It must have been very strange, seeing her wake up like that. She knew it was strange for her, at least, to see him there, standing and staring owlishly. But he's just a boy, was the first thought that ran through her mind. But then she saw the ever so slight wrinkles on his brow from many hours of concentration, the kind of wrinkles that you could only see when the light hits your face just right; the way he stood, with his back straight; the way the air about him subtly commanded attention, as if to whisper "look at me, I have power, but I wish not to flaunt it; no, only for you to see, and to acknowledge." And yet, at the same time, those things were tempered by the rounded cheeks, the large blue-green eyes, the shock of yellow hair that peeped out from under his canvas hood; there was no way this man – this boy – could be–
He reached out his hand to help her, but she stood on her own, wobbling a little. It would take time for her to get used to her legs again. The boy – she had decided to refuse to refer to him as a man – never dropped his hand. Instead, it remained stretched out, reaching, as if pleading. His mouth moved to speak but no sounds came out; it irritated her, just a little bit, the way he looked like a suffocating fish.
She interrupted his dying fish movements to ask what his name was. He blinked rapidly a few times, his mouth gaping open, before he shut it and spoke.
"Debent. My name is Debent."
After he had, quite literally, slapped himself out of his initial shock, the two had a somewhat pleasant conversation (at least he thought it was pleasant, from his end, despite the chilly responses he got from the mysterious woman he had come to know as Serana), regarding the woman's apparent incarceration in this, what he could only describe as a tomb; the Elder Scroll that was slung over her shoulder, and, most importantly, her vampirism. Or at least her alleged vampirism. He wasn't as sure yet; any fool could lock themselves in a stone box, say they're a vampire, and pretend not to know what the Alessian Empire was...
Maybe.
He rubbed his chin, musing and staring off into the distance for a moment, before he was interrupted, again, by Serana.
"If it's okay with you, I'd just like to get out of here. Do you think you can get me home?"
"I suppose so. Where would 'home' be, though?"
"On an island, off the coast of Solitude. On the sea boarder with High Rock."
He pursed his lips, feeling his muscles tense before he smiled, although it was less a pleasantry and more so to keep from frowning so deeply his mouth drooped off his face. He clenched his teeth together behind his lips, before nodding and looking around for an exit. But, as life has a quaint tendency to take your plans and spit them in your face, before he could even cross the land bridge to freedom, Serana in tow, a couplet of grotesque, stony monstrosities burst from their rock prisons like eager butterflies from cocoons. Ugly, magical, razor-clawed butterflies.
To say that Debent screamed like a little girl would be a gross understatement.
Debent screeched in such a high and frantic octave, Serana was sure that the gargoyles were momentarily shocked, frozen in place for a few precious seconds. It gave Debent enough time to lob several fiery orbs at the things before summoning some kind of flaming daedric something-or-other, pulling a clunky contraption off his back to load a short, metal arrow into it. Serana was so busy staring at it she didn't notice the gargoyle stampeding right for her until something very heavy slammed into her from the side, knocking her over. As she struggled with it, it gnashed it's rock jaws towards her face, drool dribbling from it's lipless mouth and onto her face. Oh gods, its breath reeked.
Why does it stink so badly? Why is it drooling? Even more importantly, why do gargoyles even have to breathe, or drool for that matter? In her struggle, she managed to glance quickly over at Debent, still struggling with that odd contraption, which looked like a small bow nailed to a chunk of wood. "For Mara's sake, hurry up!" she shouted, thrashing and wiggling as the automaton dug its claws into her arm, and she could feel her strength being sapped from her.
Suddenly there was a sound akin to the muffled thunk of an arrow let fly, and a shiny steel rod was lodged in the gargoyle's stony hide, sending it tumbling to the ground. She rolled away, scrambling to her feet and returning to Debent's side. She stared long and hard at the wood-block-bow-thing, glaring when she found it took a long time to load. Before she had thought, she'd grabbed it and threw it into the lake, much to the dismay of her wizard companion. "You have magic," she snapped, "use it."
And use it he did. She had to admit, later as they were escaping through a cavernous opening in the mountain, that he was a very good spell caster.
