Hi Everybody. I don't know if people are still following this, I apologise (I'm English, I don't care if there are red lines under my spelling of apologise, I will spell it this way :P) for the wait between uploads, and commend those of you still here for your loyalty and commitment :). My only excuse, and it's not a good one, is that life finally caught up with me and I suddenly found myself with endless responsibilities and problems. Travelling and loafing around australia came to an end and I was plunged back in to the real world which came as a bit of a shock. It's not a good excuse and though a range of other things have been occurring around myself and my family right now I have no intention of depressing everybody.
So here is my latest update. I have almost half of the next chapter written as well, but based on previous track records, who knows how long it'll take me to get that out. I have every intention of finishing this story and I even have a sequel planned out (ambitious aren't I? Considering I can barely get this one out :P )
Insert Stock Disclaimer here (I do not own anything in the exquisitely crafted world of Skyrim, except Wren, and even she is merely a twisted facade of the Dragonborn, given a backstory, and shoved out in front of an audience. The care and attention to detail that must have gone in to creating every inch of the game by Bethesda just blows me away every time and it's all I can do to play with the characters for a bit and put them neatly back where I found them. :P )
Thank you for reading and please enjoy this next chapter.
The fire beneath her skin was rising ever higher, there was no relief, even as she pressed herself against the cool, if rough, surface behind her. It felt as though every tiny millimetre of her skin was a buzz, prickling with sensation. Wren gasped at the sweet agony as she ran her hands across the cool stone of the floor, her fingers feeling every bump, every rough nook and sharp edge a thousand times magnified.
Thousands of thoughts flickered through her mind, elusive, and none following a logical train of thought as the flames licked higher and the world around her became a blur.
"Were these the effects of the potion? Did normal lust feel like this? When was Hadvar coming back? Was he ok? Where was Asta?"
It was this thought that caught Wren's attention. The flames didn't die down but she forced herself to pay mind once more to her surroundings.
Even the dim light in the hallway seemed too bright, and hurt her eyes as she dragged them open. The room seemed blurred and wavy, and a dizzy feeling washing over her. She groaned and blinked it back, the room beginning to look a little more solid as she did.
Asta lay in the hallway, halfway to the entrance in to the room beyond, her breathing shallow, hands on the arrow she had just ripped from her shoulder. Wren cried out as she saw the blood pooling on Asta's uniform bodice, covering the tip of the arrow and her hands, stained red, wrapped around the shaft of the arrow.
Desperate, willing her legs to hold her, Wren scrambled up, taking a few stumbling steps towards her fallen friend before her legs gave an almighty shake and she collapsed to the floor only metres from Asta. The room had gone blurry once more and the fire in her skin seemed to engulf her, but she pulled herself up to her knees and crawled towards the prone soldier. Lurching forward, she groaned as the tips of her breasts brushed gently against the cloth of her roughspun tunic each time she moved forward. Disgusted with herself for noticing such a thing whilst her friend was in trouble, Wren pushed herself towards Asta, even as the room swayed around her and she couldn't help but notice the heavy feeling in that place between her legs. Determined to ignore the trickle of moisture on her inner thighs, she finally made it over to her wounded friend. Asta's breathing was shallow but the arrow didn't appear to have hit anything important so it must have been the shock of the injury that was causing her reaction.
Wren gently peeled back the armor plating that had stopped most of the arrows flight, meaning that though the force of the blow had sent Asta on to her back, the wound would likely be fairly shallow. With her mother's spell in effect, Wren knew she may not be able to close the wound, helping hands being one of the few spells she knew, but she could try.
It took a moment or two for the spell to begin glowing within her hands, the heat within her rising, each new sensation an unwanted distraction. But as the intent to heal grew within her mind, golden tendrils began to escape her palms. Leaning over Asta, breath still coming in pants and gasps, Wren first put her hands together to strengthen the meagre spell she had managed to summon, then pressed both hands to Asta's wound.
Asta groaned but Wren could feel the skin beneath her palms slowly knitting back together so she held fast. Moments later, she lifted her palms slightly to check the wound and saw that it now looked like a shallow scratch, but the tendrils of gold smoke had begun to flicker in her palms. She groaned as she tried to dig deeper for more magicka, the shaky, dizzy feeling of running out adding to the effects of the potion. Just as she was about to reapply, despite the weakness of the spell, Wren felt a hand grasp her shoulder.
For just a moment, hope flared deep in her heart as she thought Hadvar might have returned just in time to... well, Wren didn't know what, but she was sure that Hadvar was the only one who could help her.
But the hope was crushed in an instant as the grip on her shoulder became brutally tight, spinning her to face this new, unknown assailant. The Empire uniform was all she noticed before he gave her a shake and began to speak.
"Well look at you! A healing spell? Are you a priest? No. Of course you're not. Just a little prisoner, escaping in the panic." He sneered at her, "Whatever shall I do with you?"
The threat in his voice was more than enough to put Wren on edge, she'd heard that tone of voice once before when a man from the village near her hut had cornered her. She'd escaped that time but had a feeling that she may not be so lucky this time.
She whimpered as he dragged her away from Asta, across the floor of the hallway. She could only cry out as he pressed her back against the wall, trapping her against it with his body. Wren knew she had been dosed with a lust potion, and in her head she knew that her body would react to any stimulus it could find, so the deep well of disgust that rose in her stomach surprised her. She so adamantly did not want this man touching her that her body was over-riding some of the effects of the potion. Her head began to clear and the dizzy feeling of earlier sunk back as the odious man licked a stripe up her neck from her collarbone. He was pressing her back further in to the wall, his hands grasping at her waist and breasts and as the nausea rose in her throat, the only defense spell she knew flickered to life in her palms. Her arms were weak from the prolonged effects of the potion and she struggled to raise them even as the tiny red flames flickered, warming her palms in a comforting gesture. But her magicka was almost tapped out and her casting abilities were low so she knew if she wanted to escape, her spell would have to effect a sensitive area on the man holding her against the rough brick of the wall.
Fighting the effects on the potion on her muscles and the sob that rose in her throat, she quickly pressed her palm against her attackers eye, and before he could move or question her, cast the spell.
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The high pitched but definitely male scream that echoed through the corridor jolted Asta out of her daze. The first thing she noticed was that she was no longer bleeding or holding a bloody arrow, in fact it felt remarkably like there was hardly any wound at all.
"YOU BITCH! I'LL KILL YOU! BY THE GODS I'LL MAKE YOU SUFFER YOU LITTLE SLUT!" Asta span round as she heard this and the sound of steel ringing against stone. An Empire soldier stood over the huddled form of Wren, one hand covering his left eye and the other raising his sword above his head in a second attempt to wound or kill the girl on the floor before him. Asta could see that Wren's clothes were out of place, the rough spun shirt ripped around the collar and hanging off her shoulder as she grasped her side with one hand and tried desperately to scoot away from this new threat with the other. Trying and failing unfortunately as the poor girl seemed wracked with shudders from the effects of the potion and the tremors repeatedly brought her legs out from underneath her. Adrenalin could only do so much.
Asta was across the room before she even knew she was moving, her training with the Stormcloaks and her rage at the fact that her perceived ineptitude had led to her charge being wounded carrying her the distance needed to intercept the soldiers downwards swing. They held that position for a moment, her recently healed shoulder straining under the pressure, her arms trembling as the brute of a man tried to power through her to his target.
And suddenly there was no strain anymore.
The force behind the man's sword faltered as he let out a burbling groan. Surprised, Asta looked down and saw the tip of a sword poking out of the soldier's belly. The sword was withdrawn and the disgusting pig fell backwards with a moan, revealing the form of Ralof behind him, looking grim as he wiped his sword on the fallen soldier's jerkin. She sighed in relief and smiled gingerly at her fellow Stormcloak. He patted he on the back but Ralof's gaze appeared to be caught on something behind her.
Spinning around she caught sight of Hadvar as he scooped Wren up from the floor of the hallway, holding her close despite the blood coating her side and fingertips. A hand on the crook of her arm made her turn back to Ralof.
"I think we should give them a moment." Asta nodded and went to follow Ralof but remembered that she needed to tell Hadvar the things she had found out before the arrow. She turned back towards the couple only to see that they were otherwise engaged. Wanting to tell Ralof she followed after him, but was discouraged when she saw that he was examining the corpse of the Empire soldier in a bid to find anything useful on the man. With a cry of triumph he pulled free a couple of minor health potions, a magicka potion and a couple of gold coins. It was then that he actually looked at the man in front of him.
"God's!Look at his eye!"
The sight in question was indubitably grisly. The skin was blistered and red and the eye itself appeared to have melted. It didn't look like it was possible to close the eye anymore as the lid appeared to have been seared off. The cause was clear as the red, grisly skin around the eye formed the shape of a hand. A tiny, slim, delicate fingered hand. Asta knew from talking to Wren what the spell must have cost her physically and knew that it was a final resort, a last ditch effort to free herself from the clutches of a man intent on rape. Considering it must have been her who healed the arrow wound, the fact that she'd still managed any spell at all was amazing, and Asta was shamed that despite the little Breton healing her it had taken her blinding a man with fire to get Asta to jolt out of her injury induced daze. Had the man left Wren alone at that point and searched out a healing potion, chances are, he would have regained his sight, that fact that he'd sought revenge for her self-defence told Asta that he deserved everything he got and more.
"She's a spell caster," she explained to Ralof, "but apparently her mother bound her magicka so she can't access very much or cast many spells. I'm pretty sure she healed my shoulder so I don't think she had much magicka left. I imagine the full powered spell would have taken his head off."
"That might have been kinder." stated Ralof grimly as he stood over the man.
Asta was surprised by Ralof's statement and after allowing it to sink in for a moment, found her anger rising.
"And what would you have had her do Ralof?" She stated angrily, then continued with, "if you were defenseless and being touched against your will?" Ralof looked shamefaced at this. "He's bigger than you and stronger than you and all you have is your magic, but you've spent all your reserves healing a friend and all you can cast is less than half of one small spell to save your life and your virtue? At what point would you deem that an acceptable action?" She was loud now, watching Ralof get paler with her every word, pointing at the dead man by the wall. He tried to jump in but further argument was cut off by the sound of a throat being cleared to the side of the pair.
Both of them turned towards the sound only to see Hadvar glaring at both of them with one eyebrow raised. Wren stood behind him, sipping a healing potion, most likely from Hadvar's seemingly endless supply. Asta couldn't help but notice that Wren seemed remarkably calm, especially considering the state she had been in before Asta had been wounded and even as that pig had been trying to kill her, but she wasn't panting or even breathing heavily at the moment. The only thing that Asta could see that could be wrong with the girl was that her eyes were slightly glazed. She smiled as she noticed that Hadvar was gently clasping the little Breton's hand in his and what that, coupled with Wren's drastically recovered constitution, could mean. Surprisingly enough Hadvar seemed to blush under her scrutiny. She wanted to grin but noticed that Hadvar still seemed conflicted which meant that she would still need to talk to him regarding Wren. She couldn't help but notice that Ralof was grinning at the sight of Hadvar blushing and surmised that he must know what that meant. She felt the anger of moments ago melt away. It had upset her that Ralof had the gall to be angry or upset at the way an almost defenceless girl had defended herself against rape but felt certain that had it not been magic that had caused the injury, the man would have been quick to jump to the girls defence himself.
Had Wren stabbed the sicko in the eye with a stiletto knife Ralof would have had no problem with her actions but he had a traditional Nord's view on magic use, almost like it was cheating. It was a prejudice the man was going to have to work through as skyrim was becoming more and more used to the advantages of magic, and the college in Winterhold had thrived till that awful natural disaster decimated the surrounding village. It was as she mused on this that she remembered the magician potion Ralof had pulled from the dead guy. Without thinking she was digging in Ralof's satchel for the little blue vial. To give credit to him, the man was surprised by her fervor but didn't object and in seconds she'd found the potion and was handing it to Wren.
"Here. I imagine you're running a bit low after healing me and that...uh...fire thing." The Nord woman wasn't surprised when the little Breton didn't say anything but noticed that the corners of her mouth tweaked up in a semblance of a smile and Asta took this and the following nod of the little woman's head to be effusive thanks from someone so shy.
Her eyes snapped back to Hadvar as he cleared his throat once more, and Asta was surprised to see that be didn't look angry. Instead his face said vaguely amused, but that couldn't be right, surely he was pissed that Wren had been injured while in her care. Surely the fact that the greasy pig on the floor had almost killed the little Breton on her watch was a massive strike against her?
But underneath the amusement, Hadvar just looked stressed out and worried, but then there was a dragon on their tale and, despite Wren's apparent 'reprieve', she was still suffering the effects of a twisted potion. She could understand both of those emotions it was simply strange to her that there wasn't more anger there with them. Before she could question him Hadvar opened his mouth to speak.
"It's shameful, and I'm sorry, but we need the supplies off of the fallen in the other room. We have five minutes and then we have to keep moving."