Finding Menien

And so, Shadowmere and Saeana made their way up the tower, walking up a constant incline and taking out horde after horde of dremora, daedroths, clannfears, scamps, and atronachs of every element, not to mention the odd spider daedra and xivilai. After a while, the two women's contest crossed into triple digit scores for each of them and they were both so sick of the fighting that they began to avoid any more killing, even if it meant sacrificing their scores which they had both worked so hard to advance. "Another day, another septim," Shadowmere sighed, kicking a xivilai over the railing, and looking at Saeana.

"Mine or yours?" she asked, Saeana wiping off the arrows she'd been able to retrieve from the corpse. She shrugged and Shadowmere shook her head, too tired to care. She kept thinking about how much they still had to do before they could leave the fevered land; they had an errant Kvatch city guard to find, who knew how many daedra to kill, and they had to locate and remove the chock that was holding open the door between the planes of Oblivion and Tamriel and, if at all possible, save their own lives in the process.

As they came close to the top of the incline, Shadowmere saw a wall freckled with three doors. She pointed toward them and, pushing her legs to go just a little further. She quickly cut down two dremora and ran toward the first door, throwing her shoulder into it. Giving two quick charges, she gave up almost immediately and crouched before the door, clenching her lacerated fist and holding it against her chest. Where it had been painful before, it was now throbbing after she had used it to cut through the multitude of daedra, and it was bleeding through the sock-bandage.

"Locked?" Saeana asked, leaning against the wall.

"Locked." Shadowmere said, holding out her good hand. "Give me a lockpick." To her surprise, Shadowmere didn't feel the thin cool metal pressed into her palm and when she looked up, she saw Saeana shaking her head with regret.

"The only one I brought broke when I tripped over you," she said sighing. "It's not exactly built for durability." Discouraged, Shadowmere let her head drop to her chest.

"No potions, no lockpicks," she muttered, fruitlessly tugging on the door. "By Azura you're useless." Saeana rolled her eyes and slid down the wall.

"That's sweet of you," her words curled with sarcasm as she nodded toward the other doors. "Are they all locked?" Shadowmere shrugged and sighed.

"I didn't check," she admitted, fully aware that the disclosure could give Saeana every excuse to chew her out.

"Well check that instead of being a bitch," Saeana snapped, pushing her forehead so Shadowmere fell off balance and landed on her backside. Wincing as she had instinctively tried to catch herself with her injured hand, she curled her hand into a fist and tried to staunch the restarted bleeding while she put her shoulder into the middle door. To her shock, she found it opened without much persuasion.

"We're in," she said, motioning for Saeana to come closer as she opened the door fully. "Your transgression is forgiven." Shaking her head and getting to her feet, Saeana went out the door as Shadowmere held it open.

"My 'transgression' being that you basically threw me to the ground?" she asked, looking over her shoulder as she walked, her steps becoming unusually careful as she ventured into the open air.

"That's the one," Shadowmere confirmed, pulling the door shut behind her. "You're lucky I don't kill you on the grounds of being a saboteur since you broke our only lockpick. You can thank me later."

"How gallant of you," Saeana muttered, her lip curling as she held her arms slightly away from her sides, her footsteps becoming all the more careful. "Are you coming or are you going to stay there where the scamps will find you?" As she made her way forward, Shadowmere was encountered with a long narrow bridge leading from where she stood to another tower sprouting from the ground with the menacing shadow of a hanged man. The bridge itself was just wider than her shoulders, but it wasn't the narrowness that made her stomach pitch through the soles of her boots.

"Malacath's filthy pecker!" Shadowmere swore, turning on her heel and clinging to the doorway back into the spire. "Azura help me!" Saeana turned around, and Shadowmere tried to hide the scalding fear blistering under her skin behind the overwhelming embarrassment she felt from having her friend see her like this.

"What is your problem?" Saeana asked, who seemed completely unaware of how precarious her position on the constricted bridge was, her hair blowing in the slight breeze.

"Do you have any idea how high up we are?" Shadowmere's voice was twisted with absolute terror, and she had a death grip on the doorframe, certain that the breeze that barely rustled Saeana's wind braids was going to carry her over the edge like a child's kite.

"Yeah, does that bother you?" Saeana asked, walking back toward her frightened companion as unflappable as she ever was.

"That you have an idea, no, that we're so high up, yes," Shadowmere grimaced, feeling her fingernails bending against the stone doorway. Looking as though she wanted to be supportive but couldn't help laughing a little, Saeana got a little closer to her.

"You're scared of heights?" she asked, her face twitching with how hard she was trying not to smile.

"No, I just really love this doorway," she spat, holding on as tight as she could manage. "Yes, I'm scared of heights." Despite all the adventures she had undergone, both with Saeana and without, Shadowmere had never had to confront her acrophobia. Horses weren't taken to high places, and any time she had independently ventured into mountains or lofty structures, she had been able to control the fear by making sure she couldn't see down. Now, so high in the stagnant air, with only a strip of a bridge, consisting of unknown structural integrity, there was no way to avoid the sight of the open sky all around her. Of course, she found the satire in the fact that she was now the one paralyzed with fear and Saeana was trying to talk her down when, not so long ago, their positions had been reversed.

"How come you never mentioned this before?" Saeana asked, leaning against the doorframe opposite from Shadowmere.

"Is there a reason why I should have?" Shadowmere asked in return, venturing a look over her shoulder to glance at the ground which seemed a million miles away, the height making her stomach try to jump out of her mouth. "It's not really relevant to anything we've ever done."

"Shad, I wish there was other way to get across," Saeana said, with genuine sympathy amidst the sound of stifled laughter. "But there's not and we have to find this Menien guy." Shadowmere closed her eyes and nodded, trying to summon the nerve to disengage her fingers from the doorway.

"I know, I know but…" She glanced over the edge and promptly felt as though she would be sick, taunted by images of herself falling to the ground and her body splitting into pieces like a ripe melon. "Fuck me!" She stared up at the sky, which only served to make her head spin faster.

"Not here dear, I have a headache," Saeana said, taking her hands. "Put your hands on my shoulders and just look at my hair." Shadowmere let out a long sigh, feeling like a child. It was one thing to be frightened of someone or something charging toward her with the intent of doing her serious bodily harm, or even something she perceived to be a threat, as Saeana had done with her own limbs. But it was another thing to be frightened of something intangible and something that couldn't do her any harm in and of itself. It wasn't the height that could hurt her, it wasn't even the act of falling that would kill her, it was the landing. Shadowmere sighed, trying to put her logic in the back of her mind and fear in check. Putting her hands on Saeana's lean shoulders, she focused her fear-widened eyes on her slightly curled hair.

"Don't fall, don't fall, don't fall," she coached herself, focusing on every strand of hair on Saeana's head. She wanted very much to close her eyes and deprive her brain of the terrifying stimuli around her, but the idea of walking hundreds of feet above the ground on a very narrow ledge without the use of vision struck her as a poor decision.

"We're here," Saeana said, reaching over her shoulder and patting Shadowmere on her uninjured hand. Charging for the door, Shadowmere pressed her entire body into it, desperately glad to feel the solid surface underneath her body.

"I love this door," she murmured, closing her eyes in relief. "I think I'd like to live in sin with this door." That was, in fact, only a mild exaggeration.

"Well, I hate to break up your little tryst, but let's get inside," Saeana urged, looking no less happy than Shadowmere to be off of the bridge. "The sooner we close the gate the sooner we can go home." Reluctantly releasing her hold on the beloved doorframe, Shadowmere nodded as she threw her shoulder into the door, feeling it give slightly before slowly creeping open, as though being pushed through a foot of water.

"I'm in favor of leaving," she said with no degree of uncertainty. With Saeana close behind her, she stepped into the tower and was promptly staggered by the height of the ramp on which she stood. While it wasn't quite as intimidating as the bridge they had just crossed, the path which spiraled upwards along the wall was smooth stone and made it difficult for Shadowmere's feet to maintain traction. "Damn it!" she cursed, pressing her back against the wall as Saeana rolled her eyes.

"Standing where you are, you can't even see how high this is," she told her, shaking her head as she pulled her bow from her shoulder. While the bridge they had crossed allowed for a clear view of the ground below, the ramp made it possible to avoid looking down by staying against the wall. Knowing her friend was right, Shadowmere took a breath and stood up straight, though she certainly hugged the wall.

"In the cage!" A man screamed from somewhere within the tower, making the two jump. Despite the startle she'd just received, Shadowmere closed her eyes, focusing on the sound itself; it rained down on the two women like their cold, crushing waterfall, the despair and fear in the words making it difficult to listen to. Looking around frantically, Shadowmere put her fear aside and stared up the empty space, trying to look past the corpses that had been strung up like a macabre mobile.

"Up on the top," she said to Saeana, motioning toward the zenith with her daedric longsword. "There's someone up there." The two crept up the incline, their feet slipping occasionally, until the outline of a heavily armored dremora stalking around a cage became visible.

"Over here!" The man's voice was hoarse and desperate, and didn't seem to be directed at anyone in particular. She suspected that he had been screaming for hours so she was secure in the knowledge that Saeana and her position hadn't been compromised.

"Stop your pitiful braying mortal," the dremora snarled at the man, kicking the cage with enough force to make it shake in its secure base. "Your pathetic comrades will rot, just as you do!" Holding the shield in front of her, Shadowmere charged at the daedra. "Hey ugly!" she shouted, pulling the creature's attention toward her, distracting him from where Saeana stood behind her, an arrow nocked in her bow.

"You should not be here mortal!" the beast snarled pulling the mace from his hip. "Your blood is now forfeit, your soul is mine!" Shadowmere grinned at the challenge.

"How long did that take you to come up with that?" she asked, circling around him, carefully keeping her shield between the two of them, knowing full well that should that mace make contact with her, she no longer had immortality to protect her. Tucking her head behind the shield, the sound of the weapon striking like that of bones cracking, Shadowmere was nearly knocked to the ground with the force of the blow. "You don't seem like you have the soul of a poet in you," she grunted, continuing to circle around him and taunt at the same time. "Unless you ate him, maybe." Though the beast had a permanent scowl fixed on his face, her comments seemed to be particularly displeasing to him.

"You are impertinent mortal!" the dremora growled. "Perhaps joining your fellow mortal in the cage would teach you some respect!"

"Maybe getting an arrow shot through the back of your head would teach you to be less of a wanker," she retorted, cocking her head and giving a look of sardonic contemplation, knowing Saeana wouldn't let her down. The dremora raised his arm and made a move to bring down the mace once again, while Shadowmere braced herself behind the shield for the impact and changed the grip on the hilt of her sword so she could make the most critical attack as quickly as she could. Before the dremora could bring the attack to fruition, he let out a sudden grunt, his venom green eyes widening slightly. Using the half second of opportunity she had gained, Shadowmere lowered her shield and, with a shout, swung the sword as hard as she could, driving the point diagonally down from the neck down to the bottom of the ribcage.

"You clear?" she asked Saeana, struggling to hold on to the twitching body. Putting her hands on Shadowmere's shoulders, Saeana slid behind her, standing clear of the Dremora.

"Go ahead and drop it," she said, motioning toward the edge of the ramp. Giving a grunt, she shook the body free of the sword and watched it drop onto the ramp and begin a slow slide downward on the smooth surface. "Do you think we could have done without the little taunting episode?" Saeana asked, putting her bow on her back and crossing her arms.

"Apparently not," Shadowmere said, running the flat part of the sword over the sole of her boot, wiping the blood from the blade. "I wouldn't have taunted him otherwise."

"Hey, over here!" Both women jumped as the man in the cage reminded them of his existence. He was a frenzied looking, forty-something Imperial who looked as though he hadn't eaten in days. His nearly bald head was covered with some combination of sweat, blood and soot, which dripped down his scalp and made a nasty crown on his white hair.

"It's alright," Saeana said, her concern flowing almost naturally past lips that had claimed they were unsuited for such discourse. "We're going to get you out of there." The crazed man barely responded to her words, his soot streaked face drawn with desperation and his blue eyes wild as they darted between the two women.

"Quickly! Quickly! There is no time! You must get to the top of the large tower. The Sigil Keep, they call it," he said, as though he hadn't heard what Saeana said. "That's what keeps the Oblivion Gate open! Find the Sigil Stone, remove it, and the Gate will close! Hurry! The Keeper has the key—you must get the key!" Glancing at one another Shadowmere and Saeana debated with their eyes as to how to proceed.

"Are you Menien?" Saeana asked slowly.

"Don't worry about me there's no time!" the man barked. For a moment, Shadowmere watched as the proper course of actions played hide and seek with Saeana.

"You take the key, I'll get our friend out of here," she said, relieving Saeana of the burden of the decision. "Again."

"Are you sure?" she asked, looking almost afraid of Shadowmere's decisiveness.

"I suspect I can carry him more easily than you can," she reasoned, looking quickly from her muscular, sturdy frame to Saeana's lithe, acrobatic figure.

"Are you sure?" Saeana was practically begging her to reconsider.

"Nope, but it beats standing around," she said, eying the cage and looking for any design flaws that could work to her advantage. "Haul ass already!" she barked when Saeana hesitated. "You're going to need to run back down to get the key, and I don't know how far Ugly's slid by now." Nodding, she turned to follow the sliding corpse but paused once more.

"Hey Shadowmere?" Her voice was like a child's.

"Yeah?"

"If we don't make it back-" Shadowmere couldn't let her continue in this kind of mentality. If Saeana was anticipating the worst, the worst was exactly what would happen and she just plain couldn't have that.

"Saeana, tell me when we get back to Kvatch." Saeana nodded, giving a weak smile and following the ramp back down to the door.