?
"I'll teach you to go blabbing! I'll teach you!"
"But… But I only wanted…"
"I don't care what you wanted! You went yapping to the priest! You dirty chubby little snitch!"
"Mommy, please, I – "
"Shut up and come with me. Come with me! You want me to drag you? Fine! How's that, huh? Let go! Let go of the doorway! Stop your blubbing! I'll give you something to cry about!"
"Mommy, why are you doing this? Please, I just want you to stop! I just want us to be happy again!"
"Happy? You want me to be happy? If you want me to be happy, you leave me alone! You don't want me to be happy, you just want to hurt me. Why do you always want to hurt me? Huh?"
"I don't understand, mommy! I miss daddy too, but – "
"Don't you talk about him! What? You want another one? You want another reason to cry, here you go!"
"Stop! Mommy stop!"
"The more you cry, the harder I hit! You're the one making me do this. Now come here!"
"Ow! Mommy, my hair!"
"Shut up! I never wanted it to come to this, but you're leaving me no choice. Get on your knees. Get on your knees!"
"Mommy, please…"
"Stop whining. Put your hands behind your back. Do it!"
"Mommy why are you…"
"Quiet. Stick out your tongue. Stick out your tongue. Farther. All the way, damn you!"
"Krgh!"
"Now you are going to sit there, with your hands tied behind your back, and your tongue in this vice, you learn when you can talk and when you need to shut up!"
"Nngh!"
"No! Be quiet. Maybe when your tongue hurts enough, you'll learn not to take it for granted and to keep it still. What have I done to deserve such a traitor for a child? No. No! Stop making noise. Let me smoke in peace."
Mother lights up the pipe and lies down on the bed. It doesn't take long for her eyes to roll back and the drug to send her in a state of trance. She simply hadn't been able to handle it when father died. They'd been happy for a long time, the three of them, father working as a weaponsmith for the militia, and mother in the city guard. They'd loved each other so much, mother and father, and every time they were together, the house was truly a home.
But when father had been sent off to war, only a letter had returned. Mother hadn't been able to deal with it. She'd never talked about it, shut everyone out. And she'd darkened. Slowly at first, but then rapidly. It had started with just a morose attitude, but she'd soon descended into a spiral of self-pity, blame projection, and a general hate for people. And the more she used the drugs she'd gotten hooked on, the more her perception of reality had suffered, until everyone was rotten and evil, and everyone was the cause of her problems. Even her only child had eventually turned into the enemy, and now it all comes to a head.
Mother lies there, the pipe in her limp fingers, one leg out of bed. Her eyelids flutter occasionally, but apart from that, she doesn't move, away in whatever world she is taken to when she smokes the white crystals.
Tongue hurts. The vice clamps down on it so hard the tissue screams. Mother has turned the lever on the thing so hard it's got the tongue utterly stuck, unable to move. Shoulders begin to hurt too, from sitting with hands tied. Knees too. The ground is hard and cold.
The iron jaws of the vice grind against tooth enamel. Sends painful shivers all the way down to the base of the spine. Tears blur everything.
Mother murmurs in her sleep. The pipe dangles loosely in her hand. Slides down a little bit between her fingers. A little bit more.
It always happens. Always the same way. And there's never anything that can be done. It can only be watched as it unfolds the same way it always has.
The pipe slides a little lower.
Making noise or trying to get free is pointless. Mother is completely sedated, and the vice and bonds are too right. Pulling only hurts, as if it's going to be guts getting pulled out with it. A tongue goes a long way down.
Without a sound, the pipe comes to rest on the blanket and mattress. It turns over. Slowly, slowly.
Smouldering crystal lazily rolls out of the pipe, onto the fabric. Smoke begins to curl up towards the wooden ceiling.
No noise, no amount of screaming can wake mother as the bed catches fire, slowly at first. The black smoking patch sprouts a tiny flame, which grows higher and higher and begins to expand in every direction, the fire timid at first, but growing bolder and greedier as it devours more and more of the fabric.
Wake up! Mother, wake up!
The flames grow higher and hotter, now as tall as a campfire. Mother's clothes start catching fire, first her sleeve, then her bodice. Why doesn't she wake up? Even with all the drugs, she should be able to feel the flames. Why doesn't she wake up?
Her hair begins to smoke, and soon the flames devour it too. Mother is now a pillar of fire, and the flames begin licking at the ceiling. Everything is a blur through the tears. Mother is burning alive, the person who was once a loving parent, before the grief and substances changed her. Mother burns alive and a child's heart with it.
Smoke and flame begin to engulf the cabin. No way to escape, no way to get free. Hands tied, tongue clamped in a vice. No point screaming for help. Someone would have come already.
One last pull, but again it only makes it feel like esophagus and stomach will be pulled out with it.
The entire cabin burns and the heat sears skin.
There's only one thing left to do.
All it takes is screams, tears and teeth. The blood comes on its own.
Smoke And Flame
Somewhere in the real world
The fire turned into sunlight, burning through her eyelids, turning everything red.
"Hello? Can you hear me?"
Oh Sithis, everything hurt. Everything was pounding, pulsing pain. The dream again. That rotten, stinking, fucking dream. It was the same every time.
"Hello? Speak up if you can hear me. Or nod. Or something."
It sounded like a man talking. Older.
Siari opened her eyes, the orange rays of the rising sun blinding her.
"Oh, sorry, I'll close the drapes." The sound of iron rings gliding across a rail, and the piercing light dulled. "Better? Try opening your eyes again?"
She managed it this time and saw the ceiling of a small cabin. Wooden beams and wooden roofing. Her eyes swivelled past cupboards, an amateuristic painting of mountains, and a mounted elk head, to settle on the wrinkled, crumpled face of a Nord who looked older than the mountains of Skyrim themselves.
"Hello there. It was a rough night, but you made it through the worst. I assume you still feel like you were under the wheels of a rambling cart, but believe it or not, it'll get better. It was hard work, but I pulled you through."
Siari tried to move, but the pain made her think otherwise.
"Yes, I'd stay still for a bit if I were you." The man smiled at her, his face wrinkling up even more. "So. I've been dying to know who exactly it was I snatched from death's door. Can you tell me your name?"
Telling him her name would be difficult. She slowly shook her head, and grimacing against the pain, she freed one arm from the blankets. Her bones felt like they were rusty, pointy chunks of agony. Still, she bit the pain and made a writing gesture.
"Oh, you want something to write?"
Obviously.
The man got up, rummaged around, and a piece of paper and charcoal slid between her fingers. With a pained grunt, she wrote her name in shaky, scrawled letters.
"Sy-ari?"
She was in too much pain to correct him.
"Do you have any idea what happened to you?"
Of course she did. She'd leapt off the bridge with an arrow in her shoulder and splattered apart on the water… except not entirely it seemed. Still, she shook her head slowly. Better he didn't know.
"Ah. Shame." He clicked his tongue. "All I know is I found you on the riverbank, broken and only barely clinging to life, a snapped arrow shaft in your shoulder. There were unshod hoof marks in the mud around you, but they were bigger than any I've ever seen."
Shadowmere. Shadowmere had pulled her out of the water. She was alive, and she had the beast to thank for it.
The man pulled his mouth to one side. "Shame you don't remember. But it's not my business anyway, really. I'm just glad I found you when I did." His eyes settled on her. "Don't worry, I won't ask or judge what you were wearing and why. You were simply a person in need."
That was nice of him. The pain, while overwhelming at first, slowly became more bearable.
"Saving your life was hard work. The healing spells I had to cast were so exhausting that it wouldn't have taken much more for me to end up on the floor next to you."
She turned her head and saw her leathers lying on a stool next to the bed, dagger belt and all.
Wait, if her leathers were there, that meant…
She suddenly became terribly aware of the blanket against her skin. She was naked! While she was unconscious and helpless, this man had taken her clothes off! Seen her, touched her, exposed her. And what else had he done to her? Where else had his hands and fingers been?
Her breaths came faster and faster as she recoiled from him, her fingers clenching the blanket.
"Hey… hey, what's wrong?" the man asked, but when he saw Siari's eyes go to the pile of clothes, he seemed to realize. "Oh. Don't be scared," he said, trying to calm her down. "All I could think of was trying to save your life. I didn't treat you with anything but respect."
It didn't matter what he said, or how much he lied. This man had stripped her, his eyes and hands had been on her.
"Dear, I had to get these wet clothes off you," he defended himself, trying to sound as harmless as possible. "Don't be afraid, my candle's been out for many years."
The bastard! He'd taken advantage of her! He'd seen every bit of her!
Siari's arm shot out and pulled her dagger from its sheath. Her clothes fell to the floor of the cabin. The pain forgotten, she lunged at him, the blanket falling off her. Her dagger flashed, and the man's forearm, raised in reflex, caught it, the skin slashed open.
"Stop! Stop!" he shouted. "What are you doing?"
She snarled and hacked again, this time cutting only air. Her bones screamed in pain and her muscles lost all their strength. She made another step forward, but that was as far as her broken body would take her. Her knees gave out and she crumpled to the floor, clenching her teeth as her knees and elbows bonked against the wooden flooring.
"What in Oblivion is your problem?" the old man's voice roared above her. "I cast myself into exhaustion to save your life, and this is the thanks I get? I pull you back from the brink of death and this is how you repay me?"
She felt one hand grab the hair on the back of her head, and another took her wrist.
"Get up!"
She was pulled to her feet and dragged toward the door. Oh Sithis what had she done? In her panic, she'd almost murdered the man, and now he could do whatever he wanted to her.
"You're lucky I am a forgiving man, so you get to leave with your life. But I never, ever want to see you again! Get out of here!"
He kicked the door open, and the next moment, Siari was thrown through the air, her aching body falling flat into the mud with a wet splat. The mud was cold and wet, and her skin had sunk into it, the cold closing around her.
She felt leather slap against her bare behind.
"And here's your clothes and your stuff. Now drag your worthless bones as far away from my hut as they'll take you."
She wanted to shout at him that she was sorry, to please let her in again, but without a tongue to form words with, she could only lie in the mud and cry.
This was the lowest she could ever sink. Naked, face down in the mud, cold and alone, her entire body in pain. She simply lay there and wept, and forgot that the time she had to rush to Sanctuary and save her family slowly burned away.