Her body still bobbed with the waves behind her, an uncertain rigor locking her knees up as she took a step onto solid earth. Grimy treads dug into a layer of slick pebbles, anchoring her listing body to the ground.
A breeze grazed over her cheeks, loose locks of her hair tickling at her skin.
Her chin tilted up, eyes scanning up over a solitary archway jutting out from the shore. The stone that composed it moldered in frost and salt, streaks of desiccated seaweed hanging from its frame like rotting flesh on bones.
In its shadow, a footpath stamped out from dozens of old boot prints wound up towards the cliff wall. Her gaze snaked along the rocky path carved into the cliffside, threading between the stunted remnants of ramparts that leaned against the wall.
At the precipice of that treacherous path, the drab slopes of thatched rooftops peeked out over empty and shattered stone walls. The orange torchlight up there shone feebly under the night sky, its dim light enveloping masonry that bore decades of decay and neglect.
The College stood in near isolation from the rest of the once-great city. Its glass tapestries glowed with a faint frosty green, held up by towers of deep, earthy stone that loomed over the sea. The bridge that connected its solitary post to land was as eroded as the ruins dotting the cliffside wall.
The breath that she drew in snaked tendrils of icy cold through her lungs. Her tongue bristled at the chill slipping in between her slackened lips, numbed nerve endings lighting up at the sensation.
When Serana exhaled, her breath left as little more than a quiet wisp.
What in Oblivion happened here?
The wordless wail of the wind in her ears was the only answer she received.
The thundering footsteps that followed in its ghostly wake offered little more elucidation.
A great shadow fell over her, and the footsteps thumped to a halt behind her. Even now, knowing what it came from, a chill tingled at her spine.
It didn't stop her from turning around.
The armored creature met and held her gaze this time. Its visage alone still managed to induce a dreadful heaviness upon her chest. Made her tongue falter, made her thoughts stumble in how to address the… thing. The metal teeth, the lenses of red.
Even after having endured hours under its glare, there was still something about it that just felt… wrong. Something that made the mere idea that it was even capable of speaking and reasoning seem impossible.
…
And if she felt that way, then there was no telling how an ordinary city dweller- or Gods forbid, the guards- would react to its presence.
"On second thought, I think it'd be best if you stayed here," she said at last, the rigidness in her tongue unwinding.
Her words seemed to graze off of the creature's stony carapace. It stood as still as a statue, its alien maw just as quiet.
She began to unsling the Elder Scroll from her shoulder, tilting her body and letting its weight slowly slide down her arm. She barely felt anything as the strap slipped past the bloodstained cape wrapped over her wound.
"It shouldn't take the both of us just to grab some supplies. I'll draw less attention on my own, without you and without this," she said, gesturing down to the Scroll as it clattered to the shore.
She paused, steeling her gaze as she looked into its red eyes.
"I'm going to need my sword back as well."
This time, a single word rumbled out in response.
"Why?"
It wasn't exactly an unexpected reaction. But that didn't stop her from blowing a heavy breath out from her nostrils, didn't stop her brows from pinching together in animated frustration.
"I need something to trade with the locals. Since my purse isn't exactly bursting with Septims." She bit her lip, teeth raw against her flesh as she tried to reign in the myriad barbs and snide remarks bubbling at her tongue. The ones that wouldn't be of much use, at least. "So unless you're willing to part with anything of your own- or are fine with journeying across the province with no cloak to cover up your, shall we say, less than inconspicuous profile…"
She trailed off, letting her words hang in the air between them. The silence that befell the creature once more was as crisp as the ice. Whether it was unconvinced by her reasoning, or hesitating to acknowledge that it agreed with her, she couldn't tell. Whatever the reason, its frustratingly common lack of response dragged on for seconds.
Her jaw braced, and her fingers flexed.
When the creature finally broke from its stillness, she held fast, despite the instinctual flinch that was prickling at her flesh.
It brought her sword up to its eyes, the flat of her blade bearing its obsidian sheen starkly and sharply in the red haze of the creature's glare.
"You would not have survived if not for this sword," it spoke at last. "And now you intend to trade it in for scraps from a crumbling city."
Its words were as cold as the numbing wind that grazed at her cheeks. Deep down, she felt them resonate with something- a tattered remnant of her pride, perhaps, hanging on by a blood-steeped thread.
"It's probably worth more than what I'll get in return," She acknowledged. "But a fancy sword alone isn't going to get us where we need to go."
And neither would her pride.
"Some cloaks for the both of us, a cask to conceal that Scroll, and whatever leftover gold I have from the trade, on the other hand- that will make this journey a lot easier. We need to keep as low a profile as we can."
It was a subtle shift in the creature's posture, but she could see her sword lowering somewhat in the its hand, see its arm retracting just a little closer back to its side.
"And unless you're going to try and kill me again in my current state, I can make do with a plainer replacement," she finished.
Was it just her imagination that made her see it flinch? That painted a mirage of its armored form wavering for a split second in the wind?
She blinked.
When her eyes opened again, she found herself looking down at the handle of her sword, offered to her by the plated hand that clasped it by the blade.
Though her expression remained stony, an uneasy tentativeness gripped her arm as she reached up to reclaim her sword. Her fingers slid around the handle gingerly, the dark leather surface brushing against her palm.
When she glanced back up at the creature's face, she found that it had turned its gaze down to the gravel shore.
Her grasp tightened around her sword. The balanced weight of it melded back into her palm as the creature relinquished its grip at last.
She took a moment to look at the blade herself one last time, eyes scanning over the unblemished ebony. She could even see her own reflection in it, her eyes and lips cast in a glossy darkness that helped obscure the fatigue that eroded at them.
She hadn't even noticed when the creature had cleaned Sarpa's blood off from the sword.
Probably at some point before using it to light Cedric's funeral pyre.
…
Try as she did to keep her hand steady in guiding the blade back to its scabbard, she could not suppress the tremble in her arm when she heard the telltale jingle of a chain from the creature's other hand. The clinking of rings cast from otherworldly metal.
She supposed, even knowing now that it was bound to the creature's weapon, that sound still rang a little too close to her heart.
She swallowed a lump in her throat, turning her back on the creature and the open sea behind it.
"I'll be back soon," she said, voice straining to carry those words over her shoulder.
How soon, she wasn't sure she could say. It was going to be a long climb up that cliff.