Skyrim C4
Kung
My sleep was constantly interupted by my new wings constantly pushing me around, I would have slept on my stomach if it wasn't for the uncomfort I felt. My body was different, that was for sure, however I couldn't help but feel like a freak. Those wings were black, much like a bat, I could already hear people calling me a hybrid or a failed experiment.
I dragged myself out of the still broken bed, the cage still seemed more apropriate. The hall was quiet, exceptionally so. No-one seemed to be inside, so I decided to go outside, barechested into the howling winds. I could not hear the scratching anymore, it seemed to have been my wings growing, bone scratching against bone causing the sounds inside my head.
The cold howling wind blew me back slightly, my wings were catching the wind like a giant bag behind me. I thought about spreading my wings and letting the wind carry me away to somewhere new, somewhere warm or at least somewhere isolated, where no-one could see my disfigurement. With the cloth still covering my head, I came to the realisation that it was pointless now, the blind eye would be the last thing that people noticed about me, carefully I took it off and wraped it around my mouth.
"My boy, you should be resting." Tolfdir appeared out of nowhere.
"How can I rest Tolfdir, when I look like this? Who can see this for the first time and look at me as if I was... Human?" I stared at my hands.
"I cannot see the future and I cannot relate to your greif. However, I do know you Kung. Not well, but I know you enough. You are strong, child. There's nothing that will change that, your strength can't be judged on looks alone, much like a book." Tolfdir was trying to make me feel better about what had happened.
What Tolfdir couldn't understand was that I was an open book already, he seemed not to realise this. Whether or not you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover, it's name would drive people away.
"I see you've learned the first problem with your wings. Do you know if you can control them?" He asked.
"No, I've not had the chance. Or the courage." I admitted.
"True, the wind would carry you to Morrowind." He joked.
I smiled, we seemed to think alike.
"Are you not cold?" He pressed.
"No. For some reason I feel warm..." I began to realise that the cold wasn't hurting me.
I turned to look at the snow in the courtyard, I held out my hand towards the snow, splayed open. I could see that it was beginning to move, when I clentched my fist the snow grouped together, only it wasn't snow, It was ice.
"My left hand does this, but my right does this." I began talking to myself whilst Tolfdir observed.
As fire began to englulf my arm, I heard a familliar sound. A thunderous, booming shout coming from the west, my magic dropped and I turned to see what was making the noise. It seemed as thought the dragon-born had arrived. However, Mary was not anywhere to be seen. Her shout seemed to beakon me.
"Are the legends true? Is the dragon born back?" Tolfdir spoke.
"Yes, I've seen her myself." I replied, mystified by the howling wind and the snow dancing around in the air.
"A woman? Strange, the dragon-born was a man in the writtings from the age of dragons." Tolfdir explained.
"Things change Tolfdir. As you can see with me." I mentioned my wings, which were still clinging to my back.
"Yes they do don't they? Speaking of which, what would you like to do now?" Tolfdir put a hand on my shoulder.
Erron
After a good day of rest and a square meal, I was feeling much better as my recovery from the climb seemed to actually speed up. Quickly, Mary had decided that she would try and find Kung again, so that we could travel together and possibly learn something from him.
Mary was teaching me to sharpen my blade, as the blade on my dagger apeared to get much sharper, I turned to Mary.
"Kung could possibly not be a freind of the Imperials?" I asked, my speech had taken a hit.
"I'm not sure, he lived in Whiterun so I think he's allied with them." Mary replied as she packed away the gear we were using.
This seemed fair enough, I was becoming more and more neutral, an Imperial Jarl didn't treat me the way I should have been, but the Stormcloaks wouldn't accept me into their communities, to my understanding anyway.
We began the decent soon after, it seemed to be nowhere near as exhausting as the climb, but yet I still found myself fearing the fall even though I was nowhere near the edge.
"Erron, are you alright?" Mary asked.
"Fine, the air is becoming thicker again."
I knew that the air was what was causing me to feel sick and weak, the more we walked down the thousand steps, the better I began to feel. Finally, after about 3 hours, we reached the bottom of the mountain, no longer were we surrounded by snow, we were however surrounded by nothingness and a feeling of openness.
"Hey, Erron. Kung will be likely be at winterhold, we should head east." Mary found our horse at the abandoned stable at the bottom.
"Heading that far will take time, we should think ahead Mary." I added.
"Live for today Erron, this world does not wait for the sleeping. Take it from a theif." She spoke as she mounted the steed.
She gave me a hand up to the horse, to winterhold we went. A long journey for sure, it took until nightfall to get halfway to winterhold. Something was wrong with this journey, I just knew it.
Kung
Winterhold was too small of a town, I realised this long after everyone else did. It just so happened that today was the day that a team of bandits decided to ride up to winterhold. We ran into each other on the path to the west.
I had ditched my surplus to the trader in winterhold, I didn't even take the gold he offered after he screamed at my new appendages. Leaving was what I wanted to do, so leave I did.
So I was stood there, faced by many bandits. All I had was my bow, sword and spear. 5 men stood on the beaten track. All of them with swords drawn, thirsty for blood. What little fear was in their weapons, meant nothing compared to the fear that they themselves displayed. I saw them shake as my wings spread out from under the cloak.
"Fear me criminals?" I mocked them, smiling.
"We fear nothing, beast!" The leader shouted at me.
My arm began to encase with ice, I threw a ice bolt at the leader. Through his head, blood splattered over the faces of his freinds. Quickly I retrieved my spear from my hip and threw that at a line of them, it went through two of them.
As they died, I aproached with my sword drawn, a crazed look in my eyes.
"See what I've become? See the demon? Now die." I dashed towards the last two.
A sword through the chest for one of them, then I moved onto the other after retrieving my blade, a horizontal sweep slit the throat of the last bandit.
Blood stained the ground around them.
My spear was not retrievable, I could barely shift the spear. It baffled me, that they barely fought back. Not a single movement towards me, the idea that a demon was coming for you must have scared them so much so that they decided to not make a move.
"Damn." I sighed, the spear was new.
It was a shame to leave behind the spear, but the gold that the bandits were carrying seemed to be a better reward than a damaged spear. I just decided to walk on, carrying with my journey to wherever it was that I was going.
Hours passed, and soon a day had passed. I had not stopped walking and I managed to get to a city's doors. The guards weren't at the doors, I opened the doors to the city with my wings hidden underneath my cloak.
The city didn't seem to be one that I'd seen before. Many of the buildings were made out of smooth stone, houses were barely 5 feet from each other.
"Divines..." I looked around the baron city, it looked as though it had been abandoned.
Quickly, I looked inside the nearest building, a skeleton was sat inside of it.
"This place has been abandoned years ago." I sighed to myself.
The city definitally wasn't big, they tried to cram in as many people as they could into a small space. It wasn't long before I found a clue as to what happened to the place. I hovered up and onto the building, there was the proof of what happened. A fire had swept over the place, it wasn't a dragon, that was for sure. The Jarl's tower was still standing and seemed to be the only place that wasn't singed by fire. I decided to try my hand at scavanging, after all, no-one was around to see my wings.
"Kung!" I heard a familliar voice.
I turned around, no-one. The voice came from the street, quickly I peeked my head over the edge. I saw Mary with a boy next to her, both of them looked stressed from the journey.
"Mary? What are you doing here?" I asked, raising my voice so that she could hear me.
"By the gods. What has happened to you?" She shook visibly.
Clearly, she saw my wings. I sighed, knowing that I wasn't going to be able to keep my wings a secret for any amount of time. I dropped from the building, using my wings to slow the fall. As I hit the ground, I saw the similar sized boy hide behind Mary.
"No need to be afraid, I'm still Kung. Only the wings are different about me. I see my furs were too small it seems." I noticed that the boy was wearing Mary's furs rather than Mary was.
"H-how have your studies been?" Mary tried her best not to mention my wings.
"I discontinued them, there was nothing they could teach me about myself. I'm not sure as what to say about these. They... well, grew on me." I joked about them.
Suddenly the boy stepped forward, his dagger was drawn. He stood defensivly, it seemed as though he wanted to fight me.
"Erron, what are you doing?" Mary turned to him quickly.
"I suggest you take a second look. Erron was it? A dagger will not beat a trained swordsman." I patted the hilt of my sword, showing him that his dagger wouldn't compare to the sword I was wearing.
"I am trained." He shook.
I drew my sword and held it out to my side, displaying it's recent condition. Blood was still on the blade, red blood had encrusted it.
"There is blood on my blade, there is none on yours. Now stop this foolishness, nothing but pain will come of attacking me." I stayed in defence of myself, even if it was against a child.
Erron charged at me, I dropped my sword and grabbed his wrist then twisted it. I was able to bend his arm behind his back. This predicament ment that I could throw him to the ground which is what I did. Using my leg, I tripped him up and threw him to the ground, making sure that the blade was in no danger of piercing any of us.
"Do not press me, Erron." I sighed.
Erron pulled himself to his feet and charged at me again. This time I grabbed his wrist, but used an open palm to hit him in the head. Whilst he was dazed, I froze his legs to the ground with my new powers. Erron panicked, rightly so. He was defenceless now he was unable to move.
"Kung, stop!" Mary grabbed my shoulders quickly.
I removed her hands from me and confronted her.
"I have no intention of killing him, he attacked me first." I explained my intentions.
"Release me demon!" Erron cried at me.
"I will not, unless of course you promise me that you don't attempt to kill me and that you stop calling me demon. My name is Kung." I began, however there was something that caught my eye.
His green eyes seemed familliar to me, they had a similar glint to mine. However, I could see something more inside him, I soon realised that we had met before. I reached out a hand to brush his bushy hair over his ear. There it was.
"...That scar, you're that." I began to shake slightly.
"What? What are you saying?" Erron began to fear me too.
"You're the child that burnt that healer. Can you remember?" I began to remember him.
Erron was not just any child, he was similar to me. He was abandoned in Whiterun, however he eventualy got injured by a wolf. He set ablaze as a healer began to shroud him in magic. He looked at me, the one real 'freind' I had who disapeared.
"...Wei? Kung Wei? Blind one?" Erron began to lighten up.
An uneasy smile began to apear at the corner of his mouth.
"I never thought that you'd become... This." He looked down as he struggled with the ice.
I destroyed the ice, Erron ran at me. His arms wrapped around my neck and mine around his waist. Both a tight squeezed hug from us both. I knew Erron, we were like brothers with each other, when he was kidnapped by bandits I wanted to wander Skyrim, trying to find him again, but was never old enough and none of the guards wanted to help me. Eventually, I'd forgotten him, too much sorrow had been caused in the months after his kidnap. Now it was like finding something inside me that had been lost.
"Erron, I'm sorry I never tried to find you again. I always thought you were dead after all that. What happened?" I choked.
Getting emotional at a time like this wasn't something I did normaly.
"I was saved near solitude, the guards saw the bandits from a nearby farm... They saved me, but what happened to you?" Erron's voice showed me that he was in a similar state.
We broke the embrace, but we still kept eyes locked. I took the cloth from my eye, so that Erron could see the grey eye that he identified me by.
"I don't know, I killed a dragur and all of a sudden I had wings attached to my back." I chuckled, trying to hold back tears.
Suddenly I realised something else, I still had his circlet around my head, albeit bent. Quickly I took it off of my head and gave it to him.
"I'm sorry it's in this condition. I had a small fight." I blushed slightly as I handed it to him.
He took it and looked it over in his hands, he smiled weakly as he rubbed his fingers over it.
"It's good... Thank you, could you train me?" Erron asked eagerly.
Gently, I shook my head.
"Sorry Erron, I am weary from the path. Besides, I know what you were taught, unless you have forgotten your training?" I joked.
Erron nodded, blushing. I turned to Mary, who seemed preoccupied with the inside of a building.
"Mary, what are you doing?" I asked.
She turned, white as snow.
"You should look at this." She beckoned me over.
So I walked over and peeked inside the building she was looking in. Quite a few skeletons were inside, their bones singed and many of them without limbs. This wasn't common above ground, in the caves though this was common place.
"What about it?" I asked.
"Can you see their teeth? They've got fangs." Mary shook.
"I've got fangs, look." I pulled the corner of my mouth back.
Mary hadn't noticed this before, she recoiled slightly at the sight of my sharpened fangs at the side of my mouth.
"How?" She asked.
"What's the problem? Erron's got fangs too." I didn't really know what to say.
Suddenly, Erron came up to me again. He put a hand on my shoulder.
"I know things have changed, I can see that. You don't have a group do you?" Erron pressed.
"No, I don't. I havn't decided what to do with myself yet." I sighed.
Erron looked worried, it seemed like he couldn't imagine what I was going through. He looked at me, tilted his head and closed his eyes. There was something wrong with him, I couldn't see or understand what.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"Kung, what is that?" Mary shook.
I turned, seeing the large creature behind me. It was a dragon.
Terror struck me, this wasn't like Whiterun. This dragon wasn't damaged, he was intact, his scales were thicker than anything I'd seen before on an animal. Its hot breath warmed us and shifted my robes as if the Winterhold wind had traveled here. I could see the red eyes, the murderous look in it's eyes rooted me to the ground.
"Shh... Move." Mary whispered to both me and Erron.
Erron moved, whilst I stayed rooted to the ground. He looked on, panicked as if I was bound to die, I smiled at him and then turned my attention to the dragon.
"You're not docile are you?" I asked, jokingly.
"You mock a dragon, you have spunk. Or perhaps you are foolish?" It spoke lowly, but it was still loud enough for the others to hear.
"Both... Do me a favour and tell me something. Why am I not a pile of ash right now?" I held my ground.
His eyes burned into mine, striking me deep down into the core.
"You are not worth the trouble to kill. I don't think that I would bother with a foolish human like yourself. Did you make those wings yourself?" The dragon mocked me.
I growled low down in my throat, the dragon did not seem impressed until he saw my eyes beginning to glow a bright blue again. I couldn't tell what the expression the dragon had, being a mess of scales and teeth made it difficult for me to understand what it was the dragon was thinking. By the way it raised it's head, I could feel that it was either shocked by the eyes or turning defensive.
"A demon from the east!" It roared before it sent a burst of flames towards me, thankfully I was becoming used to the wings. They sprang into action, launching me up into the air.
I only just missed the burst of flames, the heat was unbearable, but I needed to keep going as it looked as if it was going for Mary and Erron. I circled around in the air and drew my blade, I prayed to the divines that this blade would not break. I collided with the back of the dragon's neck, my blade just piercing the scaled flesh of the beast. With some force I didn't know I had, I pushed the blade in further. Another roar shook the earth beneath us as it flailed it's neck as if it was trying to shake the blade out of it's neck.
Instantly, I regretted selling most of my arrows. I pulled the bow over my head as I glided away from the shaking dragon, placed two arrows on the string and tried to set them alight with magicka, they became coated with ice instead, now I understood what was happening to me. Instead of a fire mage, I was becoming an ice channel. A person or object that can only use ice with its magic. It mattered little, as the dragon came into view I drew the bow back and released the arrows.
They too embedded themselves in the dragon, coating both wings in ice. It tried to break the ice but could not managed to do so, Mary and Erron took the initiative to start filling the dragon with arrows whilst I desperately tried to retrieve my sword. As I retrieved the steel blade, I ripped through the air to the ground as the dragon let out one last roar before it finally collapsed to the ground.
Dust rose from the cobbled road beneath my feet, the dragon began to burn away spectacularly and the light that came from the beast swirled around Mary, the dragon born. The only one who could down a dragon for good, unless of course there was another dragon born. Even though I was superior in combat, I could not kill a dragon, only Mary could.
I straightened my back as I stood up from the smouldering remains of the dragon, however something came from the dragon's remains. A sword began to forge from the bones of the dragon, suddenly it shot towards me at high speed, landing in the ground point first barely an inch away from my foot.
"Kung!" Erron squeaked.
Ignoring him allowed me to focus on the blade, I used every ounce of strength in my body to retrieve the blade from the ground. It was flawless, a straight edge, sharper than my steel sword and much more balanced than the steel one. With that, its maneuverability was incredible, not to mention the sheer damage I could cause with the sword. It was a perfect blade, one that I would not change for anything.
"Do not worry my friend. I am unharmed, what about yourselves?" I sighed, replacing the steel sword with my new bone blade.
Both Erron and Mary seemed to be fine, nothing was going wrong with them. The only thing that was wrong that the dragon hadn't attacked me at the first sight. Things had changed.
"You're hurting, let me see." Erron tried to get around my back, I turned to make sure that he was getting nowhere near my back.
"Hey, don't try that!" I yelped.
Erron had grabbed my wings and stretched them outwards so that he could see the skin on my wings. He noticed something, that something was my discomfort as I struggled against him.
"Stop it Kung, you're singed." Erron warned.
"It doesn't matter, I'm likely going to die the first time someone with a bow sees me in flight. If they burn then so be it!" I wrestled again Erron, finally getting my wings back under my own control.
Quickly I folded them behind my back and kept them there, making sure that Erron did not try and touch them again.
"How can you say something like that my friend?" Erron cried at me, trying to grab my arm.
"Everyone in Skyrim is afraid of the dragons, they fear that they're coming for them. People are getting jumpy when birds arrive in their presence. I am their worst nightmare even though I don't want this! I'm going to be killed if I walk into a town!" I backed away from him, shouting as I did.
Mary looked on in panic, she was more worried for Erron than she was for me. Erron was someone she picked up along her way, I was just some freak now. I was right about being murdered as soon as I walked into a town like Riverwood or Morthal. If I so much as ventured near a camp, Imperal or Stormcloak I would be murdered. Hiding would be the only way I would be able to live. Perhaps to join the dragur would be a better fate than to be killed for the new appendages I had.
Erron soon realised this, he knew I was right. I could see the realisation in his face, the watering in his eyes. Not long after I saw this, he charged into me and hugged me. Although he was trying to hold it back, it wasn't enough as I could feel the tears streaming down his face and into my robes.
"What will you do Kung? I can't imagine you living alone like some side of hermit for the rest of your life." Mary visually worried.
She had a point, living on my own, only expecting the odd bandit to come by my hiding spot every so often sounded like hell to me. Living in Oblivion would be a better alternative.
"I could join the Vampire hunters. What life I have left, I wont use it for this war." I began to struggle to hold back my emotions.
"Dawnguard? I couldn't take you there." Mary looked down.
"I don't need you to." My tone had broken as I hugged Erron back.
"You're needed here to defend against the dragons." I spoke what I hoped to be the last of the conversation.
Erron had began to cry aloud now, as if he'd lost hope for me. What got me was that Erron was actually crying even though we hadn't seen each other in so long, we'd given up hope on each other long ago. I supposed that it was that he was losing me again, one of his only friends.
"It's alright Erron, I have to go." I helped him let go of me.
"Please, come back. I don't want you to die." Erron grabbed my robes.
"I'll try Erron." I promised him.
I turned to look at Mary and spoke one last thing to her.
"Take care of Erron." I smiled slightly.
My wings stretched out and carried me into the air and was carried off with the wind to Fort Dawnguard. I only hoped that they did not mistake me for a dragon or worse, a vampire.