Catfight
The pre-dawn hours were like a hot, wet cloth around the humble camp on the shore of a small waterfall-fed pool, surrounded by trees that stood haughtily apart from one another in the ground as though they were doing the most important work in the world. Their arrogance couldn't hide the fact that they were, at best, a bittersweet gift to the little copse. During the day, they kept out the burning rays of the sun, but they also served to hold in the heat that seemed to radiate from their roots. They were simply no match against the temperature of Last Seed, a constant reminder that summer was still the dominant season, even in the Northern Colovian Highlands.
Before the sun had yet risen, Shadowmere was sweltering under her old quilt, but was reluctant to open her eyes, much less kick off the coverlet and expose her sweat-damp skin to the dewy, early morning air. Trying to ignore the sounds of Saeana rolling up her bedroll, she nuzzled her face into her pack, desperate to fall asleep again. She had been having an interesting dream; she had been a horse again, and she was running as fast as her legs would carry her. There was something beautiful on the horizon which she was chasing; she couldn't see it, but she knew it was beautiful. Just when she seemed about to catch up to what she was chasing, fiercely panting, the object of her desire always one step ahead of her, the sound of something falling to the ground beside her head woke her. It didn't wake her suddenly or vehemently, it was only enough to end the dream. She was disappointed to feel it end; she wanted to know what she was chasing. But the sound of Saeana's rolling and packing and tucking away her things kept her mind where it was; on the ground, beside a pond, in the Colovian Highlands where the air clung to a person's skin like heavy cream to the inside of a pitcher.
"Another day, another Septim," she lied to herself, with the full knowledge that today would likely garner money for neither her nor her friend. The two women had set up their camp some weeks ago, eager to explore the nearby caves, but had passively decided to stay for longer than they had planned. They were actually situated on the bottom tier of a two leveled waterfall, which flowed from deep in the mountain side and cascaded to a small pond before continuing its journey over the edge and dropping to a far deeper pool, where their camp had been made. The mist from the waterfalls was like a constant, though subtle, rain which kept the temperatures at a near bearable level, all too appealing in the heat. Not to mention the pond made a perfect place to keep their beer cold.
They had spent the past month lounging around the water, doing very little other than drink their icy beer, tell stories and explore the cavern behind the waterfall. They had begun the fight for the cavern when they had first set up camp and had finally taken full control of the cave from a group of bandits and undead pirates two weeks earlier. Since that rather notable accomplishment, boredom had begun to take hold. The stories began to lose their amusement, the cave was silent and even the beer had begun to taste stale. The only thing to do was sleep; at least with sleep, there could be some interesting dreams, though it seemed even they could be interrupted by banalities.
Sighing as she listened to the sound of the morning, Shadowmere cracked open her eyes and gradually let them acclimate to the slight rays of light streaming through the trees overhead as she ran her fingernails over her scalp, brushing the hair out of its sleep-mussed bun, sliding the sinew that held it onto her wrist. Rubbing her face, she felt her skin in her cheeks spring to life at the sensation, making her whole mind more alert.
"Morning Sunshine," Saeana said softly, almost as though she didn't know whether or not Shadowmere was awake. "Sorry to wake you." Shadowmere scoffed, rolling onto her back and twisting her lapis knee over her ribcage, hearing the strangely cathartic cracking from her spine and felt the flood of relief that spread over her body like a warm blanket.
"That's alright," she said with a smirk, watching her friend shudder and grimace at the sound she had created in her body.
"That's disgusting," Saeana grunted in repulsion, shaking her head as she shook out her bedroll again, already fully dressed in leather pants, a quilted top and her hair already twisted into her favored wind braids. The look of disgust now masking her face completed her ensemble.
"You do the same thing," Shadowmere retorted, bringing her bare knee down and repeating the process with the other leg, just to spite her friend, letting the grotesque song her spine sang drive itself into Saeana's elongated, azure ears. "Your back makes the same sound when you do it. Besides," she added smugly. "You only have yourself to blame; you're the one who taught me how to do this." That was true; not long after her transformation, Shadowmere had experienced terrible pain in her back after going from walking on four legs to walking once again on two. Out of sheer sympathy, Saeana had taught her how to stretch her back; the sound that came out as a result of thirty years of walking on all fours had carried for miles and caused Saeana to start dry heaving. Saeana scoffed, shaking her head as she folded the worn bedding in half and began rolling it like a pastry.
"Yeah, but it's never that nasty when I do it," she said with disdain. "You make it sound like a deer being ripped in half." Shadowmere smirked as she hugged her knee more tightly to her chest before releasing it.
"Hey, spend thirty years as a beast of burden and your spine would make some bizarre noises too," she added, stretching herself out before sitting up and pushing herself to standing.
"You know, you can win every argument like that," Saeana grumbled. "How can I possibly follow that excuse?" Shadowmere smiled in satisfaction and began rolling up the quilt that served as her bedroll. "And could you at least put some clothes on before you start putting your stuff away?" Looking down her almost bare body, Shadowmere remembered she had gone to sleep wearing only her undergarments. She would have been happy to spend the rest of her life in such attire; it meant she was Dunmer enough to wear clothes, but it allowed her to keep her brilliantly blue skin in sight. It was strange to her how much she had missed something as simple as the color of her skin, but after thirty years of black, hirsute horse hide covering her body, she was elated with every glimpse of indigo.
"Prude," she muttered, tossing her partially folded quilt aside and pawing through her pack for clothes. It was already too hot for modesty to take any kind of precedence in her wardrobe, so she pulled on a tawny vest, which left the better part of her torso exposed, and a pair of linen pants with the legs cut off high above the knees. "Does this meet with your approval?" she asked as she pulled her hair into its unavoidably messy bun, knowing that the clothing barely covered more skin than the undergarments.
"Yes, much better," Saeana said facetiously, searching for food in her bag. "Now you look like a harlot, rather than someone who was too lazy to get dressed." Shadowmere shrugged, stuffing her things into her bag; there was just no pleasing some people. Saeana held up a small sack of rice and a bag of strawberries and Shadowmere stood up, clapping her hands to signal she was ready to catch.
"Hey, an improvement is an improvement," she added as Saeana tossed the bags. Her friend scoffed at her comment as Shadowmere caught their temporarily airborne breakfast. "And how are you not sweltering?" she asked, putting down the rations on the edge of the pond and stuffing things back into her bag. "You're dressed like you're heading for Skyrim." Looking down at her outfit, with its thick quilted bodice and tightly laced leather trousers with her worn leather boots on her feet, Saeana merely shrugged.
"I grew up in Ald'ruhn, near Red Mountain," she said with nonchalance as she tied a leather strap around her bedroll. "I'm used to the heat of a volcano. This is like late Frostfall for me." Shadowmere nodded, able to accept this answer.
"I grew up near Cheydinhal," she said, surprising even herself. "Near the foot of the Valus Mountains and there was a chill even in summer. This heat is like another fifty pounds to carry around with me." It wasn't a habit of hers to spontaneously start offering information about her past; it was somewhat disconcerting that the discretion she used to have was now faltering. Saeana gave a semi-amused smile, knowing Shadowmere's admission was out of character.
"Especially after having spent the better part of your life wearing only a saddle," she added, nodding toward their cooking fire. "Now quit stalling, make some breakfast and try not to burn anything that falls out of your vest," she ordered, filling two tin cups with fresh water from the pond. Despite their fondness for alcohol, both woman had agreed that they shouldn't drink it with breakfast, even if it was just beer.
"Fine by me," Shadowmere agreed quickly, leaping into action. Surprisingly, she didn't mind preparing the meal, as Saeana asked. Since her transformation a few months prior, the novelty of being a Dunmer again had yet to wear off. Common chores, like cooking breakfast, or mending clothes, or writing a shopping list still made her heart beat with excitement, and merely the act of holding a spoon brought a smile to her face. Watching with simplistic delight as each one of her nimble fingers wrapped around the handle of the cooking pot, like dancers in perfect synchronization with one another, she lifted it, brought it toward the water and dunked the vessel into the pond, and drew up enough water to cook the rice. Hauling the black cauldron with both hands, the motion of her muscles under her azure skin giving her arms the look of an ocean, she hoisted the heavy pot up to the hook over the embers with a grunt and dumped the bag of rice in, the gentle sound of the grains plopping into the water like a sudden rainstorm.
"Shouldn't you wait until the water boils before you put the rice in?" Saeana questioned, shaking Shadowmere from her reverie at the minutiae of her own body and the sound of breakfast.
"Shouldn't you not question the person who's making you breakfast?" Shadowmere retorted, knowing the other woman would react, which she did with a small growling noise. "Especially after she carried you on her back during her thirty years-"
"Oh for the love of Azura!" Saeana burst, exasperated while Shadowmere laughed at the reaction she had elicited from her friend, despite having to duck to avoid the bedroll that was subsequently thrown at her head. "Haven't you had enough of that excuse already?" Shadowmere shook her head resolutely.
"Never. Hey what's that?" Shadowmere asked, taking a handful of the dusty earth in her hand as Saeana looked up where she pointed. "I think it's a duststorm!" She hurled the soil at Saeana's back as she turned to avoid the impact. "Get into the carapace before we all catch the blight!" Shadowmere had only been to Ald'ruhn in Morrowind once, but she remembered the enormous crab shell, which served as living quarters for the well-off of the town. But she would have to have lived in a hole on one of the moons to know nothing of the blight sickness, spread by the frequent dust storms that blew off of Red Mountain, that had plagued the homeland of the Dunmer. Those were hardly things that could be forgotten, but that certainly didn't mean they were revered, particularly to Shadowmere.
"Leave Ald'ruhn out of this!" Saeana yelped, shaking her mahogany locks to loosen the newfound dirt, though her eyes were widened with surprise that Shadowmere had made an accurate reference to her hometown. "Damn you! I can't even throw anything back at you without getting it in the pot." Shadowmere laughed in victory, tossing the bedroll back at her friend for the sheer pleasure of doing it.
"Just call me Dagoth Shadowmere," she said triumphantly. "The Sixth House rises again, bitch." Saeana rolled her eyes, shaking her head as she deflected the bedroll, sending it sailing into a rock, and picked at her hair with her fingernails.
"Of course it does; shit floats." Shadowmere couldn't help laughing at her friend's wit, even as she was pulling bits of gritty dirt from her scalp. In the months since her metamorphosis, she had opted to remain with Saeana as she crisscrossed Cyrodiil; Shadowmere had found that, while she had started her independent life disliking companionship, she now desired it. Perhaps this need came from spending so many years as the constant companion of so many people, perhaps part of her had changed from being anti-social to being…not-as-anti-social, but either way she was glad to have someone she truly considered to be a friend.
With Saeana, she had someone who shared her enthusiasm for exploring and who could hold her own in a fight; they had been in a few. Saeana was like having a sister, someone to talk to as an equal, someone to teach and learn from and, as silly as it was, Saeana was someone with whom to share clothes. She was someone who would play with her hair. Shadowmere had never had a life that included such frivolity, with the exception of Nihilsa and Mivryna braiding her mane and tail when she was boarded at their stables, and she now had the opportunity to make up for it with Saeana.
As she reached for another handful of dirt to throw at her friend, continuing her adult onset adolescence, a glimmer of light on the ground beside her drew Shadowmere's sharp red eyes toward the shining object and distracted her from her intentions. For a moment, she thought her eyes were playing tricks on her, because what she saw looked a great deal like an enormous red diamond on a gold chain laying in the dirt by Saeana's feet.
"What's this?" Shadowmere tried to keep her voice from shrieking as she crouched down and wrapped her dirt-caked fingernails around the stone, surprised by the warmth the stone seemed to exude. Saeana's eyes widened as though she was having the life squeezed out of her.
"Give it back," she said, her voice dangerously soft. Certain that she would never lay her hands on another treasure like this, Shadowmere was less than eager to simply hand it over.
"Did it come from the pirates?" she asked, holding the amulet up the light to get a better look at it, the beams of light it produced nearly searing her retinas. In addition to the mammoth red diamond, it was surrounded by eight other gems; two sapphires, two emeralds, two rubies and two yellow topazes. She knew she had never seen anything like this before, but it was, at the same time, somehow very familiar to her.
"No, it's not from the pirates." Saeana's voice was closer and she sounded a little more terse. "Give it back." Still inspecting the gem, Shadowmere barely noticed her friend's change in demeanor.
"So where did it come from, and why haven't you sold this thing and gone to the Jerall Mountains for the summer with a whole harem of attractive, scantily-clad young men willing to satisfy your every need?" she asked, shaking a length of her long black hair out of her face. Fully engrossed in the amulet, Shadowmere was only shaken from her reverie by Saeana snatching the bauble from her hand.
"None of your business." Saeana's curt reply was surprising to Shadowmere, who narrowed her eyes at the other woman. Since the two had met through the Dark Brotherhood, they had each assumed that the other likely had parts of her past she didn't care to discuss. They had honored these secrets and if any topic broached wasn't comfortable for one of them, the subject would be respectfully changed, but that had rarely happened as their friendship had grown. Now, the fact that Saeana had opposed her question with such fervent displeasure only spurred Shadowmere's curiosity.
"Am I going to jail for being involved with this?" she persisted, only half in jest, turning to follow her. "There's no way you got that thing legally."
"I said it was none of your business." Saeana didn't look at her as she wrapped the amulet in a ditty bag. "And by that, I meant that it has absolutely no impact on your life whatsoever."
"The mere fact that you're making such a big stink over this is giving it a much bigger impact than if you just told me what it is," Shadowmere insisted, losing her patience.
"I'd say of the two of us, you're the one making the big to-do over it," Saeana shot back, glancing up at her for an instant before pulling the drawstrings on her pack, concealing the amulet in a way she wished she could do with the conversation concerning it. "Just let it go." Shadowmere had noticed, with some degree of genuine surprise, that her friend's hands shook as she had handled the gem. Not getting any answers from the external source, Shadowmere turned her discussion inward and began tracing what she knew about the gem, which was limited to the blatantly obvious. "Gem. Diamond. Red Diamond." Her thoughts raced faster than her legs ever had in this life or her previous one. The facets on the eight gems around the red diamond glimmered through the weaving of the cloth composing Saeana's pack, almost mocking her. Not to mention the one bright red gleam glaring in the middle. "Eight and One. Nine." The thoughts in her mind began to fall together in an avalanche of comprehension. "The Nine." Touching each of the smaller gems in her mind, the names of each of the Divines flashed as though seared into the jewels. "Talos, Dibella, Kynareth, Arkay, Mara, Julianos, Zenithar, Stendarr, Akatosh." As her mind touched the center gem, her chest burned as she gasped deeply, the thought struck her with the force of a landslide.
"That's the Amulet of Kings!" she breathed, feeling her eyes widen and heart race. Saeana glared at her with an intensity Shadowmere had only seen when her friend was bent on killing someone.
"I know!" she snarled, sliding her bag protectively behind her, her appearance resembling a mother bird defending her nest.
"Did you kill the Emperor?!" She knew it was tactless, but it was only after the words had flown past her lips that Shadowmere actually regarded her word choice. Saeana's body stiffened at the accusation and for a heartbeat, Shadowmere believed her friend had committed the crime of which she was accused.
"Yeah Shadowmere, I killed the Emperor, I'm the one responsible for the death of the most powerful man in Tamriel." Saeana's words were thickly venomous, with sarcasm muffling the sound. Shadowmere felt her gut beginning to tense with aggravation and a nostril drawing up in a twitching snarl.
"How did you get it?" she insisted, striding up to face the defensive woman until she was towering over her. Shadowmere knew she had a somewhat intimidating presence, and hoped to use it to her advantage, though she suspected Saeana wasn't intimidated by her.
"It's none of your damn business!!" Saeana hissed, pushing herself to her feet and returning her toxic look, not backing down, despite her height disadvantage and Shadowmere's domineering stance. "If you don't drop it, I'm going to hit you so hard that you're going to be able to look at your own earlobe." Shadowmere dismissed her with a condescending snort. Ordinarily, she was hampered by a strange instinct to protect her friend, residual feelings from her time as hired horse muscle she assumed. Those impulses were nowhere to be found now.
"I'm quivering." The words curled from her lips like a wisp of stinging smoke while her ember-like eyes met their match in Saeana's.
Before she could more adequately react, Shadowmere was caught off guard by the disturbing force with which Saeana shoved her, sending her stumbling backwards. Anger rising inside her like magma beneath the ground, she dug her bare feet into the dirt and charged back at her, ramming Saeana's shoulders with the heels of her hands. The impact made her stumble over a large boulder behind her and, her eyes wide and her mouth open in a silent shriek, she fell into the pool by the waterfall with a splash.
Without skipping a beat, she rose from the pond like a water demon and, though stumbling from her wet clothing, swung her fist for Shadowmere's jaw. Out of simple reaction, Shadowmere leaned back to avoid the blow, which was only partially successful. While the strike missed her face, it landed squarely on her left breast, ripping a cry of pain from Shadowmere's throat as the agony surged through her chest and brought a wave of nausea to her gut.
"Asshead!" she yelped, clutching her chest feverishly. "Damn you!" Shadowmere had long suspected that being punched in the tit was as close as a woman could come to the pain a man felt when struck in his testicles. This newest injury had now confirmed her suspicions.
The swell of vengeance compressing her chest, she wound up her own fist and pounded it against the side of Saeana's head, striking her in the ear and upper jaw and causing her to stumble, but not fall. Instead, the smaller woman thrust her fist into Shadowmere's stomach, making her grunt but, rather than recoiling in pain, Shadowmere grabbed her face and thrust it into her knee, the impact of Saeana's head causing her a small amount of pain, but the satisfying sound of the strike made it worthwhile. Saeana slumped to the ground on her hands and knees, visibly dizzy, but pausing for only a moment before swiping for Shadowmere's knees, grabbing her right leg and, in a heartbeat, pulled it out from under her. Her balance badly shaken, Shadowmere could only try to control the fall as she came down like a crumbling statue. Maneuvering her body desperately, she managed to shift her weight forward and collapsed on Saeana's back, breaking her fall and from the sound of it, her friend's ribs.
Still, this seemed only a minor setback for Saeana as she wriggled out from under her and began the assault anew, throwing herself on Shadowmere and pummeling her about her cheeks and jaw. As her fists came down, Shadowmere realized that she had forgotten how scrappy her friend was, about which Saeana reminded her as she administered a few solid blows before Shadowmere managed to get her own knee between the two of them and threw her off to her side. In the half second she took to catch her breath, Saeana was already on her feet and breathing fire. Acting quickly, Shadowmere turned over and managed to get her legs under her before Saeana rushed her. Keeping her body bent in half, Shadowmere thrust her leg backwards and up, delighted when the kick landed in Saeana's sternum, though a little disappointed that she hadn't inflicted the same excruciating pain on Saeana that Saeana had inflicted upon her in the same general anatomical area.
"S'wit!" Saeana yelled, lurching back for an instant before throwing herself at Shadowmere once again. This time she was waiting for Saeana's attack and instead of allowing her friend to land on top of her, Shadowmere grabbed her by the shoulders and used Saeana's own motion to throw her to the side, sitting on her stomach and beating her face with her fists, her hair falling out of its messy bun and sifting down her shoulders. Despite the barrage, Saeana managed to free her hands, wrap her fingers with the now dusty black silk of her mane and give a firm wrench.
Shadowmere's scalp seemed to explode with pain as Saeana pulled her abundant black hair with the strength of a sailor hauling the lines to raise a dory. Groping blindly, Shadowmere managed to rake her nails across Saeana's cheeks, skin peeling away like an apple paring before she found two handfuls of Saeana's mahogany tresses and yanked.
Grappling on the ground for a few moments, Shadowmere felt her entire body catching up with her mind, both growing too exhausted to last for much longer. She also knew things likely wouldn't evolve from here. Neither woman would make another move but neither one of them would let go of the other's hair.
"Are we done?!" she gasped, not releasing her grip, just in case Saeana wished to continue their stalemate.
"Yeah," Saeana grunted, though the tension on her scalp remained unyielding.
"We let go on the count of three?" The terms of their mutual surrender were always simple.
"Yeah. One…"
"Two…"
"Three," they said in unison. As agreed, each woman released her grip on the other's hair, and the ferocious brawl was over. Rolling on her back, Shadowmere tried to focus on the adrenaline pulsing under her skin rather than on the pain that had resulted from it as she struggled to regain her breath. From the sounds of her breathing, it seemed Saeana was doing much the same thing.
"Was it good for you?" she asked sardonically, rolling her head to look at Saeana who again scoffed, though a hint of a smile lingered around her lips.
"You have a sick sense of humor Shadowmere," she mumbled, covering her face and wincing at the touch on her cuts. "But for the record, I didn't mean to punch you in the boob."
"I know," Shadowmere said, trying to sound somewhat forgiving as she sat up. "But I did." Saeana nodded, rolling onto her stomach
"I'm glad you missed though," she admitted, sitting back and rubbing her sternum. "I've had that done before, and it hurts like nothing else I've ever felt." Shadowmere nodded, pushing herself upright and lifting her vest, peering under the fabric.
"God damn, you're not kidding," she muttered, glaring briefly at Saeana. "The one you punched is already swollen. Tomorrow I'm going to be lopsided."
"Oh suck it up," Saeana muttered unsympathetically as she sat back on her knees, gingerly touching her face with her fingertips and grimacing as she looked at them. "At least you don't look like you have war paint on your face." Glancing over at her, Shadowmere saw that indeed, Saeana had several angry red horizontal streaks across her face, small trickles of blood dribbling like tears down her nose and cheeks.
"Yeah, I guess I can be grateful for that," she muttered, dabbing blood from her own lip with her finger. "How are your ribs?" Saeana grunted uncomfortably.
"I can breathe without feeling like I'm being stabbed, so I guess they're not broken," she admitted, running her hands over her sides. "But they're sore as hell." Shaking out her hair, Shadowmere tried to ignore the radiant pain in her breast and focused on trying to steer the conversation back toward the amulet, the reason behind their morning brawl.
"I'm just glad you didn't pull out any of my hair," she said, brushing out the length of her hair with her fingers. "You pulled hard enough."
"I'm just glad you didn't knock out any of my teeth," Saeana shot back, glancing at her as she rubbed her jaw. "You hit hard enough." Shadowmere disliked the way this conversation was panning out; she and Saeana were fairly evenly matched when it came to physical condition, but Shadowmere had a slightly stronger build and a couple inches of height in her favor. Ultimately, she knew that Saeana's injuries would be more severe and she would be able to trump her in their current debate.
"So come on," she said, expediting her original idea to return to the desired topic. "Are you going to tell me about the amulet, or do we need to fight some more?" Shadowmere asked, not wanting to get into another spat about who had the worst injuries, at least before their first argument had been completed.
"Shadowmere…" Saeana started, her eyes tired and her bloodied face pitiful, clearly still not wanting to discuss it. But whether from the pain of the injuries or the weariness from inflicting them, a crack appeared in Saeana's resolve, and Shadowmere knew to take the opportunity when it arose.
"Look, you know I'm going to wheedle it out of you eventually," Shadowmere said simply, working her hand into her pack and retrieving a wide toothed comb. "Why waste our time?"
"Because then I can make you suffer for longer," Saeana answered just as flatly, though her voice was muffled behind her hand as she wiped her face on her ruined sleeves.
"Well that's friendly," Shadowmere snipped, stroking her hair with the comb and cringing as the snarls caught and put tension on her scalp.
"And trying to beat information out of me is?" Saeana snapped, walking over to the pool, dipping her hands into the water and splashing it on her face.
"If I recall correctly," Shadowmere snidely reminded her friend, carefully crossing her arms. "You shoved me first." Saeana scoffed in disdain at her argument.
"What are you, ten years old?" she asked, wiping her face on her sleeves once more. " 'She started it,' is that basically what you're trying to say?"
"Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying, now either tell me about the necklace or I'm going to give you the biggest wedgie you've ever known."
"Yeah, good luck with that," Saeana challenged, crawling with difficulty over to her pack. "My pants are so stuck to me that I think they're going to forming another layer of skin." Shadowmere scoffed, tentatively trying to work the snarls out of her mane once more. Finding it again to be too much, she tossed her comb back toward her pack.
"I have many talents Saeana, don't ask me to demonstrate that one," she said, sitting by the edge of the water. Saeana rolled her eyes, shaking her head as she pulled out a pair of brown pants and a blue linen shirt, while Shadowmere leaned backwards into the pool, immersing her scalp in the refreshing coldness, counteracting the stinging that burned through her head. "So would you please just tell me where the damn thing came from." A long sigh from her friend, as she slipped behind some boulders to change, told Shadowmere that she had won the battle of wills.
"The day the Emperor was killed," Saeana started slowly, her voice buffered by the enormous rocks. "I was in the Imperial City prison…"