The passing of night into day did not help to ease her mind. Although the initial chain of thoughts which put her into this foul mood had evaporated, the grim feelings they left behind yet hung over her like the clots of mist on the stale water they trudged through. Serana bit back a curse as her ears registered the sound of Cedric's waterlogged boots sloshing in the mire behind her.

The tide had not been kind to the footpaths that wound through the coastal marsh.

Tiny ripples that came not from her own nor Cedric's footfalls spattered against the murky surface of the water. A few pinpricks of cold droplets smacked against her face, just strong enough to register on the numbed skin of her cheeks. Beautiful. It was fucking raining now too.

She glanced back at Cedric, memories of the previous morning coming to mind as a wayward strand of her thoughts managed to recognize that he'd not eaten since. His hair dangled in front of his face in moist clumps of black locks, the light downpour of rain already setting its shallow claws on his figure. The dim blue eyes behind them looked up at her quietly.

"Hungry?" She called out softly over the din of splashing water. She did her best to fight back a grimace as he nodded.

She craned her neck back around in line with her body, not slowing in her stride through the ankle-deep water as she surveyed their surroundings. Finding another mudcrab could be tricky- unless she was lucky enough to literally trip over one, she'd have to scour the banks of mud underneath the rippling murk for any sign of them. Either that, or double back closer towards shore where they'd be more visible.

Neither option seemed appealing- or feasible, given her intended timetable. But finding somewhere dry to leave Cedric first took priority regardless of what she went with.

It so happened that her keen eyes spotted a platform of man-shaped planks sitting on the water, just a few dozen strides ahead. The wood was a sturdy tan shade amongst the blurs of browns and greys of the marsh, a stout pine tree standing close to it on a small mound of mud. It could be just what they needed.

As she angled her path towards it however, she noticed the water splashing higher against the skirt of her robes. She looked down, and found indeed that it had risen up to her ankles, loosely tugging at the thick black cloth.

She held up a hand, open palm facing Cedric behind her in a gesture to keep him from coming closer. The splash of his footsteps slowed to a stop a comfortable distance away from her.

"I'm gonna go check out that platform over there," she called out, still keeping her eyes trained on her surroundings. Taking note of the sparse tree coverage, the significant distance between her and their black trunks signalling where the land rose out of water. Too far for her liking. She wasn't sure how long Cedric could last trudging through the water while hungry- though it hardly registered with her now, memories from long ago reminded her of just how cold it could still be in Hjaalmarch. They'd have to take their chances with this platform. "Water's a little deep on approach, so stay back until I can figure out a path."

"Oh… alright. Be safe, yeah?"

She nodded, though she wasn't sure if he could see her do so. Her own safety wasn't exactly at the forefront of her mind though, as her boots kicked up clouds of mud that swam around the hem of her skirt. She found herself silently thanking her mother for leaving her with a fairly sturdy set of travelling robes- the royal red cloth of her garments underneath would be spared from the brunt of the mire for now. It was a shame that the same could not be said for her boots. She could feel the grime of the swamp slowly pooling under and around her feet, wet debris chafing against her toes.

It was but a small discomfort, but given the circumstances, any discomfort was incredibly unwelcome.

She kept her eyes downwards, trying her best to discern footing from pitfall beyond the muddled reflection of herself and the overcast skies. Her feet probed the waters in front of her steadily and slowly, the faintly moist ends of her toes inside her boots sensing for what her eyes could not see.

It wasn't as bad as she'd thought. She looked up after a slow minute or two of waddling, the platform she had her eyes on now more clearly propped up on a very slight incline rising out of the water. Strands of drowned and muddied grass poked out from underneath its subtly curved surface. Her head tilted as she got a better look at the structure, the rounded cavity of what was now registering to her as a ship hull's porthole coming into view amongst the wet cracks etched into the wood.

Must have been quite the tide for it to have washed up here. Whatever wreckage it might've come from was nowhere in sight.

She made it past the final few steps between her and the mud it sat upon without incident, her skirt trailing rivulets of brackish liquid onto the platform as she hoisted herself up on her right leg. Cautious as ever though, she gave the wood a few firm taps with her boots, listening to the creaks that ran up and down the striated fibres beyond the thudding impacts.

Sturdy. She supposed it would have had to been to be part of a ship.

She wasn't sure if it was the fatigue getting to her, or the fucking dreary weather, but there was something else… off, about it, that she wasn't quite as certain about. She held off from signalling Cedric over, loathe as she was to leave him soaking in the swamp for longer like a flaccid washcloth.

Her eyes scanned the cracks in the wood, ugly and twisted, but not threatening to break the entire structure apart. She followed them up towards the rim of the porthole, and it was only then that she saw that the porthole in question rung itself around a slope which wound deeper under the planks she stood on, deep enough to be shrouded in shadow.

A cold lump registered in her stomach, a sure sign that her body was trying to warn her sluggish mind against tarrying. But her mind, ever so inquisitive, compelled her to investigate further. Her feet anchored her down from moving any closer though, and so it was that her eyes narrowed to peer closer at the porthole.

The edges of the wood were calloused. Small rents were carved into the otherwise smooth frame, cutting too deeply to be wrought by any storm.

And then she heard a chittering sound from beneath her.

Oh shit.

The clacking tapped upon the taut senses in her ears, muffled as it was by the wood between her and its source. Slowly, she eased her left boot back, wincing at the creaks it sent rumbling through as the clambering of chitin drew closer to the porthole.

It was good that she splashed back into the water when she did, steely nerves overriding her sense for delicacy and driving her dead muscles in a frantic retreat. The wood she stood upon moments ago lurched upwards as a pair of wicked black mandibles, thick as her arms and serrated like a dremora's blade, ripped through, hungrily gnawing at splinters which were melting in a soup of inky fluid.

"Sera!"

"Stay back!" Serana called out to Cedric as she hastily backpedaled. Her boots sloshed loudly through the water, the uneven mud tugging at her heels with every step. She rolled her arms in slow, graceful motions in stark contrast to her legs, letting centuries of latent magicka course through to her fingertips. This clearly wasn't just any mudcrab she could handle with a dagger.

A sharp crack rang across the water like a peal of thunder as the creature in question forced its head through the opening it had torn for itself. Beady blue eyes twinkled in the steadying drizzle of rain as it strained to pull the rest of its body out against the creaking ship hull that rung around its neck.

It was with a pang of disgust that she managed to match the creature's four-legged profile with something she'd seen in a bestiary from studies long ago, the chaurus breaking free of its wooden binds in a grotesque display of skittering legs and convulsing chitin. Its fat tail trailed out sluggishly, the pincers at its end dragging pieces of sundered wood along with it.

She starkly remembered the artist's illustrations from the book, as though it were etched into pristine parchment- the repugnance that it had inspired in her as a child was nothing compared to the gut-twisting abhorrence welling in her now. The chaurus stood almost as tall and wide as a cavalry horse, minute motions in its flesh rippling across the slick surface of its armored hide.

The currents of magickal power within her arms reached a crescendo, manifesting as a ball of arcing electricity in her palm- yet she held off from striking the creature, also slowing her retreat into a quiet glide over the mud.

A small part of her mind tempered the revulsion lighting the ends of her skin on fire with a puzzling sense of wonderment as she watched it idle upon its perch for a moment, the luminescent orbs that were its eyes seeming to be lost in scanning the mire around it. A thick neck held its head high, segmented plates heaving as it held a posture that could have almost come off as noble had it been any other creature.

The words that she could recall reading about chaurus had said that they dwelled in only the deepest and darkest of underground recesses. She reckoned the hole that it had crawled out of couldn't have been any deeper than a coffin's resting place. And the marks on the chunk of derelict ship hull seemed to suggest that this particular specimen had purposely dragged the wood over its shallow lair with those wicked pincers.

Had it been stranded in the marsh somehow?

A hoarse scream pierced the moist air after a tense moment of silence, the churning sound of thrashing limbs in water behind her following quickly in suit.

Panic flared in her chest at the noise, the voice, shrill and twisted by fear as it was undoubtedly that of Cedric. She couldn't tell without looking back if he'd somehow been attacked or simply overcome with terror at the sight before him. Yet she did not dare look away from the chaurus when its eerie blue gaze snapped towards her, its mandibles rattling together in a dangerous cacophony that seemed to reverberate through her bones. Black liquid dripped out of its mouth, the droplets that fell onto the wood at the base of its pointed legs eating through fibre with worrying ease.

The text had also said that a chaurus could launch a dangerous fluid from its mouth- but could only postulate whether it was venomous or corrosive. She supposed the melting wood beneath the creature certainly supported the latter. Serana wasn't keen on testing if the former part of the theory also happened to be true.

She couldn't gamble on her abilities to swiftly dodge any such attack in the restraining mire that her feet and robes were anchored in. Neither did she hold out any hope for retreating peacefully anymore.

The surge of thoughts zipped through her dreary mind in a matter of fractions of a second, threatening to send her body back into a gravelike rigor.

One stood out from the murky flood that churned through her mind, dire enough for her to snap to a firm decision.

Cedric's safety had to take precedence.

She dared to glance behind her only after she sent the chaurus staggering to the ground with a vicious lance of conjured lightning. Time seemed to move at a crawl as her overdriving senses took in the situation faster than she could even move. The chaurus loosed a warbling cry that echoed across the water, the unsettling agony laced into its tones joined by a high-pitched clambering of chitin as its legs scrabbled feebly for purchase on its platform.

Her mind put a bookmark on the warped rent that her attack had burned into the carapace between its eyes, the smoldering surface crawling past her eyes as her head continued its backwards pivot.

To her relief, she saw that Cedric was unharmed, still propped on his elbows after having stumbled in the mire beneath him.

With his safety assured, she turned back to the chaurus, its jagged legs quivering as they dug into the wood, trying to lift the bloated body they were tethered to back into the air. Her keen eyes managed to discern ashen smoke streaming out from one of the joints, the distinct smell of charred flesh lightly touching upon her nostrils.

Black acid streamed flaccidly out from between its mandibles, pooling beneath it like blood. Its glossy blue eyes betrayed none of the torment that the rest of its figure was wracked with, glaring emptily at her and the magickal crystals of ice now swirling into existence in her palm.

She didn't hesitate in striking it this time. A spear of ice shot out from her outstretched hand, slicing through the falling rain and piercing through the weakened armor on the chaurus' head with a sharp crack.

Her limbs slackened and fell to her sides, tension rushing out of her body in tandem with the creature's body limply collapsing on the driftwood. Swampwater mixed with the acid from its mouth in inky swirls that faintly reminded her of eerie paintings in her mother's study.

The light faded from the chaurus' eyes, and its pained wails finally gave way to the pitter-patter of rain falling on still carapace.

0-0-0

It had been hiding a clutch of eggs under the ship hull. She'd caught sight of them through the holes burned and torn through the ravaged wood planks, glowing with the same pale blue luminescence that had come from their dead guardian's eyes.

Now they fizzled over a fire, cooking on a grisly plate of chitin she'd wrested off the chaurus.

Her father taught her to make use of as much as she could of a creature after a kill. For her to have just left the eggs there, most likely to die without shelter or an overseer, would have been… wasteful. Disrespectfully so. Something about it still sat bitterly with Serana though, and it didn't have anything to do with the fact that she'd probably never hear her father say anything about 'respect' again.

Absentmindedly, she prodded at the things with a dry branch, the thin membrane around them faintly browning. The aromas it gave off weren't entirely unpleasant.

She'd done as much as she could for whatever she couldn't salvage from the chaurus' corpse. The bestiary she could so clearly remember reading warned against consuming its sickly yellow flesh- and though they said nothing for the white meat of its belly, she hadn't been willing to test its edibility. The thin, translucent film that still seemed to pulse against its flesh certainly hadn't helped convince her otherwise.

So she'd burned it. Cremated it atop the wooden planks, the blaze she had lit flaring with an intensity that had even given her some pause, despite the rainfall. She supposed it had brought her back to the paralyzing fear she used to feel when first learning to harness fire, when the lashing tongues of orange would uncontrollably turn on her undead flesh and come close enough to cast stinging embers on her skin.

It was a far cry from the flickering little flame in front of her and Cedric.

Serana glanced up at the man, his head hunched over in a miserable drench of rainwater and mud. They hadn't said anything to each other on the long trek away from the chaurus' nest to the tree they squatted under now.

On his part, she could only guess why. But given his utterly forlorn posture, she imagined he must've felt shameful over- what? Getting some exotic, if admittedly repulsive, creature killed? Caking himself in cold mud? Scaring the shit out of her?

He should. For all those things.

She did her best to hide the unexpected frustration that had suddenly flared in her like a burgeoning inferno, tried to present the same gentle, ever-patient porcelain mask on her face to him. But clamming those feelings up inside of her, heaving against the walls of her body like the blue yolks of those eggs bulging against the caramelized membranes that held them in, only served to make hiding them more difficult. She didn't have to look into a mirror to know that her lips, usually wearing an inviting smile, now bore a stony frown that yearned to twist into a snarl.

This isn't going to work, the thought rang again in her head.

She should've said something to him. Anything, just to get her mind off of things. Get his mind off things. It didn't even have to come down to expressing the disappointment she felt with him- or with herself for thinking it would be so easy to take a feeble mortal under her wing.

Serana sighed, that simple expulsion of air seeming to be the last crack in the dam needed for it to burst.

It wasn't about Cedric at all. She couldn't bring herself to truly be angry with someone she'd only known for a few days, after all.

It always came back to her. Her fault for not backing off of that hellnest when she'd already known something wasn't quite right, her fault for not having the forethought to forage some more food for the rest of the journey, her fault for not keeping a closer eye on Cedric, her fault for needlessly butchering a fascinatingcreature that had been stranded on the surface, her fault for not stepping in between her parents when everything had gone to shit.

It took a moment to realize that the salty streak of water running down her cheek wasn't from the rain.

She made no motion to wipe away the tear. Even as another joined it in running down the crusty trail blazed by the first. She wasn't sure if she could hold it back if she spent another moment acknowledging the fact that she was on the verge of crying.

She inhaled shakily, the scents of burning wood and sizzling yolks amongst the rain and seawater flooding her reinvigorated senses in an intoxicating melange. Maybe there was still some human left in her after all.

Maybe it was her fault, maybe it wasn't. But this was her chance to make it all right- help Cedric out, set the record straight with her father. Find her mother. Gods only knew how it would all end, but she had to fucking try for once.

One of the eggs popped, sizzling blue fluid spilling onto the searing plate and quickly charring into a pale white. Cedric's ears must've perked up at the sound, either that or the smell of fried yolk was enough to stir up his appetite- she found his pale blue eyes, glossy with moisture, fixating themselves on the fire.

She supposed that was a good a sign as any that they were ready.