Hello again everyone! I am so pleased to see that people seemed to enjoy the first chapter of WOWL. I do want to address something really quick before we begin. ShiftySpaceCow, in their review of the previous chapter, pointed out that I made it sound like Rysta was a new race. This is a valid question, but not the case. Rysta's mother is an Altmer and her father is a Breton, and since both of these races tend to have pointy ears, genetics decided to give our dear heroine that characteristic in spades. Her parentage will be described a bit in this chapter. Thanks for the review! :)
I'd also like to thank MadamHyde and Tae-Kwon-Do Dragon for their invaluable advice, reviews, and support. There's no way I would have started writing this without y'alls help and encouragement, so thanks a bunch, ladies!
With that said, here's chapter two!
The Elder Scrolls is © Bethesda. I own nothing you recognize.
It took my eyes a moment to adjust to the lower lighting of the tower once Ralof and I were inside, but what I saw made me gag.
Blood covered the floor, dyeing the pale stones a deep crimson color. I followed their trail to two Stormcloak soldiers, both lying on the ground. I could see where debris had fallen on one. His left arm was barely more than mutilated flesh attached to his shoulder. The other, a woman, fared little better. He face was pale and she gasped for breath, her hand covering a puncture wound in her chest.
I mourned their loss, for there was indeed nothing that could be done, and turned back to face Ralof only to find him speaking with Ulfric Stormcloak in hushed tones.
"But what is that thing?" Ralof demanded. "Could the legends be true?"
Ulfric eyed him a moment, solemn and calm amidst the screams of terror and pain.
"Legends don't burn down villages," he told the man before going over to the dying soldiers. Ralof grabbed my arm and dragged me up the winding staircase that went around the inside of the tower.
We had just made it to the second landing when the exterior wall burst open, debris covering the rest of the stairs and blocking our way out. Time seemed to slow as we came face to face with the dragon, the cause of all this destruction. The three of us studied each other for a moment. The dragon's snout was long, smoke rising out of his nostrils like chimneys, and his eyes were orbs of husky red. His entire body was covered in black spines, and his head was easily as big as me three times over.
The moment of study passed, and I was tugged backwards just as the dragon opened his mouth and released another unbearably hot burst of flame. I looked up at Ralof and murmured my thanks. He nodded before nudging me towards the ledge the dragon had left in his wake.
"See that inn on the other side?" he asked, pointing towards the second floor of a building just ahead of us. "Jump through the roof and keep going. We'll follow when we can!" Without even giving me a warning, I suddenly found myself being pushed. I landed on the inn's floor harshly, my ankle twisting, but I only stumbled for a second before making my way to an opening in the floor. I dropped down again, landing more gently this time, and stepped through a hole in the wall directly ahead of me.
I coughed as heavy smoke filled the air, bringing my still-bound hands up to my mouth. I suddenly found myself encased in someone else's arms, covering me as we made our way towards a grouping of boulders that were out of the way of most of the flames and smoke.
"Just run towards me!"
The shout brought my head up. It was the Imperial soldier Nord, the one who'd promised to take my remains home. He was yelling at a little boy. The same child I'd seen being forced inside by his parents when we'd first arrived. The young boy was cowering underneath some fallen beams, isolated and easy pickings for a dragon.
The next thing I knew, I was running towards the child, dodging falling debris as I went. I could hear the soldier's cry of "Haming!" as I stopped next to the boy, dropping to my knees so we met at eye level.
"Your name is Haming?" I asked, searching his tear- and soot-streaked face. He nodded slowly, both of us ignoring the chaos around us momentarily.
"You're the woman from the cart," he pointed out. I smiled. "That's right," I told him. "My name's Rysta. I think we need to be over there, but I've hurt my ankle; do you think you could lead me back to where that soldier is?" Haming looked over my soldier.
"To Hadvar?" Ah, so that was Muscles' name. I smiled again, nodding. Haming considered me a moment before grabbing onto my handcuffs and quickly guiding me back to the soldier and a second man, who I assumed had been the one to lead me away from the smoke. Hadvar looked incredibly relieved when the boy got back to him.
"Good job; you did great." He told Haming. I looked back at the Imperial soldier and he gave me a grateful nod. A second later, the ground trembled again. The dragon was facing us, opening his mouth.
"Everyone get back!" Hadvar cried as we all pressed against the natural stone wall behind us. We'd just hidden behind the rocks when the dragon's fury was unleashed. Hadvar cursed.
"Gunnar! Watch the boy!" The older man with us nodded and the soldier then turned to me. "Still alive, prisoner?" I quirked an eyebrow.
"Apparently."
He shot me a look. "Well, keep close to me if you want to stay that way. I have to find General Tullius and join the defense." I wanted to say that mounting a defense was rather futile at this point, noting the complete destruction of the once peaceful town, but I held my tongue. Being witty was not necessary right now, no matter how accurate the statement may have been. So instead I just nodded, trying to keep his brown and red armor in my line of sight.
We'd managed to evade most of the dragon's subsequent attacks and I only got singed a little by a flaming, falling support beam. All in all, we were doing okay.
Hadvar and I were almost to the keep doors when we ran into Ralof. He gave me a nod of acknowledgement before turning towards the Imperial soldier, who demanded to know where he was going.
"We're escaping, Hadvar," Ralof explained, motioning for me to join him. I quickly made my way over as he continued. "You cannot stop us this time."
The soldier looked at us both, a frown marring his features. "Fine," he conceded. "But may Sovngarde take you both!" With those parting words, Ralof and I separated from Hadvar and made our way into the keep.
We closed the heavy wooden door behind us, barring it shut. "Looks like we're the only ones who made it out," I said softly, the sudden reprieve from all the screams making my ears ring. The Stormcloak looked at me, his brow furrowing and giant Nord shoulders hunching.
"Was… Was that really a dragon? Is this truly the end of days?" I couldn't answer him, for indeed I did not know. We merely stared at each other for a few moments before Ralof noticed my wrists were still bound. "Here," he said, taking the leather straps apart and breaking my binds. "We might need to fight our way out, so search for a weapon. There's bound to be a few in here."
Sensing that the poor man needed a moment to collect himself, I did as he asked. The room was dark for the most part, so it was slow going, but after sifting through the room for a few minutes, ignoring the swords and axes I found, I did eventually locate a small iron dagger, perfect for my stature. I loved being a combination of Breton and Altmer most of the time. If I'd chosen to study in Winterhold, I'd probably be one of the more powerful mages there. But with the strong magicka ability came a serious lack of physical strength. I could not swing a sword without exhausting myself, and wearing heavy armor was completely out of the question. So I stuck with daggers and lighter protection.
After searching the room and finding no light armor, I returned to Ralof, who, after quirking an eyebrow at my weapon choice led me through to another room, unlocking the gate leading up to it with a key he'd found on the floor. We there discovered two more Stormcloak soldiers, both dead. I noticed that one of them was encased in leather armor, still in wearable condition. I looked at the blond Nord.
"May I…?"
He heaved a heavy sigh. "Might as well," he responded. "It's not like she'll need it anymore."
Ralof looked away as I disrobed myself and removed the deceased Stormcloak's armor, swapping out our clothing. I looked at the woman I was taking clothes from and noticed how young she looked. She had to be barely over twenty, much younger than my own thirty five years. And now she was dead in a keep underneath a destroyed city, never to be buried properly. The thought of her fate saddened me.
I brushed these considerations away as I strapped the pieces together. I was lucky that the woman and I were similar in size. Everything seemed to fit fairly well. Even her boots clasped around my feet and legs comfortably. I put her leather helmet on last, tucking the ends of my ears underneath the cap. Once I was finished, I coughed to let Ralof know that we were both completely covered again. He turned back around, eyeing me.
"It's a bit big," he said, reaching to tighten the leather straps keeping the breastplate in place, "but it'll do for now."
We made our way over to another door and I reached to grab the knob, but we both were shocked to find it opening seemingly of its own accord. Ralof and I backed up, drawing our sword and dagger respectively, and watched as the door opened to reveal three Imperial soldiers. The five of us stared at one another for a moment in shock before Oblivion broke loose. Two of the Imperial soldiers ran at Ralof, immediately engaging him in combat. I faced my own opponent, a heavily armored, war hammer-wielding Imperial. Fantastic.
The man came at me, his hammer slung behind him, poised to strike. I jumped out of the way of his attack, the head of the weapon instead hitting a table that had been behind me. Before he could recover, I ran at the Imperial and slipped my fingers under his helmet, flipping it off of his head and exposing his face and neck. The heavy metal clattered loudly to the ground and I glanced over at Ralof to see that he'd already dispatched one soldier and looked to be just about finished with the other.
My momentary distraction almost became a fatal one as I looked back towards my own adversary, who by now had recovered and was within lethal range.
"For the Empire!" He cried, bringing the hammer down. I had a momentary flashback of the executioner from earlier, but the memory was quickly forgotten.
Having nowhere else to go, I leaned into the attack, my dagger aimed at the Imperial's throat. The pole of his hammer slammed into my shoulder the same second my knife plunged into his neck. We both collapsed to the ground, dropping our weapons, although I was glad to see that I at least was still alive, despite the searing pain emanating from my left shoulder.
I blinked and suddenly Ralof was there, studying my injury. I looked around to notice that both of his opponents were dead. We sat quietly for a few minutes, both of us catching our breath as we sat in a pool of our enemies' blood. It seemed like an eternity before he spoke.
"Your collar bone's broken," he told me, pressing down on a particularly sensitive spot, making me hiss. "You wouldn't happen to know any Restoration magic, would you? I don't have any healing potions on me."
"I do," I responded, calling up the magic into my fingertips. I placed my right hand over my shoulder and gently massaged the damaged area, fiery bolts of pain slowly fading into an ignorable ache. Rolling my left shoulder after a few minutes and feeling nothing more than slight stiffness, I got to my feet and retrieved my dagger from the dead Imperial's throat, wiping the blood off with an exposed piece of his tunic.
Ralof and I continued down the pathway the Imperials had come from, picking up healing potions and gold coins as we came across them. I even found a spell book at one point. I tucked it into a knapsack I'd procured, deciding to give it a read later. We continued along in companionable silence for a while when he suddenly asked me where I'd learned to fight.
"You're no professional," he told me, "but you're also not without training."
"I learned to fight in Riften," I answered immediately, opening a barrel and sifting through its contents. "After the vampire attacks in Solitude happened nine years ago, I relocated and spent a couple of years studying under the people who support and protect a very influential resident there." I decided not to elaborate on my time with the Thieves' Guild. That situation had gotten messier the longer I stayed and I'd left as soon as matters had been resolved, although I did pop in from time to time. My good friend Brynjolf now ran the show, and quite successfully, too.
"And your husband and daughter relocated with you?"
Ouch. That was not the follow-up question I'd expected. It was also one I didn't intend on explaining.
"No, they didn't."
Ralof seemed to accept my purposefully vague answer and said nothing more on the matter. By now we'd made our way out of the keep proper and into some caverns, where even more Imperials lay in wait. We, along with another Stormcloak we'd run into along the way, took them out with us receiving only minor bumps and bruises.
The three of us continued going through the caves, passing through a nest of Frostbite spiders in the next cavern. Luckily the ones we fought were juveniles, so they weren't incredibly hard to dispatch. Our tagalong Stormcloak, whose name turned out to be Sonja, was a great help in fighting them off. The three of us made quiet conversation as we moved through the caverns and tunnels, marveling over the appearance of the dragon and what on Nirn that meant for us.
"It's the end of days, I tell you!" Ralof insisted, handing us each an apple and a rabbit leg that we'd taken from the keep earlier that day. "We're going to walk outside and see nothing but fire and ash."
Sonja was a little more optimistic. "We'll be fine and Skyrim will be fine. You obviously didn't read the prophecy when you were younger," she snapped back, taking a bite of her apple.
"Of course I did, Sonja. Anyone who's ever attended school has."
"Whoa. Wait," I interrupted the two of them. "Prophecy? I've never heard of this. What's it about?"
Sonja and Ralof swapped a look before the woman turned to me. "The legend and prophecy of the Dovahkiin, or Dragonborn, is an old one. Some people attribute its appearance to the Elder Scrolls while others claim it came from the Akaviri."
"You sure know a lot of details," Ralof told her. She smiled, taking another bite of her apple and chewing slowly.
"My sister has an insatiable appetite for reading," she explained. "Our parents were never very interested in what she had to say, so a lot of her knowledge was given to me instead."
"So, what exactly does the prophecy say?" I asked, attempting to get Sonja back on track.
"I don't remember the exact wording, but it was something along the lines of 'at the end of time, in the wake of the World Eater, the wheel will turn upon the last Dragonborn', or something to that effect."
"And this dragon that's appeared can be nothing but a world eater!" Ralof maintained. "The only thing we're missing is a gods-damned Dragonborn."
The three of us continued on our way after finishing up our rather meager meal. Ralof and Sonja bantered back and forth as we went along, discussing whether this truly was the end of all days or not. I found myself wondering the same thing.
Time passed endlessly as we journeyed through the cave, our hopes of getting out diminishing the longer we found ourselves underground. There wasn't anything else to fight, either. Our biggest problem had been the frostbite spiders, and that had been hours ago. I couldn't even feel my feet anymore.
"Are we ever gonna get out of here?" I complained to no one in particular. My two companions seconded my protest.
"I'd welcome some fire and brimstone if it meant we were out of this thrice-damned tunnel!" Sonja added, sighing loudly. "At least we'd be able to-"
"Ssshhh!" Ralof hushed us, suddenly crouching and hiding behind a boulder. Sonja and I followed the man's line of sight before we too crouched. For not even a hundred feet from us lay a bear, sleeping.
"What should we do?" I asked, really hoping we could avoid another fight. I was exhausted, my earlier adrenaline almost completely gone.
"I'd rather not fight that thing," Ralof said, giving voice to my thoughts. "Let's see if we can sneak past it."
So the three of us ever so slowly made our way around the bear. We'd almost gotten completely out of the bear's area when Sonja – poor Sonja – tripped over a rock and crashed into Ralof who in turn fell on top of me, our armor clanking together quite loudly.
And suddenly the bear was awake, angry, and running towards us. Ralof and I managed to separate ourselves from the tangle of limbs and armor, both of us drawing our weapons in preparation to fight. Sonja attempted the same, but she could barely stand on the foot she'd tripped with. It was probably twisted.
Ralof and I stepped in front of her as protection and we traded blows with the bear, injuring it grievously. But that was when we made a fatal mistake. I had stabbed the bear in the thigh, attempting to sever the muscles, and the giant animal had turned on me. Ralof went out of its line of sight and stabbed it in the shoulder to get its attention away from me and give me time to recover my stance. But the two of us had separated, leaving Sonja to defend herself from the ground between us. The bear mistook Ralof's attack as Sonja's, and swiped its giant paw across her face, one claw dragging itself across her neck.
I can't remember who screamed first or who delivered the killing blow to the bear, but what I do remember is holding the poor woman's unconscious form in my arms, desperately trying to heal the extensive damage while Ralof attempted to force potions down her throat. I drained my magicka to almost dangerous levels trying to resuscitate Sonja, but to no avail. An artery had been cut when the bear had clawed at her, and there had been little I could have done even if I had possessed the proper healing abilities.
I don't remember starting to cry, either, but the next thing I knew, I was clinging to Ralof's armor, my head buried in his shoulder as deep, heavy sobs escaped me. The poor man did his best to comfort me, patting and rubbing my back in turns, much like a parent would with a child. That thought made me cry even harder and soon it wasn't just about Sonja. It was about the dragon, the destruction of a small town, my almost-execution, that stupid dream, everything.
We sat there for what was probably the better part of an hour, my sobs eventually winding down to gasps, then to hiccups. Once I was finally out of tears, Ralof helped me take Sonja's body over to a stream that ran through this part of the cave and we washed the drying blood off of her skin. We then placed the body on the ground, Ralof closing the woman's hands over the hilt of her downturned sword which rested on top of her torso, the proper burial position for a fallen soldier.
Nothing was said for a few minutes as we stood there silently, each of us running the past few hours through our heads.
"Thank you," I said to Ralof suddenly, breaking the horrible, pain-filled silence that had consumed us. I wasn't even sure what I was thanking him for. He looked over at me, a very slight smile on his face as he placed a hand on my shoulder.
"You're welcome."
The two of us then gathered up the items we'd dropped in the fight and stepped through into the next tunnel, leaving the bodies of Sonja and the bear behind.
What seemed like days but could only have been a few minutes later, we spied the exit. It was a small sliver of light at first, but as we drew closer, it grew brighter and a cold gust of wind brushed past us. Ralof and I blinked at the suddenly intense sunlight, our eyes accustomed to the heavy darkness of the cave. Once our eyes adjusted, we raced to the exit, only stopping once we were outside. The bracing wind that whipped around us was welcome, if a bit cold, and the view of the mountains ahead of us was one of the most beautiful things I'd ever seen.
"No fire and brimstone," Ralof muttered, sadness lining his features. We then looked at each other, our depressed demeanors turning into smiles which then slowly grew until we both burst into crazed, uncontrollable laughter. I even fell to my knees. I couldn't believe it.
We'd made it out of Helgen.