"Impressive, isn't it?" Erik asked, looking at the statue of Meridia. It loomed over them, illuminated by Messer and Secunda . The statue glittered and shone under the night sky, its hands were upturned towards the heavens almost touching the powdering of stars above. Its gaze, though unmoving, seemed to follow your every motion.
Truth be told, it was worth crawling through Morvath's den only to be able to get the Beacon. It was truly a thing of beauty – a multifaceted gem shining from the inside, shifting colours ever so slightly as the sun hit it. Amina thought that it was truly no wonder that Meridia was pissed at having such beauty be touched by that filth and his ilk. They didn't even know what it was for, for Talos' sake!
"I never knew Daedra were this loved. I mean, I know there are worshippers, but huge statues in the middle of Skyrim? I thought they were evil…"
"Yeah, well, you learn a lot of things when you get out of a small town. I got my world turned upside down the first year I started adventuring. You learn that there isn't a thing that's purely evil or purely good. Good people can become vicious enemies if you only look at it from the other side."
"I guess this is how this whole rebellion thing started, right? Ulfric convincing his men that the other races aren't as good, or as smart, as men…that they're monsters, like people convinced us that the Daedra are all monsters. But if we looked at it from their side, from the side of the dark elves, the beast folk and the others, we'd be the monsters. In a way Ulfric's not afraid of beasts because he's one himself."
"Woah there, cousin. Since when are you so politically well-versed?"
She winked at him. "Just like you did, listening to what the patrons of the inn were talking about."
"Still, speaking of Daedra…how the hell do you manage to become one's champion as soon as you get yourself out of town?"
Amina shrugged. "Bad luck, I guess. Or good luck, depending on how you view it. Heh, maybe my destiny is to become some sort of legend and I'll have all the Daedra fighting over me soon enough."
Erik laughed, and Meeko gave out a bark that seemed to agree with him. "Big fat chance of that happening. You have a lot of work to do before you even become a good adventurer, let alone a legend."
She stuck her tongue out at him, and then straightened her back. "You just wait and see, Erik, soon enough all of Tamriel will know my name."
"You do know that involves a lot of killing for the sake of killing, right? Legends rise on the corpses of their enemies, you know."
"I'll make sure to kill just the bad guys. Like this necromancer stirring up trouble right now." She then turned to Meeko. "Meeko, stay."
"…why are you making him stay? He could help us fight off whatever's inside."
Amina sniffled. "The stinky layer of a necromancer deadset on angering a Daedric prince is no place for my pup."
Erik rolled his eyes. "You ready?"
"Ready as I'll ever be. The sooner I finish this, the faster I don't have to deal with the undead anymore. They scare me half to death." Considering what she said for a moment, she laughed.
"What's so funny?"
"Undead scaring me to death...hahah…get it?"
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Amina was sobbing and slashing at the same time, taking breaks ever so often to wipe her snot and tears with the back of her hand. One chamber though, and she was desiring to get back home and into bed. Erik, on the other hand, seemed to not mind slaying disembodied shades. He moved expertly from one enemy to the next, dispelling their black energy with every slash, not minding the shade dust that settled on his face and clothes every time one exploded and died with a loud shriek.
By the time they cleared out the first room, both he and Amina were covered in fine shade dust and vowing to take a bath in the Karth as soon as they get out, glacial temperatures be damned. It was rather unpleasant to have parts of the undead spread on your skin.
Desecretaed corpses mingled with shade dust everywhere. The stench of death and burned flesh lingered in the air and suffocated them both, forcing them to breathe through their mouths so they didn't end up dry heaving.
Amina surveyed the scene. She didn't have time to look around before because as soon as they entered they got attacked by shades.
"This guy is just sick. At least have some decency to put away the bodies you defile, some respect for the human body. He strew them around the place like new life festival decorations, can't fight without tripping over one, by Shor!"
"It's official: necromancers disgust me...what are you doing?"
Amina looked up from the corpse she was searching. "I'm looting corpses."
"…why are you doing that?"
"Because they have money and supplies that they won't need any time soon, and I'm not beyond stealing from dead people?"
"How can you be so naïve one moment, and then so unscrupulous the next?"
"A little grave digging hurt nobody, and besides, our money's running out. Let's get moving, I don't want to deal with these shades more than I have to."
Their mission was not, as one would think, sobbing over shades and looting corpses, but rather, lighting Meridia's temple with the help of the beacons strewn around it. They resembled much the original one, but they needed to be activated in order to shine light through the temple by reflecting off each other.
The first time Nina stepped through the light, she felt a light sting. The second time she passed through a ray to get to another part of the room, it downright burned. "Ouch! Goddamnit, it feels like I'm the puppet for King Olaf's festival, what the hell?! You'd think me being her champion would at least give me immunity from these death rays…"
"Quit whining and let's finish this. It smells worse and worse of decay, we must be getting close to the necromancer's lair."
And they were, unfortunately, much closer than they suspected. They opened a door only to reveal the necromancer doing his foul rituals, surrounded by shades and corpses. Needless to say, he was not amused. Nor were his shades. They barely opened the door before they were pelted by a barrage of angry, screaming shades ready to choke them with their smoke and separate them from their heads.
"You fools! How dare you enter my sanctuary?!"
"Your sanctuary?! Why, you little shit!" Amina yelled, ducking a blow from a shade, already feeling fear creeping into her heart. She sniffled as she parried more blows, willing herself not to cry. If she cried before such a foe, she'd be done. Caput. Killed on spot for reasons of bad attitude. She had her pride even though she was scared breathless.
Suddenly, the world was on fire. Flames engulfed her, and she screamed, feeling them lick at her skin, burrowing themselves into her soul. She felt like she was melting away. Her screams were echoing through the room with the necromancer's laughter in tow.
"Amina!" Erik jumped in front of her and blocked the shades trying to get to her. "Lay and roll over! Lay and roll over!"
Amina couldn't hear a word, all she could hear were the crackling of the flames, her armour cooking her like poultry, death coming for her. She felt a kick in her side, courtesy of Erik, and she went sprawling over the ground, rolling to the other side of the room. The flames died with each roll. More scared than burned, she quickly regained consciousness to see Erik battling a barrage of shades.
"What was that for?!"
"Roll over, I said! So I made you!"
She quickly regained her footing and jumped into the fray. "Don't worry about the shades, I'll handle them! You take on that son of a bitch!"
Amina nodded and turned to face the necromancer, who fired blast after blast of ice after her. She barely ducked out of the spells' way, and the ones she couldn't were firmly lodged into her shield as a reminder that it could've been her heart instead.
"You're dead, scum!"
But the necromancer wouldn't go down so easily. Blow after blow, strike after strike, he healed himself with his left hand and launched ice spells from his right.
Amina screamed as an ice spike hit her right in the shoulder, sending her sprawling on the floor. The necromancer loomed over her, another ice spell readied in his palm.
"Ready to die, pretty?"
Amina tried to crawl away from him, but was promptly snatched up by her hair.
"All I wanted was to resurrect a few corpses and finish my research…but no!" He slapped her with his free hand. "You adventurers have to come in on behalf of promises of ancient artifacts and powers!". Another slap. "You fools will NEVER understand that true power is the one you come up with yourself, not the one that's gifted as a favour!"
Slap after slap after slap punctuated his ideas. "You barge in, disturb my work, and for what?! What's the issue of using few no-name soldiers that would've died anyway in this stupid war in the name of magic? Nobody cares about a few low-lives, better put their bodies to good use. I just wanted to be left alone to do my bloody research and raise an army of dead! Is it that much to ask?!"
"You're disgusting." Amina whispered through her busted lip and bloody teeth.
Another slap. The necromancer forecefully threw her away like a rag doll, sneering down at her.
"What do you know of power?! Nothing! Another filthy, ignorant wildling! Die!"
The spell died between his fingers under Amina's wide-eyed gaze. He didn't even have the time to finish his threat of impending death.
He gave an inhuman scream as Erik grabbed his hood and plunged him into his blade, sinking it into his back till the hilt. Blood dripped from the blade's exposed body as it sliced through spine, meat and bone and emerged onto the other side.
Amina laughed, sputtering blood. "By Talos, I thought I'd never see you again."
"Are you alright?". He fussed over her, helping her up and wiping the blood from her face with his sleeve. "We're going to be alright. We killed them all."
Amina nodded and hugged him, sobbing softly against his chain mail while he petted her head. He was trembling hard, obviously as shook from the experience as she was. Unfortunately, when you're the one calming someone down, there's no one else left to soothe you. So Erik tended to Amina's tears while he, himself, felt like a child again, ready to cry. Give him brigands and bandits any day, but necromancers and shades were truly scary.
Amina broke the hug, thanking him with a watery smile for saving her. As soon as her gaze rose though, she saw something that would be material for her nightmares for weeks to come.
"Watch out!" she pushed Erik and herself to the side, ducking from the attack from a shade. "I thought I killed them all!" Erik yelled.
Amina noticed Malkoran's body disappeared, put two and two together and…
"That's the necromancer! He's not dead yet!"
Erik and Amina unsheathed their weapons just in time to parry the shade's blows. The shade was furious, sending blows and lighting bolts towards them, its red eyes and mouth glowing with an unholy light. The angrier it got, the more its body turned darker, its eyes brighter, its spells stronger.
"How do we kill this thing?!" Erik yelled.
"With our swords."
And they did.
Just as they were catching their breath, Meridia's voice echoed in the room:
"It is done. The defiler is defeated. Take Dawnbreaker from its pedestal."
Amina and Erik looked at each other. Truth be told, they were too busy killing shades and evil wizards to even notice there was a pedestal at the end of the room.
The pedestal itself was beautiful, protecting its charge with a fold of wings and outstretched hands. But its carry was even more beautiful than it: it was a sword made of light itself and gold, shining like the morning sun now that it was out of the necromancer's influence. The hilt was its most striking feature, carved with daedric motifs and ending before the sword itself in two concentric circles from where most of the light emerged. It was a work of beauty.
Amina and Erik looked at each other again. "Who should take it?" Amina asked.
"You should. You're her champion, after all."
"Yeah, but I couldn't've done it without you."
Erik shook its head. "You need Daedric favour more than me, you're incompetent."
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A bright light surrounded her, and she woke up in the morning sky, as high as the sun, overlooking all of Skyrim. In front of her was an orb of light, its rays breaking though and warming her. In a split second, she realised this was Meridia, and that it brought her above to talk to her.
"Malkoran is vanquished. Skyrim's dead shall remain at rest. This is as it should be. This is because of you. A new day is dawning, and you shall be its herald. Take the mighty Dawnbreaker and with it purge corruption from the dark corners of the world. Wield it in my name, that my influence may grow."
"Yes, my lady."
"With the undead, so will your fear of them be purged as you wield Dawnbreaker. There are mighty things waiting for you, and even mightier foes. You have my favour, and my boon. May you be victorious."
Slowly, she was lowered down from the sky back to earth, allowing her to overlook the whole of Skyrim. She felt love for the land swell in her, love for its people, and immense hatred for all those who wish to corrupt it, to kill its life, to benefit from the dead as they see fit.
She knew, when her feet touched the ground, that she would wield Dawnbreaker sincerely, without hesitation, and that this was the first step in many for her.
Fear would not stop her. Injuries would not stop her. Yes, she had doubted her choice when she lay at night with only moonlight as her blanket, and she had doubted it even more when she tended to her wounds, scared and broken after a fight.
But this? This made her remember that she knew that she was born for this. She remembered the itch in her body, wanderlust eating away at her while looking out the farmhouse's window, how she listened to the breeze as it carried news and the smell of a brand new world. How she run away in the night with a purpose that had been forgotten, but now regained. How she felt alive out there, on the road.
She looked up at the sky, Dawnbreaker in her hands. She promised to scourge the world from evil, and she would. One bandit at a time, if she had to.
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She, Erik and Meeko made their way down the path when something made her stop in her tracks. It was a hum…no, some sort of vibration in the air. She could feel it in her whole body, pulling at her.
"What's wrong?"
"I feel weird…as if my whole body were a taut string vibrating with sound."
"…it would be hilarious if this were another Daedra."
"I don't think so. Let's keep moving."
But the more they walked, the more her body felt the influence of that mysterious force in the air. She started trembling involuntarily…and then her ears picked up sound.
A chant. A thousand voices whispering in her ears. A thousand voices singing as she made her way down the path, louder and louder and louder until she felt her brain engulfed by their voices.
She put her hands on her ears, looking left and right. Then she saw it: a wall.
Instinctively, she moved towards it as the chant grew even louder, spurring her on, Erik and Meeko at her heels. Then, she saw it, glowing white hot against the cool stone of the wall. There were marks like words, but that looked more like they had been etched by nothing human. The word was illuminated and pulling her eyes in, and she understood it
With comprehension came wind. The blast hit her, burrowing inside her, enveloping her with that one word, that one meaning, that one reality of a time long past. Her body trembled in time with the chanting that now filled her ears and her mind. She felt like her insides grew ten times their size, like her very soul enlarged itself with the knowledge of that one word. The blast grew stronger as her self-awareness grew weaker, so strong that it pushed her on her back, amidst the snow.
Her eyes glowed as white as the word on the wall, but Erik could only see the first happening. She lay in the snow, letting it soothe her nerves, cradling her restless heart, begging it to stop beating so hard. She felt like she ate a whole new power with just one word.
Maybe she had.
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Author's note:
D'aww, babby's first world wall.
Well, Amina's going places I didn't think she would. I thought I'd make her a battlemage, but after this nice experience with Malkoran, I'm sure she'd rather stick with Restoration and Illusion spells as far as magic goes.
Next chapter: Whiterun & The Companions!