CHASE ME

"To master Alteration, first accept that reality is a falsehood. There is no such thing."

- Reality and Other Falsehoods

CHAPTER ONE
The Dream

The warrior stood alone at the crest of the weathered hill, cloaked in robes that had seen countless journeys. He surveyed the land, his identity obscured by the strange helm that he wore. It seemed a bowl turned down upon his head, woven of wicker and rice paper. With his right hand, he planted his weapon in the ground beside him, the tip of the spear pointing to the heavens as if to stake his claim before the Divines. He seemed almost to lean against it, as though he were ancient or exhausted. Indeed the warrior seemed a contradiction in both form and substance - as though his wretched, bent frame carried within it a hidden strength of limb or will. The very air around him seemed to share his deformity, distorted as though something in the mysterious figure's nature offended the very fabric of the world that surrounded him. His race was indiscernible; all that was clear was his purpose. Come what may, the hill was his and none would pass its slopes.

Countless challenges barked forth all at once, and the warrior gazed out to the horizon. The rising sun backed a tide of war - ten thousand armored shapes shining silver in the sun's rays, bellowing out as one a call for blood. All spokes and angles they were, every line perfectly smithed to shred whatever it touched - and yet their texture was one of freshly mined ore, coarse and unrefined. A single such unit could fight a war without weapons, yet each carried with it a long, gray blade which flared at the base and merged with the crossguard into lethal spikes. The gray army moved with slow purpose in unbroken rank, their march of cold unity a drumbeat below their battle cry. Raised spears scraped at the underbelly of the sky, some adorned by a hanging standard depicting a great crowned helm framed by wicked blades.

Even as their endless number reached the foot of the hill, the lone warrior did not retreat. He stood in their way as would a great oak tree, heeding not the elements and impervious to force. His only motion was a single step forward as he raised his weapon before him - a halberd, twofold a spear and great crescent axe. His stance betrayed no fear; only a wall of will striding openly to face the shimmering force before him.

They were twenty paces distant.

Ten.

The front line's spears lowered, ready to stop short any threat to their wielders.

Five paces.

With a collective heave, a phalanx of pronged poles pitched toward the protector, meeting nothing but open air. For in that heave, the warrior had hurled himself skyward, hurtling ten men's height into the air as though yanked by an invisible puppeteer. From the horde that watched his ascent, there was only silence. As he hung suspended for a moment at the apex of his flight, the halberd rose above his head, guided by a mighty, armored grip. Down it swept as gravity reclaimed him, the sheer force of his descent defying the size of his frame. With a deafening clash of steel and thundering of earth, with more force than he should have possessed were he a dozen times his own size, the warrior met the gray army with an impact that devastated their front line. Silver figures were tossed aside as if mere toys, raining down the hill like screaming motes of dust. The long-hafted polearm swept in wide whirling arcs to clear a circle within the advancing lines, its dance of death keeping the distant at bay and punishing the daring. Each blow landed sent one knight sprawling into a pack of his brothers, turning order to chaos.

Try as they might to surround him, the warrior kept them cowed, not with his might but his magic. Some were frozen in their tracks by a mere glance as though their armor had rusted in an instant. Others found themselves crushed flat by invisible burdens, and still others became lighter than air, only to come crashing down upon their brothers-in-arms like a glistening meteor shower. Try as they might, they could not take the hill - yet they marched on and on, undaunted by the loss of so many to one so mighty. It was as if they had no will to flee - only to fight. And fight they did, to the death. Each knight lost was replaced by another three. The wave at the horizon became a shimmering stream without end as far as the eye could see, its sword-straight flow broken only by the single rock in its path. On they pushed, only to be beaten back again and again by the warrior, no less glorious for his hopeless struggle.

On he fought with no end in sight, the earth shuddering with his every ferocious blow. Slowly the quaking grew as something else pierced the sky, looming over the horizon like a growing monolith. It was like the gray stone knights, yet more ornate - its joints, shoulders and helm sprouting coiled stalagmites that lanced higher and higher as it drew nearer and nearer. A low metallic thrum issued from the grille-like gaps in its helm as if it had been struck from within, echoing. Compelled by the sound, the monstrosity's smaller brothers cowered beneath its might and coursed him at the heels as it raised above its head a mighty blade of whittled gray ore, thick as a tree trunk and wrapped in a gauntleted grip. With each monumental step the mountainous knight-beast grew closer, the rumbling of its hulking frame shifting the bodies of its army from the warrior's hill. With each lumbering stride it grew taller until it finally stood at the foot of the guarded heath, eye to eye with its foe.

No words were spoken. No fear betrayed. The warrior merely raised his halberd above his head, charged toward the mass of metal crashing down upon him and leaped to his death.

For at the last, even the mightiest will fall.

-=0=-

Katarina stared at me in silence for longer than I thought she would, her eyes dark with confusion. Finally, stifling a chuckle, she replied. "That's... quite a dream, Eve."

My dorsal plumage ruffled at the nickname, as if my gritted teeth didn't make my chagrin obvious enough on their own. "Please don't call me that," I said, trying not to sound too bothered. "Nothing in the world irks me more than pet names." She smiled, running a pale hand through the royal blue feathers; her own little way of keeping me docile whenever she felt I was getting riled. "But 'Evening-Chaser' is such long-winded nonsense for a name," she jabbed, her voice playful and intimate. "You argonians are so pretentious."

"I could always start calling you Kat," I offered, grinning wryly and imitating her tone. "Now that would be pretentious." Katarina's expression told me that she didn't share my appreciation for turnabout humor, so I sighed and returned her caress, letting her chestnut locks trail through the tiny canyons between my scales. "It's a tradition," I told her. "On our Naming Day, our parents choose a name for us when they feel we've found our lot in life. It's symbolic."

"Oh?" She said, shifting her body closer. "What did they have in mind for you when they chose yours?"

I shrugged. "Haven't the foggiest."

"You never asked?"

"Not supposed to."

"Why?"

"Because if they just tell me, then I'll never have a chance to find out on my own."

She had nothing smart to say on the subject. In fact, she stayed quiet for a while. So did I, mostly because her tongue was in my mouth. We never tended to do a lot of talking when we were alone together. I still don't understand why a smart young Breton girl like her would choose to while away her nights with a man whose hide looks like a mismatched turquoise mosaic, but there you have it. Perhaps she just had exotic tastes - or perhaps, being half-elven mongrels already, the Bretons have a lax attitude towards interracial relations. Regardless, I wouldn't have had it any other way; travelling to the College of Winterhold to learn the art of Alteration took me a long ways from hearth and home, and to this day I'm still not sure the trip was worth it - but whenever I was with her, the answer to that question was always a confident and unrestrained "yes."

That's why I saw fit to share my strange dream with her.

After we broke the kiss, she lay curled gently under my arm, head perched on my shoulder, legs all jumbled up with my tail. The sheets rose and fell to the rhythm of my breaths and hers, a calm wave breaking on the shores of my scales. It was almost hypnotic; the simple act of speaking felt like a shameful waste of the quiet dawn, but I had to ask. "So... the dream?"

She laughed in answer. I don't know what she thought was so funny. "What about it?" She asked, tilting her gaze up to meet mine. I leaned into her, meeting her nose with my snout. I felt my heart flutter and my thoughts drift to my bedside table and the gift that lay within, knowing that it would have to wait. It's easy to get distracted by her, to say the least.

"I wanted to know what you thought of it. What do you think it means?"

"I think," she said, craning her chin up in mock contemplation, "the army symbolizes society at large destroying things they don't understand, and the goliath knight with the giant sword represents your repressed homosexual desires."

This time I didn't share the joke. "Are you ever serious?"

"Not in bed."

As I said. Distracting. Sometimes a refocusing is necessary, as tempting as the alternative is. "Dreams aren't always just dreams, Katarina. The sons of the Septim line had visions of their own futures in their sleep. Tribunal priests of Morrowind used to think recurring dreams were a sign of an ill mind."

Katarina turned over, stretching out her slender back and sitting against the headboard alongside me. "Why ask me, then? If you're worried, why not go to the Arch-Mage about it?"

"I trust you. Not to say that I don't trust the others, but... in a different way, I mean," I slid my arm across the small of her back, trying to be reassuring. "I feel like I can tell you these things."

"Oh," she said, "this again." Katarina shrugged off my touch, slipping from the bedsheets to gather the scattered layers of her mage's robes from the cold stone floor without even a blanket on her. Modest she was not. "Eve, I've told you before. If I didn't like you, I wouldn't be with you, but just sleeping together is not a relationship."

"It is if you do it enough times!" I swung my legs over the edge of the bed, turning to face her. "All I said was that I trusted you."

She turned her back to me, putting her arms through her robe's sleeves and almost tauntingly sliding its neckline up over her shoulders. "And I understand that - but I'm not your confidant, Eve. I'm just your comfort." Okay, not even almost tauntingly.

I stood up, blanket around my waist. "Why is it so hard for you to imagine we could -"

"We could what?" She turned to me, tying off her robe with an irritated yank. "Get married? Have a family? My mother would probably kill you before that happened."

I bent down to pick up my own clothing, intending to follow her if she left the dormitory. "My parents would like you." I didn't know that for sure, but I had to say something.

Katarina's hand shot up to her lips as if I'd cornered her expertly. "Oh, I didn't realize. Well, as long as it's alright with them." Her hand relaxed, revealing the sneer beneath. "Even if we could find a priest of Mara open-minded enough to marry us, it's not as if I could have your eggs."

I couldn't help but glance at my bedside table again. My answer came out meekly, as if from leagues away. "We could adopt."

She paid my efforts no mind, glaring back at me like I'd just insulted her figure. "We won't be in this college forever, Eve. I have a plan. You don't. It's as simple as that."

It was true, but I couldn't admit it. I stuttered, scrambling for anything that might placate her. "Alteration mages are in high demand by the Imperial Legion. I could enlist and -"

"Then you'd get killed. And even if you had the clout to weave your way into some cushy fort posting, we'd still never see each other." She paused for a moment - a moment I didn't give her.

"So I need to be protected, but you're entitled to put your life on the line just because you feel obligated to the family business?" I let an indignant snort issue from my nostrils; big mistake. With a sudden violence, Katarina turned to me and glared straight in my eye. She never did like my broaching the topic of her plans for the future - and certainly not in a negative light.

"I'm not obligated! The Vigil of Stendarr is in a bad way and my mother needs every soldier she can get! I made that choice long before I met you. It was never some big secret!" She marched back to the door, reaching for the knob. Something stopped her, however. Perhaps she wanted to get a few more licks in. "I know what I want, Eve. You don't even know what your own name means!"

"Well, at least I don't have a crackpot for a mother!"

I regretted the words the moment they escaped me - I should never have said them, but it seemed like the best way to shut her up in the heat of the moment. She didn't grace me with an answer; her look was one of rage and hurt. We had a standoff there, her hand on the doorknob and mine clutching my inverted robes to my chest like a flimsy shield. After a silence whose seconds lingered like winter, she spoke. Her voice was gentle again, yet colder than the north wind. "Our lives were always going to different places. You're the one who assumed this was going to last," then, as she threw the door open defiantly, she twisted the knife one final time.

"I never lied to you."

My eyes fell from hers. "Neither did I."

If she was at all caught by my words, she did not show it.

"It's only a dream, Eve. Nothing more."

The door slammed shut. My clothing fell to the floor and I joined it there moments later, slumped against the foot of the bed. She could be so fickle sometimes, and yet the room felt so empty without her. Maybe I was just fooling myself, thinking we could be more than a fling - but I couldn't help what I felt. Denial on my part would just make things worse, wouldn't it? How could we find a way to see eye to eye? I mean, for one thing my eyes were on the sides of my head.

Okay, that wasn't as funny as I'd hoped.

I sat there for a spell, kicking myself for not getting dressed and going after her, but I knew it wasn't likely that anything I had to say would improve her mood. It's the worst feeling in the world to have done something wrong and be unable to fix it, not knowing if the problem would resolve itself over time or just stay that way forever. It's frightening, like being alone in the forest at night, wondering what else is out there and whether or not it's hungry. Waiting, not knowing - that was the worst part.

At last, I reached for the drawer of my bedside table, pulling it open to reveal the gift I'd intended to give to Katarina that day - a small brass medallion on a gilded string with a tiny blue gem inlaid at its center. An Amulet of Mara, forged by the priests of the Goddess of Love. A gift reserved for marriage proposals. Needless to say, the 'proposal' part hadn't gone as planned - or even come anywhere close to it. Now the pendant was trapped in reservation. I felt for it.

The medallion was cool in my grip, like a little disc of tightly packed snow. I don't know why, but it felt calming - reassuring, like a mother's voice. Holding it made me feel at ease, as if my fight with Katarina were nothing more than a nightmare. That wasn't true, of course, but the small jewel's icy light shone anyways - a little star in the palm of my hand, made a that much brighter by the early morning sun streaming onto it through my bedside window. It made me want to believe everything would turn out for the best. An idealistic sentiment, but unrealistic. Why? Because the same sun in the same sky told me that classes were set to begin in less than one hour - and I was here sulking naked on the floor, waxing lyrical over a cheap piece of jewelry.

Right. Everything would be just fine.

-=0=-