Lars and Braith
AN: Oneshot. I was amused by the revelation that Braith liked Lars and that's why she picked on him. I think most of us have been there and I wonder how the two would get along after some years knowing each other.
[1]
Murder.
Someone in Whiterun was screaming bloody murder. It cut through the merry din of the bar like it wasn't even there.
It jolted Lars Battle-born out of his meal, making him jerk in his seat before he could help it. He was a nervous, scared, and angry child of fifteen. It seemed most days like he couldn't help much of anything.
Lars turned on the stool, facing away from the bar, and hopped off.
He'd already made his mind up to find some place to hide. That was the plan, but his feet had already taken him outside. It was funny the way your body did things you weren't even trying to do.
His right hand, for instance, was flexing and stretching. He snapped his fingers—now, his hand burned with the yellow-red flame of a midlevel fire spell: firebolt. He had a thin build, strengthened only by the manual labor he did every day on the farms of Whiterun.
He swiveled his head around the town square. It was nearing sunset, and the shadows were long, stretching over a ground that was slowly burning with faint orange. He liked the look of it.
Lars picked out the guards rushing to the front gates of the city. He squinted his eyes.
There was something…going on over there. A fight. It was probably the guards finally standing up to those Redguard men that'd been just…hanging out there. They'd been looking for somebody.
Don't go there, his mind said. But his body was already moving towards the commotion. He felt more nervous now. More angry. Braith had thrown a rock at him early this morning. He'd thrown a bit of lightning at her. Not much. Just a low level "spark" spell. She'd flipped out about that, and the two of them had gotten into it.
He couldn't get her out of his head sometimes. But she was a bully, and that's what bullies did. Just hassle and hassle and hassle you until you wanted to just freeze them on the spot and just piss on their trapped body. Just thinking about that made him even angrier.
He was closer to the fight now. And as his mind put words to the forms he was seeing, he was losing some of the anger. A lot of it. It was being replaced by fear.
There was a guard on the ground, and there was too much dark blood on the ground around for him to be anything other than dead.
His pace should've slowed down. Or stopped entirely. Instead, it quickened. He was running now. There was a spellcaster: someone throwing out ice spells, and a lot of them. They were being thrown out with a haphazard—almost desperate—frenzy.
A shard of ice sailed past his head, missing only by mere inches
His left hand was burning with fire-magicka now. As he clenched his hands, he felt the power of the spell pushing back, trying to force his hand back open.
Vampires.
Three of them. Which meant one would probably be a lord.
You should run, his mind said again. But underneath that top—at the same time overwhelming it—was a female Voice. Stronger than his own. Much louder.
The undead are a blight on his world. You know this almost as well as I, young one.
The Voice of a daedra. The voice of Meridia. The Voice took his steps, and made them faster. His feet were perfectly rhythmic against the ground; he was a gear wound up and then sent in motion.
The guards were already getting thinned out. One of them struck a blow to one of the lesser vampires. As it went down, its sword fell away from it, and winked sunlight as it flipped through the air.
The street was deserted now. Almost. Except for the two remaining vampires—the lord and the lesser. Their narrow eyes spied Lars Battle-born immediately.
Then something silly happened.
[2]
To the left of the vampires was the blacksmith store. The door opened slowly. Out came Braith, the Redguard bully. She'd been taller than Lars growing up; now you'd be forgiven for not being sure who had more height than the other.
She was reading a book. It was opened in one hand; the other hand was touching her chin with two fingers, the way a scholar would.
She can't have NOT heard the fight.
But Braith took two steps down the front stairs of the store, not looking around at all…and it was obvious that she hadn't heard the fight.
The flat eyes of the vampires snapped to the person walking down the steps of the smith's store: a dark skinned female wearing a faded red dress, a yellow bandana wrapped around her head. At her waist was a sheathed steel sword, which she'd probably gone into the shop to buy.
Braith took two more steps down the stairs. She was perhaps six steps away from walking into a giant puddle of blood. She would slip in it, and then nobody would be able to do anything for her.
The lesser vampire, an elf, began walking towards her. The elf had a two-handed warhammer, which was now rising into the air. Lars felt his stomach drop down into his groin.
Lars screamed, "WATCH OUT!" so loudly he felt his throat burn as if scalded with acid.
Everything happened in slow motion.
Braith's face came away from the book, turned in his direction. Her brown eyes were wide and uncomprehending. Her head immediately swiveled around. She caught sight of the vampires. In that same instant, two other things happened: the warhammer of the lesser came whistling down, and Lars Battle-born's burning hand came up and let loose with the spell. The cracking power of it filled his ears, and for a long moment there was no other sound.
[3]
Braith did a queer-looking hop to the side. It was slight movement—very slight. It didn't make sense that the hammer would miss her at all.
But it did. It crashed down into the rock concrete hard enough to come bouncing back up, and Lars had enough to time—an instant—to think it'll brain her on the way up, before it missed again. It did nearly brain the vampire's own head. He backed up and Lars could see the strain of muscles on the undead's neck.
Then Lars' spell caught it in the shoulder.
The bolt exploded, and the vampire was covered in sudden fire. The monster screamed. The hammer was tilted until it was horizontal and swung around in another savage arc. Braith got down on both knees, and the blow went sailing over her head, missing by a much wider margin than before.
At the same time, Braith unsheathed her sword in one fluid motion.
Lars gathered magicka in his off-hand. The vampire lord turned to him, grinning. Its canines were very noticeable, over twice as long as the rest of its teeth. It was armed with a staff in one hand and ice magicka in the other. The staff sparked with electricity.
Lars focused on a restoration spell. Where the hell are the rest of the guards?!
The Voice of Meridia: Dead, young one. Or too weak to face the abominations, and that weakness is worse than death.
Braith did a short lunge forward, stabbing out with the sword. It sank into the lesser vampire.
The vampire lord raised his staff. It flashed once with blue-white light and the next second lightning carved a jagged white path through the air. Lars raised both hands and put up a dual-casted Lesser Ward, forming a hollow bubble with white edges in front of him. The lightningbolt crashed into the Ward. The sound was like black powder being lit off.
Most of the lightning stayed within the bubble, spreading out from the center in long blue-white fingers. Some of it crawled into his hands, and the pain was unberable—burning hot and freezing cold at the same time. Lars heard the scratch of his feet against the ground as the force of the spell slid him backwards.
In front of him, the lesser vampire, still aflame, crumpled forward.
The vampire lord lowered the staff. He turned to Braith.
Lars dropped the Ward. His hands tingled numbly. Scant sparks of electricity bridged the gaps of his fingers with faint popping sounds. His hands trembled.
Braith rolled around the burning corpse of the lesser, lunged toward the vampire. The lord raised his free hand and fired a bolt of ice. There was less than five feet between it and Braith. It missed.
Braith struck out with the sword, aiming for lord's hand. It snatched it away at the last second, but not before losing a finger.
Lars was kneeling, shaking his hand, waiting for the electricity to go away. Being hit with lightning spells damaged your own magicka use. It sucked. He was totally useless for a few good seconds. Terribly long seconds, where it seemed that death was behind him. Whispering in his ear.
Braith lunged for the lord again. It brought the staff around—not as a magical weapon, but as a club. It struck Braith high in the shoulder. She screamed, falling to the ground.
Braith looked up in time to see the lord raise the free hand. She rolled away, keeping her sword tucked close to her. The spot of ground where she'd been only a second ago was impaled by a shard of ice that cracked the concrete.
Lars felt the magicka return to his hands. He gathered fire there, in both hands. He focused, it all. Everything he had in him. This time the warmth didn't just crawl up his arms. It raced into his shoulders. He grinned. When, he fired the bolt with both hands, he thought the spell would actually overwhelm his own body
It did not. But it felt like it came close.
Very close.
The massive blast of fire struck the lord square in the middle of its back. The spell exploded, and one of the creature's arms melted away like a cracker in soup.
The vampire lord didn't just scream.
It shrieked.
The staff fell to the ground with a hollow clanking sound that was weirdly metallic. It forgot all about the two of them, forgot all about the fight. It threw up its remaining hand and rushed for the gate.
The gate was slightly ajar. It didn't matter. The vampire lord ran into it full force. It'd been worrying about the sped of escape but not the accuracy. It bounced off the iron gate and fell onto the ground. It tussled and bucked on the floor. Pieces of skin fell away like heavy cinders.
Lars could hear the Voice of Meridia saying, You did good young one.
And he smiled, knowing that it was true.
[4]
"Are you stupid?" Braith asked.
"E-excuse me?" Lars couldn't believe what he was hearing.
The two of them stood in the street, which was still deserted.
"Firing those spells like an idiot! You could've killed me!"
For a moment, Lars was so angry that he was incapable of speaking.
She was a mess. Both of them were. He was panting and covered in sweat. The exertion of the spells had given him a nosebleed, and not just a trickle but a waterfall. Rolling around on the ground had covered the bottom of Braith's dress in blood and all of it in dirt. The left side of her face had a nasty looking cut on it.
She looked very angry. She also looked very scared.
"You useless milk drinker!"
Lars felt his eye twitch. "You're just some stupid bully!"
Her eyes narrowed. "Don't you call me that!"
"That's what you are! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!"
Braith's eyes grew wide, her lip quivered. "You rotten prick Battle-born."
"Oh yeah? I'm the prick. I'm the one picking on kids 'til they don't wanna play with me. I'm the one going angry at everyone else 'cause my parents don't wanna talk to me!"
She cringed at that, as if struck. Her face changed. That was too much. Much too much. All the fight was knocked out of her.
Silence between them. It was heavy and thick. There were slight sounds around them. The sounds of doors opening only barely.
"Braith…I…"
She took a few steps away from him.
"Wait a minute…"
She ran.
[5]
He found her curled up against a tree outside Whiterun, and she was crying.
"It's dangerous for us to out here. It's late out."
It was midnight to be exact. Lars didn't have to worry about curfews anymore. His grandparents had been killed in a vampire attack years ago. And Braith, well it would be a while before her own parents got around to caring.
Braith looked at him, her face wet. Then looked away.
"Go away."
"I was talking to Lucia. She…she told me something."
"That dumb bitch can tell you whatever she wants."
Lars sat down next to her. His face was unbearable warm. Somehow it was even warmer than when he'd been casting the fire magicka.
Braith was silent, save for her crying.
"I know you don't hate me."
"No." Braith said quietly. Her hands were clasped in her lap.
Lars said the next words with great effort, effort that bordered on physical strain. "Do you want me to…kiss you?"
A long while passed in which she did nothing. Long enough that Lars thought she didn't hear. Or didn't care.
Then Braith nodded jerkily. "I always did."
Lars nearly said okay, then decided against it. Instead, he leaned toward her, pressing his lips against her cheek. Braith did not move, but her crying stopped, falling into a low whimper that too petered away into silence.
She turned to him slowly. Her eyes were puffy, but she favored him with a slight smile. It made her look beautiful.
She cupped his chin in one hand, and leaned in. Their kiss made the aches and pains go away. At least for a moment or so. And that was just fine.
One of Braith's drifted from her lap, and Lars took it. He thought it would be too much and too fast. But Braith squeezed his hand gently. They leaned into one another, looking up at all the stars in the night sky and Lars could not ever remember being so happy.
[6]
They had a daughter named Meri.