Fate's Games
(A/N: Fourth up today. This was requested by Wanderingidealism, who also drew me two pictures for Fate's Games on Deviantart. Thank you again, Wanderingidealisim. Here's hoping this one shot is all you'd hoped it to be.)
In This Life or the Next
Shelly,
Your ship should have arrived weeks ago and I fear the worst has happened. I've set up camp on this rock as your ship should pass by here, and hopefully one of these days we'll be together again. If you're reading this I'm probably out hunting or bringing in some supplies. I'll be waiting here until I see your face again.
Faithfully yours,
Trius
ES
He put down his quill. He knew even then that he would never see her again. He looked out over the water as the wind blew softly through his hair. Tears threatened his eyes, but he refused to let them fall. He wouldn't give up on her. He would never give up… But her-her screams… They echoed in his mind and in his heart. In his nightmares he saw her trapped. He saw her locked in her cabin on the ship she had taken. She-she was crying out his name, she was screaming, she was pounding on the door and trying so, so desperately to escape…
My love, one day we will be together again. One day I will hold you close to me and pepper your face and your skin with kisses. Please, please let her come. Let her come to him. He had committed many crimes in his past, he would never deny that. He had been a bandit mage; it had all been a part of life. He had hurt many people and he would pay the price willingly… as long as she had not died for his sins.
Flashback
"Come with me," he pled, gently cupping her face in his cold hands.
"You know I can't," she answered. "I have matters to attend to here."
"Leave them all behind. Cut your ties to this life. Live only for me, for us," he begged. "Be with me. To leave you behind…"
She cut him off with a gentle kiss on the lips. Drawing back she gently asked, "What are you afraid of, Trius?"
"I am afraid I'll never see you again," he softly replied, nuzzling her forehead with his nose softly.
"Why?" she questioned, smiling affectionately.
"My past was criminal, and I have gone unpunished for the lives I ruined… I feel that if I let you go, you will be the price I pay," he answered.
Pity came to her eyes and she leaned forward, gently kissing him once again. "You'll see me again," she vowed. "In this life or the next."
End Flashback
He killed the rabbit swiftly and tucked it into the bag. He shivered and blew on his hands, warming them. His eyes strayed once more to Pilgrim's Trench. Ship after ship had sunken there, at the edge of the Sea of Ghosts. He knew, now, why it was called such… And amongst those ghosts wandered his love… It was funny, a cruel irony, but even though he felt in his bones that she was dead, he couldn't help but hope that when he returned to the camp she would be there waiting. Her hair would be blowing in the wind and she would rush to greet him…
His smile fell. It frightened him. Somehow he knew and sensed that with every minute that passed him by where she wasn't there, he would draw closer and closer to insanity. He feared it was only a matter of time before he lost himself, before he became unable to tend to his own needs. It had been three days already since he had last eaten, but he needed to stay strong, to hold on until she was with him again… Perhaps that in itself was proof it was already too late. "Shelly," he heard himself whisper softly as the snowflakes fell around him. Odd; he hadn't realized until then how cold he had become. He looked down at his fingers. They were turning blue. He sobbed, closing his eyes tightly and holding them against his chest. He couldn't feel the pain. He doubted he would ever feel anything again until the day she came back to him.
Flashback
They had killed the last of the travellers in the Caravan, or so they'd believed. He had always been cautious, though. As the others looted everything of value, he looked around. He had heard splashing, then, and he had followed the noise to a nearby creek. He had seen a young woman fleeing across it, trying to escape. He watched her for a long time. Soon enough, however, he had thrown a Paralysis spell after her. It struck her and she fell helplessly to the ground with a cry. He had slowly approached and he had seen the fear in her eyes; but in fear there was also hatred and defiance. She was a fighter, and this was plain to see. It wouldn't save her… Yet the gaze she had fixed him with… It sent shivers up and down his spine…
They had brought her back to their encampment. A trophy, their leader had claimed. Each of them knew what that meant. He was the one that avoided such situations as that, often vanishing elsewhere to study his craft and to practice spells. It made him the object of constant ridicule, but the ridicule hardly lasted more than a second before those who taunted him ended up in need of medical attention. This time, however, he felt inclined to stay. Not for the reason one would assume, never that, but because the thought of the young woman—whose name he didn't even know—being passed around like some prize, infuriated and sickened him.
ES
They had tried. Oh how they had tried. Hence the reason he was fleeing from the only life he'd known as quickly as he possibly could, pushing through the forest and through the streams of the land… and dragging her along with him… She was stricken, to say the least, gazing up in awe at the bandit mage who had so viciously and unexpectedly turned on his fellows as they had attempted to strip her. Without a word or a breath he had taken hold of her and pulled her away as quickly as they could go. The shouts of those he had betrayed echoed behind them, and she could feel his pain as they ran. They had been the closest things to friends he had had, and for her he had thrown them to the side. She believed that at any moment he would turn and go back to them, but he didn't. False friends, she sensed he knew. His 'friends' had been false…
ES
The life he had asked her to leave behind had consisted of her parents and tutors, her family and her friends, and the man to whom she had been engaged before she had met the bandit mage. Trius had wanted her, the day that he left to go on ahead into Skyrim, to cut her ties completely with them without a word, without a warning. She had been unable to do that. It wasn't who she was, but oh how she regretted it now as the days crawled by like years. Her ship was due to come into Skyrim in three nights, however. In three nights she would be with him again. Divines, it felt like centuries. If she had known, then, that she would never see him again… oh what she would have done differently.
The night before she was to come in was when the ship had given a jarring lurch. It was when it began to sink slowly into the waves. She hadn't stood a chance. How desperately she had tried to get out of her room… she had tried so hard to fight for her life, to fight to see him again. She had sobbed and begged and pled to every Aedra and Daedra she knew of to let her live; even if only long enough to say goodbye to him. She knew even then, though, as finally she was submerged with nowhere else to go, that the chance would never come. How she cried out in her mind for a savior, how she willed him to by some miracle sense her peril and come for her… But that was the stuff of myths… Rarely did such events occur in reality… but why, why, why, couldn't this have been her one miracle? She loved him, she loved him, she loved him…
End Flashback
He gazed out over the water listlessly, the wind blowing his hair gently and the sounds of nature echoing in his mind. The memories of the dream flooded back in such detail. Could words even describe how desperately he had come to love her? He rubbed his face tiredly. How many years had passed since the first time he had written that longing message to her? How many times had he rewritten it? He had no energy left. He had no will to live. He wanted to die. Oh how badly he wanted to die… He looked up to the sky quietly. Oh Mara, if there is anything redeemable in me please, please… if she is dead then let me die tonight. Grant me that one wish.
ES
When the morning broke it was silent in the campsite. Nothing moved, nothing breathed. The fire still burned in the pit, bright and undying. It would burn there forever, at the goddesses command. The bandit mage had died quietly in his sleep. For years he had waited for her, that same note lying on the stump untouched; rewritten only when time had decayed the previous ones. He would never wake up again, not this time, and he would never more be apart from his lover. His body may have decayed, but true love… True love was forever…