Tremors
Sabrina's fingers tightened around the finely molded leather grip on her bow. She was sure she had heard something in the bushes, but there wasn't even a shaking branch in sight. The growing darkness wasn't helping either, but that was just too bad. Until she found something edible, she couldn't go home, or else it would be just another dinner of dry bread and old tomatoes, and that was just getting horrible.
Ever since Faendal, her older half-brother, had left the cabin for a more social life in Riverwood, the amount of meat on the family table had consisted of whatever rabbits Jul, her little sister, had been able to catch in her traps. However, lately it seemed that rabbits didn't multiply as well as the saying seemed to say they did. Thus, Sabrina was now out trying to find a deer to feed the family for a few days.
It seemed like she had been hunting all night when she finally spotted a young buck curled up beside a large tree. She raised her bow, praying to the eight that the meager lessons in archery that Faendal had given her were enough. Her cold arms resisted movement as she nocked an arrow and tried to pull the bowstring back to her cheek. The feeling had left her fingers hours ago, and her body was becoming weak from the chill that pervaded her limbs, making the tip of the arrow sway horribly as she attempted to line up her shot, knowing that if she missed this opportunity, she would have to return home empty handed. Her breathing slowed as she committed to the shot.
Time slowed as her fingertips released the bowstring. A voice like thunder rang out over the forest in a rumbling yell, uttering but one word, "Dovahkiin." Sabrina's heart leapt in her chest as she watched the arrow sail toward it's target, which, having heard the voice, was jumping to it's feet. The arrow hit the deer, though not in the intended location. The buck bolted, the shaft of her arrow protruding from it's upper leg. Sabrina knew it would tire quickly, so she followed as fast as she could, her long legs striding in long steps across the frozen ground. Had she been a nord, keeping up with a deer, even a wounded one, would have been quite difficult. This however, was not as much of a problem, given her elven mother. She and Faendal did not share the same father, as his elven father had been killed by the Aldmeri years before she had been born. Whatever the case, she thanked the gods as she leaped deftly from log to log. Finally she could see the deer panting underneath a tree which had fallen into the trees near it, leaving it suspended on one end. Not wanting to waste another arrow, she decided to kill the deer with her trusty steel dagger. She drew it carefully from the sheath set horizontally across her lower back, her fur armor muffling her movements as she ran up the angled tree, pausing above the deer to calculate the distance to the ground. It was about fifteen feet down, which for someone as who was fairly agile as she was, really wasn't a bad distance to fall, if she missed the deer.
She jumped from the tree, landing a bit in front of the deer and swiftly rolling forward, drove her dagger deep into the deer's chest, shoving herself away from the flailing animal to wait for it to die. The deer reared onto it's hind legs, front hooves flying, knocking the dagger's handle up to the muscular neck of the buck and slicing into it's jugular. Blood sprayed from the open wound, spurting with every heartbeat. Sabrina had not gotten far enough back, and one of the spurts of blood hit her face, covering everything from the front of her silvery haired head down to her breasts, soaking and blinding her.
Sabrina wiped the blood from her eyes, and was amazed to see the buck laying on the ground, eyes wide with it's final fear. She felt sick, not only from the blood covering her, but also because this was the first thing she had killed that was larger than a mosquito. Collecting herself, she stood and retrieved her dagger, stepping on the buck's neck to pull the dripping blade from it's meaty sheath and then wiping the blade across her arm to clean it off before replacing it in it's sheath. If she had brought her meatbag and it had been light out, she would have tried to skin the deer and just take the meat she could carry, but neither of those things were going her way, so she decided to just take the whole deer. This turned out to be quite the process, since she had no idea how to go about moving a two-hundred pound deer. Eventually she cut it's head off, tied the rear hooves together, and drug it from that end.
As she drug the lifeless body of her kill across the frozen forest, she cursed whoever had been yelling so loudly in the middle of the night. If it hadn't been for them, she would not be covered in blood, nor would she have had to drag this massive dear halfway across the forest. It was then that it struck her; whoever had been doing that shouting had a much more powerful voice than any normal humanoid that she had ever met. That voice sounded almost magical, like it held a power within the words themselves. And what was Dovahkiin? She decided to ask her father when she got back to the house, but for now she just had to keep plugging along as well as she could. After all, if whatever had spoken was still in the area, she could be in serious danger if she didn't get out of there as quickly as was practical.
She had been cold before she began dealing with this deer, and had warmed up for a bit, but now she could feel the ice crystals forming in the blood on her face, just as she couldn't feel her fingers anymore. The house was just over the next rise when she noticed a strange glow coming from her house. This seemed odd, since usually the only light visible on the outside was when someone opened the door, but she didn't let it concern her until she noticed the sounds of raucous laughter and saw the shadows that only large fires could make. A pit formed in the bottom of her stomach as she pushed herself to move a little faster. When she crested the hill, she stopped dead in her tracks, the deer dropping behind her as her arms fell to her sides. Tears welled up in her eyes and began streaming down her face, melting tracks through the blood on her face. She tried to scream, but no sounds would come. Sabrina staggered over to the fire and dropped to her knees, sobbing uncontrollably. Eventually, she curled up by the burning logs and cried herself to sleep.