Chapter I
There are children who have restoration spells mastered. Me? I skipped out on the simplest of magicka my whole life. I depend more on my brute strength and agility to get me by, and hope the best in between.
I regret it now.
My wound is gaping; glaringly red with blood and shining with the contents of my forearm. As a hunter and a bandit, I'd spectated my share of blood and gore without even the bat of an eye. But to study and greet my own insides, paired with the striking wave of agony, causes anxiety and nausea to wash over me. I yield no choice but to gaze at it, fingers in a tremor as I tend to the wound.
It's a miracle the dagger that flailed my arm didn't nick any of the major arteries coursing down my arm to my hand. Instead, luckily, it dug into the flesh and chewed up the superficial array of muscles, leaving me with a partially immobilized arm and a ton of blood.
It was a pissed-off High Elf that did the deed. I hadn't bargained that this traveler, one like the many I'd robbed before, would be a force to reckon with. My calculations and plans had been sloppy, causing this wounded outcome in my behalf. My brain racks over a myriad of different approaches I should have taken, but I decide there's little time to maul over the should-haves and could-haves.
My arm is now a tribute paid to his ferocity and my carelessness, and there's nothing more that can become of the situation.
I need to close the wound. My fingers tremble around the iron needle, an object used prior only to mend the frayed stitches of my clothing. Now, it is the procedure tool as I cautiously prepare the thread. My body is slick with a cool sweat, and my breathing is audible against the walls of this inn bedroom. The candlelight flickers, casting long shadows into the corners. I'm caught debating my next maneuver in the procedure.
I pause, taking time to draw in a shaking breath. The pain isn't what bothers me, it's the constant sight of the twitching tendons underneath and the slick glimmer of subcutaneous tissue. My eyes shut as I inhale once more, positioning the tip of the needle at the the cutaneous skin at one end of the wound. The final breath, I stick the needle into my flesh.
Methodical motions fueled by the adrenaline pumping through my system force my way through. At the halfway mark I pause, a churning sensation twisting my stomach. I gulp, trying to contain the feeling before plowing onward. My head throbs and my limbs tremble like tree twigs in a downpour.
Time stands still, and I can't logic out how long I'm tending to my wound. Finally I reach the end of the long, straight wound dashing down my forearm. I use my teeth to tear the thread and my free hand manages a knot. Once I'm done, I lean back to revel at my handy work.
The slit of the wound is pieced together by the black zig-zag of the threading. There's still blood caked around my skin that needs to be washed, and I'm not entirely sure where I go from here with this injury. Was it days or weeks I left these stitches in? Perhaps I should go see a healing mage in the city here soon. I'd maul over these plans once I got some rest and could think more clearly.
My awe lasts fleetingly as I sudden lean over. I grab the bucket I'd been lent to by the innkeeper, hurling the contents of my stomach into the basin. My head throbs as I lean there, gagging.
Down below in the main room of the inn, I can hear the front door open and slam shut. The sound causes me to jump, knocking the elbow of my wounded arm into the table. I keel over with a yelp, buying my forehead into the surface of the table as hot tears threaten their way to the forefront of my eyes. Teeth embed themselves into my lower lip as I groan in agony.
"Innkeeper, I come to believe there is a criminal staying within your business. Have you seen her?" A deep voice demands.
Below, the innkeeper, Do'iir, gives a soft grunt. He's a bony-elbowed Khajiit that busts his tail for a living. Nobody strides into his domain without a proper etiquette, especially someone with a violent sneer like that.
I'd known Do'iir for a number of years, always certain to frequent his inn when I'm in the area. He is unafraid of even the Emperor himself, and will stand his ground against any personality.
"Excuse me?" The Khajiit growls. "Even the Imperial Legion has no business striding in here without any formalities. You're disrupting my business."
The floorboards of this aging boarding house are thin, and it feels as if I stand in the room with this searching newcomer and the innkeeper. A panic settles into my blood, knowing precisely who is about to be identified. While Do'iir can hold off the legion member for a few minutes, there's no way he's risking an arrest for noncompliance with the law. If the Legion has a legitimate warrant out, nothing stands between them ransacking the inn to search for a criminal.
Sure enough, the Legion member continues with spiteful words, "Imperial. Female. She has long golden hair, probably in a braid. Perhaps parading around with a nasty cut on her arm."
Me.
My hands gather underneath my on the chair, forcing my legs to straighten as I hoist myself up. I launch over to grab the iron dagger sitting on the bedside table, brandishing it in the candlelight before ducking for the space behind the door. There's no mode of escape, and my best option is to hope I can hide and assault whoever is about to barge into my room in any second.
Despite the obvious identifications, Do'iir offers the Legion member no bone.
"Many people come and go," Do'iir replies. "I am very busy man."
"Knowingly housing a criminal is a punishable crime in the eyes of the Empire, Khajiit," the man prompts savagely. "So I suggest you allow me to search the rooms of your tenants without any resistance."
There's a tense silence that follows. I lean my back against the wall, breaths ragged. The stairs leading to the second floor creak, and I ration out my breath in my lungs as I listen. My heart thunders like a landslide in my chest. I wonder if whoever is out there can hear the panic besetting me. I'm a wounded animal, and he is the predator sniffing out my blood trail.
Knocking raps down the hallway. The tenant of the neighboring room grumbles, feet thudding as they come over and whip the door open.
"Yes?" Comes the voice of the drunk Redguard who sat at the bar when I arrived to purchase a room for the night. He had eyed my wound, asking something incoherently to which I had laughed off and told him I was a professional bear hunter. A blatant lie he bought with the raise of his tankard of sloshing beer.
"Imperial Watch," the man identifies himself. "Are you alone in there?"
"Not unless you're volunteering to spend the night with me, buddy," The Redguard muses with a fit of laughs. The door clatters shut, and the guard moves on.
He covers another door, resulting in another failure to locate me. Finally his boots drum to the landing outside of my room. I fit cozily into the corner of the room behind the door, hoping that this plan unravels as my mind plays it out to be, and that I could be on flight in the wilderness of the Gold Coast in a few moments.
The door opens, hinges creaking. The guard steps into the room, peering into the inky shadows. There's a moment of hesitation in my movements, whether bogged down by fear or by the screaming agony still pulsating through my damaged arm. I attempt to throw myself from out behind the door like a viper striking its prey. I rear the dagger up, aiming the hilt to knock him on the temple of his exposed head. He pivots hard, as if expecting me, using his arm to knock the dagger out of my grasp before smashing his fist into my head.
There's a clatter of metal against the ground as I'm disarmed. My knees buckle under the blow delivered to my head, and I soon follow my weapon. My body crashes to the ground in a gasping heap. Sobbing with surprise, my fingers nimbly shoot out to reach for my dagger. There's no more mercy for us, and my initial plan to simply knock the Imperial Guard out has been tarnished. There might be bloodshed in exchange for my freedom.
But my hands never meet my weapon. Instead, a sharp pain envelops my skull as the Guard's boots crash into the side of my head, met next with nothing but a spiraling whirlwind of darkness.