A/N: IMPORTANT! This chapter features torture, interrogation, non-consensual nudity and the absolute worst in Thalmor hospitality! I haven't been gratuitous with the torment, but this chapter is heavy reading with some dark themes. If you're not in the place to read such content, bear with me and in the following chapter I'll post a brief summary ahead of the text so you can sidestep this chapter and be all caught up!
Reality returned with a tear of cloth. Nora blinked, the fog shrouding her vision rapidly diffusing as Longfellow's coat was wrenched from her shoulders, the sleeves shredded by golden talons. Nora shrieked, wrenching away only for a second guard to take hold of her dress and rip the skirt.
Her hands were bound and useless but she raised them, her only defense as the guards closed in.
"Come here!" one barked, seizing her arm in a biting grip.
Nora's screams were incoherent with sobs and she tried to yank herself free, the clawed fingertips gouging her skin - then a fist collided with her gut. She hit the ground, stunned and breathless. The guard hauled Nora back up, and her head snapped to the side from a slap that left her ears ringing and mouth tasting blood.
Claws bit her cheeks as he seized her jaw. "Behave, outlander. Before you make us angry."
The other guard ripped away the last of her dress and she flinched against the cold. But they weren't done. They tore away her underwear - and then one guard wrenched the chain from around her neck, cutting bloody welts into her skin.
The air caught in her lungs, her heart crushed by the hand holding her rings and tags, all she had left of Nate and Danse. She lurched towards him, bound hands reaching - and the other guard seized the rope, making her stumble as he dragged her to where a meat hook was suspended from the ceiling.
He lifted her up with little effort, slotting the ropes onto the hook. Her bare feet trod air, her shoulders already aching in protest, but she barely registered it. Her eyes remained locked on the chain now suspended from the guard's fingers.
He slipped the chain free as she watched, setting her holotags on a nearby table while he pocketed the rings with a cold smile in her direction. The other guard was sorting through the ruins of her clothes, rifling through Longfellow's pockets for trophies.
He produced Longfellow's hip flask from an inside pocket and opened it, taking a sniff before recoiling in disgust. "As vile as Nord swill," he scowled, throwing it aside before he bunched up her clothes and Longfellow's coat to drop them in an open brazier.
The flames devoured the rags and the guards left her there, hanging in the cold and shadows.
Alone, the pains of her body began to make themselves known as the adrenaline and numbness subsided. Her lip was split and bleeding, her face ached and her stomach felt tender with every inhale. Her arms burned from holding the weight of her body, growing more unbearable as time passed.
With nothing else to do, she studied the room by the light of the brazier - and withered even further.
Instruments of torture lined the walls. Some she recognised from history books and cheap horror movies - but many more she didn't. Whips, blades and cruel traps were interspersed by empty shackles and slack chains, the blood and soot stains on the walls behind them telling gruesome tales.
Dark crystals were set aside on the table next to her holotags, along with rows of vials and bottles filled with various liquids, some of which glowed or frothed of their own accord. Finer tools were also visible, set out on a tray like a surgeon's tool kit.
Despite the cold, sweat slicked her skin. Dream or not, she had to get out.
But escape proved impossible.
She thrashed, tried to pull herself up or loosen the bite of the ropes around her wrists - but it was in vain. All she achieved were worse cramps in her arms, the chain squeaking sadly above her as she swung on the end like a butchered animal. The chill seeped into her bones, leaving her shivering and numb.
Screams rent the quiet, echoing beyond the door. Nora flinched and squeezed her eyes shut - but that was all she could do. She couldn't block it out. She heard the stranger's voice cracking from their torment, their garbled pleas… and the laughter of their tormentor, growing clearer as the victim's screams finally broke into agonised barks.
When the voices fell silent, Nora was sobbing with her own fear and despair.
Nora rose from her exhausted trance when the door opened, a tall, robed figure striding inside. A woman, gold skinned with glacial topaz eyes. A hood concealed her hair, but not her utter contempt as she looked Nora over.
Nora was too exhausted and afraid to feel humiliated. She gazed back, dull-eyed. There was no mercy to be found in the stranger, of that she was certain.
The woman wordlessly turned towards the table, boots clicking imperiously on the flagstone floor. She pinched the holotags between gloved fingers, studying them for a moment before setting them down. Her eyes cut back to Nora.
"You're an outlander." Her voice was dripping with venom. "Another human." She drew closer, studying Nora intently the way a butcher might an animal at auction. She circled behind. "You are with the Brotherhood of Steel. Correct?"
"Where am—"
Her back burned — not with fire, but deep cold. Nora shrieked, arching away and felt ice crack on her skin.
The woman tittered, circling back to Nora's line of sight. She had one hand raised, icy vapor streaming from her fingers in glittering clouds.
"Your kind don't seem to do well in the cold. I'm glad. The Nords are resistant to frost magic, so I don't get to use it as often as I'd like." She smiled .
Nora's breaths came in shuddering gasps, her back burning and aching all at once.
"Consider that a small taste of what I will do if you deviate from my questions, or refuse to answer them." The woman stepped towards the table, one hand closing around an amber coloured crystal. "Am I clear?"
Sobs choking her throat, Nora nodded as the woman as the woman set the crystal in a stand where it began to glow. Then she thrust her icy hand towards Nora.
An icicle speared through the air, shattering against the wall behind her.
"Speak clearly."
"Yes!" Nora yelped, her voice shrill and quaking.
Another icicle shattered on the wall, and she flinched.
"Yes, ma'am!"
"Yes ma'am!"
"Much better," the woman said, suddenly cordial. "We shall begin with the simple questions. What is your name?"
"Nora Hart. Ma'am." God she hated the way her voice shook, the fear she betrayed in those three words. But she couldn't be brave in that dungeon.
"How did you get all the way out here?"
"I-I don't know!"
The woman seized her calf and Nora screamed, trying to kick away as ice spread from the woman's biting grip. Faceted crystals spread rapidly from the interrogator's palm to encase Nora's skin. For a moment Nora saw the porthole in Vault 111, felt the all-consuming cold, saw frost shrouding the glass to conceal Nate's concerned expression, his hand pressed to his own window in farewell.
But she'd whited out back then. Other than the sudden cold, she had felt nothing — but this burned and ached and froze her skin, hurting and spreading and there was no relief.
The woman dropped her hand and Nora wailed, her leg frozen knee to ankle.
"Answer me before I start taking your toes," the woman said sharply. "And don't forget your manners! How did you get here? "
Nora's mind was a blur, torn between the Vault, the dungeon, the pain… This can't be real.
" Answer me! "
A hand seized her foot.
" The book !" Nora shrieked as cold stung her soles. " The book! "
"The. Book. Ma'am ."
The cold intensified.
" The book ma'am! "
The woman dropped her hand, and the ice encasing Nora's leg sloughed away to the ground. Though the weight was gone, Nora's skin burned.
"What 'book?'" the woman demanded, her nostrils flared and eyes blazing. "What did it contain?"
Nora gasped for air between her sobs, shaking violently. "Please, I don't know, I don't—"
The woman seized her leg again and Nora howled.
Nora screamed until she was empty and the woman was satisfied. There was no telling how long she had suffered the interrogation, only that it had felt like an eternity, the woman pressing and pressing until Nora had truly felt like she was losing her mind.
When it was over, the woman had flashed another malicious smile as she took the amber crystal and said something — probably a taunt, though Nora had been too spent and frightened to comprehend her words. She'd been left hanging from the hook until a guard came to fetch her.
He pulled the rope from the hook and let her drop, her body a dead weight that smacked the flagstone hard.
"Get up before I drag you."
Nora barely had the energy to try. He grabbed the ropes and proceeded to drag her in his wake, ignoring her pained croaks. The corridor was dimly lit by torches, and she could only watch as wooden doors gave way to barred ones, behind which dwelled dark figures that watched them in silence.
One shadow drew closer as they passed, and she glimpsed clawed, scaly fingers curling around the bars.
Three more cells passed and then they arrived at an open door. The guard removed the rope binding her hands, then seized her arm and threw her inside, slamming the door shut behind her.
Nora curled up slowly, gingerly, fighting back whimpers that might draw attention.
A near silence had fallen in the guards absence, as though the denizens of the other cells held their breaths. But gradually sounds began to fill the void he had left; the sound of bodies shifting, heavy sighs and pained groans.
"Hey, new gal."
Nora flinched, trying to make herself even smaller. The thunder of her heartbeat was almost enough to drown out the voice of the stranger, coarse and husky as though he hadn't drank in some time.
"The guards left some clothes in there for you. Might keep you from freezing if you can find them."
Nora hardly dared to breathe, keeping her eyes squeezed shut. She willed herself to disappear, or to wake up back in the Commonwealth, or back in her pre-war home or…
"Who's the 'new gal?'" another voice rumbled. "She one of ours?"
"Does it matter down here?" replied the first. He coughed dryly, and the quiet fell again.
Nora held where she was a while, shivering with nothing but old straw to cushion the stone beneath. The first voice spoke again, trying to sound softer despite its raspy edge.
"Try near the back of your cell, new gal. Even if you don't want to get dressed, there should be some hide to keep you warm."
Warily, Nora opened her eyes to look. She lay with her back to the bars, and ahead of her was a shallow recess carved into natural rock. It was dark and gloomy, but there was just enough light for her to make out a bundle ahead.
Slowly, each movement painful and stiff, she uncurled and began to crawl towards it.
Her fingers were numb, but she felt a new texture to the stone — something coarse and furry. The hide the other prisoner had mentioned.
Wearily she dragged herself atop it, and her hands found another bundle in the dark. The clothing, made from burlap if she had to guess. A tunic, pants, panties and strips of cloth. The clothes reeked, as did the hide, but she struggled into them with little thought.
In the wasteland, she had learned to take what little she could get. Being squeamish was a luxury she had discarded what now felt like two lifetimes ago.
The clothes were baggy and irritated the ice burns, but Nora felt a little less vulnerable now she wasn't so exposed. She wrapped the hide around herself and sat with her back to the wall, her eyes darting around the cell.
There was nothing else to see other than a bucket set beside the door, and the cell opposite to hers. A figure was slumped beside the door, his back pressed to the stone wall. She couldn't make much of him in the shadows — just a glimpse of dirty skin and matted dark hair visible in the fluttering torchlight.
"Thank you." Nora's voice was a raw whisper, and the words hurt to speak. Outside, they might have been lost to the faintest breeze, but in the miserable dark and quiet, even those words carried.
The man's head lifted towards her, and she huddled deeper beneath the hide.
"Don't mention it," he rasped. "We gotta stick together down here. Just keep your head down when the guards are around, unless you want a beating."
"Like that'll stop 'em," the second voice grumbled.
"It gets you further than spitting on them when they walk by," the man replied, turning his head in such a way Nora knew he was addressing someone in the cell next to hers.
"Only reason you stopped spitting is they don't give us enough to drink."
"Then listen to the voice of experience," the man sighed. He turned back to Nora. "Got a name, new gal?"
"Nora," she croaked.
The man was silent for a while. She was beginning to think he wouldn't reply when he said, "Nathaniel. Thorald's the one you can't see."
"Hail," Thorald grunted.
Nora tried wetting her lips, winced at the sting and the swelling.
"Am I… is this real?" she rasped, her voice quaking. "I'm… I'm dreaming, right?"
"Afraid not," Nathaniel sighed. "We really are in this pit. Damned Thalmor."
Nora prayed that he was wrong — that she was just trapped in the most vivid nightmare of her life. She eventually curled up, hoping that she would wake up back in Sanctuary, aboard the Prydwen, in her husband's arms…
Instinctively, Nora reached for her wedding bands and holotags. Then she remembered they were gone, and the cracks in her heart deepened.