Elisif felt her lungs rip through her throat as a cry streaked across her lips. Her knees buckled, and hands gripped her arms, but she knew nothing except the gory-tendrilled form of what moments before was her husband. Even as Torygg's challenger Ulfric roared over his victory, Elisif couldn't muster another breath. Her body closed in on itself, all of its parts collapsing around her heart to muffle the pain. But no amount of bodily focus or isolation could fill this void torn in her flesh. The man she loved and knew and whom loved and knew her was obsolete. Mind and body, obsolete. And with his eradication went a half of her whole, a piece of her existence, a fragment of her life. And she thought this was a taste of death in its purest form.

The next few weeks wallowed by in a milky gray haze. Elisif rarely left her room and mainly persisted in a grief and drug induced trance. The court wizard Sybille concocted various potions to dull her pain and bring her rest. But in the dregs of those little vials, Elisif found only temporary physical relief, absolute numbness and days of waking sleep. In her pinprick moments of clarity she began to break the surface of her cloudy existence only to realize the pain of living once more and recede again to the depths.

During one late evening of painful clarity, Sybille entered her chamber along with the housecarl Bolgeir and Falk, the court steward. Elisif turned from her place at the window to confront the group. Never had they all intruded on her at once in this way. Elisif needed not use any words to express her displeasure; she simply assessed the group with doleful eyes and pained features.

"Elisif." It was Falk who first spoke up. His voice was low and tender and unexpressed sympathy riddled his kind face.

"We have been running the hold to the best of our abilities for the last few weeks," he began quietly. "But Solitude needs her leader. The title of Jarl now rests on your head."

Elisif swallowed a hard knot down her throat.

"You needn't let your level of aptitude for the position deter you. We will help you every step of the way," he continued. "Now more than ever the people need a leader to whom to look. They need you."

Elisif may not have been an experienced politician, but neither was she a fool. She detested these manipulative games of semantics that members of the court so often employed—even her husband's most trusted advisor Falk.

"Your grace, I have made arrange—," Bolgeir began.

"Your grace?" Elisif interrupted him quietly under her breath. She commanded the group's complete attention with her words as they had been few and far between these last few weeks.

"Your grace?" she repeated louder. "That was my husband's title. That was his position, not mine. That was his legacy and his livelihood, his pride. That was him!"

Elisif felt sorrow rising like a tide in her veins, and she gripped a bed post for support.

"That was him and now he's gone," she breathed shakily. "And a part of me with him. Think me weak, but I don't believe I can go on. All of my will and passion died with him."

Elisif's legs weakened and she collapsed to the bed, sobs constricting her throat.

"Sirs, allow us a moment alone," Elisif heard Sybille's silky voice whisper just before the door to her chamber shuddered shut.

Sybille knelt on the rug before Elisif, removing her mage's hood as she did to reveal her rolling, silvery tresses. But although Sybille's hair seemed to shimmer with the color of an old woman, her beautiful features maintained the youth of a woman not much older than Elisif herself. Clasping Elisif's hands in her own, Sybille caught Elisif's eyes too with her own amber ones, those strange amber eyes that never failed to captivate Elisif. For a moment Sybille simply held Elisif's pained gaze. When Elisif's gaze finally fell Sybille reached a tender hand to Elisif's jaw, directing her face back to Sybille's.

"I know you think no one understands what you are experiencing," Sybille began gently, "that it's too overwhelming to continue. But you're wrong."

"You've lost your spouse as well?" Elisif questioned openly.

"My spouse, my family, my friends," Sybille replied slowly. "Everyone I've ever loved."

"Sybille…"

"You know I have served the High King and his court for many generations," Sybille began. "But as I am a vampire, I have lived for centuries."

Elisif stared at the wizard in shock.

"I have watched every person I've ever loved either meet their violent end or wither away until they were unrecognizable. Even with all my power, in the end I was powerless. I couldn't save even one from their mortal fate," Sybille lamented earnestly. "And yet I have persevered through time and refused to give in to despair. Just as you will do."

Elisif silently struggled to process everything Sybille had told her. Elisif's first instinct was disbelief that the royals had knowingly harbored a vampire in their midst.

"Did Torygg know?" Elisif asked.

"Yes, and so did Istlod," Sybille replied.

Elisif's second instinct was sorrow for the vast suffering and grief Sybille had faced in her lifetime. The lives and relationships that had been ripped from her were much more numerous than that of Elisif's one devastating loss of her husband. How Sybille still chose life baffled Elisif.

"Sybille, thank you for confiding in me," Elisif said. "I cherish your every word and commit all you've told me to heart."

"You can repay me by refusing your husband's death as your end," Sybille replied. "Yes, with him died a piece of you, but there is also so much still waiting for you in this world. Don't give it up now."

Elisif contemplated Sybille's words, tightening her grip on Sybille's hands as tears sprung to her eyes.

"Elisif, someday this pain will heal within yourself, but for now, sleep without the pain," Sybille breathed as she pulled a vial from a pouch at her hip.

As Elisif swallowed the sedative, Sybille said, "Tomorrow you and I are taking a short journey. You need refreshment before assuming your position, and I have in mind an experience…"

Elisif slipped under the sheets and drifted into dreamless, emotionless sleep to the calming flow of Sybille's richly toned words, for the first time in weeks a pinprick of light interrupting her omnipresent darkness.

Author's Note: This is just a little start to a take on Elisif's development. Please review if this is something you think should continue.