Chapter 4 - Rising Action

They started towards the border that distinguished Cyrodil and Skyrim in the morning. No more Cyrodil. Aren wasn't sure how they were doing,

At around middas, they stopped to eat. It was wonderful, with sweet rolls, cooked beef, and vegetables. Milk was poured, mead was sloshed, and light banter went between them. Rosanna leaned back, and actually relaxed. Something abounAren made her feel...free. Herself.

"Skyrim's border should be up ahead." Aren offered, after a few days of traveling. "Helgen will be amazing, I promise."

Rosanna stroked Bolyn's head as they walked. The sunrises and sunsets were beautiful. Orange, and pink, and red, mingling with lavender to create this sky. Her soul felt calm.

Then all hell broke loose.

She'll never truly know what happened. Crystal thought that they had walked into a rune spell, which was Rosanna's best guess.

Crystal was catapulted into bushes, a sickening crack resounding into the air. She stopped breathing that moment.

"CRYSTAL!" Rosanna screeched with an inhuman tone of desperation. She sprinted forward to help her friend, before another rune spell, this one ice, sent her flying back herself. Rosanna landed into the crumbling dirt, blood and tears blurring her vision.

Aren flew over, and landed on top of her. There were whimpers, and yet another blast insued, and then the dogs were nowhere to be found.

Aren and Rosanna were thrown into a river. She choked on ice water, holding on to Aren's limp body, and attempting to get air. Her lungs were tight, and filling with the river's water as she tried to swim along the edge.

Rosanna saw, for one fleeting moment, Alessi. She was alive! Hopefully, she'd survive.

"Run!" She managed to choke out. "To my family! Don't...don't come back until I send..." And her esophaugus filled with that cursed water.

What Rosanna didn't know of, was that a waterfall was ahead. She managed a glimpse of what looked like an entire army running forward, following them. She gasped and threw up water, and proceeded to tumble head-over-heels. For a moment, her thin legs stuck to a rock, and left pale skin on when she continued through the current.

She was weak. Rosanna began to accept her death. She fell limply over the waterfall, and fell like a marionette with it's strings cut, into a deep, frothing pool. Rosanna weakly gripped Aren's shoulders, keeping his head above the icy waters.

Help me, Hircine. Rosanna thought to herself. Her thick hair was plastered to her face now, blocking whatever vision she had left.

The waters calmed, by some miracle, possibly by some higher being?

Closer to death than she had ever been, Rosanna swam to the side, grasping at silt and sand. With a dying breath, Rosanna wrenched herself and Aren up to the bank, and dropped, a senseless heap on the ground.