AN: I tried to make this chapter longer than the others I have uploaded since I haven't updated in a long while. I am also presently surprised at the amount of people who have favorited this story, watching it, or both. This wouldn't be possible without you! Your comments, reviews, favs, all help me keep my inspiration going when my muse tries to run off without me.
I will speed things up in the next chapter, but I wanted to set the basis for the rest of the story arc. Rest assured, this will not turn into a Mary-Sue/PC relationship. Those things tend to bug me. Anyway, the guilds will pop up periodically.
Also kids, we discover that for the minor price of giving your soul to one of the Daedric Princes, you are rewarded with a rather luxurious protection plan... As long as you don't tick them off, of course.
And the song for this chapter is: Lights out by Breaking Benjamin
"After the lights go out on you
After your worthless life is through
I will remember how you scream
I can't afford to care
I can't afford to care..."
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Panic makes you do incredibly stupid things, more so if you have four legs all trying to go in a different direction. You would think I would have learned my lesson when I panicked and turned to a Daedra for help. Maybe if I were my father's son, I would have done something heroic and come flying out of the inn with Umbra clenched in my jaws.
But, I am no hero, and I did exactly what any sensible person would have done in my situation. I went limp and tried to roll over onto my back, pointedly ignoring Vile's tantrum. I believe he shrieked something about having a spine with the strength of a jellyfish. To be honest, I didn't see how criticizing himself was going to help matters. Eventually he switched to a language I didn't understand and I was able to turn down his chatter into something resembling mental white-noise.
I felt an odd tingling in the tips of my toes, but fear, and whoever had my collar, prevented me from looking down. The sensation grew worse, as did the black dots forming in my field of vision. They were joined by bright white sparks that made me blink in an attempt to get rid of them. Something deep in my brain calmly stated that I was suffering from the lack of air, that same voice mentioning that in another minute or so I would be quite dead.
My seemingly dormant anger flared, more from indignation than anything else. Being Clavicus' door mat was one thing, but when everyone else wanted to stomp on me, it just riled my damaged ego. My rage focused on the offending band of leather and steel, now digging into the flesh of my neck, as the hair along my spine rose. A faint cooking smell caught my attention, as did the acrid scent of burning leather. I narrowed my eyes and concentrated harder, bringing my focus until it was an emotionally charged fireball.
I held it until I could barely see the room and my body went cold and numb, then I simply let go. The singing of leather suddenly turned into a scream and the sizzle of flesh against hot steel, and the air took on the pleasant scent of bacon cooking over an open fire. The pressure against my neck vanished and I did an awkward, twisting leap to the side as my lungs greedily sucked in air. I saw a faint trail of smoke following me and I allowed myself the dog version of a smile.
My captor happened to be a Dunmer clad in worn leather armor, his right hand held up in from of his wide red eyes. The woman who had stolen Umbra had taken a defensive stance, oblivious to her nearly transparent shift, her ebony dagger gleaming in the low candle light. My silver eyes flicked between the two, hackles raised in a silent growl.
I needn't have bothered. The pair seemed more occupied with the male's seared hand than me. My expression shifted to something that would have been called "shifty" if I were a man or mer. And they still weren't paying attention to Umbra. How dense could they be?
Impatiently, I darted forward, this time between the mer's legs as I snatched the weapon's crappy leather sheath, sailing over his prone form, mentally laughing when I felt the end of the sheath slam against his jaw. He had enough sense to grab for the sword and I almost was jerked in a complete circle when my momentum failed to drag his heavy body. I landed on all four feet like a cat, most of the hair on my body standing on end. I could have released the sword and gone for his throat, but I was more interested in the sword.
I tugged as hard as I could, easily twice as strong as the Dunmer. I yanked him off his feet twice, and he finally settled on digging his feet against the cracked stone floor. My neck ached from the vicious twists and tugs that I tried, doing my best to wrench it out of his hands, or at least the sheath.
A few minutes passed in this stalemate before I noted that the Arena champion hadn't buried her dagger in my thick skull. It was her quiet laughter that I heard when the Dunmer released the sword and let me scuttle backwards with my prize. I thought they had finally seen reason, backing my way out until my rear came into contact with the closed door.
The locked and closed door.
I almost panicked, but I kept my teeth clamped on Umbra. I stared hard at the woman with my silver eyes, willing her to open the door. She simply walked over to the Dunmer, whose name seemed to be Sicraten, and inspected the wounds on his palm. Her face grew even more like stone and she glanced at me again. Her partner kept pestering her to tell him whose symbol was branded into his flesh.
"It makes sense now," she muttered, her blue eyes flicking between me, the sword, and the yammering Sicraten. "I was a fool to think Clavicus would let me get away with Umbra." Her expression was more pensive than regretful, and I pinned my ears when Sicraten began whining about having a Daedric Prince's mark permanently etched into his skin.
Shouldn't have grabbed my collar, you s'wit, I thought, not ashamed in the least about what I'd done.
"Still, the Grey Fox needs a powerful Daedric artifact, and I just happen to have one." That last bit almost made me drop the sword, and even managed to (briefly) silence her Dunmer partner. I took a closer look at the insignia on the dark-skinned elf and wanted to kick myself for my ignorance. Of course the Thieves' Guild would be involved. Everyone, including myself, thought they were something that the Captain obsessed about. There was always the possibility they existed, though one of my many boring conversations with Vile informed me otherwise. He even hinted that some of their present issues were due to theft.
I think I was beginning to see a pattern here.
Her light footsteps broke my train of thought and I crouched down even lower, my silent snarls filling the room with tension. She stopped three paces away, hands in a placating pose.
"But, you're not Barbas. He was rather chatty, and you haven't even so much as yelped." She tried to move closer, but I bristled and moved further away, slipping down the dank stone wall towards her bed. "I'm not sure who, or what you are though. You don't seem like a Dremora, yet you bear Clavicus' seal on your collar. You even seem to be under his protection."
Lucky me, I rolled my eyes, already irritated at stating the obvious. If this was the Arena champion, her mental processes left much to be desired. Maybe she had been hit on the helmet one too many times?
Her expression changed to something of surprise and I wondered if Vile had allowed me to communicate through telepathy. That would certainly make things a lot easier.
"I'm not as daft as you seem to think," She said, her voice tinged with embarrassment. I cocked an invisible eyebrow and tilted my head.
This had gotten… Interesting, to say the least.
"My name is Valaina,"
And I should care, why? I thought, my "voice" tinged with suppressed anger and impatience. If I don't get this, and you, back to…. Him, I'm going to be a lot worse off than you will be."Wait, you're mortal?" The girl's face adopted an incredulous expression.
Was.
I didn't understand why I was chatting with her about my past as if we were two good friends talking over a pint of mead. Did I really miss normal interactions that badly?
"I'm taking that sword. Give it back."
Give it back? You STOLE it in the first place, you stupid, yellow-haired, brain-dead excuse for a Breton! My anger made me splutter a bit at the end, almost ruining the insult. I'm not the one who made a deal and broke it. At least one of us has some sense of honor, and it's pathetic that they are not a warrior.Her eyebrows crumpled her forehead and she obviously resisted the urge to fight back. Eventually she let her agitation wash out in a deep exhalation, pointedly ignoring the fact that Sicraten's jaw had dropped when Valaina started talking to a dog.
"He's only using you, and I think we both know that."
Regardless, I'm not giving it back. I ran for her bed, darting underneath it with loud scratches of claw against stone. I backed until my rear was against the stone wall and I could see out the front and sides of the furniture. Now nobody was getting near me without losing fingers.
The only problem I had now was figuring out how I was going to get out.
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All right kids, you know the drill. If you have any plot suggestions, character suggestions, or anything else I might even be remotely interested in, please let me know! I can't read your minds! Or maybe I can, but I think you'd find that to be rather rude of me XD
