Overseas Symphony
Obligatory I own nothing but my OC blah blah blah.
The vibrating sensation in my jeans pocket felt nice as I was walking home from my college and I was content to let it do its thing for a while before I eventually reached out with my right hand digging into my pocket and pulling out my IPhone. Looking at the caller ID quickly I noticed that it was my childhood friend, Jazmine, calling me. I rarely got any calls from her, ever since we both left for our respective colleges of our choice after high school, so it was natural I'd answer the call, but a devious thought entered my mind as soon as I did accept the call.
"Yo, this is Adryan, if you tried to call me and instead get this I'm probably busy, just leave a message and I'll get back to you." I droned in a perfect monotonous voice, the same way I recorded my actual voicemail.
"Ha, ha, ha. Very funny, Adryan. With the amount of times I've seen you do that whenever your folks called you while we were over Cole's house, I'd be surprised if i ever fall for that one." Jazmine, or Jaz, as I liked to call her spoke with an odd lilt in her voice.
"Yeah, and what about the times you actually tried that on me?" I couldn't help but smile as I remembered all the trouble we got in when we were young.
"Oh hush-hush. You act like I'm actually good at fooling people."
"Well, I had hopes my trickster traits would rub off on you. Teach you something for once.", I said, stopping at a crosswalk and looking both ways before continuing. "So, what's with the booty-call? Or did you call me because you care for my well-being?"
Over the phone I could hear her airy laugh, God how I missed her. While I'm stuck here in good old Maryland she's overseas in Germany drinking Läger and eating Wieners. Eh, actually that… Sounds pretty bad.
"Ew, a booty-call? For your ugly ass? Yeah, I know you fantasize about me and stuff, but try to keep your millimeter Peter in your pants." She made that airy laugh again before continuing, "Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that I, the great and powerful Jazmine, will be gracing you peasants in America -you particularly- by living amongst you all for an indefinite time."
Oh? That was a surprising revelation. I'd known that she'd been planning visiting soon, but this was… Too soon. Her semester at college doesn't end until June.
I wonder…
"Hey Jaz…" I started slowly.
"Yeah Buddy?"
Ah, and there it was. She rarely calls me by my middle name like that, the last time being when she and her parents had a sort of fallout back in our highschool days and she needed a place to stay for a while.
"Is everything… Okay? I thought you weren't coming until Summer time?"
"...Yeah. Listen, things haven't been… Great I guess." I couldn't miss the sadness filling her voice, her usually lilt replaced by a strange tone. "I just, got in with the wrong crowd and ended up getting, uh, kicked out I guess." Well. That's that.
"So you need a place to stay? While you work things out?" I asked, having a feeling that my feeling would be my answer.
"Yeah", Bingo, " Only if you have room for a… crib in that shitty house of yours, too, that is." It took me a moment to process the information given to me before I played out what she said a fifth time in my head.
"I'm sorry, a what? A crib!?" I couldn't keep the panic out of my voice, and I could mentally see her wincing at the volume as I had basically screamed into my phone.
"Hey, hey! Congratulations stranger. You'll find that being a father is a once in a lifetime experience!" Said a random guy who was walking next to me on the sidewalk.
I quickly stopped walking where I stood before gawking at the man smiling at me before I attempted to fix the misunderstanding.
"No, no sir I'm not the father! It's my friend that's pregnant! Not me!" I cringed at the last part, wishing I could go back in time to stop myself from saying it. All the while I could hear Jazmine full on roaring with laughter.
"Well, since you said that…" The strangers seemingly amiable personality melted faster than a snowball in Georgia, and suddenly I found my body going into its instinctual 'flight-or-fight' mode.
"Excuse me!?" I asked incredulously. I soon found myself rooted to the sidewalk where I stopped staring wide-eyed at the stranger-now-psycho.
The fear was real, by God it was real. I glanced out my peripherals and noticed that there was literally no-one walking the sidewalk, in fact, this was not even the same sidewalk I used to get home from school. I must have been so focused on talking to Jaz that I forgot to take the left at the intersection!
"I got one question for you kid…" I focused my attention back on the man in front of me, finding myself unable to run for some reason. "Do you prefer the hard way? Or the hard way?", the man spoke and I could already see that this man.. He was something wiser, something… more dangerous, than anything I have ever encountered.
"Adryan!? Adryan what's going on talk to me!? ADRYAN!?"
At first I thought I was imagining her voice, but I soon remembered that the call with Jaz was still going on. So did the Man too, as he reached his hand out and took my phone, looking at it with some form of curiosity before throwing it on the ground and crushing it with the heel of his shoe.
"Now, where were we?" The Man said.
At this point the floodgates opened and flowed freely, both through my face and in a more, embarrassing area.
"Please, please, please! I beg of you! Let me go! I swear I don't have any money I'm just a college student living off of instant ramen and the dollar menu!" I quickly said, disregarding all forms of dignity and pride.
The Man simply chuckled before fixing me with the meanest glare I'd have ever seen.
"Fool!", he spat, "I don't want your money or valuables! I want your body!" Before I could ask why, the Man pulled out a sick looking blade and rammed it straight through my ribs, repeating the action God knows how many times before I could feel myself losing consciousness. So I lay there in a pool of my own blood, watching the Man taking the clothes off my back and using his knife to hack off my limbs.
Great, of all the ways to die I ended up getting killed and eaten by a cannibal.
I'm not going to lie, when he started pulling my pants off I thought he was going to do some, uhh, naughty stuff. Thank whomever that that didn't happen.
Though now I was faced with the abolition of death, even now as I lay, slowly losing all the brain activity from the lack of limbs and blood on, or in, my body. With one final shudder, I closed my eyes for the last time, ready to meet my maker.
I still can't get over the fact that I was murdered in broad daylight.
….
….
….
….
At least, I was supposed to. Don't get me wrong, me not dead is a good thing I guess, but me not dead is also a very, very, troubling thing. The fact that I'm not chilling with my homie Jesus right now is proof to that.
Instead I found myself blearily opening my eyes to a very bright, and cold, day. Blinking my eyes a few times I saw a man in front of me sitting on a bench, wait, not a bench. He, or we were sitting a Cart. Like, those carts you see at a renaissance festival or something. Looking to my right, u saw two other men, one in what seemed to be rags, like me, and the other in a very warm looking armor set. He was gagged too, which led me to believe this guy was a spitter. Before I could make further observations, the man in front of me said something I didn't quite catch.
"I'm sorry, what did you say? I think I just had a bad trip." I slowly shook my head trying to clear my scrambled mes of a brain.
That's funny, I don't remember smoking the purple bush with Cole...
The man, who sported a similar looking set of armor to the guy on my right, chuckled and shook his head. His blonde, and unkept-braided hair dancing over his face before he took a nod in my direction and spoke to me again.
"I was just observing how you finally woke up, you've been out like a Mammoth since these Milk-drinkers caught us and the horse-thief over here at that ambush a while back." The strange man said with a somewhat familiar accent.
Though his accent was the least of my worries that plagued my mind. What did he mean by Milk-drinker? And, a Mammoth!? Who the Hell still says Mammoth? And speaking of Hell, where the Hell am I!?
My thoughts were pushed to the corner when the Man's gentle voice was heard again.
"Name's Ralof, by the way, of got a name? Stranger?"
Well, he isn't wrong about the stranger part. I though sourly before remembering someone had asked me a question.
"Oh, uh, my name? Yes, my name is Adryan."
"Adryan, huh? You were trying to cross the border, right? But instead walked into that damned Imperial ambush…" Ralof seemed to be thinking, and was about to say something before Raggedy-Ragman spoke up.
"To Oblivion with you Stormcloaks, the Empire was nice and lazy before you all sprouted up. If it wasn't for you, I would have stolen that horse and be halfway to Hammerfell by now." He then turned to me, "Listen, you and me? We shouldn't be here! It's these Stormcloaks these Imperials want! We ain't had nothing to do with them!"
Ralof seemed to quietly fume for a moment before an unrecognizeable look crossed his face.
"We're all brothers and sisters in binds now, thief.", He sighed.
The thief looked about to retort before the cart driver yelled at them to shut up.
I honestly don't know what the fuck his problem is, geez.
Doc McRaggins merely scoffed at the soldier, no- the Milk-drinker -I reminded myself, before he turned to the gagged man, asking him about his 99 problems before the gentle giant in front of me snapped at him.
"Watch your tongue! You are speaking to Ulfric Stormcloak, true High King of Skyrim!"
I looked at the both of them amused before seeing the thief's face pale and contort in recognition and horror.
"What!? Oh Gods, if they've captured Ulfric Stormcloak… Gods, where are they taking us!?"
"I don't know, thief, but at the end, Sovngarde awaits." Ralof said solemnly.
So, from what I have seen so far… there's a succession war going on? That seems rather silly if there are Imperials are invading Skyrim.
"Tell me, thief, what village are you from?" Ralof asked, interrupting my thoughts.
"Why do you want to know?"
"Every Nord's last thoughts should be of home…"
Home. The world I knew is gone, and I readily accepted that as fact, seeing how I was stabbed and dismembered to death. But this place, Skyrim. It was strange. Very strange. Now all I need is a dog named Toto and some Ruby red heels and a big bad witch to kill.
The remainder of the trip consisted of Lokir, the thief's name I later learned, telling us about his life and Ralof talking about how he used to be 'sweet' on a girl in this village and other stuff I tuned out after I saw it.
The golden skin and majestic as fuck robes? Ray-Ray over here said they called Thalmor, some type of elven race I suppose. The fact that there were Elves! Elves I tell you! It made me wonder what else was out there in this world.
I found my musings cut short as all of the carts came to a stop and we were loaded off standing before a woman and a man with a list.
The man began reading off the list, naming Ulfric, who was an actual Jarl, and Ralof. Over to my left I could see another pair of Imperials reading off of a list for the other cart.
It wasn't until Lokir started shouting when I brought my attention back to the scene before me. Lokir was shouting about being the wrong guy and blah blah blah before, to the Imperial guy and my surprise, Lokir started running!
Alas, it was for naught, as the arrows found their mark.
The male Imperial seemed to be double checking the list before be looked up at me and asked who I was.
"Uh, who am I?" I spoke uneasily to the soldier, "My name is Vadryan, I'm uh, from, uh… I'm from-"
"Captain, this man is not on the list. What do we do with him?"
Oh! Thank the Gods! I died once and now I'm not gonna die again! Praise the Lord Hallelu-
"Send him to the block."
What.
"I'm sorry friend, I'll personally make sure your remains are sent back to Hammerfell."
Damn that woman! That vile, evil, conniving, stupid bitch! How dare she!? Where is my Due Process!? What type of horse crock is this!?
Despite my inner turmoil, I found myself walking on autopilot to the area of the chopping block, where a very large man with a very sharp axe, was waiting.
There, a man with graying hair was talking to Ulfric. Saying how he plunged Skyrim into darkness blah blah blah. Shortly after he finishes, a seemingly… well not seemingly but a something-ly roared in what came from the mountains.
But the Imperial general dismissed it as 'nothing'.
Typical.
A priest of sorts was starting a prayer when one of Ulfric's boys told her to can it and get on with it.
His head was removed a moment after.
Since I was hanging out in the back, I wasn't expecting my name to be called right off the bat, but of course, the Captain must have the hots for me or something seeing how she called me out!
"Hey Redguard! To the block, now!"
Damn you woman! To Hell with you!
As I was walking, the distant roar from earlier became not so distant, and this time I know they heard it too.
Except for the Captain, of course, who simply said 'Next prisoner'.
I was afraid, not going to lie there, but did I wet my pants, err, rags? No. Did I shake with fear? Barely, I mean, I was still alive when that… Man… sawed me up limb by limb. So being beheaded? That's a mercy blow for me.
So now I laid on my knees with my head on the concrete block, watching as the Headsman brought his axe up, its sharpened edge catching the rays from the sun, and I watched as a giant black winged beast flew in the air.
Cool, my first and last time seeing a real dragon. I thought sadly.
I watched though In surprise when the dragon turned in our direction and landed on top of the tower behind the Headsman and shouted something to make meteors come falling from the sky! It then shouted and I found myself getting knocked over, hitting my head on the ground in the process.
Dazed and confused, with what I am pretty sure is a concussion, I looked behind me and saw the Headsman lying on the ground with a rather large rock on his back and heard Ralof calling out to me, telling me to follow him, and I wisely followed him as there was a burning rock occupying the space where I was kneeling at a moment later.
Ralof led me to a near destroyed tower and waited for me on the inside, where a couple of wounded Stormcloaks laid on the ground and a disgruntled looking Ulfric standing off to the side.
After closing the door, Ralof turned towards Ulfric. "By the Nine, Jarl Ulfric! What is that thing? Could the legends be true!?"
"Legends don't burn down villages." Ulfric took a moment to regard the wounded Stormcloaks before we all heard the Tower we were taking refuge in shudder from the dragon flying overhead.
"We need to move! Now!"
And move we did.
A/N: Okay, hey hey if you made it to the bottom you're safe from the Internet Gangsters, alright? This story is just a little idea that's been on my mind for a while after binge-reading some good (and questionable quality) Elder Scroll fan-fics, and (like all my stories to be honest) I didn't take any notes before writing this so every chapter hereafter is pretty much what is the first thing on my mind. This would be my first Skyrim story, so there's that I guess.
Well, if you like it be sure to hit that follow button and leave a review. If not then, thanks for reading. I guess.
*sniff*
Anyway, I've got things to do, see you next chapter.
-WS