Middas, 17th of Last Seed, 4E202
Deirdre asked herself, as she cried till her head ached, how she could have been so stupid. Gerdur had warned her, hadn't she? Hadn't she called Sven a monstrous flirt? Hadn't she said to watch out for men who tried to get her alone in a room? And yet Deirdre had traipsed into his house without a care.
She felt sick remembering how cluelessly she'd put herself in danger. She felt sicker recalling all the times she'd been alone with Sven, before, when she had been equally clueless, and he could have done the same thing without anyone to distract him. How many times had he thought about doing it before he actually did it? What had been going through his head, all those times she was within arm's reach?
Shuddering, she dropped her forehead onto her knees and curled further into herself. Through the canopy of leaves above her, a flare of lightning bloomed and faded.
She hadn't thought Gerdur's warning was about Sven. She'd thought Gerdur was talking about strangers. People she would know not to be alone with. She hadn't thought Gerdur was talking about friends.
He wasn't your friend, countered a nasty little voice inside her head. He knew what he wanted from you from the start. You were the one who misinterpreted.
She thought of the little things she'd allowed because she'd thought Sven just had a familiar nature. The casual touches, the hand-holding, the excessive compliments—she shouldn't have let him do that. She shouldn't have indulged his whims, laughed at things he said, or accepted the occasional unsolicited Trader Taffy Treat. She shouldn't have spent so much time with him. She should have made it obvious she would never see him romantically. How often, how obliviously, had she said the wrong thing to make him think she'd wanted that? He'd never cornered Camilla in a room, after all. So what had Deirdre done wrong?
As she sat there crying, body wedged between the roots of a tree, the leaves above didn't quite shield her from the rain. Steady drops trickled from her hair and ran down her back like beads of ice. But she couldn't go home yet. She wouldn't go home until the threat of humiliation pained her less than the threat of being cold.
How could she ever look Hod in the face again? And when he told Gerdur, as she knew he would, how could she stand to have her naivety laid bare under the woman's knowing eyes?
She couldn't. And she was mad at Sven for coming between her and the couple who had taken her in, depriving her of them. For shattering the illusion of idyllic safety that Riverwood had embodied not even an hour ago.
She decided she hated him. And she decided she would never, ever be a bard, or sing for other people again, because that was what he wanted and it was the only thing she could use to punish him.
It was as she reached this conclusion that she heard a sharp snap over the drum of rain. Her breath hitched mid-sob. Her head flew up and she spotted a luminous pair of eyes, hovering not ten feet away. After an initial stab of alarm, she realized it was only a deer. They watched each other until the deer swiveled and trotted away into the brush.
A creeping realization entered the storm of her thoughts. She rose on wobbly legs, a second wave of alarm hitting her as she consciously recognized her surroundings. Another lightning flash filtered through the trees.
The Companions were at the party. They hadn't been into the woods yet, last she knew. Gerdur had said they were waiting for the rain.
I'm an idiot, she thought.
She looked around herself and her heart sank. How deep into the woods had she run? Which way had she come from? She swiped pointlessly at the water on her face, forcing her stuttering breath to even out.
The Companions, if they had been waiting for the rain, might very well have already gone to the spiders' nest and killed them. Or they might be fighting them at that exact moment. What if a spider escaped and ran her way?
Really feeling the chill now, she rubbed at the goosebumps on her forearms where her dress sleeves didn't cover. She should never have gone into the woods. She couldn't stay there, humiliated or not.
After deliberating, she decided to go the same direction as the deer. Surely no animal would go toward a predator.
She kept her arms wrapped around herself as she walked through the trees. Thunder rumbled overhead, and the din of the rain increased. She asked herself again how she could have been so stupid, running straight from one danger into the arms of another. If she happened upon a spider it would be her own fault.
Cold as she was, apprehensive as she was, it felt like too long before she saw the forest ahead brightening. She made a relieved noise and picked up her pace—so much so that her foot slipped on a mossy rock. She fell forward, hands shooting out to catch against the ground, and something in her wrist snapped. She yelped and fell onto her elbows. Her other hand darted over to cradle her wrist, pain lancing through the joint.
Gritting her teeth, she sat up on her knees and looked down at her arm, keeping the other hand tight around her wrist. Her palms were scraped too, of all the rotten luck.
Of course you'd injure yourself, sneered that voice in her head. Of course you would. Didn't even have to find a spider to do it. Gods above, you're helpless.
Then something odd happened. The rain that fell on her outstretched arm was hot. It took her a moment to notice, and another second to process what she had just noticed, but by then the soft side of her forearm was burning.
She gasped and wiped at her skin with her uninjured hand, barely registering that the liquid on her arm was more viscous than rain. Her palm began to burn as well.
What on Nirn? she thought, hissing in pain, flipping her hands over to press the burning skin against her wet skirt. She looked up as a bright bolt of lightning lit the area.
There was a spider above her head, fangs dripping.
As soon as they entered the tree line, Vilkas skidded to a halt and began releasing the fastenings on his armor. Aela stopped ahead of him, voice lashing out like a whip.
"She'll see you."
Vilkas dropped a gauntlet to the forest floor. "She won't know it's me."
"If two Companions go into the woods and a girl sees two werewolves instead—"
"So don't transform," he snapped, tugging at his breastplate.
She growled low but didn't argue, giving an angry shake of the head and taking off again. She could worry about their secret all she liked. It was their dallying that got them into this mess.
Once he'd shed every scrap of clothing not directly touching his skin, he called for the Beast and transformed—leaving shirt, trousers and socks to melt into the thick fur appearing all over his body. He grew and contorted, shooting up two feet as his spine arched and his skeleton broadened. A flood of new sensory information swarmed into him. Instantly, he smelled the girl, leaving no doubt that she'd come into the woods. Damn her.
He flew through the trees, passing Aela easily. Deirdre's scent trail led him to a large tree with gnarled roots. He paused there and sniffed around, but she'd clearly lingered and then left. Maybe she wasn't far.
But there was something unusual about the way she smelled. Similar to the something strange about her singing voice, only more obvious. Underneath an average human scent tinged with new tundra cotton and soapweed and sweetrolls, there was something distinctly … scorching? Molten. And laced with an underlying spice that made his nose tingle. If fire alone had a scent, or magic, it might smell the same.
Dismissing the oddity, he took up Deirdre's trail again. He soon picked up the scent of the creatures he'd been hired to kill, and several of them, as if the nest were getting closer. As if she'd taken a lazy path right into their territory.
Stupid kid.
An exceptionally bright flash of lightning flooded the trees, and before the thunder could crack in reply, Vilkas heard a blood-curdling scream.
Deirdre was on her feet before she knew it. She dashed forward, feeling the gangly body dropping behind her, a wiry leg scraping down her back. Later she would wonder how she could scream so involuntarily for a spider but hadn't been able to for Sven.
The trees ahead continued to brighten as she sprinted, and for one shining second she thought she would escape into the village like last time. But a dark shape—no, two—no, more than that—scuttled out from amidst the brightness, and she realized her mistake. The trees weren't thinning and letting in light. They were covered in reflective, white webbing.
Before she could change course, one of the bristling shapes shot something. A gob of searing liquid smacked her in the neck, dripped over her collarbone into her neckline. She shrieked, stumbling, lurching sideways, frantically swiping at her skin with her already-burned hand.
But she couldn't stop moving. Another spiny leg reached out, striking her in the back. She tripped over her feet but miraculously stayed on them. She careened around a tree trunk as the spider on her heels made a clicking hiss of disapproval.
Her left foot hit the ground, but the right that followed did not. She gasped. An incline surged up to meet her. She hit the earth and rolled, uncontrollably fast, slick mud hurtling her down the slope. By the time she crashed onto a flat plane, she was dizzy and breathless and coated in mud. Thoughtlessly, she tried to push herself up. Her wrist twanged. She buckled with a cry.
A skittering, fat shape slid down the slope. She screamed, turning over to kick at it, coming face to face with the eight perfect circles of its unblinking eyes, shiny in the dark. Its fangs undulated in her face. The spider returned her kicks with blows of its own, striking her repeatedly with its legs. Covering her head with her arms, she curled into a ball. The spider lunged.
Fangs drove into her side. Liquid lightning shot through her veins. She went stiff from head to toe, lungs constricting mid-scream. All the air left her in a silent convulsion. Millions of tiny needles flooded into her bloodstream, stabbing with every heartbeat. Her vision blurred.
She wanted to cry from the pain, but someone had shoved iron bars through her lungs and she could barely draw air. She half-coughed, felt her every muscle quivering and tightening, solidifying in agony.
I'm dying, she thought. The spider twisted its fangs as if to dash this last coherent realization from her skull.
Then the daggers in her side were gone. The heavy body, the legs with hairs like steel wire; they were gone. The bite still throbbed and her blood still sang a symphony of torture, but when she opened her eyes, there was no spider standing over her.
Instead there was a different shape. A jet black blur hunched above her in the dimness, towering taller than any man or mer. Her body attempted a scream, but only managed a spasm.
Through her murky vision, she could just make out a sea of crawling legs flowing down the slope from which she'd fallen, rushing to take the place of the unmoving spider near her feet. The new animal released a roar like something straight out of Oblivion.
Her body spasmed again, painfully, as the beast shot forward to meet its opponents. She had to get out of there. Let the monsters fight over her, let them kill each other. If they fought, she might escape.
The spiders swarmed the beast and she turned away, laboriously getting up on her forearms. She rattled down to her bones. She felt an increasing urge to sob, but lacked the air. The needles in her blood weren't just stinging now, but gradually increasing in temperature; though goosebumps covered her skin and her teeth were chattering, she felt so hot. Like her chest had a torch inside it.
She had to get away. She had to crawl away. Even if all she did was hide in a bush, she had to try.
The first spider met Vilkas's charge. He barreled into it, knocking it on its back. Its legs flailed as one of its kin crawled up his flank. Vilkas seized the first spider in his jaws, biting down on the juncture between head and body. It went limp. The second spider's fangs pressed into his shoulder, a faint prick, unable to pierce the thick hide beneath his fur.
Vilkas whirled and flung it off. With clawed hands, he seized two more spiders, each by a leg, and swung them full force into a thick tree trunk. They hit with an audible crack. Vilkas tossed their corpses aside.
Gobs of venom spit pelted him from several angles, falling uselessly onto his coat. He snapped at a spider just out of reach of his teeth; it reared up. He darted in, seized it by its two front legs, and pulled. Both legs ripped clean off. The spider squealed, trying to retreat, but Vilkas leapt on it, tearing the head from the body.
It did not take long to kill them all. He grabbed the last one by the head and beat it against the ground until it didn't move. He flung it away, and hastily scraped claws over his fur to remove any clinging venom.
Panting, turning from the slew of spider carcasses at his feet, he looked for Deirdre. He spotted her not far away, partially disguised by a layer of mud coating her clothes and hair. As he approached, she was visibly trembling, trying feebly to crawl away. She flinched with a frightened noise when he got close.
He recoiled as well—from the sheer intensity of her scent. The fire-smell had coalesced in a heady perfume around her, as if the spider venom had drawn it out.
And he could smell that venom as well. She was riddled with it. He watched as her little body collapsed and seized, every inch of her going taught.
Shit.
She was dying. Someone her size, a human at that, wouldn't survive a spider bite.
He retreated to hide behind some trees and transform back into a human, though she was too far gone for it to really matter. His armor would have to wait. When he re-emerged, he hurried to her side and knelt, laying a hand on her forehead. Her skin was flaming hot to the touch.
"Shit," he whispered, with added vehemence.
Her eyes were glassy when they rolled up to find him. She let out a relieved whimper and tried to sit up. He put an arm under her shoulders and another under her knees and hefted her into his arms.
As he stood, there came a tiny croak of, "Monster."
He froze.
"What?"
She seized again, breath catching, and he tightened his hold to keep her from falling. She sank back into smaller shivers and sucked a harsh gasp into her lungs. She turned her face to his chest. "Somewhere n—nearby—"
He blinked. She wasn't calling him out. She was warning him. And she was still talking. She shouldn't have been able to talk.
He started back through the woods, running as fast as he could while shoeless and carrying a hundred pounds of dead weight—or rather, of somehow-still-alive weight. Her lungs would almost certainly have stopped working by the time they reached the edge of the woods, but if she was still speaking even now … maybe there was a slim chance he had time. Maybe he hadn't utterly failed at his job after all.
Too bad he wasn't carrying any antivenom potions with him, since he'd never needed any for himself. He hadn't planned on this job turning into a rescue mission either. It made him feel unreasonably guilty. Never mind that she had been foolish enough to go into the woods; he should have been prepared. And now she could stop breathing any second, die right in his arms as he hurried pointlessly back, and he would have to present the body to Gerdur and Gerdur would be rightly, justly hysterical, and he would feel responsible and—shit. Everything about this made him feel like shit.
And all the while he rushed toward Riverwood, Deirdre's little frame was racked with spasms. She would stop breathing for a span of seconds that lasted too long, then resume shaking, fighting for stilted drags of air. He felt next to useless. Every time she seized against him, he was certain her lungs would lose the fight.
But when he finally exited the woods, the girl had, unbelievably, managed not to suffocate. He headed for the nearest building and caught sight of a person running toward him through the downpour, waving both hands in the air to draw his attention. It was the middle-aged woman who owned the inn.
"Thank the gods!" she exclaimed as they drew near each other. "Bring her this way. Is she—"
"We need an antivenom potion now," he cut her off.
She stilled for all of a second before reigning herself in. She pointed toward a different building than the one he'd been heading for. "Take her there. I'll get it."
They parted and he headed for the building she'd indicated, realizing belatedly that it was the little barn behind Gerdur and Hod's house. The back door had been pulled slightly open to let a strip of light spill out, but it was thrown completely wide as he drew close. Gerdur stood in the doorway.
"You found her!" she cried, halfway to a smile. The expression faded when she got a better look at her ward.
Vilkas brushed past her into the barn and scanned the room for a place to set Deirdre down. There were two lamps hanging overhead and an unperturbed brown cow lying in one corner on a heap of straw. Not many options. He strode to the center of the room and leaned his back against a wooden post extending up to the rafters, letting himself slide down it to the floor. He settled Deirdre on his lap to examine her. Gerdur rushed over and fell to her knees.
"What happened?" she demanded, just as Deirdre gave a particularly severe jolt. She made an ungodly sound of pain and Vilkas clutched her to him until the wave passed, Gerdur watching in shock. When Deirdre slumped, spent but still shaking, Vilkas spoke without looking up.
"That innkeeper is getting an antivenom potion."
Gerdur released a small sound that sharpened the guilt in Vilkas's chest. Focusing on Deirdre, he thought he could make out a telltale splatter of red and blue-green peppering her neck. He cautiously wiped some of the mud away with his wet shirtsleeve, confirming it. She'd been hit with venom spit. And when he looked down, he saw that the front of his shirt was stained red. Somewhere under all the mud, her bite wound was very much open and very much bleeding. If the venom didn't take her, infection might set in.
"She needs a healing potion too."
He dared to look at Gerdur's face. There was an unshed film of water in her eyes. She rested one hand on Deirdre's knee, using the other to touch her muddy hair. "We don't have any left. The Trader can't keep them in stock. Alchemists make more money selling them to the armies."
Vilkas clenched his jaw. Unbelievable. They had a forest full of frostbite spiders and no one had any healing potions? And what if someone got injured at the mill? Or in any number of ways they risked just by going about their daily village lives?
Bloody alchemists, Vilkas thought. He recalled that he had exactly three healing potions stowed away with his gear, currently lying on the forest floor somewhere. It was true they were harder to get since the war started, and they went for four times the price they used to. He would be out a hundred septims if he—
Deirdre had another fit. Gerdur was clearly on the verge of losing her composure, voice choked as she tried uselessly to soothe the girl. Vilkas realized he was trying to squeeze a small bit of reassurance into her. Where in Oblivion was that innkeeper? If fresh-faced little Deirdre stopped breathing right here while Gerdur watched, it would haunt him the rest of his days. This was why he didn't do rescue missions. There was always the chance they'd go wrong.
The barn door opposite the one he'd entered banged open. He and Gerdur looked up to see Hod rushing toward them, brandishing a small green bottle, the innkeeper right behind him. Gerdur cried out in relief as Vilkas propped Deirdre up into a better position.
Hod, slightly winded, sank to the ground next to his wife. He uncorked the bottle without preamble. The innkeeper remained standing and simply watched, while Gerdur urged Deirdre to drink and Hod scooted close enough to finally, mercifully, hold the potion to the girl's lips. She downed the contents in seconds.
The effects were immediate. Vilkas felt her tremors weaken as soon as Hod retracted the bottle. They watched together as the seconds visibly sapped tension from her body. Vilkas felt her temperature dropping—where she'd felt like a furnace just moments ago, she now only felt warm. He lifted a hand to her dirty forehead just to be sure, and the fever seemed to be gone.
He breathed a sigh of relief.
Thank the gods for alchemists.
As if waiting for his cue, Gerdur and Hod released their own held breaths. Hod deflated into a slouch as Gerdur touched Deirdre's face.
"How ya feelin', lass?"
Deirdre drew in her first smooth sip of air, blinking sluggishly. She sagged back against Vilkas's arm, head dropping against him, as if the energy to do anything else had flown from her. She inhaled again.
"Better …"
The tail end of the word hitched in a distinctive way. It set off warning bells in Vilkas's head. Gerdur made a sympathetic noise and Deirdre's lip gave a wobble. Vilkas went stiff.
He cleared his throat loudly, drawing all eyes. "She's still injured," he reminded. "She shouldn't be moved until I can get her a healing potion."
Gerdur blinked. "But I told you we don't have—"
He waved impatiently, both to cut her off and to signal that she and Hod needed to give him some room. They obligingly scooted back. He leaned forward to set Deirdre gingerly on the barn floor, carefully but firmly pushing on her shoulder to get her to lie down.
"I have healing potions with my gear. I just need to go and get it."
He stood, pausing to assess the amount of blood on his shirt. He didn't like what he saw.
Both Gerdur and Hod looked up at him in shock, noticing the huge red stain for the first time.
"What happened to your armor?" Hod blurted.
"Is that blood yours or—"
"It's hers," Vilkas answered. "Those spider bites aren't small."
Gerdur's face went ashen, and she returned her focus to Deirdre, hands fluttering over her form. Hod continued to look at him as if trying to figure out if he'd avoided the man's question on purpose.
Vilkas turned to the innkeeper, who was still watching them. He gave her a brisk nod and stepped past the little family on the floor, heading for the back exit.
"I'll return quickly. Don't let her get up."
He had just made it to the door when the one opposite clattered open. Turning, he heard the innkeeper let out an inquisitive, "Sven? How did you know we were here?"
Deirdre's bard friend stood at the other door, closing it behind him as he shook rainwater from his dripping bangs. At hearing his name, Deirdre jerked up into a half-sitting position, ignoring Gerdur's protest. Vilkas caught the flash of alarm on Deirdre's face before she turned it fully toward Sven.
Sven sought her out as well, eyes lighting up when they found her. Ignoring the innkeeper's query, he started forward.
"You're all right!" he cried.
Hod rose to his feet.
Gerdur's hand shot out in a failed attempt to grab her husband's arm, but he'd already slipped out of reach.
"Hod," she warned.
Hod ignored her. He strode directly to the bard, who noticed him and halted. First confusion, then comprehension, and finally fear, swept rapidly over the bard's face. But too late—Hod drew back his fist and decked him.
Deirdre and the innkeeper let out matching cries of shock. Vilkas froze. Sven staggered back, nearly losing his balance, clutching at his nose with both hands.
"You got some nerve showing your face here!" Hod bellowed. His arms shook at his sides, the tendons in his neck bulging with rage.
"Hod!" Gerdur snapped. Hod continued to ignore her.
Sven lifted watery eyes to Hod, then looked past him toward Deirdre. The girl turned her head to Gerdur, who put her arms around her protectively.
Hod grabbed the younger man by the collar of his tunic and tossed him into the barn door. He got an inch from Sven's face. "If I ever see you on my property again, I'll wring your bloody neck! Leave!"
But Sven, the idiot, actually hesitated. "I just wanted to make sure she was—"
Hod grabbed him again by the tunic, slammed him into the door, manhandled it open, and flung Sven out into the rain. He threw the door shut with enough force to rattle the wall.
He was red in the face when he turned around and marched back toward his wife and Deirdre. The innkeeper hastily backed out of his path. When Hod dropped to one knee next to Gerdur and glared down at Deirdre, the girl laid on her good side and covered her face with her arm. Gerdur and Hod exchanged a heated look.
An awkward silence followed. Vilkas cleared his throat again. "I'm. Going to get that potion."
Without waiting for a reply, he beat a hasty retreat. He was not about to touch whatever had just happened. Not with a ten foot pole.