A story I've had in my mind for a while now, which I hope you'll like.
Update: As of October 2014, I have revised and edited every chapter of this story, correcting errors and mildly changing a few points. Nothing has been substantially altered, and the edits were only to help the story flow more smoothly.
"There are no coincidences in life. What person that wandered in and out of your life was there for some purpose, even if they caused you harm." - Shannon L. Alder
It seemed impossible that the knife could still hurt at this point. Shouldn't he have developed an immunity to the pain by now?
Why did every slash have to feel like the first time he'd ever been cut?
"Must we remind you of the rules?"
No, no, he knew the rules.
"You only speak to answer the question…"
He'd just given them the answer.
"…your continuous refusal to cooperate…"
I can't tell you what I don't know!
"…next time…"
Please…please…
"…do better."
He'd always felt safe in the Flagon.
The feeling was ridiculous, he knew. But the Flagon and the dank, dripping tunnels of the Ratway had never failed to fill him with a sense of, if not comfort, then at least security.
Maybe it had been because the darkness had always drawn him in. Maybe it was because you could always here someone coming from the wet splash they made on the ground.
Well, almost always.
For all his skills and experience, he'd never seen the bastards coming. How three Altmer, two in gleaming golden armor, had snuck into the Ratway unnoticed by anyone was beyond him. How they came into Riften without word spreading like wildfire was a mystery to him. It hadn't made sense at the time, but he'd been only just arrived back in the capital from a job, and so at first chalked it up to bad communication.
No, it wasn't until he'd been hanging by his wrists for what he assumed to be days that he began to figure it out.
How did he still have enough blood to keep his body going?
Oh yes, that's right. They had an infinite supply of weak healing potions and salty, mushy bread to keep him alive. Alive but beaten, broken, and exhausted.
He liked it when they let him sleep. He dreamed about the Flagon. He dreamed about the beautiful lake and mountains near Riften. Winter had just made an appearance in southern Skyrim, leaving the lake town under a harmless layer of white.
Though sometimes, after a particularly awful session, he would dream about the dragons.
It had been shortly before he was taken that the dragons had returned. He'd heard the old men on the mountain call down for some Dragonborn or other Nordic nonsense.
But whether or not the Dragonborn was everything people said, the dragons' existence couldn't be denied.
Had it been two, or three days before they took him that he saw one? He couldn't remember. Maybe it had been longer. His sense of time was sorely lacking at this point.
But he could remember the creature's black outline against the bright blue sky, and he could remember the shriek it gave that reached all the way to Riften. Luckily for them all the beast had stayed away.
Though sometimes in his dreams a strange silent dragon would swoop down upon him and watch him as he lay helpless. The long body stretched over him, its wings covering him like a shield. It never cried out and it never blinked its vibrant, glowing violet eyes.
He was surrounded by other glowing figures, each hazy and blurred. The dragon was the only thing that stayed in focus, the only thing that approached.
The other presences began to shine more brightly, leaving everything but the ancient creature a white, colorless void, and then the dragon would react.
And always, he would reach out as it opened its maw, wide and terrible, to engulf him in darkness…