A/N - Guess who's back. Back again. Kathi's back. Tell a friend.
I'm going to be honest, I completely intended on just abandoning Unlikely Heroes. I had a lot of real life stuff to deal with, and writing didn't bring me as much joy anymore. But then one day I was chatting with my girlfriend (yeah, flighty, messed-up Kathi managed to end up in a stable and happy romantic relationship, explain that miracle of nature) and I mentioned this fanfic I used to write. She's really into fanfiction (though she doesn't write any herself) and she wanted to see it, so I dug it up and showed it to her.
And, well... it was a lot worse than I had remembered it being. A nostalgia session turned into a riffing session, and eventually along the way I decided I wanted to get back into it and rewrite the damned thing. So, here we are. My girlfriend, who shall be known to you lot as "Cherry," will be my lovely beta reader during the thing, and she's really good at all of that, so I'm pretty sure that this rewrite is going to be miles better than the old Unlikely Heroes ever hoped to be.
I'm going to keep the old UH up for a while, though, at least until I catch up in this version. Mostly because that's the only place where you can find the actual fic itself, but partly for you guys to do a compare+contrast sort of thing, see how I've improved with your own eyes.
And, with that, well, let's get started. Thank you to Cherry for being amazing and a great beta reader throughout this! (heart dot png)
The Twelfth of Sun's Height, 3E433
They found the Breton in the far corner of the tomb, her hands stained crimson.
One of the cemetery groundskeepers had heard the screaming as he walked past. Thinking the place haunted and his doom secured, he all but wet himself in terror and fled to the nearest guard tower, screaming about "the banshee in the Trentius mausoleum."
The guards in the tower had been on break, eating a midnight meal to help them through the rest of their shift. As such, they had been more than a little displeased at the seemingly drunken man bursting in, shouting obscenities about ghosts and apparitions. Despite their displeasure, they went to investigate the man's claims, if only to get him to shut up. They expected to see nothing, or perhaps some foolish youth playing a prank on whoever would walk by.
What they saw was far more horrifying.
The inside of the mausoleum was covered in blood, the olden stone walls saturated with red. The candelabra in the middle of the room had been knocked over, recently-place candles rolling in a puddle of blood. Two corpses lay on the icy stone of the ground, both in different yet eerily similar states of being. One was rotted with age, its dry skin pulled tightly over its bones, its face warped into a permanent grimace. The other was far fresher, but far messier. Once glance from the guards could determine that this corpse was where most of the blood in the mausoleum had come from. The stature of the body suggested that whoever had died had been a male Altmer, but the face and neck were so badly torn and shredded that is was impossible to glean anything else about his identity. The stomach of the dead Altmer had been ripped open, his entrails spilling out beside him. The youngest of the guards had to quickly run outside, lest he further desecrate the tomb with his vomit.
What was perhaps the most horrifying was the source of the screaming. The troubled wails came not from any spirit or shambling corpse, but from a living, breathing woman. A Breton, slight of figure and dark of hair, was huddled in the furthest corner of the mausoleum, as far away from the fresher corpse as she could manage. Her eyes were as wide and as round as septims, her cheeks were stained with tears, ash and blood, and she had her arms wrapped around her small form as if trying to keep herself from falling apart.
It was the eldest of the guards who approached the Breton, sheathing her sword and taking a few cautious steps forward. "Miss," she said, firmly but with a hint of apprehension in her voice. "Miss, I need you to look at me. Can you tell me who did this?"
The Breton jumped at the sound of the guard's voice, her gaze snapping upwards with an expression of shock on her face that suggested she hadn't even noticed the guards enter the tomb. Her lips parted. "What?"
The eldest guard knelt down, locking gazes with the Breton. The latter had particularly striking eyes; a light hazel, almost golden in hue. "Can you tell me who did this?" the guard repeated quietly, gesturing towards the carnage.
The guard didn't think it possible, but the Breton shrunk back even further, a quiet cry escaping her lips. "I..." Her voice shook and cracked, tears steadily streaming down her face. "I didn't want to... I knew it would be dangerous, I knew he was concerned about what I was doing, I didn't want him getting hurt, I told him not to follow me, I didn't... I didn't want this." She she lifted her hands to her head, running them through her hair. "All I wanted was to get stronger. I... he's shouldn't have..." Her voice broke, and she started sobbing.
The guard cursed and took a few steps back. "You!" she snapped to the groundskeeper, who was quaking in his boots. "Get the nearest watch captain. Hurry!" She turned her gaze back to the Breton, who has returned to her original state.
What had possessed such a frail and unassuming woman to commit such an act?
The Twentieth of Last Seed, 3E433
They found the Bosmer just outside the store, a lockpick in his leather-clad hands
It was a remarkably clear night; both moons were full and shining brightly, illuminating the streets of the market district and all but eliminating the need for a torch. In fact, the guard who caught the Bosmer would later cite his lack of a torch as the primary reason for being able to sneak up on the latter in the first place.
Even from a distance, it had been easy to tell just exactly why the elf was trying to break into the Copius Coinpurse in the dark of night. His black, close-fitting leather, a sharp silhouette in the moonlight, could only belong to one profession, and everyone knew that most of the Market District had a grudge against Thoronir, the proprietor.
When the guard first came across the Bosmer, who was trying to stuff a strange looking pick into the lock, he did not waste his oppurtunity. Slowly and carefully drawing his sword, he approached, trying to make as little noise as possible. This was a task easier said than done, given that he was wearing plate armor, but through some miracle of the Divines that elf did not notice him. The guard could hear him muttering something under his breath, most of it intelligible, only a few words clear enough to be plucked from the gibberish.
"Key my ass...lying daedra lord, who'd have thought...not worth the pay..."
Keeping an eye on the Bosmer's hands – Talos only knew what sort of weaponry the thin-framed killer had hidden up his sleeves – the guard rested the tip of the blade on the his shoulder, right near the nape of the neck, and cleared his throat.
The elf froze, the only hint of movement being a slight twitch of the ears. Then he slowly turned around, and the guard managed to get a good look at his face. His face, like the rest of him, was fairly thin and sharp, with defined features and an upturned nose that could only belong to someone out to make trouble. His hair was fair and messy, the front of it sticking upwards in a carefully manufactured manner, and his eyes were a glimmering green. "Hello, good sir!" he said, a convincingly cheerful smile spreading across his face. "How has your patrol been? Now, I'm sure this looks like something it's not, so let me cut off your needless accusations and inform you that this shop is actually the shop of my long-lost brother, and I was hoping to surprise him with the news of our relation as soon as he woke up!"
The guard snorted. "Do you honestly expect me to believe such a story?"
"Of course not," the elf retorted. "I just needed the few seconds for it to turn into the new day so I could do this."
Suddenly the air around them shifted with magicka, and the Bosmer disappeared into thin air. Clearly, he'd been expecting the guard to be befuddled by the trick long enough for him to make is escape. But the guard had a few tricks of his own.
The effects granted by birthsign spell were more difficult to dispel than those of a mundane spell, but the guard had several years of experience in the matter. One spell was all it took, and there the elf was, several footsteps away, startled and swearing. The guard lunged forward with a fearsome determination, tackling the assassin and bringing them both crashing to the cobble below.
"You've committed your last crime, scum," the guard growled.
The elf sighed, his cheek flat on the cobble in bitter defeat. "I guess begging for mercy is out of the question, then."
A/N: Cherry was quick to point out that my old writing was very flat and bland, and a bit over the top about emotions. I'm hoping this new version is a lot less so. What do you guys think? Feel free to give me as much critique as you think I need! The more in-depth, the better! (Also let me know if I made any typos or formatting errors. I've gotten better about those, but they still crop up from time to time!)
- Kathi
