Firstly, two apologies - i apologise that this chapter took me so long to write, and i apologise that it is such goddamn long chapter!! If there are spelling/grammatical mistakes, please inform me and i will change them as soon as possible. I've checked it through myself, but it's difficult to proof-read longer pieces of writing. I suppose i should get someone to check it through after i've edited it, just to snuff out any remaining errors, but i wouldn't want to ask anyone to do that (i used to proof-read fanfiction written by one of my friends, and i got sort of bored it, so i wouldn't want to put anyone in that position) Whereas the first chapter was more like a prologue, this chapter explains more about the character's history, and interesting stuff starts to happen (or at least i hope you find it interesting!) Again, con-crit really, really appreciated. Thank you very much!!
Chapter 2:
Of all her young life, Stas could remember very little - except running. A Bosmer, nimble and fast, she was apt to flee and adept at fleeing, as was her mother. She was an only child, and had never known her father. Indeed, Stas had never really know anyone: her and her mother flitted from province to province, lodging in large cities, towns or small villages, and occasionally camping out in deserted wilderness, never settling in once place for more than a few months. Stas, therefore, had never had a chance to make friends. She was an isolated child and, when situation called upon her ability to relate and sympathise with people, she found herself feeling extremely awkward. She had never really known her mother, either. Sometimes, it even seemed that she knew her mother less than anyone else in the world. When she looked at her mother, she could not help but see the volatile, mentally ill and hopelessly addicted woman – like a shell or soulless effigy – rather than being able to see the woman from whom she was born, and bound to love until death. Stas forever seemed just a burden upon her mother. She never felt loved or cared for. The eyes of her mother were either blind-drunk or contemptuous, scheming. Notwithstanding her perpetually drunken state, however, the paranoid mother did manage to achieve a lifestyle of constant running and perfect secrecy – Stas remembered sneaking across borders, stowing away in boats, holding her mother's hand. Her mother's other hand was never empty, though – either she held bottles of drink, or her dagger. She wrapped Stas in the mysterious black cloak – from where the cloak came, Stas could not remember; much of her memory was chequered and full of gaps – and then, both concealed, they melted across lands, oceans, forests, like ragged shadows dogging the progress of the sunset. Never once did the woman tell Stas why they were running. Stas knew better than to ask – questions enraged her mother, and, upon occasion, her rage and stupor induced her to hit Stas. After ten years, Stas knew well that, where her mother was concerned, compliancy was the best policy.
The lifestyle they both led unfortunately meant that Stas had never had a chance to attend school, and neither did her mother ever attempt to teach her anything, but, despite this, Stas was a naturally intelligent girl. Not learned, but wise beyond her years. It was this aspect of her character that allowed her to understand much of what was going on around her despite her mother's secrecy. Her mother was a bad person. Of that much she was absolutely certain. How many times had that fact been confirmed? Stas recalled countless events. Once, when Stas was perhaps three or four years old, and a weighty border guard had been preventing them from traversing their afore-planned route. The man stood in their way, quite angrily proclaiming that he refused to let them by until he had seen their identification documents, papers and permits. Her mother sighed testily, when, all of a sudden (and, indeed, all the more sudden given the woman's wasted gait and stooped posture), in a flash of movement and silver, she made deadly contact with the guard. It seemed she swooped up from within herself, bursting suddenly, directly, accurately, and releasing all this fearful accuracy upon the man's throat. What was once standing now sharply capitulated. All the while, Stas had been looking on, staring wide-eyed, appalled. And this was the first memory she had of her mother – at least the first memory she could recall clearly. Her mother seemed to her in those early years as some sort of angel-of-death, a harbinger of horror capable of snatching the life of a man in one fell, sudden movement. She held the hand of this macabre angel as they walked away from the scene, the bulbous body of the man still warm and soaked in blood – the scene that seemed the precursor of their future life, and of Stas's destiny.
Stas knew that stealing was also bad, immoral. Her mother stole. She stole food, which they ate, but she stole valuables too, and Stas had been dragged along to numerous back-alley meetings between her mother and scum-of-the-earth fences, working independently or as a vassal to a dishonest merchant, trading the stolen goods either for money or, more often, for wine. Stas stood by and watched, loathing the corruption and the stench of filth emanating from the fence, her mother, and from herself too, unfortunately. It was moral dirt as much as physical dirt – not that there was a shortage of that either: they never owned a mirror, but when Stas looked at herself, a glimpse caught in a shop window or a puddle, she hated what she saw. A tiny girl – tiny, that is, even by Bosmer standards – and thin, malnourished – her eyes looked haunted, and by far too big for her tiny, gaunt face, like sick, milky blue orbs. Her hair was long and matted, vaguely reddish, and her skin was pale under the dirt. Was there any dignity in life like this? Stas, being so very young, had only very recently started to develop feelings of self-consciousness, and to begin to grasp the concept of dignity. But now that she understood dignity and how it felt to be aware of oneself, she felt embarrassed – acutely embarrassed. Embarrassed of her ragged looks, and of her lifestyle, her mother's crimes and addiction. It tormented her.
Despite her natural intelligence, however, Stas was never able to discover from what or whom her mother was running. She observed her behaviour closely, yet could discern nothing. There was a pattern, however, in their movements: they never lived in one particular place for more than a couple of months. After that time period, her mother would become increasingly paranoid, frantic and skittish, until, usually without any warning, she would grab Stas and bundle up their few belongings, declaring, "Quickly, Stas! We must leave! Now!" A tentative, disconcerted and frightened Stas may have offered a quiet "Where to, mama?" At which her mother would halt suddenly, and look down at the child incredulously, as if inquiry over their direction and destination seemed the most illogical thing imaginable. "East? West?" She might cry, pacing about furiously, "We came too far South this time, so we must go North. Yes, North. No – it's too obvious. North-East? Yes. Yes, Stas, we are going North-East."
Admittedly, Stas often did wonder whether the threat her mother perceived was, in fact, purely in her mind. This suspicion was bolstered, particularly when her mother took skooma – she became more apt to want to run when she had taken skooma. She would either pace and mutter to herself, or sit still and sweat profusely, shivering. It made her sick sometimes, too, and it made her cry. She would cry out nonsensical things, to which Stas would listen with interest: mentions of a mother, being betrayed by her brother, the death of her sister, and of her father – she seemed to fear memories of her father more than anything. She became distraught when she cried about her father – "Why does he hate me, Stas?" She would implore the little child whilst growing more and more distraught. "He hates me. He won't let me go. He won't let me forget. Oh Stas!" and her mother would grab her, burying her head into the child's arm and crying, indeed, as a child would cry to their mother. Stas held her mother when she became like this, tried to comfort her, but what could she do for a woman growing progressively sicker and sicker, bawling and howling, losing whatever fragile grip she had on her sanity? "I only did what I had to do. It was to protect you, Stas, as much as anything!"
It grew to a point when Stas simply accepted that her life was one dogged by danger, whatever the danger was. She just learned to live with it, to cope with the idea of threat, of fighting. One day, in an increasingly rare moment of lucidity, her mother sat her down, her tone sombre and informative. Her words were like iron, heavy and foreboding, but they almost carried a sense of potential, opportunity – like iron, too:
"If ever anything happens to me, Stas, or if ever I tell you that you are in danger and need to find safety, go to Cheydinhal, to the Abandoned House at the eastern side of town. Break into the house, and go into the basement. There will be a red corridor, leading to a very old stone door. Touch the door, and you will be asked a question. The password is "sanguine, my brother." Say it. Go through the door. Treat the people you find within with the utmost respect, and they will treat you thus, too. You will be safe there."
Stas asked her mother Why? What was there? Who was there? Who were they? What were they like? The questions rained in a steady stream from the normally cautiously quiet little girl, but she was soon shushed by her mother, who sternly slapped Stas on the arm, declaring her questions unimportant. "All you need to know," She said, "Is that you will be safe there." Stas doubted it. But, since that day, her mother repeated and repeated "The Abandoned House in Cheydinhal. The Abandoned House in Cheydinhal." at every sign of danger. It increased the feeling of tension and anxiety that ever haunted Stas, particularly as her mother's health and sanity seemed to decline, and the idea that Stas would have to seek refuge with these people in the Abandoned House began to feel more and more inevitable.
All these emotions seem to come to a climax when they fled from the Imperial City, to Bravil. They did not stay long in the Imperial City, of which Stas was glad. She hated how crowded it was on the Waterfront, where they had managed to afford the rent on a small dwelling. Crime seemed all the more rife there. The street children there wanted Stas to join their gang, but she was scared of them – they stole and they swore and spat. She didn't want to mix with people like that, and she was monumentally happy when they left...until they reached Bravil, which, it turned out, was even worse than the Imperial City. What was worse was that Stas found out why they had gone to Bravil specifically – her mother's skooma dealer advised her that the Bravil guards were especially lax in regards to skooma, largely because many of them were hooked on it, too. They moved to lodgings by the side of Bravil's canal – the lodgings to which Stas returned that day, finding them torn up and thrown about, awash with signs of struggle and violence. Since moving to Bravil she had imagined that, given her mother's declining health, she would have to make use of the refuge of the Abandoned House, an "escape plan" of sorts, sooner rather than later. Every day, her mother had access to skooma – and she took advantage of this convenience. Every day she would drink her wine, then leave the house to visit her dealer, returning, sometimes, with bottles of the drug that she was becoming more and more dependent on. Stas watched the woman whom she feared but reluctantly loved grow thinner, paler, less and less coherent, more and more paranoid. Stas knew it was just a matter of time. And, when the time did finally come, Stas felt nothing – no regret, nor sadness. Just a vague, sickish emptiness. And panic.
Her flight to Cheydinhal had been easy enough, in hindsight, and, though she was convinced that she was in mortal danger, she met no danger whatsoever. Tiny and thin as she was, she was fast and very good at hiding – darting between and behind trees and rocks. The night drew thick and cold too, so the roads were almost completely clear of travellers – however, this fact alone did not stop her from running as if hell-hounds were giving pursuit. She did not stop. She ran blindly into the black, fearing to light a torch, for her fear of being discovered was greater than her fear of getting lost along the dark roads. Every feature of the land appeared hostile to her, and even the moon seemed to regard her with contempt. Not a single thought crossed her mind – she was devoid of any emotion but fear. Nothing seemed to register. She noticed nothing - even when the moon waned and the tender tendrils of morning reached out to her, she was completely oblivious to time's passage. When she finally reached Cheydinhal, evening had come again. She had been running for an entire night and day – a feat made possible only by terror.
The lithe, sly child managed to slip through the gates without the gate-guards noticing – their being preoccupied with a couple of angry merchants providing perfect cover for her. She cautiously picked her way to the eastern side of town, surreptitiously avoiding the sight of the guards. They were, by all accounts, more efficient than the guards in Bravil – law enforcers, rather than fools playing a farce of protecting public order. She felt more keenly than ever that her unusual appearance would set her out from the crowd. The town was growing quiet as night drew closer, but, even so, she felt eyes upon her, gazes coming from everywhere, hot , boring into her. She noticed a woman staring through a window at her, an appalled snarl of disgust upon her face. Such a pretty woman too, but her face was utterly devoid of sympathy. Stas felt deeply lachrymose. She was absolutely isolated and frightened, only her mother's words hanging above her: "Go East, Stas. The Abandoned House. East." East. She passed a homeless man, singing at the top of his uneven voice, evidently blind-drunk. It made her think of her mother. Was she dead? Did she fight? Had she fled? The man stopped singing as Stas passed, and he looked at her. He had the same cast about his face, the same listless, unconscious non-look as her mother had developed in those latter months. The resemblance was too much to bear. Stas wanted to cry again, but no. She couldn't. Someone would see, a guard would come. She quashed the urge and ran behind a garden, shadowed by the canopy of its many lush trees.
She had been fretting about finding the house. She was without guidance, and could not stop to ask anyone – and she had never been to Cheydinhal before. It was all new to her, and a very pretty town it was, too. But the architecture seemed strangely sharp and dark, and disconcertingly foreign. Dark elves and Orcs huddled around the streets, talking their own native dialects, and adding to Stas's confusion. She felt like she had strayed into another province. They were privy to their own dark dealings, and Stas was a part of a different world. None of the squabbling, gathered mass had a kind word for her. She passed them, and they did not notice her passing. They seemed to congregate on the easternmost street, these dark, hardened and vulgar-looking people. She heard the sound of raucous drinking, shouting, and fighting all about her, emanating from the houses. These groups of people surely weren't the same people who had been assigned as her protectorate, were they? A feeling of sickness and dissatisfaction rose within her. These were the people to whom her mother had left her? Surely not, but...would it really be such a surprise if they were? Such people were the few people that her mother had connections amongst – dealers, fences, thieves, and fellow drunks.
And yet...
The Abandoned House came into view. And she could tell it was thus, the specific Abandoned House, for no lights were lit at its windows, no music or jeering came from within, no crowd stood by its door – indeed, people walking passed seemed to give it an especially wide berth. The street was full of life – an unpleasant demographic of the population, but life nonetheless. This house, however, was simply grey, dead. Silent, and the windows were either boarded over completely, or revealed a glimpse of an interior so very opaque, so very dark, it appeared as a void. And this was the only sanctuary to be had. This was her mother's "grand plan"? This place was supposed to offer safety? She had spent the last twenty-four hours in such a state of morbid, frantic fear – the only thing that had kept her morale from teetering and collapsing had been the promise of safety at the end of the journey. And now, to be confronted with such a sight – a house so very chasmic in it's hollow blackness, it could have just disappeared, and no one would have noticed. The tears welled up, and a deeply sonorous wail grew within her chest – it would not out, though. She would not let it. She had come this far, and, besides, what other options did she have? To return to Bravil and await the coming of whatever had taken her mother, or induced her to flee? She had ran this far. So, she ran to the house. The door was boarded over too, and firmly locked from within, thus preventing her entrance. She couldn't have picked the lock - Stas never had been very good with a lockpick, even though her mother had tried to teach her – it was one of the few things that her mother had tried to teach her, but Stas could not do it. It required patience and delicacy – two traits that had never really had a chance to blossom in the girl.
"Break into the house...", her mother had said. Stas thought for a moment, observing a low, boarded up window. The boards were soft with rot. Soft, but not quite soft enough that the little elf could break them open with her bare hands. She tried the boards nonetheless, putting down her loaf of bread (which she had been carrying all the time, having not stopped to eat at all) She tugged at the boards, and they creaked with the strain, but would not move. Stas checked around her – no one was noticing what she was doing – indeed, it was so dark around the house that Stas could barely be seen: only her pale, tiny outline stood out against the unnatural dark of the house. In increasing frustration, she beat the boards with her tiny fists. When she began to feel that entry via the windows was impossible, she turned round and noticed...her bread was gone. She saw two vague silhouettes of disgustingly large rats carrying off into the night, screeching as if bickering over who got the biggest share, and ripping at it, fighting.
"Hey!" She called after them, but did not run. They were too fast. Her only morsel of food was now gone, and she felt the weight of the purse next to her leg – it contained only ten paltry septims: perhaps enough for a few days worth of food, and only then if one was eating very frugally. Suddenly, the exertion of the previous day hit her: her legs became leaden, she was hungry and weak, and now not only without friends and family, but without food too, and with very little money. She laughed, hard and hopeless – it erupted from within, unexpected. But, naturally, it was not regular laughter – rather that of the listless and exhausted. World-weary laughter. Funereal laughter. It lifted her fear momentarily, and dispersed the dark slightly, like a candle, but it was brief, out very quickly.
She sank against the wall of the house and sat in a heap, chuckling eerily, watching the rats helplessly. They frightened her; she dared not stop them, even though she was hungry. They were vicious little beasts and she was well aware of the damage they were quite capable of inflicting – in her reluctant socialising with street children, she had, once or twice, come across kids with digits missing, or scars in the shape of scratches and bites – all acquired when they dared to challenge the hungry rats over some food.
From nowhere suddenly swooped a great owl, lamp-like eyes and mottled feathers stretched to their full span. The rats screamed and dissipated – most achieved shelter, but one unfortunate was not so fast, and was plucked from the street by the huge tawny creature. Stas heard a disconcerting snap as the owl bit into the creature's back, and – so very large and bold was this glorious bird! – she even felt the air move about her as it beat it's powerful wings, soaring up and taking flight. Stas traced it's course in the sky: it flew up above the roof of the house, silhouetted against the silent moon, before curving back down again towards the house. It flew right into the roof, through a very large gap in the masonry that Stas had not noticed before. The gap came just underneath the gutter of the roof, and, by her keen judgement, it would have been more than large enough for her to fit through. Stas's laughter grew warmer, and she felt stirred and heartened at the sight of the majestic owl – so much so, that she determined to follow it's course. That is how she would enter the house! She blessed her Wood Elf heritage, bringing as it did a natural ability for acrobatic feats, as she began to shuffle up the wall of the house – it was none too difficult, the window frames and jagged masonry providing more than an adequate foothold for the deft, slight girl. She achieved the gap in the roof in mere minutes, though the exertion left her feeling quite weak, but her method was effective: she shuffled through the hole, gaining entrance. She almost felt proud of herself.
The house's interior was as she expected - the exterior appearance of the house was a more than accurate facade: the inside was sinister, bedecked in cobwebs, and every step she took seemed to raise clouds of the thickest, oldest dust imaginable. It choked her, made her splutter, and it made the air taste extremely unpleasant. She tried to move as silently as possible, but found this very challenging, considering how the dark seemed to conceal every one of the many objects strewn about the floor – she tripped and stumbled many times, wincing every time she fell – not because of the pain it caused her, only because of the terrible clattering noise it produced. She felt unwelcome and unsettled. And the dark was so very complete, so utterly opaque – like a shroud – she held her hands out before her to feel her way forward. In this way, she negotiated two flights of stairs, and, upon reaching the ground floor, she walked backwards against the walls, running her hands along them carefully, feeling for a door. When she came to one, she opened it, darted in, and gently closed it shut behind her. It was odd, so very dark and uninhabited, but, in the silence now in the empty room, Stas could almost detect a faint susurrus – whispering? Voices? A glow of red beckoned her through an opening in the back wall. A red corridor. She stooped low and entered the great red crevasse. Fear gripped her, a sensation growing tighter about her throat – and her chest, too, seemed to want to swell to an abnormal size in order to better contain the young heart that beat frantically, both tantalised and terrified. The red glow became her guide – it grew stronger and darker the further along the passage she crept. The stone of the passage was much different to that of the rest of the house – it appeared far, far older. The air no longer smelt of dust – rather of damp, and corrupt, bitter things, a metallic twinge that stuck in Stas's nose. The passage led down, deeper – she was underground now, she thought. It was terribly claustrophobic, so she focused her eyes forward – forward, blinkered, her eyes not straying from one point ahead of her: that of a door she saw. She came to it, and it too was fashioned of those same, ancient rocks - the colour of ivory, but not as smooth – rough-hewn and indomitable. There was a pattern upon the door – something in black, but the red light was so poor, she could hardly see it. She touched it, inquisitive...but to her surprise, her touch coaxed a whisper, rasping and horrific – it seemed as if it came directly from the door!
"What is the colour of night?"
Stas fell back in shock. She collided with the floor and screamed as her hand touched something wet: bloody bones, stacked against the door. By god. Her mother's final act was to bequeath her daughter to whatever lurked behind that ancient, hideous stone? How could it be? Possibly? Stas's eyes grew wide. Her body became limp. She shook so violently that the bones that lay about her began to rattle, eerily seemingly to mock her.
"What is the colour of night?"
She was asked again. The voice was more insistent now, increasingly hostile. Stas began to cry. Her mind flew wild with images of any manner of terrible things. The bones. The bones that she lay amongst – she was certain that she would be turned into those bones. Something would come and kill her, ripping her apart until nought was left of her but bloody bones and gore spattered on the door. What had her mother done? And why? Stas wept, but she shuddered so violently that movement was quite impossible for her. A bloody end to a life that had been bloody awful.
"WHAT IS THE COLOUR OF NIGHT?"
The hoarse whisper had grown into a demonic yell. It was not a human voice. Not human at all. It horrified her. She felt death was certain...unless her mother actually hadn't been lying to her. Three words fought through her shuddering tears:
"S..ss..sanguine...mm...my...b...brr..brother!"