She was falling, through an inky blackness that threatened to swallow her whole. She was falling and she didn't know where. She was falling and all she could do was scream until her throat bled. Scream and out tumbled stars of silver. And when she clutched at her throat it simply burned her hands and made her shriek even louder in pain.
When her tears joined in they were a molten gold that burned as it traced down her cheeks and neck. It was as beautiful as it was painful. As she continued to fall, drops of gold and stardust chasing after her, she stretched her head back to see the jaws of Akatosh open below her. With their eyes watching from the side with a deep sadness as she fell into the jaws of a god, a pitiful scream cut off short as his jaws snapped shut.
The cart hit a hole and she jerked awake. Pupils going from infinite black pools to narrowed slits as her breath caught in her throat. The dream by itself wasn't unusual on its own, but what was was the fact she was in a cart with her wrists bound and not much of a memory of how she had arrived in this situation.
There was. The campfire, on the edge between Cyrodill and Skyrim. The blood on her hands from a kill (human or animal she didn't remember now). The horse nearby her bedroll already slumbering. And then there was, there was. A fight? She didn't know now and was torn between a desire to know and a desire to be in the dark, lest something decided to force her to play a part.
Noises eventually dragged her from her thoughts fully, not the click clack of the wheels and the horse, but the voices of men. With that Nordic accent that always so faintly rang of superiority, or maybe she was just embittered in her age. "Good to see you're finally awake, I was starting to wonder if you had died and the Imperials just chucked your corpse up here. You were caught with the rest of us in an ambush remember?" No. She didn't remember, not really anyways.
But before she could even open her mouth one of the others cut in, obviously not a soldier from his ragged clothes. "Damn you Stormcloaks! Before you came to Skyrim everything was fine, Empire was nice and lazy. I'd have stolen that horse and been halfway to Hammerfell by now!"
So she was stuck with Stormcloaks and a thief while surrounded by the Empires men. There was a certain irony in that. "Well we're all brothers in binds now horse-thief." And all brothers in death soon too.
"And what's his problem huh?"
"Watch your tongue! That's Ulfric Stormcloak the true High-King of Skyrim!" Oh. Oh. The irony only increased by ten fold as she felt a shaky laughter well up inside of her. She was going to finally die and it would be at the hands of the Empire she once served while next to someone who used to be a friend. Flits of their last meeting came up uninvited.
"You can't just kill the king, you can't just challenge him like that!" He was stupid and young and he was listening to her. That last aggravated her more than anything else and in her rage she flipped the grand table over. Goblets and food went flying as she snarled at him, that feral nature bleeding through. "If you do succeed what then? You would condemn your men as traitors! You would be a traitor to be sent to slaughter!" And yet, and yet he only looked at her with mild disdain for her outburst.
"If, if. Why do you doubt my ability so? I will succeed and they will see-"
"They will see nothing! They will see a fool and a mad man at that!" She was shaking with rage now and she could hardly control herself. "You will do nothing for your cause but get more killed!"
"Like they aren't already being killed now?! Like the Thalmor aren't already killing and taking people prisoner for the slightest offense?!" He was right, he was right but this was the wrong way to go about it and gods he wasn't listening. He wasn't listening and she would see another friend die and she.
She would not be responsible this time. With an inhuman coldness she spat, "Then you may do as you wish Ulfric but I will not be joining you on your death sentence." He was warned and that was all that could be done as she turned on her heel, the clicking deafening in that silent chamber and the slam of the iron doors even more so. And if she spent several hours in a panic with claws dug into her ribs to force her to not go back, then at least no one was around to see it happening.
And now she was in fact going to die with him. At least after so many hundreds of years of unlife she could see her family again she supposed, as the carts rolled up to the gates and the thief prayed to silent gods.