It was cold. The air caught in Nora's throat, freezing her inside and out. Her mind was blank, her eyes unwilling to open, her body unwilling to move. She knew where she was - there was only one place in the Commonwealth so bone-numbing, so frozen and haunted and hated.
She couldn't do this. She couldn't be here.
Nate . If she opened her eyes, she would see his corpse framed in a window of frosted glass.
Bile burned in her throat and tears heated her eyes.
I can't. I can't see him. I can't-
Something cold splashed on her cheek, and her eyes flew open. She stared, Vault 111 abruptly forgotten.
A great open cavern yawned overhead, the blue skies above sliced by a stone bridge that connected one end of the cavern to the other. The rocky walls were dripping with ice, cascading frozen rivers that eventually fell to where she was at the bottom, laying on snow drifts - as did piles of bones.
The light was dim so far down, but she could see them. The empty sockets of skulls peeking from the snow, shattered jaw bones and cracked ribcages. Some were clearly animals, but there were more than a few that looked all too human…
She sat up slowly, finding Longfellow's coat beneath her. She gripped the fabric, pulling it to her chest as she hugged herself. Where am I?
But she had no answers. Nowhere she had travelled in the Commonwealth had looked a thing like this.
.
Her mind turned to the last thing she remembered, and a shiver racked her body that had little to do with the cold. The whispering book.
But that made no sense - books didn't whisper. They didn't grow tentacles and pull people into their stories so… was she dead? Was she high on chems, still laying in a clinic while suffering lurid dreams?
She felt light-headed and distant, her heart beating too fast in her ribcage. She couldn't tell if the shaking came from the cold or her rising panic. I'm dreaming. This is all some bad dream. This can't be real…
A great roar echoed through the cave.
Nora flinched as snow fell from the bridge high above, knocked loose by whatever charged across it.
A second roar answered.
For a moment Nora was paralysed - and then she was scrabbling through the snow, towards a cave mouth in the rock. She emerged into open air and biting winds, only for her feet to betray her and send her falling down a short slope, where the pristine white of snow became grey sands.
Before her spread an expanse of black, glassy ocean that sullenly sucked along an unfamiliar shoreline. Rocky outcroppings reared defiantly amongst the waves, taking the brunt of the tide's power while colonies of seabirds stood sentinel atop them.
The wind that lashed her dark hair across her face lacked the foul stench of decay the Commonwealth pervaded. The air was crisp and clear, carrying the scent of pine and sea. It was even fresher than the country air she remembered pre-war, from childhood summers spent on her cousin's farm.
She turned slowly on the spot, slipping Longfellow's coat around her shoulders as she did so.
Her eyes fell next on a small cluster of pine trees. They weren't petrified or sickly and mutated, but healthy and strong, covered in thick cloaks of dark green needles that bobbed and swayed in the wind.
A grunt made her start. She whipped around to find three large blubbery shapes a little ways along the shore, watching her. The creatures resembled pre-war walruses with their thick grey hides and whiskered faces - but they had three tusks, two extending from their lower jaw whilst the third capped their muzzle like a beak.
They were clearly mutants, though ones she had never encountered before.
Pulling Longfellow's coat more tightly about her, Nora turned and slowly ventured in the opposite direction. Her breath steamed in the air and she hugged herself tightly, as much to hold herself together as to keep warm.
To her left, mountains stretched as far as the eye could see, cloaked in dense pine forest and snow. Like everything else she'd seen thus far they were unfamiliar, providing her no point of reference to go from. She lowered her eyes to the ground, trying to think - which was when she noticed a trail of prints, following the shoreline.
Hooves and footprints.
Her heart quickening again she began to follow them, around rocks and through the sparse clusters of trees until she sighted a structure in the near distance. She stopped in the cover of the treeline, her jaw falling slack as she took it in the sight.
It was no house or high rise but a fortress, like something from a Grognak comic or a medieval history book. She could see a stone keep, complete with towers and fluttering pinions that was surrounded by a large wooden palisade. There were walkways and figures patrolling the battlements, glinting gold in the sunlight.
What the fuck?
The cold wind pushed at Nora's back, but she didn't move. She just stared, heart beating and blood roaring in her ears. She felt light-headed and faint, her stomach roiling. Had it not been empty, she might have thrown up.
Her legs felt weak so she leaned upon the nearest tree, her mind reeling. She didn't know where the hell she was, only that she was lost and desperate. She'd learned fast not to trust strangers in the Commonwealth, but if she did nothing she would freeze, and she didn't have the means to help herself.
Slowly, her feet clumsy and numb, Nora ventured from her cover and towards the fortress. She'd barely taken five steps before a call went up from the fortress walls, and as she continued plodding forwards a portcullis in the wall opened.
Six figures emerged, some in dark robes and others in filigreed golden armour.
She paused uncertainly, watching as they marched towards her. She could hear the clank and chime of their armour, and the closer they drew the taller they became, each easily over six foot tall, some almost eight.
Rather than approach her directly, they branched off into threes, closing into a circle around her. She didn't make any effort to escape, too cold and numb to flee. They closed in until they were all mere feet away, and then four swords rang as they were drawn from their scabbards, golden and intricate as the stranger's armour.
Then two of three robed figures splayed their hands and Nora gasped, eyes bulging as phantom blades materialised. She backed up a step only to feel the sharp point of a sword at her shoulder. She froze.
The phantom blades glowed and rippled and whispered . Her throat was too tight to squeak, let alone speak, yet she could feel something bubbling up inside her - a scream or a laugh, she couldn't tell which.
"So. This is an outlander."
Her eyes flicked to the one member of the circle who hadn't drawn a weapon. Their voice was cultured but cold, the words spoken with an audible sneer. Their face was concealed beneath their hood, but as she watched they raised their hands to lower it.
A woman. She had an angular face with high cheekbones, a pointed chin and sloping amber eyes. Her skin had a golden hue, her pale blonde hair fastened behind her head to reveal a pair of pointed ears.
Nora tried to swallow but her throat clicked, hysteria still bubbling dangerously close to the surface.
"Are there more of you?" The woman demanded. It took a moment for the question to register, then Nora shook her head.
"Are you newly arrived, or were you sent by the Brotherhood of Steel?"
A jolt shot through her, breaking through the shock.
"The Brotherhood? The Brotherhood are here? The Prydwen?"
The woman flourished her hands with a flash of fire and Nora shrieked, pricking herself on three blades as she recoiled. When she dared lower her arms she saw two fireballs, one hovering above each of the woman's palms.
"Answer my question."
"What is that?" Nora demanded, staring at the flames. "How are you doing that?"
"Answer my question unless you'd like a personal demonstration," the woman replied coolly.
Nora's mind blanked, the air suffocating. She was imagining it - she had to be seeing things, or this was all a dream! Maybe she'd finally snapped under the pressure of being General? Or maybe she'd died and ended up in some kind of hell, or-
She couldn't breathe, her breaths came short and fast until she began to hyperventilate, unable to process what was happening, what she was going to do-
Green light flared and her muscles locked, her shoulders seizing up around her ears. She couldn't move save for her beating heart, couldn't even blink as she toppled like a felled tree. She hit the ground hard, the soldiers having sheathed their weapons.
"Bind her and take her inside," the woman ordered. "I'm certain she'll be forthcoming after enjoying some of our hospitality."