NOT MUCH TO SAY, JUST REVIEW!


Keys opening a lock with a clenching sound, metal hitting against metal and a door being opened.

Aslyan looked around, confused. His eyes could barely stay open, he was still half asleep.

All he saw were blurred individuals getting close to him, and he felt a tight press as they grabbed him by the arms and pulled him up. The blurry image quickly resolved into the faces of two monkeys, serious as they could be, dragging him out of his tiny cell.

"Man! They can never leave me company!" exclaimed Neridas, who was watching the show from his cell at the other side.

"Wh… what are they doing to me?" Aslyan asked, feeling his mouth dry and his head pumping blood like crazy. The dizziness he was having was not at all normal.

"It's always like this. I finally get someone to talk to and they kill them right away" He complained, talking to himself furiously.

"What do you mean kill?" Aslayn's body was numbed, he could not move a single muscle. His mind could not focus at all and his senses were out of place. "What are you talking about, man?"

Slowly his mind figured out he had been drugged, probably it had been the meal they gave him as dinner. The pair of monkeys kept carrying him like a sack of food. They were at the end of the platform, and started to descend.

"Goodbye, my friend. It was good to share my story with you." Neridas said, as he disappeared out of vision, protected inside his cell.

Goodbye? What were they doing with him?

The Tang Mo quickly reached the platform beneath the cells, and continued walking. They crossed various levels of bridges, and Aslyan, as much as he tried, could not shake the dizziness off his head; the drug was way too powerful.

A large crowd was beginning to form behind him. They were following them, as if there was going to be some kind of show. How was he related to all of this?

The drug's effect eventually faded away, but the results were terrible. His stomach suddenly felt like it was upside down, and he felt the necessity to vomit. For a few seconds the world around him and the continuously louder sound that the crowd made were completely scrambled in his brain.

When his consciousness finally cleared out, he saw that he was tied to a beam, in the middle of a very large platform. The shapes and sound started to make sense again, and this time he felt he regained the control over his body, although the tie in the pole he was in made it impossible for him to escape.

"Smart monkeys" he thought at loud. They knew he was stronger than them so they drugged him so that he could not escape.

Now that he was conscious again, he saw all of them watching him, in the middle of a large arena. They were making a show out of him, and they were all staring. The memory of a word that had been mentioned by Neridas struck his mind with a strike.

Sacrifice.

He gulped. Was his end really going to be this way?

The king monkey appeared in front of him, walking with the help of his wooden decorated staff. It had two carved dragons on both sides.

The king talked in his language to all of his people, and at some point he raised his staff and pointed at Aslyan with it, talking loudly and rudely. Everybody cheered and that made Aslyan more scared than he would dare to admit.

When he finished his speech, he backed off and hid behind some sort of cover. At this point he started making the ritual, talking strange words while the others made noises with their hands and feet. Aslyan waited for more than a couple of minutes, which seemed to be hours in the situation he was in.

The commotion grew larger and larger, and in the final seconds his own voice would be almost inaudible.

Then everyone fell silent, and all the noise disappeared as if it had never existed.

Aslyan saw as, in front of him, a large and tall space started to break in mid air, the sides of his vision separating as if someone had drawn a line of paint, and a wound was created.

The insides of the wound were a mixture of purple and black, shaking violently like it wanted to spread out of the edges. The patch of paint started to grow, taller and taller, until it reached the height of two humans on top of each other.

And when the wound widened, the outsides barely fitting inside the arena, a large shape started to take form and emerged out of the wound.

The figure was white, blurry at first, and then it started to round up, eventually taking the shape of a human with a cape covering his body, his head beneath a hood. The shape started to shrink down and took a step to the front.

The final details started to form up, and just in front of Aslyan ended up the body of a young, slender woman, with a smile on her face. When she removed the hood out of her head, Aslyan saw how beautiful she was. She had a long, dark hair that fell all the way down her chest, same height as him, green penetrating eyes, and the grin in her lips showed that she was happy with what she was seeing.

The magic wound closed behind her and disappeared.

"Oh, a human." She was surprised, and the way Aslyan stared at her made her smile even more. "It has been a while since I don't see one of your race in this place. I see that this continent is now full of them."

"I…" Aslyan could not express himself.

"Oh, look! He is stuttering!" She touched his lower chin, just where his new beard was growing. "Are you nervous, mortal? Are you afraid of what is going to happen? Don't you worry, creature. I am sure you will be fine."

She snapped her fingers and time seemed to stop completely. Aslyan looked around. The public was still, with their eyes concentrated on the woman in the middle of the platform, not moving at all. When he stared back she was still directly looking at him.

"What… who are you?" He asked.

"Many people know me as Meridia, in your human language, although my name is other, and not many mortals in this world can pronounce it." She got her mouth close his ear. "Sah'vinna Dashi'v" she whispered, and a chill ran through Aslyan's spine. The word had so much power in it. He repeated it to himself and every time he did another hundred feelings invaded his body.

So, she was one of the Daedric princes. He had heard very little about her, and he only knew she was know because of being beautiful, not much else.

"What do you want from me?"

"Oh, I want so many things from you. There is something you have that many other mundane creatures don't." She walked slowly around the pole he was tied to. "You have power."

"I'm not the only one that has power."

"It's not that kind of power I want." She said and once again whispered in his ear, making him shiver "You have the dragon blood running through your veins."

"I'm not sure I still have it."

"Oh, boy, you do, and it's more powerful than ever before, I can assure you."

"How can I give it to you? Will you let me free if I do?" Aslyan asked, his voice shaking.

"Humans, humans, always full of questions." She replied and let out a slight laugh. "No, kid. It is not that simple. It's never that way." She raised one of her fingers, and a large nail was created out of thin air. With it, she cut the rope that had tied Aslyan to the pole. He thanked her, but she did not listen. Instead, she examined him, floating around him a few times. He did not try to escape; it would be useless against a Daedric Prince, so he remained in the same position and stretched out his arms.

"So are you going to kill me for my powers, then?"

"Kill you?" She exclaimed and laughed loudly, stunning him. "If there is one thing that you must know about me is that I dislike death. I would prefer that every mortal lived forever. It would make for a more intelligent, wiser community." The laugh faded away, and she showed a more serious face. "No, no, human. I would not enjoy seeing you dead. This is the thing; the dragon blood running through your veins is currently… let's put it this way, "stuck". All you need to do is get it flowing again."

"How?"

"Easy! Just absorb a dragon soul, that's all."

"Dragons are extinct. How am I going to do that?"

"Oh, creature. You are more mistaken than you think. Things don't just "go extinct". Extinction is a powerful word, and should not be used in the wrong situations." She said and turned around. "Look around, honey. Look at where you are. This is not even a challenge for you, not at all compared with the things you have lived and experienced."

"So, how am I supposed to find a dragon? What do I do?"

"You don't do anything. Destiny will carry you through every correct turn. You don't need to move a single finger. Just flow with the river."

The wound started to emerge once again, with purple and black shades.

"Can't you help me?"

"It is not my job to help you. I can't and I won't. Now, all I can do is wish you good luck."

She started to fade away through the million layers on the wound.

"Thank you" Aslyan said and the purple figure completely disappeared, leaving no trace behind.

Suddenly, the time came back to normal, and the entire arena was reactivated again. Aslyan looked at himself, now free of the ties that held him to the poles, and the pieces of ripped rope on the ground.

And as multiple Tang Mo started to scream of surprise, he started to run.