring up at a spindly shadow silhouetted against the stars. There was the smooth sound of a blade being drawn from a sheath, metal glinted briefly in the starlight, then disappeared with a dull smacking sound into the dark shape of Atticus.
"NOOOO!" She screamed, holding out a hand and struggling to her feet, eyes wide.

Even as Atticus slumped gurgling and twitching to the ground, his attacker spun round and knocked Larellee flat onto her back once again. Winded, she could only gasp raggedly as something evil-smelling and filled with barely controlled anger sat down astride her.
A blade went to her throat, pressed at her flesh; the metal was wet and sticky and there was the coppery smell of fresh blood.

"Wut The Fxxx?" Demanded a harsh female voice. "Wut'z yer byzzyness wi' mai stuph...?" It added.
For a moment Larellee was unable to speak. Her throat was choked with fear and sobs and her vision was clouded with salt tears.
"Atticus! Atticus... You killed him!" She finally gasped out.
"Ai di'nae arsk fr'a naym! Ai hai go' eeyars, eh? An' yez lukkee yer stul alyve yersel', an' yff'n ye wontz tai stai tha'wai then ai sojest tha' ye tull meh wot yoo wont!"

Larellee let out a hitching sob, and took a deep breath to steady herself.
Her mind was racing, she was terrified and full of grief. The voice of the woman sitting astride her was cold and her accent was so thick as to be almost incomprehensible.
"We, we came from Helgen..." She finally gasped out. It was hard to breath with the weight on her chest, flattening her breasts painfully against her ribs. "...He's my b-brother. We're not soldiers!"
She paused, gulping air. Her hands and arms were going numb from where her shoulders were being pinned to the earth by her assailant's knees.
"He's a... a stablehand! I'm a cook! A c-cook!" Larellee broke into further sobs. "We have no weapons!"

The knife at her throat moved away just the tiniest fraction.
"Wye wer ye g'wynne throo mah stuph?" The voice was softer now, just a little.
"H-hungry, we were hungry! We just... saw you and we, we didn't know what to do and... and Atticus, he said, " her voice thickened with barely controlled weeping, "he su-said maybe if, if we took just some food..."
"Humph." Said Eilidh. "Wull, ye'll hae fownde owte i'theyar fyt fer th'lykez o'ye."

The knife left her throat and Larellee drew in a deep, shaking breath as Eilidh climbed smoothly off of her. The Elf moved aside and watched in the darkness as the young woman scrambled up and crawled to the body of her brother.
"Atticus, oh... Atticus..." She rolled him over and cradled his head in her arms, lowering her face to his, she began to weep hopelessly in great hitching sobs.

Eilidh squatted down a few feet away. She wiped her blade on her pack, and replaced it in the sheath at her belt.
She sighed, chewing on her tongue thoughtfully. It occured to her that she may have been a little too hasty, but in fairness they were going through her things and she had learnt painfully that encounters in the wilds were seldom of the peaceful kind.
How else could she have acted, given her situation and all?
Nevertheless, she felt that perhaps she should say something at least, the two of them; Larellee and the now deceased Atticus were pretty far short of being hard-nosed bandits and had clearly not thought the situation through before embarking on their course of action. It would more than likely have gone ill with them whomsoever they had tried to pilfer from, but Eilidh the Bosmer had perhaps more reason than most to stab first and ask questions later. The Elf had a short fuse at the best of times, and these were very definitely not them.

"La-Rellee, iz ytte?" She asked as softly as she could, turning to the stricken woman. Larellee's cries had lessened somewhat now, and she replied after a moment with a quiet "...Yes..."
"Howe owlde air ye?" The Bosmer asked, small talk had always made her feel awkward and if she were to admit it, she was finding herself more than a little out of her depth in the current situation.
A chill wind had blown up by now, and it whipped around the boulder. Eilidh shivered, she briefly considered making a fire but rejected it, there was danger enough about as it was, without inviting it in to warm its hands at the hearth.

For a moment it seemed as if Larellee would not reply, but then she said; "I have 20 summers." She paused, then: "You killed my brother."
It was a simple statement, made in a voice full of sorrow. EIlidh swore and rolled her eyes.
"Dib'lla's teets wummanne!" She tried to keep her voice controlled. "Wut d'ye espek, eh? Creapyn' rown' i'tha muddel o' th'nyte ly' tha'?" She gestured with her arm, pointlessly, in the darkness. "Owte heyar? Ah'm frae Helgynne masel', a prizna coz 'm'a Bozma, ye unnastan'?" She paused a moment, took a breath, then continued; "Ye trye tai tek mah stuph! Haow d'ye thynke ai wuid fxxxyn' b'hayv?"
"We were just hungry." Replied Larellee. "You had the upper hand, " she sniffed, "you could have stayed your blade."

This was, as it turned out, entirely and completely correct. It was also the very last thing the hot-tempered, highly-strung Bosmer wanted to hear.
"Ai wuz fxxxyn' raped, beetyn an aboot tai b exzekyutid!" She shouted, standing up and taking a step towards the younger woman. "An' al o' tha' jes' fer beeyin' me - a Bozma! D'ye fxxxyn' thynke enneewun wuid'a gi'yn me ennee kworta? Eh?" Her hands balled into fists. "Ai wuznae e'en pylphryn' frae theyar stuph..."
She stopped, aware that she had been yelling. The night was suddenly quiet about her, and refocusing on where Larellee had been, she realised the young woman was shuffling slowly away from her and attempting to drag the corpse of her brother with her.

The Bosmer rolled her black eyes and looked skywards.
"Dyb'la's Teets!" She hissed. "Wye me...?"
A couple of strides took her to the young woman and her brother. Larellee, defeated by her burden after only a couple of feet, was sitting with her brother's head in her lap, weeping softly. She looked very small there in the dark; small and scared and desperately sad. Eilidh squatted down on the ground next to her.

"Luik La-Rellee, ye'l ge' naeweyar lyke thus. Nae wi'hum." She put out a hand to the other woman, as it touched her shoulder Larellee shied away, a small frightened sound escaping her lips.
Eilidh closed her eyes and rubbed her temples, she was gettting an aching brain.
"Cum cloasa, eh? Ai'll ge' a feya g'wynne an' worme uz uppe sum." She stopped, adding rather lamely; "Wu'l sea wut th'dorne bryngs..."
Reaching out, she made to take hold of Larellee's brother, to help her with him.
"Leave Him Alone!" The young woman's anger was sudden and sharp, her voice shrill and cracking. Eilidh jerked her hand away, she could see Larellee's teeth gleaming whitely in the darkness as she snarled at her.
They sat in silence then, for a time.

Maybe ten minutes later; at a loss for more to say, Eilidh moved back to her things and pulled on her boots. Rooting around in her pack she found the container of wine once again. Uncorking it and taking a gulp for herself, she refastened the top and getting up, padded softly over to Larellee and placed the wine next to her.
Larellee did not acknowledge her.
"Ai hae go'nae fud fer th'lykes o'yoo, buit thus uz jes' wyne, s'al, hae sum i'ye wun'." She thought for a moment, then trudged back to her pack and grabbed one of the tattered furs from the ground next to it. Returning, she draped the fur around Larellee's shoulders.
Larellee shrugged it off. Eilidh sighed and left it where it fell. She returned to her pack once again.

It was genuinely cold now but despite was she had said, Eilidh did not dare light a fire.
Her night vision was considerably better than that of any human's, but the glare from a fire would render even her unable to keep an eye on the girl. Besides, it would not be light for a number of hours yet, and there were any manner of creatures out there in the wild for whom a fire would be an irrestible attraction.
So she sat in the dark, wrapped in a fur, shivering and cold and chewing on a piece of meat to keep herself awake.

Maybe Larellee was right, maybe she should have stayed her hand. The fact was that she was right and Eilidh knew it too, that was what had angered her earlier. Either way it was too late now and besides the Bosmer could not envision having behaved differently. She had been through more than enough in her life to have painfully learnt to not hesitate in any given situation. Hesitation got you killed, or worse.
"An' soe duz wut yon pare o'eejytz dydde." She said to herself.
Still, she was not without empathy even if she was lacking in sympathy. She could understand Larellee's grief and anger, and understand why she and her brother had tried to do what they had. Gods knew she'd lost everyone and everything she had ever cared about, and done many things just to stay alive.
For Eilidh there was no more grief, had not been for decades. There was anger though, and cynicism, and a willingness to act and act fast; these things kept her hard and focussed and sharp.

She picked at her teeth with a fingernail.
The girl would have to learn that too, would have to harden up to live.
If she survived the night, that was.

She found that she could not ignore her. She felt "obligated" to look after her somehow or to do something for her, however small.
"Mus' b'gettyn' owlde..." She thought. She chuckled to herself, then looked over at Larellee who was still huddled, unmoving, over her brother. Eilidh did not like loose ends and once upon a time the only one living come the dawn would have been herself. But not this time though, or at least not by her hand.
She shook her head. It was perplexing.

The stars swept overhead on their endless journey through the vault; the night wind rustled through the scrubby grasses and soughed mournfully through the branches of the few scraggy trees that dotted the area.
From somewhere aways off to the west came the howling of wolves; closer to however, it seemed that nothing more than birds and small night creatures were abroad.
Eilidh huddled herself further into her fur and rubbed her eyes, forcing herself to stay awake; she was tired beyond words.

I've been reading this all along, and am liking the consistency in the writing so far. I'm just a little surprised that this tale has garnered only one comment. So let me try to rectify that situation . . .

It's not always an easy tale to read. It's quite dark, and Elidh comes off as being unlikable. But I can't help but keep reading, mainly because I want to find out why she is the way she is. She is unlikable not because of her grisly appearance, or because of her dietary choices, or because of her BO, or her incomprehensible accent (which is as difficult to read as it must be to hear) but because of the decisions she makes and the way she reacts to the situation unfolding around her.

But that doesn't make her evil. Just focused on her own survival. And like most people who have lived difficult lives, she has learned the harsh lesson that the only person she can really count on is herself. It doesn't matter if she is right or wrong, it just is the way she's become.

And that is what keeps me reading. I see Elidh as a person shaped by events in her life, and by the choices she has made. And as I learned about her history, I understand her character more. I can't really say that I like her now, only that I empathize with her, and I can't really say that I wouldn't turn out the same way if I had to live her life.

Thank you for an interesting story, and one that puts an interesting twist on Skyrim.

Oh, and I liked how you present Elidh from Ralof's and Larellee's viewpoints. It helps me as the reader to orient myself to her strangeness in the land we call Skyrim, and understand why life is so hard for her and why people react to her the way they do. Normally I don't care for such transitions in POV, but you do this so well, it's not hard to keep track of what is happening.

I look forward to more about this fascinating character.

TO RIVERWOOD
PART 3 - WOLVES

She awoke with a start, still seated as she had been. There was screaming and the sounds of a desperate struggle from off to her left. She got to her feet blearily, blinking and trying for a moment to get her bearings.
Again a high-pitched wail, counterpointed this time by a low and viscious snarl strangely muffled, as if some wild thing had hold of something in its mouth.
Eilidh rubbed at her eyes to clear them of sleep, spat thick saliva onto the ground.
...A mouthful of...

...A distance away from the Bosmer, around the other side of the rock, Larellee was engaged in a gruesome tug-of-war with a young wolf, the object of their struggle being the bloodied remains of Larellee's brother, Atticus.
Spurred into action, Eilidh grabbed her hammer and sprinted the short distance across the scrubby ground to the macabre scene.
The wolf, inexperienced and clearly mangy, had evidently picked the corpse as the easier objective - (though the young woman was herself not exactly a force to be reckoned with) - presumably coming upon Larellee and her brother as she was attempting once again to escape from Eilidh, dragging Atticus' corpse across the ground.

The animal had its jaws clamped around one of Atticus' forearms and was attempting to pull the body away from Larellee, who was maintaining a death grip upon her brother's ankles. Shrieking now at the top of her lungs, she was frantically trying to wrestle the body away.
Eilidh leapt, swung her hammer in midair and brought it down with all of her strength.

The wolf, intent upon gaining its prize to the exclusion of all else, was caught completely unawares by the Elf. Eilidh's hammer mashed into its skull; there was a loud crack followed almost immediately by a thick, wet, pulpy sound. Bright blood exploded in a red mist from the creature's ears, nose, and mouth as Eilidh's attack connected squarely on the top of its head, the hammer's downward force crushing the skull between the weapon itself above and the stony ground beneath.
So hard was her blow that the creature's teeth sheared completely through the arm in its jaws, amputating it from Atticus' body. The animal, its head catastrophically ruined, one eyeball almost completely evulsed from its socket, shuddered violently upon the ground, and was still.
Using the momentum of her swing, the Bosmer pivoted over the top of the stricken creature and rolled as she hit the ground, rising smoothly to her feet holding the hammer in both hands. Whipping round, she turned to face the other woman.

Larellee had pitched over backwards as her brother's arm came off, the body landing on top of her.
Time slowed.
A shape spun in the air, rolled and landed, stood and turned sharply to face her.
Black eyes in a gaunt face.
filthy tattooed skin, armour; ragged and battered.
dirty yellow-blonde hair, large pointed ears; a mouth stretched in a snarl.
A gore-streaked hammer held low in gauntletted hands; arms wiry, the sinews standing out.
She had scars, all over her.

These things imprinted themselves upon the young woman's mind in a split second stretched to breaking point, a bubble of coagulated time; All the world seemed immersed in a treacly slowness, the air in her lungs and throat was thick and choking; black eyes locked onto hers, the background receeded far away behind that face; its expression harsh and cruel, murderous; Larellee was conscious of a distant sound as of the rushing of wind, far away yet gathering strength rapidly; the figure began to move towards her, its movements so fluid as to seem almost like water flowing over the rocks, seeming to move faster than everything around it; Larellee felt her head move, tearing her eyes away from that face, her gaze moving jerkily and lazily down towards the bloodied heap of torn flesh and clothing that lay half on top of her, all the while the sound was growing; a hand, possibly her own, reached out and grabbed at an ankle lying across her belly, the fingers digging into the cold, waxy skin; somewhere in the distance her body began to move and the wind-sound took on a keening note, the pressure within her chest grew and pressed against the choking thickness in her throat, forcing her mouth open; the figure was almost upon her now, the hammer in one hand, the other stretched out to her; its mouth opened, there were yellow teeth fading to black in too-red gums; then time cycled up once again, the bubble burst and the hurricane was upon her.
Her lungs exploded.

"Le'goe o' hymn ye fukkyn' eejit!" Yelled Eilidh as she got to Larellee; but the young woman was incoherent with hysteria and as the Elf arrived at her side she let out a shriek so piercing that Eilidh thought her lungs themselves might follow out of her mouth.
Larellee was trying desperately to get to her feet, pushing herself up with one hand whilst the other gripped her brother's ankle, the fingers as white as the dead flesh they held.
Peripherally, Eilidh was aware of other shapes, low and cunning, circling them; more wolves.

"Le'goe!" She shouted again urgently, and grabbing Larellee's arm tried to pull her hand away from Atticus' ankle, almost falling herself as the other woman collapsed back onto the ground.
"No! Leave Him...!" She wailed.
"Moov ytte!" Shouted Eilidh.
For a moment the scene descended into utter chaos; the Bosmer yanked at Larellee's arm again as Larellee tried to fight her, punching at her ineffectually with her free hand and trying to bring her legs around to kick at Eilidh, all the while keeping a vice-like grip on her dead brother's leg.
"Leave Me Alone, You Monster!" She shrieked, her voice cracking and breathy.
She was twisting and writhing like a hooked fish and Eilidh caught a glimpse of her face; as in some unholy vision of suffering her skin was sweaty and porcelain-white, her pasty lips were drawn back from her teeh in a rictus of fear and her eyes were wide saucers filled with unspeakable horror.

The other wolves were closing in now, Eilidh could feel them as stiffening hairs on the back of her neck. She tried one last time.
"Yu'll dye yff'n ye stai heyar!" She yelled into Larellee's face, bending over her. "Wu'll boath dye!"
The younger woman just stared through her uncomprehendingly, slowly she shook her head from side-to-side and a little dribble of saliva ran out of her mouth and down her chin.
Eilidh shook her head. "Shiz gonne fukkyn' meantul..." She said to herself

There was no more time.
"Ai'll nae dye fer ye." Muttered the Bosmer and throwing the sling of her warhammer over her shoulder let go of Larellee and pulled off an armoured glove, then she slapped the other woman as hard as she could around the face with the back of a gnarled and bony hand.
Larellee's head snapped violently round on her neck and with a sound like "Whuuufff!" blood and broken teeth sprayed from her mouth.
She fell backwards, releasing her grip on the corpse; with no time to lose, Eilidh replaced her gauntlet, grabbed a hold of Larellee's arms and pulled her away, back to the boulder. Larellee tried weakly to fight her, making grunting and whuffling noises through her shredded lips as hot blood poured from her mouth.

The wolves, numbering two or maybe three, closed in on the bodies of Atticus and their younger kin and tore them apart.
Larellee, her head lolling, could only burble wordlessly as Eilidh dragged her behind the rock and dumped her unceremoniously onto the ground. She rolled onto her back, head to one side as the Bosmer, crouching, went to peer around the edge of the boulder.
The predators were distracted by the easy bounty that was before them, but even as she watched one of them stopped gorging and looked up at her, its yellow eyes glowing, gore-covered maw snarling.
She estimated that they had maybe ten minutes before, bloated with meat or not, the wolves came after them. In ten minutes she could easily have got herself gone and could have, given the chance, shaken them off.
She looked back at the prone figure of Larellee.
"Nae wi' ye tho'..." Shaking her head, Eilidh chewed on her tongue. "Dyb'la's Teats ai muss mai bow!"

Hard and fast with the hammer, then switch to the knife. But first she needed to attend to the girl.
Hurrying to her, she squatted down next to her, her armour creaking.
Larellee appeared to be unconscious, or at least unresponsive. He head was on one side, the skin where it showed through the blood was still deathly pale. Her eyes were closed and her damaged mouth open and slack, blood and saliva were dribbling out of it and forming a murky puddle by her face. Her chest rose and fell rapidly, her breathing shallow and ragged.
"Ai cannae lette ye runne, noar mek too much noyze, neetha." Eilidh doubted she would be going anywhere, but judging by the young woman's obvious and demonstrable resolve she was not going to take any chances.

Larellee was wearing what had once been a cream-coloured maid's outfit, ankle-length with long sleeves and with buttons up to the neck. It was now ripped and torn, stained with blood and filth. For the first time the Bosmer noticed that her feet were bare.
Drawing her knife, and after some careful but hurried manipulation, she cut several strips of material from the bottom of the young woman's dress.Rolling her onto her side, she efficiently bound her hands together, and then bound them to her feet.
"Tha' shuid kepe ye owtta truball." She said. Grabbing another strip, she bound it around Larellee's mouth, none too gently; pulling her shoulder length black hair out of the way to knot the cloth tightly at the back of her head.
"An' tha' shuid kepe ye kwiyet."
Turning, she grabbed her warhammer and disappeared around the rock at a run, standing up and rapidly gathering pace as she did so.

++++

By the time she reached the wolves she was at a sprint, though they were only a short distance away. She held the hammer ready in both hands.
There were two of them at the corpse, and one of them spotted her as she drew near; heading for that one, she raised the hammer as the beast leapt at her. Jinking to the left at the last minute, she swung her weapon directly into the wolf's muzzle, shattering its face in an explosion of blood, bone, and tissue.
As the virtually decapitated body slammed limply to the ground and slid, she flung the hammer away from her and spinning on one leg, drew her knife from her belt and changed direction, heading for the next target.

The second wolf came at her now.
She let it strike her, and jamming her armoured forearm into its mouth, rolled over the top of it as they both fell, pulling it down onto the ground. She had meant to land on top of it, but fatigue and a sudden flaring pain in her guts made her miss her mark and instead she hit the ground hard, the creature atop her.
Gasping at its weight and wincing at the pain, she managed nevertheless to thrust her knife repeatedly into its side as it scrabbled on top of her, claws raking at her thighs.
Finally it was still, and after a moment she pushed it off of her, pulling her arm from its mouth; then she lay still for a moment, shaking and breathing heavily.

She felt crushed and her belly ached horribly. Sitting up she grimaced at both the discomfort in her midriff and the sharp pain in her thighs. Looking down at her legs she saw that they had been badly scraped by the wolf's claws and in one place all but sliced open. Blood was pooled in the gouges, little dribbles coursing over her skin.
Sighing, she got painfully to her feet sheathing her dagger as she did so, and started to walk over to where she had thrown her hammer.

She was knocked sideways by the third wolf as it cannoned into her at full tilt, throwing her to the ground.
Eilidh let out a small shriek of surprise and grunted at the impact. The wolf was a snarling, snapping bundle of fur, teeth, and fury and with the breath knocked out of her it was all that she could do to fend off its jaws as it snapped at her face, hot saliva foaming and flying from its mouth.
Unable to reach her dagger, Eilidh frantically hammered at the side of the creature's face with one gauntletted fist whilst with her other hand she strove to push its head away from her. It was to no avail however, the wolf was far stronger than she and with every second she was coming closer to becoming its meal.
With its teeth mere centimetres from her face she forced herself to think.

Its eyes!
Even as the wolf opened its mouth wide to strike the killing blow, Eilidh jammed a thumb deep into its right eye. The orb ruptured, blood and clear fluid squirting out over her hand.
The creature howled in pain, throwing its head back and taking Eilidh's hand, her thumb still jammed in the ruined socket, with it.
The Bosmer winced as her shoulder was wrenched violently. Having been given a chance however, she was not about to let it slip away. Taking her other hand away from its throat, she managed to quickly grab the hilt of her knife and wrench it from its sheath.

Bringing her dagger up she stabbed the thrashing animal in the neck with as much of her strength as she could still muster.
The creature gave a strangled, gargling cry and she turned her face to the side and closed her eyes as its lifeblood sprayed from the wound, covering her head and shoulder. The wolf spasmed briefly, its back arching, before collapsing back onto her.
Exhausted, she pushed the wolf, with some effort, off of her body. She lay there on the ground, staring up at the clouds.
"Nae moar." She gasped. "Ai cannae tek ytte..."

Suddenly she rolled over onto her side and clutched her belly as another sharp pain spiked inside her, a small moan escaping her lips. She lay still for some minutes until the pain had subsided, before climbing to her feet.
She made her way to the warhammer, and lacking the strength to even sling it over a shoulder, walked slowly back to the boulder dragging the weapon behind her by the haft, the hammerhead bumping over the lumpy ground.

Larallee needs a couple of lessons in survival from Elidh! It's interesting to see the Bosmer taking care of the desolate woman like this, rough as she is, she is still looking after Larallee's welfare. Or, dare I say it -- is Elidh only keeping her safe in case she runs out of food herself? But no, we haven't really seen Elidh hunt humans, just eat them after they are already dead from other causes. Right? At least, that's how my memory holds it, without me looking back through your previous posts.

The fight with the wolves was brutal, as wildlife tend to be. Nothing elegant or civilized about survival, to be sure. And the thing about wolves is that they tend to travel and hunt in groups, so you can't forget how many there are of them.

With the current mod load I have now, my PCs have gotten into the habit of stopping when they see a wolf, and waiting to see how many are there. Then we decide on the best course of action. But Elidh did not have that luxury, not with Larallee at risk.

Wonder how Larallee is going to react when she wakes up and finds herself bound and gagged and her brother's body gone?

For all her aspect, Eilidh is not without honour and and a sense of responsibility; albeit subject to her own interpretations.

She'll do what she feels needs to be done to resolve or move forward a situation the way she herself sees fit and appropriate.
That's what she'll do here with Larellee.

As for her motives? Well there's history there.

Arriving back at the rock, she dropped the hammer and slumped down on the ground next to the bound and gagged Larellee. Leaning back against the cold stone she stared up at the sky, squinting slightly at the brightness of the light.
The wind from the night before had dropped somewhat now but far above her the clouds, white and cotton-like, scudded across the blue vault of the heavens, travelling on their endless journeys.
An eagle soared and circled, riding high on the morning thermals, scouting for food.

Eilidh watched it for a moment, as it soared and wheeled above her. Then she looked away, blinked, and said quietly; "Ai wush ai wuz lyke yoo, Mysta Eegul." She laughed softly, mirthlessly. "Buit ai'm jes a wummun, wi' a bodeh tha's fallyn' apar'..."
She shook her head as if to clear it.
Had anyone been observing her it would have seemed to them that for a moment a door had opened behind her black eyes, but then just as quickly had been shut again.
She looked down at the still body of Larellee, bound and gagged, and her face was once again set and hard.
"Noaw, wut shal w'doo wi'ye, yung mysee?" She said quietly.

The young woman was lying as she had left her, on her right side, her body curled up, restricted by the bonds that Eilidh had placed upon her. Her eyes appeared closed and her breathing was stable, if still shallow.
Her face though was caked with dried blood and her left cheek was swollen and bruised where Eilidh had struck her. Reaching down behind Larellee's head the Bosmer untied the gag and pulled it away from the woman's mouth.
The material was thick with blood and saliva and Eilidh felt it resist slightly as she pulled it away. Laying it to one side, she rummaged in her pack and pulled out the now nearly spent container of wine. She uncapped it and looked dubiously inside it, making a face.
It wasn't much, but it would have to do.

Tilting Larellee's face with one hand she upended the container into her mouth with the other.
As the burgundy liquid entered her mouth and ran down her throat, Larellee spluttered and coughed, coming instantly awake. Eilidh sat back and drained the last of the wine. It was bitter but it was nevertheless potent.
Larellee spluttered next to her.
As Eilidh looked down, Larellee met her gaze and held it, her own eyes filled with hate.
Eilidh's eyes, black on black, were inscrutable and of themselves virtually impossible to read, nevertheless Larellee could detect no comfort or sympathy in the Elf's face which she saw now, beneath the blood and dirt and scars and pockmarks, was lined and worn and old and very, very tired.
It was the face of a woman who had lived a life both hard and unforgiving. At another time, Larellee might have felt a certain respect for that face, for its implied experience and for the hardships it had endured.
But not here, and not now.
Now there was only anger and hate.
She fought with her bonds, though still weak. Her face hurt her and the horror of what had so recently passed was still fresh and bright within her.
The Elf sighed and scratched at the side of her nose. Once, she might have been considered attractive, but the years had taken their toll.
"Wul." Said Eilidh. "Luhkes lyke ai'v saiv'd yer lyfe tuwyce, eh?"
Larellee glared at her, too angry for the moment to speak. Previously she had been genuinely scared of the Bosmer; now she had awoken from her swoon bound and gagged, she found herself simply too full of rage and spite and an overwhelming despair at what she knew had happened to her brother to even care about the Elf's motives or her own fate.
The Bosmer rubbed her nose again, grimacing, the skin around her nostrils looked red and sore. She settled herself more comfortably, her armour creaking as she moved.
"Wut pryce yer bra's lyfe, eh, Larellee?" Her voice was soft now. "Doo ai saiv ye tuwyce, mebbe therea, oar fowar?"

Larellee could scarce believe what she was hearing.
"What price...?" Her voice was shaky with anger. "What price? You [censored] murdered my brother, you... you stick a knife in him and you..." She gasped for breath, her mouth hurting, her voice slurred by the swelling of her cheek and lips. Ÿou expect it to be some kind of... of debt that you pay off by saving me?" Larellee spat blood onto the earth, struggled against her bonds again.
The Bosmer watched her for a moment, then drew her blade.
"Ai'm nae moar respoans'bul fer yer bra's deyath then thoas wuluves wuz fer eetyn' hym." She said matter-of-factly, There was no need to elaborate, it was obvious from the look on Larellee's face that she had understood exactly what Eilidh had meant and that she knew now the ultimate fate of her brother.

Eilidh shrugged.
"Wul, wut di'y'espec'?" She looked at Larellee, pursing her lips, then she moved towards her with blade held out in one hand.
Larellee's eyes widened further and she tried unsuccessfully to move away from the Bosmer.
"And... and I suppose you'll not be responsible for killing me now?" She said, attempting with all of her might to keep a sudden shaking from her voice.
"Nae." Replied the Elf. "Nae yff'n ai kyn healp ytte." She paused, and then her face took on a resolute expression.
Larellee swallowed her fear, bared her teeth.
"Do what you will, Elf, I care not anymore."



The young woman closed her eyes and Eilidh could not help but smile. Leaning forward she cut the bonds between Larellee's hands and her feet, leaving both still bound to themselves.
Putting her knife away she pushed Larellee up into a sitting position, her back against the rock. Larellee let out a shuddering breath and blinked, the threat of imminent death receeding slightly.
"Hoald stul..." Said Eilidh, grasping Larellee's chin with one hand, whilst with the other holding the woman's bound hands down upon her thighs. Larellee winced as the Bosmer inspected her face, and none too gently. Her strength was frightening, her fingers vice-like.
"You're hurting me!" She squealed.
"Ai dinnae thynke ye'll dye." Remarked Eilidh, ignoring her. "Lest nae frae tha'." She poked at Larellee's bruised cheek with a finger.
Larellee shied away from her, but the Elf merely pursed her lips and grunted. "Wul, ai thynke ye'll lyv. A' leest fer noo."
Letting go of Larellee's face, she sat back on her haunches.

There was a silence between the two women, then; "Are you at least going to untie me, if you will not be killing me, too?" Larellee asked softly.
"Aye." Replied Eilidh, then raising an eyebrow she said, "Tho' w'mus' cum tae an araynjmunt fust."
Larellee looked at the Bosmer curiously. "What arrangement?" Her question was full of hostility and deep distrust.
"Wul noo." Eilidh got up and walked over to a small tree stump, sat down on it facing the other. She sat, legs apart, wrists resting on her knees.
"Wul, Larellee, 'tis lyke thus..."

Larellee found herself listening with increasing disbelief as the Elf laid out what she called her "proposal".
In short, it went thus: Eilidh knew full well that the now ex-kitchen maid would not last half a day if left alone in the wilds and so she, Eilidh, would accompany her to Riverwood, and see her there safely.
"Ai ow ye tha' mutch..." She said.
There were people there who would be able to help Larellee get back onto her feet and get to wherever she needed, or at least close. Not through any affection that the good people of that township had for Eilidh, Larellee was made to understand, but more from the fact that she presented such a pathetic sight that in Eilidh's view they could not help but show her the very same charity that the Bosmer so generously was.
Larellee was just attempting to work out the sense and meaning of this when Eilidh hit her with the quid-pro-quo.

In return for the Wood Elf's goodwill, Larellee would refrain from mentioning that the Bosmer had a hand, however inevitable and for whatever reason, in the death of Atticus. Further, Eilidh would gladly untie Larellee and escort her to said settlement provided the latter gave her word that she would "neetha exkayp noar wul ye proov a hyndrens tai mai proegresin'."
If Larellee felt that she was unable, or unwilling, to commit to this then Eilidh would reluctantly be forced to leave her bound here, where she now was.
"Ai'l nae doo ye ynne, tho'." Observed the Bosmer. "Buit a mitey numba o'otha beesties myte..."

It was more than clear to the younger woman that the Bosmer's concept of "responsibility" was at best occluded and that even the supposed offer of "help" was nothing more than a thinly-veiled piece of blackmail.
Larellee sniffed, spat blood from between her swollen lips. The pain in her face was still very present, but the muzziness in her head had disppeared, to be replaced by a cold clarity drawn from some hitherto unknown well or spring within her mind.
Eilidh had finished, and was clearly awaiting a response to her offer, which she equally felt was one that Larellee could not afford to refuse.

After a moment, Larellee spoke.
"It seems to me." She began." That you think that I have little choice in the matter, certainly as you see it.
"Either I stay here, bound, and await an evil fate; or I accompany you, honour-bound to silence, to Riverwood and... who knows what?"
She paused, keeping her eyes on the Bosmer, who staring inscrutably back at her, her hard and angular face expressionless. The breeze ruffled a few strands of her diirty yellow hair, and she brushed them aside with a hand.
"What's to stop you from murdering me on the way, " continued Larellee, "or from having me "looked after" in Riverwood, or maybe selling me on to the first soldiers you come across so they can sate themselves upon me for a few gold in your pocket?" She sneered. "What's to stop me from accompanying you and telling the first person I see what I know of you? Will you slit my throat?"
She rested her head against the rock, her black hair falling about her shoulders; closed her eyes a moment. There was silence between them.
"No." She whispered. "I will stay here, I think." She turned her face to Eilidh, opened her eyes to look at her. "After all, what have I left to lose? All I have left is my integrity, and should I follow you I will lose even that. No, Bosmer." She sighed, her eyes wide and moist, "I will take my chances here, and be true to myself."

The wind rustled in the sparse trees around them, above, birds, silhouetted against the sky, circled and called to each other.
The Bosmer was silent. The two women held each other's gaze, then Eilidh looked away off into the distance, chewing thoughtfully on her tongue. Finally, she turned back to Larellee.
"Wul," she began slowly, "Ai kunfaiss tha' ai didnae aspek tha'." She held a long-fingered hand out to Larellee.
"Buit ye hae me rong, Larellee, thus tyme." Her harsh voice was quiet, thoughtful. "Ye're rite enuff ai spose, buit noe tha' yff'n ai wuz gonnae doo ye ynne ai wuid hae dun so afor noo, oar mebbe jes' lef' yez fer th'wuluves.
She raised an eyebrow, Larellee nodded slightly, the Bosmer had a point.
"Ai'm a haard bytch rite enuff." Eilidh continued. "Buit ai'm nae a Fukkyn' Bytch. Ai wuid nae sayv yez jes' tae doo ye ynne laita."
She stood up, came and squatted close to Larellee. Her skin, beneath the freckles and cheap ink, was a mass of scars with fresh injuries to show from her efforts earlier. She pursed her thin lips, sniffed.
"Neetha wuid ai sea yez cum tai haarm atte th' handz o' anutha."
Larellee snorted.
"Hah! But you'll leave me here to die if I don't do what you say! For all your talk, you don't care, do you?!"
Eilidh looked away.
"Do you?" In that moment, Larellee understood something.

"You've no intention of leaving me, have you?"
The Bosmer was silent, still. Sensing she had the upper hand, Larellee raised her head and pressed on; "You can't bring yourself to let me die, and yet you can't risk me getting in the way or exposing you if you take me along." She smiled, though not with her eyes. "We seem to have arrived at a tipping point." She rested her head back against the boulder. "Have we not."

Eilidh stared silently at her for so long that Larellee, looking into those black and unblinking eyes, began to worry that she was wrong, and had overstepped the mark.
Finally however the Bosmer spoke, and her voice was quiet and perhaps wistful. "Ai wuidnae 'banden ye tae yer fayte, nae." She sighed. "Ai wuidnae leev yer heyar..."
She shook her head and looked away. "...Ai dunno..."
Standing then,she drew her knife. Taking a step closer she knelt once again and in two smooth movements cut through Larellee's bonds. Standing up and taking a couple of steps back she said, "Ye're free." She sheathed her knife.
"Stai oar go, oar cum wi' me." She kept her eyes on Larellee's face as the other woman, now free, winced and massaged her wrists and ankles. "Doo wut ye wul..." He voice tailed away.

Larellee cocked her head to one side and looked searchingly at Eilidh, genuinely unsure as to how to respond. Given her experiences of this hard-nosed Elf thus far, Eilidh's sudden volte-face had thrown her completely. Still. a decision had to be made and if it came to it, the Elf had been right about at least one thing; there was only one real path to take when it came down to it.
"I'll come." She said. "For good or ill. I can't stay here, you're right about that much."
She hoped that she would not come to regret her decision for despite the Bosmer's sudden seeming change of heart and for whatever the reasons, trust was not even close to being a word that could be used to define their relationship.
It puzzled her though, nonetheless, this strange change of heart.

Eilidh nodded once, briefly, in acknowledgement. Then shaking herself as if awakening from sleep she stepped over to her pack. When she spoke next she seemed almost back to her old self, at least as far as Larellee knew her.
"Wi'd bust b'gowyn' then. 'Tis stul sum ours Tul Riverwood, an ye hae nae bootz." She gestured at Larellee's feet with her chin as she shouldered her pack.
"Ai'l trie tai mek th'path an eezee wun..."
Picking up the warhammer, she turned to face north once more, looking into the scrubby trees.
"Cum thenne, Myssee, yff'n yer cummyn."



Riverwood is a modest settlement located on the eastern bank of the White River, as it flows northwards from its source in the highlands. Nestled in the forests below the permanent snow-line, it is primarily a logging town with a few houses, an inn, and a general store.
It is a quiet and unassuming place for the most part, and its residents largely keep themselves to themselves.

All of this was lost on Larellee however as she stumbled through the town gates behind Eilidh later that day.
The sun was westering, casting long shadows as the grey of evening grew stronger, the darkness beneath the surrounding trees and the eaves of the houses deepening.
For all of her assertions that she would go easy, Eilidh had set a punishing pace from the off, heading ever north and barely pausing except on the occasions where Larellee, her bare feet cut and bleeding and her legs shaking, staggered as if to fall. Several times it happened and yet always the Elf was there holding her up, albeit with a "tut" and a curse.
They had avoided the roads and headed down through the scrubby trees and rocky ground to the more lush lowland woods with their lichen-covered trunks and grassy roots, and colourful flowers strewn round and about.

By this time all had become a pain-filled shambling blur for Larellee.
More used to hurrying between kitchen and dining-room, she was neither mentally- nor physically-equipped to deal with the rigours of wilderness travel, particularly given the events of the previous twenty-four hours or so. For all of her attentiveness when Larellee stumbled, Eilidh appeared to largely ignore her and the younger woman was left to stagger on with barely time to take a breath and certainly none for a piss. Eventually, unable to stop and afraid to ask Eilidh for a break, she was forced to release on the move, grimacing as the hot and acrid-smelling liquid ran down the insides of her legs to her feet, mingling with the grime and dirt that caked them.
In the back of her mind she came to muzzily believe that the Bosmer, having been unable to bring herself to do her in in any other way had resolved to simply let her expire from weariness, and that the only reason why she kept picking her up as she fell was because she wanted to ensure she was as exhausted as possible before the end.

So it was that the pair arrived at Riverwood, Larellee panting and running with sweat despite the chill of the air.
The Gateguards grudgingly let them through, though they observed them both and especially Eilidh, with deep suspicion.
Only once they were through the gate did Eilidh turn and, grasping Larellee by the elbow, she guided her towards the Sleeping Giant, Riverwood's inn.
"Ye leev th' tawkyn' tae me, myssee, k?" Said Eilidh. "Ai'l sourt uz owt, 'm frenz wi' th' barmun." She grinned and winked, though this was largely lost on Larellee.

Inside, the inn commons were dark and musty, smoke from the large central fire drifted lazily about the shadowed roof-beams. The place was empty except for a couple of dark forms sitting at a table in an unlit corner, and a blonde haired woman of middling years cleaning a table by the bar. She was wearing a low cut burgundy coloured dress which revealed her ample decotallage. Whilst not exactly fat, her body was certainly large enough to fill the obviously too small dress to near breaking point, certainly around the belly. Still, she was pretty enough in a motherly way.
She looked up as the two women entered the inn and came into the light.
"Gods!" She exclaimed, her voice husky. "What are you doing back here, MacAuley?!" Then, noticing for the first time the younger woman hanging from Eilidh's arm; "And what have you done to that poor girl?"
Putting down her damp rag, she bustled across the rough-planked floor, holding up the hem of her dress with one hand.

"Orgnar!" She called over her shoulder, "Orgnar! Get out here this minute!"
Stopping in front of Eilidh she gave the Wood Elf a withering look.
"You've a nerve, Eilidh MacAuley, showing your face hereabouts after what you done!"
"Delphine!" Exclaimed Eilidh brightly, ignoring her, "'Tis bin awyle!"
"Not long enough." stated Delphine flatly, turning her attention to the now rapidly wilting Larellee. "And just what have y'done to this one?"
Eilidh looked hurt.
"Ai'v reskyood her, an' brort her heyar. As ai pormuss'd her ai wuid." She explained.
Delphine tutted. "A likely story..."
She manhandled Larellee away from Eilidh, ferrying her off to one of the rooms that lay to either side of the main commons.
"Come on poppet." She whispered. "You're safe now. What did that horrible Elf do to you?"
Eilidh rolled her eyes and blew out an exarsperated breath. "Fuk me, ye trie tae doo a fayva...!"

Just then Orgnar arrived, a bear of a man clad in leather trousers and a grubby apron, he nonetheless contrived to look somewhat sheepish upon seeing Eilidh. The Bosmer chuckled evilly.
"Orgnar! hae's tha pekka?"
"I should have you run out!" Hissed the barman, his chin thrust forward, whiskers bristling. Pointing in the direction taken by Delphine and Larellee, he continued; "I don't know what part you played here Eilidh, but there's bound to be mischief afoot if you're involved! However, " he shook his head, "I'll not see you thrown into the street again, leastways not 'till we've got this sorted out."
He gestured to a door behind the bar.
"You can sleep in the stables. Use the trough to bathe yourself." he made a face. "Preferably sooner!"
Eilidh pouted, an incongruous look on her hard face. "Aaw nae yer bed Byg Mun? Ai wuz lukkyn' fourwords tae rappyn' masail' rown' suthyn' hot..."
Orgnar growled at her, though his cheeks flushed nonetheless.
"Awryte!" Eilidh held up her hands. "Gi'yuz a flaggen o' roobee an' ai'l b'yonne ma wai owt bak..."

It was maybe an hour later. Larellee was lying in a tub full of steaming water so hot it had turned her normally pale skin pink. It was in fact the second tub-full that she had been in, the first had turned so murky that, once Delphine had finished bathing her and washing her hair, she had insisted upon drawing Larellee another, shouting for Orgnar to sort out the emptying of the old water and the fetching of the new whilst ignoring his only half-grumpy retorts that he did in fact have other customers to see to. All the while this was going on Larellee had sat on the bed wrapped in a fur, sipping from a mug of wine. For the first time since leaving Helgen she felt safe, it was a feeling she was very fond of, though tempered by thoughts of her brother and of Eilidh.
Once the bath had been refilled to Delphine's satisfaction, Larellee shed the fur and climbed back into it, sinking once again gratefully into the water. Delphine, who had watched the young woman climb into the tub with a thoroughly approving expression sat down on a stool next to her and bathed Larellee's wounded face and mouth, clucking all the time.
"Such a pretty young thing." She cooed. "Such a lovely face, did that Elf do this to you? Tell me child, if she did I will have her drummed out of town or worse, regardless of what Orgnar wants..." Her tone now was darker and angry, with a hint of some past history.

In her mind Larellee told Delphine everything, how the Bosmer had stabbed her brother, how she'd been knocked senseless and bound, how Eilidh tried to blackmail her with the promise of safety in return for Larellee's silence; how she'd fought to save her from her hysteria and from the wolves, checked to see - albeit uncouthly - whether she was alright, and how she'd kept her word and led her to safety in a place that quite evidently did not welcome her.
"I don't remember." Was all she said in reply, softly.
"I'm not surprised Poppet." Replied Delphine, looking critically at the bruising on Larellee's face. "It must have been an awful time. From Helgen, you say?" The woman was a full conversation all by herself. "How did you end up with the MacAuley woman? She's trouble she is..."
Suddenly she stopped and put a hand to her mouth.
"Mercy! Here's me prattling like a washer-woman and you hungry and barely recovered, you poor thing!" Her bosoms heaved with a sense of mortification.
Larellee could not help but smile.
"No it's fine, Delphine, I'll tell you if you want to know."

And still she wanted to, wanted to let all of it out and let the smouldering nugget of grief and pain that burned in her chest flame up with righteous anger and her own sense of injustice but again, when it came to it, she found she could not. Despite everything else the fact remained, cold and hard and graven in stone, Eilidh had spared her and led her to safety though she had really had no reason to and in fact, with the benefit of even a little distance the pair of them, Atticus and herself, had been at least partly responsible for the events that had unfolded.
And so she told Delphine that she and her brother had escaped Helgen only to be set upon by wolves in the barrens to the north of the ruined town. Eilidh had rescued them but in the melee her brother had been killed - (by wolves) - and she herself had been wounded. Eilidh had led her to safety. That was all.
Delphine was still seated by her, the sleeves of her dressed rolled up to the elbow, her hands resting on the rim of the bath. She looked at Larellee with a dubious eye.
"That doesn't sound much like what I would think of the Elf as doing..." She said. "I would have bet good gold on her being involved more than that, and not in a good way, neither; more the cause of your misfortune than you rescuer - if you follow me."
Larellee shrugged, the water sloshing around her petite body.
"That's really all I remember." she lied. "I was senseless for much of it." This much was at least true.
Delphine wrinkled her brow.
"Hmm..." She was clearly still doubtful, but then she gestured with a hand as if perhaps dismissing for the moment at least her concerns with Larellee's tale. "Well Poppet, whatever happened you came through it and that's the main thing it seems to me. But," she held up a warning finger, "don't you go getting involved with that Bosmer, child. She's trouble everywhere she goes she is and there's not a one around these parts from here to Whiterun and probably beyond even there for all I know, not a one who won't say the same." The older woman nodded sagely and folded her wet arms across her chest.
Larellee opened her mouth to speak, but Delphine shook her head and holding up a hand to still her said; "Enough questions now Larellee, and enough of her - she's out the back with the animals where she belongs, deep in her cups to boot I imagine. No." She laid a stubby-fingered hand upon Larellee's head, gently stroking her wet hair. "You have a nice bath and when you're done come out to the commons and I'll fetch you some food; you'll be hungry by then, if not now."
Larellee, her curiousity about what Delphine did and did not know about Eilidh held at least temporarily in abeyance through the sheer force of the innkeeper's motherly tendencies, could only nod and thank her.
"Oh pish." Fussed Delphine as she stood up and made to leave. "I would have done the same for just about any person in your place. I'll be back soon." She was at the door now and paused, one hand on the latch. "I'll tell you this once more though, Larellee - you stay away from that Elf. She's not to be trusted, her kind can be trouble true enough but she's the worst of the bunch in my experience. Spend any time around her and you'll end up dead or worse."
And with that she was gone out into the commons, shouting for Orgnar to see to the customers.



So here was Larellee.
Lying back in the tub she gazed up into the shadows of the roof, the beams and planks darkened further by years of sooty candlesmoke.
"Why did I lie to Delphine?"
Turning her gazed downwards, she studied her toes where they protruded from the steaming water, wiggling them a little. Delphine had fragranced the water for her and the mingled scent of mountain herbs and forest blossoms was strong and sweetly cloying in her nostrils.
"I should hate her still, and yet..."
From beyond the door she could hear the sounds of raucous laughter and singing. Someone was plucking out a tune on a lute, accompanied by the distinctive rythms of a finger-drum. Larellee waved her submerged hands languidly, sending hot currents tumbling over her belly and breasts. She waggled her toes again.
"She did what she had to do. She could have killed us both, finished me off with less than a thought; but she didn't. She stayed her hand and then... then she saved me."
A small bead of sweat ran down over her forehead. Blinking, she brushed it delicately away with a wet finger.

Hitherto, Larellee's worldview had been divided neatly into a black half and a white; Stormcloaks and Imperials, Nassika the Head Steward at the keep and Atticus. Atticus... it had been his idea to follow the Elf and pick her belongings, to step over the line that Larellee had so assiduously drawn for herself. She had tried always to stick to her own principles, to keep to the light side. To do otherwise, she had thought, would be a rough path indeed to head down.
Yet her brother had taken that route and she, following him, had placed her feet on the path that had brought so much more calamity to them both. The world had turned to grey the moment they had touched Eilidh's belongings. But their motives had not been selfish, they had been desperate, and had done what they felt they needed to do to survive. As had the Elf, really, she realised now. Upon finding them she had assumed they were aggressors and had done what she felt she needed to do to meet a threat. To Larellee it had seemed catastrophically disproportionate but still...
"She did what she had to do."
Just as they would have done, in their way. But Eilidh was from a different world; a harsher, sharper and far less forgiving one where there were no second chances. She had not been in her company long but it was long enough to realise that Eilidh was a creature who neither gave nor expected quarter. Larellee could see that the Elf lived on that line, the line that seperated the night from the day; a blurred area of dubious morality and cold decisions where you acted hard and fast simply because you did not know what would happen if you hesitated and did not expect to have a chance if you did. You did what was required to survive.
"This much and no more."
Larellee sat up in the bath, water sloshed around her and coursed in rivulets down over the smooth curves of her body, leaving trails that glittered in the flickering candlelight. She looked around her, idly scratching her belly.
"Everyone in your world is a potential threat, I suppose..." Her inner voice whispered. No trust, always an angle to be exploited; punished if you missed a signal, a feint, or an opportunity. She could not imagine how Eilidh must live from day-to-day, on a tight-wire of her nerves; constantly alert.

Eilidh had been right after all. Her, the wolves, Larellee and her brother; all were driven by the same desire, that of their continuing survival. They were all of them caught up in a dance that reeled and flowed from white to black and back again, doing whatever it took and whatever was necessary. "There but for the grace of the Gods go I." She had always thought when watching the poor unfortunates whom the Imperial soldiers had captured being put to death in the great quadrangle within the keep; she had pitied them thinking that their actions, though often undountedly terrible, were perhaps not driven by cruelty but instead by their circumstances and by their need to ensure their own continued existence. Well, the Gods it seemed had run out of grace and she had, regardless of her reservations, blithely followed her brother down the very same road that all of those men and women had set foot upon, many because it was all that they could do, and the only path that they could take.
She gasped at her own naivety.
"What did I expect to happen?" She looked down at the still steaming water, at her slim body in the shadowed depths of the bath beneath the water's surface; overlaid upon it was the ghostly reflection of her face and she watched as the water rippled and the her image broke up and reformed countless times, each time slightly differently; the same but not quite the same.
"And that's it really." She thought. In a way they were the same, but to her Eilidh was a fractured reflection; a possibility composed of pieces of a person formed together differently. But still a person, like her.
The Elf had been alive for longer than Larellee could imagine. What must it have been like, her time, to make her who she was?

Like the surface of the water in the bath, the line between them was forever unstable, wrinkled and rippled. her life had been nothing like Eilidh's, she imagined, and yet given the choice between survival and death she would fight to survive, had fought against Eilidh when she was out of her wits with horror and grief and convinced her own death was upon her. Would she have killed Eilidh if she could have?
"Yes." She said to herself simply, and then; "There's no black and no white."
Standing up, she stepped out of the tub and stood for a moment, fragrant water dripping from her body onto the rug beneath her feet. Taking a chamois leather that Delphine had laid for her nearby she rubbed herself dry, the relative cold of the room prickling her skin and stiffening her nipples.
"I know nothing of her."

It was true, she didn't. She only thought she knew anything about Eilidh from what she had surmised from the Bosmer's looks and from her behaviour in the brief time she had been aware enough to do so, and that was becoming more of a mystery the more she thought on it. Eilidh's history seemed written in her face and on the skin and in the flesh of her body; every scar and tattoo, every line and mark spoke of hardship and struggle, but the scars it seemed ran much deeper than that. She remembered how tired the Elf had looked; not just from one hard-fought day but from countless days over countless years. She made Larellee with her lily-white skin and nailpaint feel like some still-wet child, inadequate and incapable. The gulf of years and experience between them was clearly the fault of neither but nevertheless when measured against the woman into whose circle she had been thrown by circumstance Larellee felt soft and weak and puny.
That the Elf had killed her brother was still true, and the wound was bright and sharp. From the moment the three of them met by that rock, someone was going to die. It had been inevitable and yet, only one of them had; the one who was the most threat she supposed.
"This much, and no more. It could have been me too, but it wasn't. Only as much force as was needed to stay in control."
Larellee raised her eyebrows. There had been no reason to kill her initially and so she had been spared. Later, when the Elf had her alone, she could still have eliminated her; Larellee could have informed the authorities, and at the time she meant to, and that might have been enough to secure her death ultimately. She shook her head, the Chamois poised against her skin. No, at any point Eilidh could have left her to die and yet she hadn't, even though it would have been easier for the Elf if Larellee had been gone. Survival made you selfish Larellee guessed, and that should have dictated that Eilidh would have looked after herself first and foremost, to the exclusion of all else, and yet again, she had not. She had not only not killed or left Larellee, but she had actively helped her to boot. These were not the actions of a woman who merely regarded another as a neutralised threat, and therefore not worth the effort of eliminating, there was more to it than that.
"Why did you spare me? Why did you save me?" These were two different things, she realised. True enough Eilidh had said she would leave her but at the crunch she had not, even though Larellee had told the Elf she would inform on her.

Dropping the chamois, she crossed to the chamber pot and squatted over it to do her business, using a rag to wipe herself when she had finished.
"But it wasn't just that. She brought me here." She thought, standing up again. "Why? She could just have left me... left me for the wolves."
That was what Larellee could not work out, what was confusing to her. Not killing her was one thing, but actually helping her was another entirely; particularly when for all Eilidh knew, Larellee was going to tell the first person she saw and given the reaction of Delphine and the barman, bringing her to Riverwood was an additional complication anyway. The Elf had seemed resigned when she had freed her from her bonds and Larellee had at first thought that, following a debate in Eilidh's head, she'd simply given up and let her go; but that didn't fit with Eilidh's previous behaviour somehow. She realised now that there had to have been more to it than that, it was not simply that she had let Larellee go because she was tired of arguing.

"Why?"

Delphine had left some clothes for her that she had thought might fit, Larellee's own former kitchen uniform being largely a ragged and bloody assemblage of holes and torn threads. They were simple clothes, and clearly Delphine's from a time when her form had been more akin to Larellee's. The skirt and blouse fitted well enough and the underwear, a simple binding cloth for her breasts and some linen knickers, was better by far than what she had before - namely nothing. The dragon's attack had shaken her from, coincidentally, her bath and she had only had enough time to grab her dress before running to find her brother at the stables.
Finally dressed and with a pair of soft leather shoes on her feet, she felt better now for sure. Crossing the room to the dresser, she peered into the polished steel mirror set upon the wall above it, holding up a candle to see herself better.
Black hair framed an oval face, chestnut eyes and full red lips; small nose slightly crooked from where her brother had broken it in a fight when they had been youngsters. The livid black and purple bruise on her cheek served to make her skin look even paler than normal by comparison. She raised a hand and brushed her face gently with her fingertips.

She was no longer sore, though her jaw still hurt a little and there was an ugly scab on her lower lip that made it look rough and twisted. She opened her mouth and pulled her cheek away from her teeth and gums, holding the candle up. There was a gap back in the shadows of her mouth where a tooth should have been.
"She could have killed me, or left me. I'd have known nothing of it..."
Larellee dropped her hand from her mouth and stared at her reflection.
"She kept me alive the best way she knew how."
She tapped a finger against her lips.
"Hmm..."

-x-

This is a very interesting chapter where we see Larallee take the time to consider the motivations behind Elidh's actions. The fact that she did not roll with Delphine's remarks about the Bosmer but instead considered her own experience with the other woman tells me that Larallee is not all that closed-minded as she initially appeared to be.

I have to wonder if this will signal a warming in the relationship between the two women, though I can't ever see them becoming bosom buddies. I think Larallee will remain wary of the other, simply because she has seen for herself how quick and lethal Elidh can be.

All in all a wonderful read.

And yes, I am still fascinated by your development of a complex and interesting character. I'm sorry for not commenting on previous posts, and wish that others would jump in from time to time and let you know how they experience this story.

Thank you very much.
It's nice to know someone's reading and your comments are really great.

I'm really excited about Eilidh's story actually, where she will go and how she will develop, and Larellee is increasingly becoming an independent character all by herself as well.
Do stay tuned for more updates soon!
Thank you again.

New update coming soon...
Larellee and Delphine have themselves a little chat about the past, and Larellee finds out about the innkeeper's version of events...

DELPHINE
[in which Larellee has an unsettling talk with the innkeeper...]

Larellee blinked as she stepped out of her room and into the commons. The central fire was bright and roaring in its stone-lined pit, the pots suspended over it glowing dully, their contents steaming and bubbling. A heavy aroma of woodsmoke and roasted meats hung in the air.
There were some ten or eleven patrons in the large space, not including the two bards - one male and one female who, from their position in the shadows at the end furthest from the bar, were belting out patriotic Nordic standards that were met with a mix of heartfelt applause and lusty, if somewhat tuneless, singing.
This had been the case, at least, until Larellee had entered. The music and singing had petered out and as she stood by the still open door through which she had come several pairs of eyes turned to regard her with varying degrees curiousity and no small amount of hostility.
"...Came in 'ere wi' the elf..."
"The MacAuley...? She training this one, then...?"
"...Bad smells always come back..."
"...Run out of men to sleep with then, hur hur..."
Freshly scrubbed and newly attired as she was, Larellee felt extremely exposed and awkward before the predominantly male customers and their none-too-subtle whisperings. A hot blush began to rise up her throat to her face. She put a hand to her neck and looked about her, preparing to retreat once more into her room away from the probing stares and hard, dirt-streaked faces.
"You lot never seen a pretty girl before? Get on with it, you buggers!"

The spell was broken by Delphine. Sailing over to Larellee, dress billowing like the sails on a ship, she grasped the young woman's hand and steered her to the bar all the while shooting withering looks at the patrons and admonishing them for their audacity and rudeness.
Helpless in the face of the innkeeper's indignation the other inhabitants of the commons went, more-or-less grudgingly, back to their own business. The bards struck up once again and slowly the noise of conversation rose in volume.
"Don't you worry Poppet." Fussed Delphine. "This lot'll bark but they won't bite." She gave Larellee a meaningful look as she led her to a table close to the bar. "You at least..."
Upon the table had been laid a plate of bread and cheese and a thick slice of freshly boiled ham on a platter, pink and glistening in the light of the fire and the candles that lit the room with a rich yellow-orange light. There were some pickles and thick yellow butter, and a large mug of dark wine.
Larellee's mouth started to water and she realised just how hungry she was. Seating herself before the feast, she set to with a will but, reminded of the injury to her face, at least maintained the presence of mind to favour the uninjured side of her mouth.
Delphine watched her approvingly. "A healthy appetite is half the battle, I always say." She remarked sagely, patting the gentle swell of her belly. "Nothing wrong with yours, that much is obvious."

For some moments Larellee concerned herself with demolishing the food that was before her, finally though there was nothing substantial left and after cramming one final piece of rich, strong cheese into her mouth she swilled down a generous gulp of wine, pushed her plate away and belched loudly.
"Thank you!" She said to Delphine, who had sat with her the while. The innkeeper beamed as Larellee wiped the back of her hand across her mouth.
"You're very welcome, Poppet."
Larellee took another swallow of wine, it had a rich, earthy taste. Brushing a hair from her face she turned to Delphine.
"You've been kind, but I've no way to pay you..., at least no gold; I was a kitchen girl in Helgen so I could clean pots by way of working my debt...?"
Delphine shook her head.
"You'll do no such thing, girl, I will not hear of it.
She gestured at the commons around them both; at the patrons and the bards.
"Look at them, Larellee, look. They need nothing more than beer and meat and fighting." She placed a hand on Larellee's cheek. "You however, I think, need more. Brought into my inn in a terrible state, and with that Elf, it's been my pleasure and my duty even, to help you as best I can." She looked at the young woman, her stubby fingers still resting lightly on the other's skin. "I would do the same for almost anyone who came to me in trouble."
larellee noticed that again the other woman had qualified her statement, and this time she had looked briefly toward the door through which were the stables where Eilidh had been sent upon their arrival.

"She's not welcome, though, is she?"
Delphine's face darkened.
"The Bosmer?"
Larellee nodded. "What you said before, about her; and with her being in the stables." She swallowed, aware that Delphine's mood had turned somewhat. "I... I know that Nords do not like Elvenkind as a general rule, I saw that at the fort; but it seems that Eilidh has given you more reason to dislike her than simply just by being an Elf?"
Delphine looked away into the commons, harrumphing to herself and straightening her dress.
"You have some insight, Poppet." She said eventually, turning back to Larellee. "You're right, yes. If I had my way she would be in the gutter with the dogs; but Orgnar, well, he would not have it."
Delphine looked awkward for a moment, then shook her head and looked away again. Larellee waited patiently, it was obvious that the woman wanted to talk but was unable to find the words to begin.
Finally Delphine turned her head back to Larellee, she regarded the young woman for a moment; blue eyes glinting in the firelight.
"I'll tell you about Eilidh MacAuley, Poppet." She said then, and spat the name as if it had left a bad taste in her mouth. "She's a liar and cheat; a thief. She'll take a man and his money and leave him with nothing - except maybe the clap - she's a drunkard and a brawler and a... a dirty whore and I would not trust her further than I could [censored]."
Larellee stared at the innkeeper with wide eyes. Delphine was flustered and red-faced now and there had been a vehemence in her voice that larellee had not believed she possessed.
"Is this to do with you son?" She asked. "With Orgnar...?"
Delphine looked puzzled for a moment, then the coin dropped and some of her anger left her as she smiled softly.
"Bless you child, he's not my son but my nephew, my brother's son." She sat down at the table with Larellee and poured herself a mug of wine. Larellee, watching her, thought that she looked old in that moment; a heaviness descending upon her from out of the past.
"We can move on from our past, but we can never truly leave it behind." She thought to herself, sipping at her own wine.
"My brother is dead." Stated Delphine bluntly. "Dead and gone in the wars these past five years." She took a drink, set the mug down upon the rough wooden table with slow deliberation. "But you are right, mostly, this has to do with my brother's son, and my brother too." She smiled again, and the weight of memory seemed to lift slightly. "You're a smart one, Poppet."

From the fire came the snap and crackle of new logs as Orgnar fed the flames, all the while bantering with the inn's customers. One of the men raised up his rich, deep voice in song; a bawdy ditty concerning the Emperor, a serving lass, and her father's donkey.
Larellee had heard it before, it was set to a much earlier tune, actually one from Cyrodiil; a nursery rhyme she remembered from her childhood.
"The men can sing as they wish here." Said Delphine, by way of unsolicited explanation for the singer's ditty. She sat back in her chair, cupping her mug of wine. "We've no affection for the Imperials here, nor for anyone else not of our kind."
Larellee raised an eyebrow.
"What of me?" She asked. "I am an Imperial."
Delphine smiled and sat forward, placing a hand reassuringly on Larellee's arm. "I had thought as much." She said. "But you needn't fear. Just because we do not relish the presence of outsiders here in Riverwood, we are more tolerant than many and though I'll admit that were you to be caught out alone in the countryside there are some about who would use you as they saw fit, being a daughter of Empire as you are, but not within this town.
"We have long relied on passing trade and so we tolerate those from afar who have something to offer, or find themselves in need," she cocked her head on one side, "mostly..."

"...Except Eilidh." Said Larellee. "What did she do to you for you to hate her so much?"
"I will not have her here, larellee." Replied Delphine firmly. "She has been the cause of mush trouble and heartbreak for us, and she's Bosmer to boot. General Tullius..."
"...General Tullius issued an order to Imperial troops to round up Bosmers." Finished Larellee for her.
"Indeed, Poppet," Said Delphine. "and you know? That's the only thing where your General and myself do agree." She nodded once, curtly, at larellee. "That's what she would have been doing in Helgen in the first instance; captured and sentenced. The dragon's attack must have allowed her to escape.
"Like a bad penny she turns up once again." She took a quick swig of wine. "Why are you so concerned about the MacAuley woman anyway?" She then asked, as if eager to move the topic away from Bosmers in general.
"If it were not for her, I would not now be here." Answered Larellee, although in her heart she knew that there was more to it, now, than that.
"Hmmph. Maybe, or maybe not - or maybe you would be, but with your brother, hmm?" She looked at Larellee with one eyebrow raised questioningly. "Still," she conceded, "she did bring you here, although it's out of character for her and for Bosmers, as far as I know anything about them."
She scratched at the side of her nose, Orgnar hurried past carrying a tray loaded with foaming mugs of mead, around them the hubbub of the inn ebbed and flowed.
"I'll grant her bringing you here was probably the one and only thing she's ever done in her miserable life that was any good to anyone but herself." Delphine waved a finger vaguely in the direction of the stable door. "But that and no more."
There was silence between them. Larellee took a sip of wine and stared thoughtfully into the central fireplace for a moment, chewing her lower lip.
"Tell me, Delphine," she asked again, "what happened?"



Delphine poured more wine and looked out into the commons, marshalling her thoughts.
"Eight years past," she began, "I owned this inn, as I do now, and my brother owned the Trader, just along from here.
"Riverwood has never been a busy place, Poppet, and those times were quieter than usual; it's better now even with the troubles." Delphine laughed ruefully. "My brother's shop was in disarray, he owed debts which neither he nor I could settle."
She gestured about her.
"All I have is here."

"Eilidh MacAuley had been up until then an infrequent but... memorable visitor. We had extended such hospitality as we were able - (the hay being dry and warm) - and had allowed her to trade at the store. In return she drank her fill at the inn and..." Delphine paused for a moment, looking at Laralee with narrowed eyes. Finally she continued; "She... put herself about in other ways, for which she doubtless earned back some of what she had paid out to me, here, over the bar."
Delphine took a sip of wine, looked at the younger woman over the rim of the mug.
"Understand, Larellee, as I have said that woman's reputation for mischief and whoring is prodigious, certainly around here. I do not doubt that the loins of many a husband and father hereabouts furnished her purse with coin and on more than one occasion she was thrown out of the stables as a result of her indiscretions." She rolled her eyes at the memory. "Not to mention the fighting and the stealing."
Larellee opened her mouth to say something but Delphine held up her hand.
"No, don't get me wrong Poppet, she's not the worst by any means; not by a long bow shot, no - but, she has a way about her, a dangerous and fey air." She stopped and thought a moment, the immediacy and directness of the patriotic tune being cranked out by the bards providing a counterpoint to her slightly vacant expression.
"It is almost as if she really does have nothing left to lose." She said finally. "That said though, she did good enough business both here and in the shop when she appeared, and behaved herself. Not enough to ransom a jarl, but good enough."

Both women sat back from the table and considered the inn around them for a moment. Smoke hung heavily in the air, pale-grey curtains of it riffling in the currents drawn upwards by the heat of the flames in the central pit. Around them conversation ebbed and flowed, driven by debate and the topics of the day; the coming war, the imperials, the Elves.
"Had she been a vision of mercy incarnate, still she would not have been welcomed fully here." Thought Larellee to herself.
"Tell me more." She said softly to Delphine, who nodded briefly.
"Well," she continued, "my brother was always very careful with her in his store. light-fingered is as light-fingered does and some people - like she, and her kin from what I know - can't help themselves." She gestured with her chin in the direction of the stables once again. "However much coin that Elf brought into the store it was always a sure-fire wager that she would, if given half a chance, walk out with twice that and more.
"The problem was that, what with the troubles with his shop and his worries about his family and how much coin he had to support them, my brother was distracted I suppose." She shrugged. "Whatever the reason, his guard was down."
Delphine took a swig from the mug and placed it upon the table between them with great deliberation.
"The Bosmer somehow got hold of my brother's son, Orgnar, a boy of eighteen summers he was back then. You know how boys are..."

In truth, Larellee did not personally, but she was worldly enough to have a pretty good idea. She nodded politely for Delphine to continue.
"I will leave it to your own thoughts, as to what happened between the two, but not long after I suppose, Orgnar came to me with an idea that he said that Eilidh had had, an idea that could help my brother, the shop, and it's failing fortunes.
"Suffice to say there was a discussion between us; the Elf included, and to cut a lengthy tale into a shorter one, she prevailed and much against my wishes." Here Delphine tapped at her chest with a finger, she sighed. "My brother always did have a weakness for his son, and Orgnar has never been a wordly boy. Had he been he might have seen through the Elf's scheming..." Her voice trailed off.

"I never knew the precise details of the plan the Elf had, I doubt they amounted to much, but suffice to say her plan required coin to work and my brother in his blindness gave her two thousand gold. Two thousand! More than he personally had." The older woman raised her eyebrows. "More than he had ever had to spend, so he borrowed the money, and she disappeared with it supposedly to return with... whatever her "plan" required."
Delphine looked away a moment, into the flames and the past, her eyes glistening moistly in firelight.
"Of course, the promised salvation never arrived, and neither did the Elf." She continued with a maudlin sigh. "My brother was forced to sell the store and Orgnar was heartbroken for her - she had netted and landed him good and properly, and guilt-ridden also for his father." Delphine watched her nephew moving amongst the customers for a moment.
"What happened then?" Asked Larellee, feeling genuinely sorry for innkeeper.
"Then?" Continued Delphine; "Bereft of employment and with seemingly no other recourse, my brother went away to fight in the border wars, and Orgnar came to me. In the fullness of time my brother was killed, as I was sure would be the case when he left." She clicked her tongue, wiped at her eyes. "And so here we are, eight years later."
"And what of Eilidh?" Larellee had to know.
"Sometime later she was caught, and dragged here. The Jarl himself came and sentenced her to death, but my nephew sued for clemency." The innkeeper's face darkened. "Seems he carried a torch still for the Bosmer, even though she would have none of him but what she could take, and that being a high enough price already and besides, how could a Nord marry one of them anyway?" There was a bitter twist to her words, and she continued; "I love Orgnar as a son, but he is soft and naive. He explained to the Jarl that we had treated her no better than a beast and so she had behaved as one would."
Delphine stopped and took a deep breath, her lower lip quivering, cheeks flushed. "We... we allowed her here to trade, we even let her stay in this inn; drink here in the commons like the normal folk do! This is how she repaid us." Delphine waggled a finger at Larellee. "No, Poppet, she is worse than a beast; a beast would be grateful for what it was given and would know it's place!"
She gave herself a moment to calm down.
"The Jarl took Orgnar's side, however and commuted the sentence. Eilidh was stripped naked and tied upon a tanning frame outside of the Trader, and beaten until she was insensible. And that took quite some time, I can tell you.
"After that, she was hauled away and the Jarl had her wounds rubbed with salt."
It seemed to Larellee that the innkeeper, regardless of her reasons, was taking altogether too much pleasure in relating the details of the Bosmer's punishment. She stayed silent however as Delphine continued.
"Then," the older woman went on, "he personally threw her into Helgen's dungeon for one year and a day, telling her upon her release that she would receive death for certain should she ever set foot in our town again." Delphine finished her wine. "That was four years ago and until now no one here had seen her.

Larellee poured herself more wine and sat back in her chair, rotating the mug thoughtfully between her long fingers. She looked at Delphine, feeling perhaps less sympathy than she might perhaps have done once, only a very short time ago. The innkeeper's words betrayed her nature, and Larellee found it unpleasant.
"So why is she still alive then?"
Delphine made a face.
"Because of my nephew, and you Larellee." She pointed at herself. "I would as soon see the filthy whore hung by her feet from a tree and flayed alive, but Orgnar would not countenance it and I love him, despite his strange ideas. He is all that's left of my brother."
"Then there's the matter of you." She looked searchingly at Larellee. "I do not believe all of your story, Poppet, leastways not the parts concerning Eilidh; but, she nevertheless did bring you here to safety, although I doubt her motives were overly white in that respect. Nevertheless," she shifted her weight on the chair, "a deed that is good is worth something, at least."
She pointed a finger at Larellee.
"There's more afoot than you have told, Larellee, and I believe that you are covering for her, why, I do not know and I am not sure I want to. I suppose you have your reasons, and I have respected them thus far.
"Be that as it may," she continued, "I have told the guard to hold her, and send for the jarl's men, if she is not gone from this place by the crowing of the first [censored] on the morrow."
Larellee said, "And what of tonight?"
"She remains in the stables, out of sight and mind, with the livestock. There are many here who want her dead." Delphine's expression made it quite clear that she was amongst that number. "But this inn is a sanctuary of sorts and she has you to thank for that, Poppet, until first [censored]."

larellee pursed her lips.
"She didn't act like any of this had happened when she arrived." She said.
"No, of course not." Replied the innkeeper. "The Bosmer has spent her life, no doubt, reeling from one calamity to the next; thinking always of herself and never of the consequences. Always bluffing her way through." Delphine ran a hand through her hair. "Well not this time. I will see her gone on the morrow or I will see her dead."
Delphine made to get up then but Larellee stopped her.
"One thing more, delphine."
"What's that, Poppet?"
"If I had been an Elf, a Bosmer, would I be here now? Would you have bathed me?" She asked, although she knew the answer. "Would you have fed me?"
The two women stared at each other for a long moment.
"First crowing, she's gone." Said Delphine, and left the young woman alone with her thoughts.

Very interesting insight into racism in the ES universe, and how people remain blind to their own parochialism.

As always, I enjoyed reading this from Laralee's perspective. But now I'm beginning to miss Elidh. I do hope you bring her back soon! Preferably before rooster's crow in the morning!

Oh don't worry - there's plenty of her to come in the next installment!

There may be a new story coming soon...