C5 - Dawnguard.
The wind had carried me for many miles, fortunatly no arrows were shot at me as I traveled ever closer to fort Dawnguard. As cold as it was, it was better than staying anwhere near people who knew me, being as far away from Whiterun as possible seemed to be the best course of action to me. However alowing myself to be in the presence of people who could easilly mistake me for something that they were hunting was stupid too, but nowhere near as bad as walking around old freinds with these new apendages.
It took some courage, but finally after a while I was able to lower myself down onto the ground. I believed that no-one was around me for the short time that I had been on the ground. Unfortunatly I was wrong.
I felt the air move behind me, someone had charged towards me with a weapon drawn. Thankfully I was smart enough to dodge the man before he smashed my skull. He passed me and turned to hit again, I was faster. With one motion I drew my blade and placed it against his throat without cutting it.
"I am not what you are hunting." I spoke simply.
"Do not take me for a fool vampire. Child or no child, you shall die." He monolouged before he charged at me again.
I needn't dodge, he missed with quite some distance between myself and him. A left cross to his throat knocked him clean out. I left the limp body behind and left to walk up to the fort of Dawnguard. Should someone else have believe I was a vampire, I would surrender and let them test me. However, I doubted that I could get close enough. It was worth a try however.
The sky was beginning to darken, as was my mood. Being tired from the flight and the fight was a bad thing to be, especially when in the wild. I expected to reach the fort before the sun disapeared behind the clouds, that didn't look as though it was going to happen as my pace was beginning to slow down. Eventually I fell to the snow, my knee hitting the floor hurt, but I hadn't given up. The fort was in sight, I just had to get closer. Desperatly my wings began to flap, but I couldn't manage to get up, I was stuck. My foot slipped underneath me and I ended up with a face full of snow.
In despair, I tried crawling to the fort, using my hands to get closer. As my vision began to fade, a shadowy figure appeared. Getting ever closer it seemed. Whoever it was picked me up by my collar and hoisted me onto their back, before carrying me away.
As my vision finally darkened, I felt the change in tempreture instantly. I'd been taken inside and placed against a wall. Beginning to get warmer, I felt an instant change of heart. Perhaps trying to join the dawnguard was not such a good idea.
"Is it a vampire?" A gravelled voice sounded.
"I doubt it, he would have sank his teeth into me the moment I picked him up." A more natural voice replied.
"He's alive, but weary from the travel here. He obviously wanted something." The voice continued.
I, with my last bit of strength opened my eyes and tried to speak.
"Join Dawn-guard." I spoke, before finally sucoming to my fatigue.
The night was long, but it was also peaceful. This lasted hours, this was because of the fact that I was warmed by a fire that was nearby. Finally I was awoken by a man with a bald head and beard sharpening an axe. As soon as I moved to push myself to a sitting position, he noticed me and brandished the axe, fear hit me.
"No don't!" I yelled, reaching for my blade which was no longer attached to my belt.
With no way to defend myself, I submitted to him as he placed the blade against my throat.
"What are you?" He growled at me.
"I'm no vampire, look." I explained quickly as I tossed the fold off of my head.
His eyes locked onto my blind eye, it was almost as if he thought that I would be hiding something behind it.
"One way to find out." He spoke as he sheathed his axe and produced a silver knife.
Understanding what he was doing, I heald out my hand which he took voilently and cut my middle finger with the tip of the blade. It stung but didn't hurt that much. The man stared into the blood pouring out of my finger before he put the knife away and helped me to my feet.
"You understand, with your appearence we couldn't be so sure." It sounded like an apology, but it sounded reluctant.
"I'm sorry, I should have announced my arrival." I apologised too, realising that it was partly my fault that I was in the position.
"You needn't apologise young one. I am Isran, leader of the Dawnguard. You're not the first to come here with glowing eyes, perhaps you are related." He lead me towards a fire where he sat down and opened a bottle of mead.
I sat down as well, not too close to him as not to discomfort him.
"What do you mean?" I wondered.
Isran looked behind him, a man with my eyes, my ears and my hair colour. He looked to be my father.
"Isran, is this the young one you spoke of?" He spoke with awe, believing that he was the only one.
I stood and looked at him, not knowing what to say.
"A woman in Whiterun. You..." I stammered.
His eyes widened, staring at me.
"My son... What happened to you?" He began to smile.
Anger stuck me, if this man was my father, he hadn't been one.
"I have no father." I almost spat at him.
"Your anger is warrented, I left your mother alone with you. But I always wanted to see you again." He defended himself, to no avail. I wasn't letting up.
"I was in Whiterun the whole time, the only time I left was when I worked. You have no excuse and you are certainly not my father." I wanted to sink my blade into him, it was no longer at my hip though, I couldn't do anything but lunge at him.
I didn't lunge at him though, I believed that attacking him wouldn't supply me with much luck in joining the Dawnguard. Although the feeling was there, it wasn't worth attempting. He didn't reply though, Isran grabbed my shoulder and turned me to sit down at the fire. Carefully he handed me the bottle of mead.
"Drink, you should feel better after." He was trying to calm me down.
The man who claimed to be my father also decided to decide to sit down at the fire before he spoke to me again, he seemed to realise my anger but not accept it.
"So, why do you want to join the Dawnguard?" Isran passed a bottle to the man.
"Look at me, I don't have much left in life. I want to make a difference, or at least die for a cause rather than be shot or stabbed for these wings. Fighting vampires seemed to be the best choice, either that or stay at the college of winterhold." I explained myself, before taking a sip of the mead.
The strong taste hit me in the throat making it hard to swallow. This mead had been aged for a while, its strength proved it.
"I'm not even going to ask how they came around, what's your weapon?" Isran pressed.
"Bow and sword, I'm two handed usually." I replied, placing the mead on the ground where I couldn't accidentally hit it.
"Like to keep them at arms length eh? Wise, honestly I believe you could be a better fighter than you are. Ever used a crossbow?" Isran replied.
"No, I can do just about anything with a bow. Changing to a crossbow seems like going backwards to me." I talked to Isran, keeping my eyes far away from the man who claimed to be my father.
The man stared at me. Taking a look at me, trying to find something, as though he was looking for a mark that said that I was his son. One thing that caught me off guard was the way that he put his hand on my shoulder.
I froze, never even attempted to try and remove it. His touch was warm, somewhat strange to me.
"You may not believe it, but you are my son." He spoke to me.
Unable to speak, not even able to move.
"Xaolong, I'm trying to speak to the boy. He's exhausted." Isran defended me to try and stop the man from touching me.
"My son has ran into me and you deny me the chance to prove to him that I am his father?" Xaolong warned.
I waited, wanting him to actually prove something to me. He turned me to him, fear pasted my face. Something was wrong, he was trying to force me into believeing that he was my father.
He pulled on his leather gauntlets, taking them off and showing me a small mark on his wrist. What looked to be a shield was engraved on his wrist, something that I'd never come across in my life. Shakilly, I pulled back on the sleeves on my robes, the exact same mark was on my left wrist.
"We are blessed from birth, these marks follow in our familly. Proof that you are my Son. I apologise that I was absent, but you must understand the vampires are a bigger threat than anything else. You were safe in Whiterun." He explained to me.
My body began to shake, something that I never expected to happen to me.
Me. Shaking.
"Come here my son." he placed a hand on my back, pulling me into a hug.
For some reason I found myself without the abillity to pull away. Unable to stop him, unable to stop myself from returning the hug. Strangely, my opinion had changed of this man, the way he held me. A Fatherly way. It seemed so alien, but so familiar at the same time. Then I noticed the tear, rolling down my face and onto my robes.
Now things had changed.
Yet I still couldn't react, still couldn't move. He pushed me away enough so that he could see my eyes, they locked.
"Kung, do you accept me as your father?" He asked.
"You've proven it, but it doesn't change anything. You haven't been there through my life, so how would I know you? I'm glad we've met, but you've missed your chance to be my father." Even after this, I rejected him.
Instantly I wondered what I was doing with myself. What I did know was that I would probobly regret it.
"Back to the matter at hand, please continue Isran." I turned to Isran.
"The Vampires have been taking people left right and center. All over tamerial, but the amount of Vampire traffic that's come up of recent years. It's troubling, it can only mean one thing. There's something in Skyrim they want, we have to find it and use it against them somehow. I want you to go and scout out a postion for me, plenty of Vampires there. Can you handle it?" Isran explained the situation to me.
"Sure, but what should I be looking for exactly?" I asked.
"Anything that the Vampires could use against us." Isran simply replied.
"You are not going alone, there will be too many for you, no matter where you go." Father tried to persuade me not to go alone and to take him with me.
"No, I go alone. If you come with me there's too much of a chance that we will be seen. Besides, I don't trust you in the slightest." I looked at him.
Isran decided that it would be better if I were to stay and rest, but I had no time to rest. My hideous body was now a tool to kill vampires in my eyes. I cared not for the man who was my father, I did not care any longer about Mary or Erron. I could see from the moment that they'd saw the wings that they did not know me any more even though I was the same person, my body had changed everything.
2 hours later.
Darkness fell, the vampire's time to feed. A blade on my hip, a bow on my back and a will to kill pushed me through the howling winds and brutal blizzard into the caves where I was told to go and destroy each vampire I saw.
No sooner did I enter the cave did I hear voices talking about the unfortunate events that had fell before the vigilants of stendar.
"A shame we could not turn any of them." One voice hissed.
"A shame? For what? To touture them in their last moments before they threw themselves into the Sun's embrace? Please..." A female voice spoke.
As the conversation lead on, I surveyed the cave around me, two pillars made out of rough rock invited me to jump and to climb on them, so I did. One mighty leap and I was attached to the wall.
"Shh, did you hear that?" Hissing came.
I used the horns on my wings to grab onto the wall so that I could use the bow. However as soon as I nocked the arrow, I was noticed.
"What is that?" One hissed.
He was silenced as I drew the bow back and released the arrow. As soon as I did this, I dropped from my position to the ground and drew my blade, ready to charge into the next Vampire. The bone blade pentrated his robes and through his ribcage outside his body. He struggled, but quickly died after I removed the blade.
I decided to be a little bit more stealthy and sneak around the cave to see what I could find. But everywhere I went all I saw were smooth stone ritual rooms and all sorts of trinkets, things that could be sold for gold that people didn't have, I wanted little to do with pillaging. The items were memoirs of people that had died or fell victim to vampires. Whoever killed the mumified humans, they'd killed quite a few. Deeper and deeper into the void cave, I began coming across gargoyles everywhere, then came a heavy gate. A gate of which fell behind me as soon as I crossed it.
I was trapped, stuck in the cave. However I believed that there was another way, a way that I could get out. It was through the vampires down below, tourturing what looked like the last of the Vigilants in the area. Only two where stood by him, so I knocked two arrows on the bow, pulled back the strings and let go. Only one arrow hit it's target, I damned it as it didn't kill it's target.
They noticed me straight away.
