An Angel in Skyrim

Chapter 2: Unstoppable Will

Solomon and Hadvar took a moment to catch their breath, after everything that had happened in the last however long it was, it had knocked the wind out of them. Solomon in particular was winded having to carry his armour inside, for as light as it was on his body, it was heavy to carry slug it around with his arms.

"By the gods, was that really a dragon, the bringers of the end time?" Hadvar said as he lied down on a bed, judging by the look of the room, they were in some sort of quarters, beds and all.

"Well, now that I have a moment to collect myself, it looked more like a wyvern to me, it had only two legs, not four." Solomon said as he began to put on his armour damm did it feel good to have that back on again.

"Four legs? The dragons from... wherever you are from have four legs!" Hadvar said, give his now familiar puzzled look on him. This was true, dragons from Faerun had four legs, two forelegs that acted as arms and two hind-legs. And they could become much, much bigger than the one they saw, but the ones that he knew about didn't cause firestorms in the sky by just shouting out loudly.

"Yeah, they do, and they could get much bigger than that guy out there." Solomon said, he was having trouble with his chest-piece, he figured that without his wings, his precious, precious wings, that putting it on wouldn't be such a problem but as it turned out, a large, over shaped piece of metal was rather difficult to put on properly.

"Hear, let me help with that." Hadvar said, getting up and giving his new companion a hand with his armour, this in turn led to another question by the soldier to the knight.

"So, it's true then, you really aren't from around here, or rather from anywhere, at least anywhere that I would know of." Solomon was too busy to answer and just gave a head nod to affirm to Hadvar that he was indeed correct.

"By the Eight, this is all too much: Dragons coming back to the world, Ulfric getting away from us just when we had this war won and now people from other worlds are now here, the world really is going to end." He gave a sigh, as if to try and get a grasp about what was going on here.

"To continue this, I am from a place called Faerun, on a world called Abeir-Toril, and judging by this world, I'd say it was very different from this one, and done." Solomon said as he finished getting his armour on. Hadvar had gotten a fair look at him when he had struck him in the back of the head and an even closer look at when he removed it from Solomon's body but to see the armour on the man while he was standing: the difference was like night and day. Standing a full half a head taller than himself, the golden armoured man was like looking at The Divines' own soldier. The plated robe, while to some untrained eyes it looked silly, to seasoned warriors, this allowed him to protect the whole of his lower legs without sacrificing mobility. The shoulders where the faces of lions; fierce, with fangs out to show, his lion helm the same. The most striking piece was his shield: sculpted in the visage of wings about to take flight, Hadvar could see that there was a person attached to the wings. All in all, he looked a bit to eye catching but Hadvar could sense that was probably the point.

"Shor's Bones, Don't you look the knight. You'd bee just at home in High Rock of Cyrodiil." Hadvar said still in amazement of the Solomon and his armour. "Come on, we need to get out of here, after that we have a very long talk about who you are, Sir Solomon Ariel, Son of Ariel. Come on, we should look for some supplies, it could help us along the way." Solomon agreed; they had no food, no medicine if any of then got sick... wait could he still.

"Hadvar, come over here." Solomon asked of him, when the two of them had been pushing the cart down the hill, Solomon had noticed that Hadvar had some burns on his arms.

"Yes, did you find any food? medicine? Some extra gear laying around?" Hadvar was gripping his forearms hard as to block out the pain of some kind.

"No, I need to test something out. Hold out your arms and let me see if I can do anything for those burns you've got there." Solomon said as he asked for his arm. Hadvar, wasn't really sure about all this but it could hurt to trust this man, after all, if he wanted him dead he would have killed him already. Sure enough, he didn't chop off his arm, in fact quite the opposite, he healed his wounds, his once burned forearms were now healed, better than they were before, he had a scar over his thumb from and archery accident a few years back that was now gone.

"Wow, you're a healer, never would have picked you as that by that garb, friend." Hadvar had seen enough today to last a man his lifetime and still more came to him, mostly form this man.

"I'm a paladin, Hadvar. A warrior/priest, a holy knight with sacred oath. Being a healer comes with the job." The more Hadvar spent time around Solomon, the more questions he had for him, but that was for later.

After some time, the two eventually found a light Imperial shield and helm for Hadvar. The helm made him look like a tool but Solomon had the decency not to say that to him.

"Okay, we've spent enough time in here, let's go." Hadvar said, drawing his sword out and crouching down as to not bee seen by anyone. Solomon, not one for stealth, marched forward, his shield hand on Dark Angel's pommel the whole time. It didn't take long before the began to hear voices from ahead of them.

"Come on! We have to keep moving. That dragon won't give us another chance to escape."

By the sounds of it, they were Stormcloaks, just as lost as they were but a lot less fortunate as the case would be.

"Just give me a minute, alright, we already lost Gungner and Feyna to that damm thing, and I don't want my bones to rest in and imperial fort." They were Stormcloaks alright, tired ones too, perhaps too tired to fight back if caught be surprise. Hadvar motioned for Solomon to get down but Solomon didn't and walked right up to the two.

"Hey! What are you doing? I was going to catch them by surprise." Solomon stopped and turned to Hadvar, his lion-helm making him look like a lifeless machine as he did so.

"I thought that I might take these two myself, and let you see what just what I can do." Solomon continued to walk forward, still not unsheathing his sword and calmly opened the door. The two Stormcloaks looked at him and Solomon could see what the two had for weapons: A maul of iron on one of them, the other had a simple sword and leather hide shield. The two looked to him, weapons drawn.

"Who are you? Are you an Imperial or Stormcloak?" The one with the maul said, pointing his hammer to Solomon. Solomon, used to this sort of thing, kept his cool removing his helm, unfortunately for him, a mirror was on the other side and he got a look at his face for the first time since arriving here: His once violet eyes were now pure pale white, his alabaster skin was now a now pale white and his hair was no longer a straight beautiful mane but a scraggy mess. Solomon did everything within himself not to lose his composure and managed to do so.

"Yes well. Allow me to introduce myself." Solomon gave a rather large bow to the two Stormcloaks. "I am Sir Solomon Ariel, Son of Ariel, Paladin of the Heavens Undivided." The two rebels looked to each other, clearing confused at what was happened.

"That doesn't answer our question, Sir Solomon Ariel, Son of Ariel. Are you an imperial lap dog or a true son of Skyrim?" The other man asked now, his sword moving closer to him, to the point of touching his armour, as if to test the blade against the plate-mail. Solomon remained unfazed by this, as if these men did not frighten him in the slightest.

"I am neither, but my friend is an imperial, and we would like it you move aside, please. We all have seen enough bloodshed today sate even the most bloodthirsty of people." Hadvar smacked himself in the face, the man was not the brightest tool in the shed, was he? The two Stormcloaks had had enough of Solomon's tomfoolery and dove into attack. The one with a maul swung left, taking some time to charge up the blow, the sword and board one went for a stab.

Solomon blocked the hammer's fall with his shield, while the sword just bent as it hit the chest-piece, not even leaving a scratch on his chest-piece. Solomon moved back, drew Dark Angel and charged back in, going after the one with the hammer. His foe brought up the hammer to try and block the blow only for Solomon's strike to split the thing in two, splinters of wood flying off in every direction. The soldier looked to his two piece long enough for Solomon to give him a shield bash to his chin that sent him flying to the ground. The other man, now behind Solomon, could see that his back hand openings in them; straight long things, what the man didn't know was that those where were his wings would have been before, and thus not leaving a gap in his defences, but now he was vulnerable.

"Not a smart move having holes in your armour." The swordsman told Solomon, his mistake would cost him, but it was the swordsman, not Solomon who had made the mistake.

Solomon moved in, his shield blocking the sword, then bringing Dark Angel to uppercut the man, sending flying, literally flying, about ten to fifteen into the air and across the room. The man was clearly dead as the force from the blow alone would have shattered his rib cage. Without losing any time, Solomon looked back to the first man, with his hammer in pieces, he had picked up a handaxe from a fallen comrade of him. Solomon almost knew that the man was going for his fallen comrade's leather shield, it was the other thing that could give him a fighting chance against him. The two circled each other, seeing who would make the first move, and there for opening.

"He's good, very good." Hadvar whispered to himself, making sure not to be heard as he snuck up behind the Stormcloak but before he could do so, Solomon cleaved the man in two, straight down the middle. His two sides landing in front of Hadvar, his blood gushing into his face. Hadvar could only make a face of a combination of horror and respect for what he had just seen.

"Now, shall we get moving then." Solomon said, wiping the blood off his armour, keeping Dark Angel out for he could sense that there would more fighting up ahead. He moved over to the door, looking for a way to open it. Hadvar began sifting through the bodies, or rather body as there would be nothing to salvage from the one that was now split upon the ground. Not finding much other than an amulet to Talos, the warrior man-god, Hadvar decided to help Solomon with finding a way to open the door when he remembered he had a key in his pocket that General Tullius had given him.

"Feel pretty stupid right now, forgetting I had this." Hadvar said, somewhat blushing from the embarrassment. Solomon paid no attention to this and focused on getting out. As Hadvar got the door open, Solomon moved in, shield out and moving like a soldier deeper into the fortress. Hadvar joined him in the shield formation. It wasn't long before the roof came down but luckily not on there heads. Unfortunately it also blocked off their way out.

"Damm, that dragon doesn't give up easy, does it?" Hadvar said, dusting himself off as he moved to the door ahead.

"Keep your voice down, there might be people on the other side and I very much want to use this as little as possible," Solomon gestured over to Dark Angel as he followed up Hadvar, keeping a tight formation, as tight a formation of two could be. Sure enough more Stormcloaks were on the other side.

"Imperial dogs!" One of the Stormcloaks said as he swung his great-sword as Hadvar, who dodged out of the way and tackled the man to the ground. Solomon held off his opponent with ease, was it his time in Avernus that had turned him into such a warrior or was it that the warriors he was facing were weakened by thier time as prisoners? He dared not insult them as to think that they were weaklings before him, there was a warrior's code about that sort of thing, at least Solomon had such a code and he was not about the break it.

"Victory or Sovngarde" Hadvar's opponent said as he slammed his great-sword into the ground near Solomon, in response, Solomon swung Dark Angel across his legs, leaving large enough gashes in them to have him fall to the stone floor, in pain. Solomon refocused his attention towards his own opponent, a lady as it were, she moved about, must like his last foe, trying to get a good position on him. She brought down a crude mace of a kind, spiky and harsh to look at, upon Solomon's shield arm, striking hard enough to make him wince at the pain. Solomon then moved around the her, spinning as he did so then striking her in the back of the head, knocking her out.

"Good, now let's finish them off." Hadvar said before Solomon extended his arm and held him back. "What are you doing? These people tried to kill us." Solomon gave Hadvar a stern look to him and took off his helm.

"And not ten minutes ago, you were trying to kill them, they're enemy soldiers not monsters. Let's tie them up and come back for them, or better yet, tell someone where these two are and have them deal with them for us." Solomon made good points to Hadvar, this was a rebellion, wining over the hearts and minds of people would be vital to wining this war and keeping the peace afterwards.

"All right we do it your way friend." Hadvar said, putting his sword away. He moved the woman's unconscious body over to a corner while Solomon healed the man's wounds, he had passed out from his wounds some time before hand afterwards his shins looked like no one had ever taken a blade to them before. Realizing where they were, he began looking around for supplies.

"More looking for supplies, Hadvar. I thought that you were the one who wanted to leave so badly." Solomon said, judging Hadvar while also giving him a hand in his search.

"Yes, there might be some potions in here. Now quit complaining and help me out." after some minutes, Solomon and Hadvar had found some potions, some of green colour, some of red and some of blue.

"I think I know what the red one are, but what are the blue and green ones for." Solomon asked, scratching his head over it.

"I think that the blue ones are for Magicka replenishment and the green ones are for stamina." Hadvar said, Solomon not knowing something yet again, this was becoming a thing between them; of one person saying something and the other not knowing anything about it, mostly this was Solomon not knowing and Hadvar explaining.

"What's Magicka?" Solomon asked with Hadvar having a look on him that said more than his words could ever do: he knew nothing about it aside from the fact that it was what powered spells. Seeing as this was getting them nowhere, the two continued on towards the prison area where battle was joined once again only this time not alone. A hooded man and his assistance were around, the hooded man was shooting lightning out of his hands towards the Stormcloaks. Solomon watched as the hooded figure melted the skin of of one mans dace before turning his attention towards the other man, holding his ground with but a simple mace against a man with a rather large great-axe above his head, cleaving downwards slash across him torso, his guts spilling outwards and dying painfully.

Solomon jumped, going a fair distance but not to where his was, forgetting momentarily that he was without his wings. Quick to recover, Solomon dove low, avoiding the great-axe and making his way to behind the man. In a flash of steel, Solomon had Dark Angel around the man's neck.

"Drop your weapon, son. It's over. Come peacefully and we wouldn't have to hurt you anymore." What Solomon got as a response was a swift hit from the back of his head, having his lion-helm on, the only thing that accomplished was giving the man a severe headache. The man dropped his great-axe after such and went to his knees afterwards.

"Leave him with me, I know how to take care of people like him." The hooded man said, his face was covered but Solomon could faintly see that the man was quite old, well into his sixth or even seventh decade. Solomon was hesitant to trust this man after what he had seen the old man do the last person who had crossed his wrath, and this man had killed his assistant.

"Alright, but you should know, we left two others upstairs as well, see to it that the are looked after too." Hadvar said, putting words to what Solomon had on his mind. Hadvar looked behind the old man and saw to more supplies to acquire.

"I can see a few things in there. Too bad the door locked. If only we had some lock-picks" Hadvar looked inside the cage were the body of a wizard was lying there with some gold coins and a book of a kind, stylized with a fire design of a kind.

"Why would we need lock-picks when we can just to this." Solomon said as Dark Angel split the door in two and allow him to enter. Hadvar and the old man just looked on as the gold plated man removed the book, robes and coins from the cage. Finding the money remained Solomon of another fact: he was dead broke. All his money was back home, a home to which he may not even be able to return to. After the shock of Solomon's strength had worn off, the two were off again, with Solomon taking a look at his newly acquired book. Looking over the pages, Solomon could feel something within him begin to form, like there was more to this book than meets the eye. Soon enough, the sound of water could be heard and were there was rushing water, there was a way for that water to leave, there were close to the exit now.

"Were are we suppose to go? Where's the way out?" More Stormcloaks, if their luck was anything to go by.

"Just give me a minute okay, I can think of something alright." More arguing, to Solomon, it felt like the Stormcloaks argued as much as they fought, and if they did less of the former, they would be much better at the latter. See an opportunity to to some actual soldiering, Hadvar looked to Solomon with a plan hatching in his mind.

"Alright, so with that armour, you're basically a wall with legs and arms and I have this bow and some arrows." Hadvar unfastened the bow off his back, giving it a small flourish. "I'll stay back and pick them off while you charge in and hack at them." It was a simple plan but one that worked to their strengths of there situation. Hadvar readied his bow while Solomon moved forward, trying to keep out of sight, not an easy thing to do while while wearing effectively a plate-mail dress. Solomon got to where the light shown through making sure not to have it hit him that was the last thing they needed.

Solomon looked back, seeing Hadvar give a gesture with his hand, counting down. Three. Two. One. Go. Solomon rushed the two Stormcloaks in front of him, Dark Angel crashing like a wave upon their hides. His first swing went wild with Solomon going ow to the ground to recover from it then he shield charged one and flung him over his head, having an arrow be put into his throat. Solomon turned to see the other man fall as an arrow jutting from his eye socket, his screams were...unnerving to Solomon, who was so used to such violence. More Stormcloaks moved in, three archers took position on the opposite side and aimed at Solomon. Hadvar swerved around, taking aim at them and firing off a shot hitting the wall behind one of the archer causing his shot to go wild and miss Solomon, the others' aim were true but Solomon's armour truer, the arrows barely scratching the armour. Solomon rushed forward, shield up front and keeping low to the ground while Hadvar took cover from the archers, unable to give fire back.

The archers' fire came down hard on Solomon's shield and armour, with more than one managing to get through his defences and land true and harm the paladin. Solomon winched for a moment, but soon recovered he had been dealt worse by worse beings than this. The archers were moving back to get as much distance from themselves and Solomon, who was rapidly approaching them. One of them thought they had a cleaver idea and ripped some cloth off himself, wrapped it around an arrow and lit it on a nearby torch. Solomon questioned why he was doing this until he took a step forward, only to have his foot hit something wet. Going down to check it out, he gave it a small smell over and his eyes went wide, it was oil, oil plus fire equals bigger fire. Solomon got back as the burning arrow shaft hit the oil, the heavenly son took refuge behind his shield, blocking off the flame off from him, the flames went for some time, the archers stopping thier fire. Why waste the arrows on a burnt corpse? The archers refocused their attention back towards Hadvar who had been moving ahead to follow up Solomon unknowing jut who they where dealing with.

Dark Angel flashing out, Solomon jumped through the flames their light shining off his golden armour. Him lunging towards the archers and took off the hands of the closest archer before lobbing off his head, rushing towards the rest of them before the could react, the first one moved tried attempting to get off a volley before a sword skewered him his chest. The last one dropped to the floor, backing away with Solomon just looming over him, while he managed to get a hatchet to slash at Solomon's feet. Dark Angel blocked the blow and parried it moving in to pin the man to the ground as the Solomon's black blade pierced his heart. Hadvar caught up to Solomon's position, looking a little worse for wear but it was nothing Solomon couldn't heal. After said healing was done, Hadvar took a look at a leaver, pulled it and down came a bridge.

"Let's keep going, it can't be too much more now." Hadvar said, moving in front of Solomon. As he followed, he could hear the dragon roaring again, the force of which brought rocks down on the bridge, luckily they were already across when it happened.

"Glad that happen when we weren't on it." Hadvar said said as the to continued forward but Solomon noticed a small crawling space to go into. He entered to find a small sack of coins for his troubles, along side a skeleton. Solomon gave a small prayer to whomever this was and left to find Hadvar, who was waiting for him.

"Are we done yet?" Hadvar was giving Solomon sass for this, but he didn't mind, he knew that the two of them had gone through enough today and could use the rest, which he hoped was soon. The found a web covered area, just the last thing they needed: giant spiders. Three spiders came up and began to spit there poisons at them. Solomon held his ground, shield in hand as Hadvar readied his bow to take them out one by one. Under fire, the spiders fell quite handily until thier parents showed up. The two Frostbite Spiders, as Hadvar had called them, were the size of bears when it came to just thier bodies, with the legs added, thier were more like many limbed trolls. Solomon switched his plans, now going on the offensive rushed in, slashing the eyes of the things first then plunging his sword into thier heads. Solomon turned and looked at Hadvar.

"Coming or not, Hadvar." Being a bit cheeky here wasn't a good thing but he felt like it might lighten the mood a bit, anything would be better than feeling like well... like a dragon just attacked you. Up ahead, the sound of water rushed through again, this time louder, so loud that Solomon could barely hear Hadvar speaking. The only thing he could here was something about a bear up ahead and that sneaking by it would probably the best idea. Stealth wasn't one of Solomon's strengths but he would give it shot, as the crouched down, next to a cart, why a cart was all the way down here was beyond him, he noticed a horned helm made of iron next to a bottle of some-kind and that inside the cart were bottles of wine and a sack of coins. Solomon needed the money, the owners of such things were probably dead and inside the bear's stomach.

As the two snuck past the beast, Solomon's could feel his armour creak and cringe with every step until a loud creak echoed out. Both of them turned to see the bear move ever so much, then much to their disappointment, rise up and roar. Hadvar booked it like he had ants down his shirt and Solomon was not much better, moving at a pace not his norm. It wasn't long until they found an exit.

"Finally, it's about time we found our way out." Hadvar said as the light of the sun hit his skin once again. Solomon followed close behind. To see the sun again was good, very good, like a nice bath after a long day of work. The two took not but three steps in front of them when the familiar roar of a dragon came from behind them.

"Hey! Get down." Hadvar said as he dove into the snow covered ground. Needing no help from Hadvar, Solomon did the same. The dragon flew right overhead of them, as if they were never there.

"That was a close one, and it looks like it's gone for good. Come on, we still have a ways to go yet."

Under a week, new personal best man. Nice.