Chapter 14 - Rebirth
"Our Hero, our Hero, claims a warrior's heart
I tell you, I tell you, the Dragonborn comes
With a Voice wielding power of the ancient Nord arts
Believe, believe, the Dragonborn comes"
The Dragonborn was... dying.
Naively, Serana never thought she would have to face this reality, at least, not so soon.
Badump. Badump. Badump.
The vampire held her mortal friend, no longer denying the flood of tears that slipped down her cheeks, splashing against a quickly paling, unresponsive face. Her mouth tingled with the taste of the mortal's divine blood, the very blood the vampire had craved since the moment they met, though it was a bitter prick upon her tongue that she would rather spit to the stone floor instead.
Badump. Badump.
"Not like this..." The vampire choked on her breath, fingers grasping uselessly at the mortal's still body. Her throat raw due to her shameless sobbing, she bent forward to rest her forehead against the woman's feebly moving chest with a shuddering exhale.
"Not like this, dammit." The vampire's bloodied palm slithered down, grabbing blindly at the mortal's arm until she located another hand nearly as cold as her own. The Volkihar heiress wormed her fingers in between the woman's stiff ones, and squeezed.
Badump. Ba..dump.
She was given nothing in return, nothing but the heartbeat that had once thundered like a drum in her ears sounding with pathetic thumps. Serana swallowed her grief, though the tears continued to fall, her other hand shakily lifting to cradle the mortal's cooling cheek. She was disgusted that her palm would leave a red imprint when she pulled away.
Ba..dump.. Ba..dump..
With one last, sniffling breath, Serana quieted herself so that the frail thumps pulsing against her own cheek felt much louder. It was almost over.
The vampire held the mortal's hand in a tight, bone-crushing grip. The Dragonborn would not feel it. She would not feel her own life force slipping away as Serana so intimately did, it would be a peaceful death, the vampire had gifted her that much.
Ba..dump.. Ba...dump..
Serana slid her eyes shut, the last of her tears gliding free and catching in her lashes. No matter what mercy she had given, it did not change that fact that she had killed her. She had killed her. The mortal would be gone soon, yet the vampire would not be losing her, she'd be preserving her eternity... and yet it felt so incredibly awful.
Ba...dump..
Another aching breath leaving her lungs, the vampire forced herself upright, tearful red eyes traveling away from the mortal's chest to her peaceful face. She looked as lovely as ever, even with a newly made scar forming across the lid of her right eye and a split in her lip.
She almost appeared to be sleeping, with such an expression of tranquility. It was a small comfort, compared to her double-stabbed and still bleeding torso. The growing pool of red around her was sickening, even to a vampire.
Ba...
Serana's inhale caught in her throat as she trailed her tainted fingers lovingly down the Dragonborn's blood-covered cheek. It wasn't right, what she had done, it was selfish..
..dump..
The Dragonborn's final breath left her in a silence, leaving her body to settle as still as stone.
Serana stood hunched over a wooden table covered with various alchemic ingredients ranging from the fragile wing of a butterfly to a five-foot-long mammoth tusk, eyes combing intently through the small leather-bound journal laid open before her. It was her mother's journal, and the very room the Volkihar vampire had found herself in was her mother's study.
Locating it had been easy, getting to it had been the difficult part.
She had simply weaved through the halls of the keep unnoticed, restored a Moon Dial missing a few vital pieces, and waded through the skeleton, draugr, and feral-infested bowels of Volkihar Castle all while carrying the most precious cargo of the Era in her arms.
The journal had her rapt attention, the last few words she had looked over being "I've done it!" though Serana tore her eyes away from her mother's writing for a short moment to cast a glance to her right.
Her mother's dust-caked bookshelves, filled to the ends of each shelf with tomes of all genres, covered the walls of the alcove in that familiar, lone corner.
The armchair Serana had once enjoyed sinking into with a good story in hand was now pushed to the center of the study, to make space for the tattered rug she had pulled to the corner from the middle the room. Upon that rug, laid what appeared to be a corpse, and essentially, it was.
The Dragonborn, two red puncture marks marring the once untouched skin of her neck.
Serana didn't fight the sorrow that dropped into her stomach like a stone at the sight of it. What have I done..?
Focus! You can worry about that later.. at least.. she's still here. With an angry shake of her head, the Volkihar vampire screwed her eyes shut as she returned her gaze to the journal. The words were a welcome distraction from her past actions, they gave her a purpose, something to drive toward until the inevitable was upon her.
"Finely ground bone meal.." Her index finger trailed along the time-worn pages over the dried ink of her mother's words as she murmured under her breath. "Purified void salts, and..."
Serana's head shot up, glancing worriedly about the room for the items the list presented her. Soul gem shards. They landed on a shelf to her left, its top surface covered in crystal-like pieces of soul gems.
All ingredients needed to open a portal to the Soul Cairn, at least according to Valerica. The cherry on top would be Serana's own blood to sustain it long enough for the vampire to successfully enter, and leave, hopefully.
Serana abandoned the table to stride toward the soul-gem covered shelf at the foot of the stairs to the second level of the laboratory. She gathered a handful of shards in her palm, and crouching, took a look at the lower shelf of the wardrobe.
Bowls lined it, the misty fog of ectoplasm, crackling fire salts, frost salts, and disturbingly enough, vampire dust. The Volkihar heiress sifted past the bowls with her free hand, shoving them aside to reach what she was after.
Finely ground bone meal, and soul gem shards. Serana returned to the journal's table, letting the shards fall from her hand to form a pile on its surface. She placed the bowl on the opposite side of the open journal.
"Purified void salts.." The vampire spoke quietly to herself, turning away from the book once more to look around the cluttered room.
There was no telling where they might be, the study was filled to the brim with components of all kinds. Valerica had spent many years collecting it all, and while Serana had been interested in the work her mother did, she knew little of alchemy. Her mother had taught her the ways necromancy, so the young Serana's concern had only been for her mother's miniature library. It didn't help that she hadn't set foot inside this study for over a millennia.
Serana ventured to the small staircase leading up the second floor, fingers gliding along the stone railing as she climbed. She would find those salts, and she would open that portal, all to see Valerica again..
She began with the closest wardrobe, though all she discovered on and within it were bear claws, bird feathers, and an assorted bunch of small animals' bones.
Moving past the balcony, which fell off from the ledge to the strange stone-rings below, Serana approached the lone bookcase on the far wall. It had more bowls and ingredients on it than books; Serana delicately held a Deathbell flower in her hand when she felt an urge to check up on the comatose woman she had left on the lower floor.
The vampire set the deadly violet flower back to its place on the shelf as she peered down the ledge to the bookcases.
Unmoving, still she lay in the very same place and position Serana had left her in. Dead, she looked dead, pale as the full moon, shadowed eye sockets, and the growing gauntness of her cheeks. It had been a day at least, a full day since Serana had brought her here, and a full day Serana had waited for a corpse to come back to life.
With a soft exhale, the vampire went back to her search.
What if.. what if it didn't work? She shifted to the shorter wardrobe adjacent to the shelves. What if I was too late? Serana lifted a stray book laying on its top, leaving a spotless imprint on its dust-covered surface. No. She slammed it back down, producing a puff of the stuff back into her face. With a grimace, the vampire back-stepped, waving the musty air off with her hand.
"It'll be fine. She'll be fine." She couldn't help but speak aloud, throwing another glance across the study at her unconscious friend. Her words were heavy with uncertainty.
She was sure she did all she could to keep the Dragonborn 'alive', so to speak, she just needed more time.
Serana's eye was caught by an impressive, glittering silver stand.
The woman had suffered a great deal of physical trauma, her body was just repairing itself, that must have been it, right?
The vampire approached the stand, where a wide bowl perched on top of it. It seemed to be made entirely of pure silver, and inside was a pile of purplish crystalline bits.
Void salts. Serana's index finger skimmed the substance's surface, the tiny salts gathering beneath her fingernail.
The two fatal stab wounds that had been the end of the woman had already disappeared; Serana had discovered this several hours ago, it left a gash in the leather of her armor that exposed the Dragonborn's skin. A faint discolored mark had been there, a scar. The cut across her right eye had closed up as well, but like her other wounds, a scar remained.
They were good signs, really. She was healing, and soon enough she would awaken.
Serana swiped an empty bowl from the bottom of the upper level bookcase, and back at the silver bowl, she scooped up some of the salts before descending back down the stairs.
She wished with all her might for the woman to return to her, and yet, the Volkihar heiress also dreaded the moment. She was not prepared to face her friend, and what she had done.
The Dragonborn was just so.. so.. important to her. She couldn't stand to be without her, but her decision.. would the woman think the same? Was Serana as dear to her heart as she was to the vampire's? This wasn't like deciding which bread to buy from the markets, this was taboo to most mortals. She was going to be a vampire, a "nocturnal monster that preyed on the innocent".
Unaware of the frown she wore, Serana stopped, back at the table where Valerica's journal and the other two components were. She rid herself of the bowl of void salts, nearly dumping all its contents to the wooden surface in her frustrated stupor. It met the tabletop with a thud, some of the salts spilling free.
How was she going to react? She had died, Serana was certain that it would the first thing on her mind the second the woman regained consciousness. She had died, but hadn't? There was going to be hell to pay, that Serana knew for a fact. She had done something unforgivable, something selfish, thinking only for herself..
And.. what if..
What if the Dragonborn had still been conscious enough to feel Serana's lips on her own?
Instantly, Serana's entire body was burning, and she was thankful that her undead status didn't allow her skin to flush.
That's! That's not the important thing here! With a muffled crack, Serana slapped both palms over her cheeks, hunching at the edge of the table. Her lips thinned, pressing together tightly.
Gods.. She really was in love with this woman, wasn't she?
The Dragonborn was someone she could very easily have fallen for, Serana realized, and she had. She had fallen so hard, and it was all that woman's fault. She had not done it consciously of course, and Serana couldn't really blame her, but...
She was one of kind, a ray of brooding sunshine in this terrible world, with her sheer selflessness and will to assist anyone that she possibly could. Behind that blank expression Serana knew that the Dragonborn was someone who cared, someone who cared very deeply about everyone.
Not for one second did Serana ever regret having met the Dragonborn.
The vampire splayed her palms to the uncovered spaces of the table in front of her with a heavy exhale, leaning forward and casting a shadow over the journal. She skimmed over the paragraph she had read before bringing together all of the ingredients, though her mind was elsewhere.
Also.. Serana had never created a fledgling. Between her father's oppressive stance on who she should and shouldn't associate herself with based of their "royal blood", Serana had decided it to be too much of a hassle to even attempt. To have another being reborn through her blood.. through her mother it had been explained as an incredibly intimate bond.
The Dragonborn would be her first fledgling, that is if she even woke. Her first fledgling, her first mortal friend, her first true love..
Damn this woman. The vampire closed her eyes, fingers curled over the edge of the table as she stood straight.
But that's not fair, she's done nothing wrong. Nothing wrong at all.
Serana kept like that, forcing the steady rise and fall of her chest, breathing through her nose as she tried reigning in the anxiety twisting her stomach into knots and prickling goosebumps down her skin.
She was unsure how low she stayed like this, soothing herself with empty, reassuring thoughts until a sense of clarity washed over her. However, all the vampire's work was unraveled the moment it pulsed in her ears. A heartbeat, a rapid one, a familiar one.
The vampire practically leapt from her post at the front of the small table, the entire thing shuddering on its thin legs as Serana launched herself backward.
She's back! Her boots scuffed on the ancient stone floor as she scrambled rather ungracefully for the shelf-covered corner where the Dragonborn was stirring at last.
Serana skidded to a stop, collapsing to her knees by the woman's side. The Dragonborn was breathing erratically, eyes screwed shut, pale hands clawing at her abdomen where the stab wounds in her abdomen had once been.
Fueled by her own excitement, Serana trapped the weaker pair of hands underneath her own, the other reaching up to grasp onto the woman's shoulder.
The touch was met with a flinch from the Dragonborn, whose terrified red eyes snapped open with a sharp gasp. The woman tried lurching forward, though Serana forced her flat on her back by the hand on her shoulder.
The Dragonborn's breath cut short very suddenly. Serana tried holding in her gasp, but failed.
She peered down in the eyes of a monster. Unnatural, dangerous red eyes that had no place where they were, a slitted pupil staring right back at her.