Author's Note: Rated M for language and later violence. Cross posted on AO3. Feel free to review your thoughts, or point out if I messed something up. Much appreciated. Enjoy :)
Chapter 1: Be Careful What You Wish For
A modest pair of two-inch heels stumbled along the edge of a dusty curb as a young woman, no later than in her early-thirties, snorted the thick, ugly tears that dripped from her flaring, red nose into the back of her lumpy throat. She swallowed her sadness, and in her drunken stupor, her wobbly knees buckled into each other, bound by the tightness of her now, obsolete pencil skirt. Defeated, her tailbone refused to get up from the cold concrete, and she took a swig out of the bottle in her hand for comfort. But, only a small drop of the liquor touched the tip of her tongue. She lifted the bottle above her sullen eyes and gazed through the pellucid, green glass, lined with a ring of ash at its base. Not another drop was left. There was nothing, but emptiness.
Laira took another deep, loud sniffle, which came out in a cadence of hideous, uncontrollable sobs. Her mouth was agape, drooping as she wailed in despair. Onlookers walked past in apathy, briefly glancing at her with judgmental eyes. She cursed her fate. Damn those selfish big-wigs at her company for laying-off hardworking employees such as herself, just so the higher ups could stuff their coffers with a few extra bucks. Damn her so-called best friend for betraying her, especially at the time she needed her the most. And damn her useless, lying, scumbag of a fiancé. Ex-fiancé, now.
She had gone home early from her last day of work, wearing a badge of worthlessness bestowed by the higher-ups, encumbered with a small, cardboard box of potted plants and picture frames of her happy memories. And, as she had crossed the threshold of the apartment that had once been her sanctuary, the box had fallen to her feet, shattering her memories and baby succulents into dirt and glass, scattered all over the pristine, hardwood floors.
That picture was still fresh in her memory. That scumbag of a man, sprawled over the woman she held closest to her heart—whom she had called her best friend since they were little—their bare skin tainting the brand new, velvet couch in their sticky sweat. It was her couch, which she had paid for with her hard-earned money. With no other choice in her mind, she had turned away and ran out the door.
She kept bawling on the sidewalk, washing her knees with the tears from her bloodshot eyes. Then, a car passed by and splashed her with a nearby puddle. It was like every cliche in the TV dramas were checked off. Damn them all. What was she going to tell her family?
The holidays were coming up, and Laira could see the towering gazes of all the aunties and uncles in her mind. They were lined up in their rightful seats on a long dinner table, like a counsel of elders, with Laira sitting alone at the very end. Their heads all turned in unison toward her direction. Fat, wrinkled faces stabbed at the fear in her stomach with their glaring eyes, chattering, gossiping. The chatter died out, and silence filled the room. Until, they asked the dreaded question—
When are you getting married?
"GYAAAAH!" Laira cried as she chucked the empty liquor bottle against the hard pavement, drowning out its loud smash with the sound of her blubbering tears.
Then, a stray dog willfully approached her, seemingly from nowhere, as if sensing her anguish. It was a large Irish wolfhound with a shaggy, gray coat and a tuft of hair that gathered under its maw like a long beard. His tongue stuck out of his goofy, canine grin. Looking at his beard, the name Barbas came to her mind.
Laira pet the back of the dog's head, ruffling his fur and calming her senses. Her surroundings blurred around her periphery, and she felt the astringent cloud of drunkenness build up in her ears and nose.
"Why are all… men like this, Barbas?" She asked the dog in slow and slurred words between her sobs, scratching him under his snout. "How am I… supposed… to face my family? I told… everyone we'd get… married… by the end… of this year."
Barbas put a reassuring paw on her thigh and looked up at her with his beady eyes. He let out a high-pitched whine, as if telling her something, as if telling her to go ahead, to speak her mind.
"If I… could make… one… wish," Laira continued, gesturing with her pointer finger up to emphasize her words. "I wish… to live in a world… where finding… a husband… was easy."
Barbas replied with two loud barks, and the world around them began to spin. Laira's vision was fading to black, and she felt her consciousness slowly drifting away as an otherworldly voice echoed in her head.
Be careful what you wish for.
꧁꧂
Laira woke up to the sound of creaking wood grating in her head with a throbbing pain. The dull clip-clop of hooves backed up the noise's attack on her senses. She parted her dry mouth, licking her chapped lips in search of hydration. The chill of the crisp, alpine breeze filled her lungs, tainted with the odor of sweaty jocks, horse manure, and rusted iron. She curled up her nose and shivered in the cold air that penetrated her coarse, itchy clothing.
With a loud and rickety thud, her body jolted up and down against the hard surface which she sat upon, as if she had just ran over a speed bump. She opened her puffy eyes, squinting against the blinding light. She couldn't believe what she saw.
Out of the city streets, she found herself in a rustic, wooden cart tottering down a cobblestone path, alongside a band of sweaty, bulked-up cosplayers dressed in burlap and chainmail. They were surrounded by a forest of pines that reached toward the dull, cloudy sky, all huddled beneath the face of an endless, gray mountain range and its snow-capped peaks. As she began to break out of her daze, her breath grew heavy, and her heart began to race in fear. She shifted in her seat, sandwiched between a pair of burly, bearded men, all covered in sweat and ripped to the core with muscles as hard as rock.
The man to her right had his mouth gagged with a rag, while the one to her left was passed out with his head hanging limp over his broad shoulders. He had been beaten, black and blue, bruised in one eye and all over his pale face, with flakes of his blood staining the corners of his thick lips and the hairs under his nose. His scruffy, bearded chin rested on a mat of his greasy, auburn locks. He was dressed similarly to herself, in a tattered burlap set, held together by a rope of twine at the waist. That was when she realized that the disheveled blouse and wrinkled pantsuit she had been wearing were gone, and her hands were tightly bound behind her back. She squirmed in her seat, struggling to get loose.
"Where am I? Get me out of here! Somebody, help!" She shouted hysterically.
"You, shut up back there!" The coachman, dressed in what looked like Roman armor, called out from the front of the wagon.
"Let me out! I don't belong here!" She cried out.
"Best you keep yourself calm, sister. There's nothing more we can do," a smooth, husky voice quietly spoke from across her seat.
Looking up, Laira was met by a pair of limpid, sky-blue eyes and a sad smile, framed with dusty, blond locks. They belonged to a broad-framed man, clad in chainmail armor, draped in dark cerulean cloth. Despite the situation, he had a reassuring presence.
"Where are we?" She asked him quietly.
"On the road to Helgen, bound to be executed," he whispered back in sullen words, which failed to fully register in her mind.
"Executed?" She laughed in disbelief, but her chuckles were only met by a set of thousand-yard gazes from her brothers in bounds. He was serious.
"No. No! There has to be a mistake!" She frantically shook her head, and her eyes swiveled in all directions, trying to make sense of the bizarre, medieval scenery. "This has to be some kind of nightmare!"
"I said, shut up!" The coachman barked at her, again.
The man across from her didn't speak. He only looked at her in concerned silence for a while, as if he would have held her hand if they weren't bound.
"This whole war has been a nightmare," he finally said, calmly and quietly. "Where are you from, sister?"
"W-Why does it matter?"
"A Nord's last thoughts should be of home," The man replied in a comforting sigh. "And though you're not one of our kin, the warm memories might bring some solace in your final hours."
Laira thought of the cozy apartment she had shared with her ex-fiancé, but the memories only soured her thoughts and made her heart sink. The snide remarks of her relatives and the shrill laughter of her so-called best friend echoed in her memory. Her toes curled against the splintered wood beneath her barely covered feet.
"Home… is the last place I'd want to be right now," she told him, her legs trembling from her nerves, more so than from the biting wind.
He looked at her in another bout of silence with those mournful, blue eyes before uttering a brief, yet heartfelt, apology. She accepted it, just as she slowly began to accept the reality of her strange surroundings. At first, she wondered if she had been kidnapped and was being held hostage at some kind of movie set or Renaissance faire. But, it couldn't be. Everything was much too vivid, much too solid, and much too painful to be unreal. The sight and smell of blood, the empty look in everyone's eyes, and the looming sense of dread that filled the atmosphere all carried the deep gravity of the situation.
Laira looked back at the blue-eyed man, watching his broad chest rise and fall as his breath fogged up in small puffs against her burning cheeks. The heat of his breath swirling in the brisk cold was too tangible to be just part of a dream. Her crimson ears drained to paleness as a cold sweat ran down every inch of her clammy skin.
If he was telling the truth, then she could not delay the inevitable. Her life should have been flashing before her eyes at that moment, but it only stood still. Laira failed to recall any memories beyond the scene of her betrayal. There was nothing more than the stains on her couch and the shards of her picture frames all over the apartment floor. She wanted to cry, but her tear ducts were too sore to muster another drop. She only broke out in what sounded like guttural hiccups through her blubbering mouth, desperately choking on every breath she took.
"Have some courage, sister. The gods await," the man said softly.
Laira held her breath with another deep sniffle, and she scrounged the bottom of her mind for her final prayers. In her reflection, she felt the divine presence of a maternal embrace descend upon her shoulders and envelop her whole being. It was like a warm hug that she hadn't felt since she was a child in her mother's arms. A string of warmth gently tugged at the back of her neck and brushed against her collarbones, gathering into a mild, pulsing energy at the center of her chest. Then, she was overcome with the indescribable sense of each fiber in her body slowly lengthening in release.
"T-Thank you. I'll try," Laira looked up at the man, feebly nodding in response to his words.
"W-What about… you? Tell me… about your h-home." She asked him after a moment of silence, hoping to soothe herself with the sound of his voice. He quietly inhaled in reverie, looking up at the gray sky with his placid eyes.
"Riverwood, just further down the road from where we're headed," he recalled with a nostalgic sigh. "My sister runs a mill that our father had built with his own hands. I remember Gerdur and I would skip rocks along the riverside when we were little. Hod used to chase her around town and pull on her pigtails. No wonder where their son gets it from."
Laira closed her eyes and imagined a scene of a quaint village by the water, with small wooden, cottages lining the riverbanks—an idyllic escape from the hustle and bustle of her previous life. Little by little, she began to catch her breath.
"That sounds… nice… So, y-you have family back home?"
"Aye, my sister, Gerdur, and her husband, Hod. And their boy. He must have grown so much since I've last seen him," the man's voice was filled with pride. Laira envisioned the happy family, and she was hit by a slight pang of jealousy.
"You have… a nephew?"
"Aye. His name's Frodnar. That little scamp, always getting himself into trouble. Not his fault, though. His father encourages it. I'm surprised Gerdur hasn't pulled out all the hairs from her scalp, just dealing with the boy. And that dog of theirs, Stump. He's a good boy, as all dogs are." He mused with that same longing drawl, filled with warmth.
"And you? You've come a long way from the Imperial City. What pains you so much that has made you leave home?" The man asked her in turn. "If you don't mind."
"Imperial… City?" She gave him a puzzled look for a brief moment, but she dismissed it. There was no point in making herself look crazy in front of a stranger by telling him the whole truth. But, it was a chance to at least get something off her chest. Between heavy bouts of thick sniffles, she recounted the betrayal of the two people she had trusted the most.
"I'm sorry," was all the man could say.
The wagon began to turn along the winding curve of the road. A wild elk quietly pranced along the edge of the bend, and another long silence filled the gap between their heads. Nothing but the sound of hooves and quiet prayers could be heard among the rustling pines. They looked at each other, and the silence was welcomed.
"Don't be," Laira finally mustered, turning up the corners of mouth in a brief twitch.
"So, you crossed the border north, looking for a fresh start?" The man asked, after yet another pause.
"No, not on purpose, at least." Laira shook her head. "All I know is that I drank, and I drank, until everything went black. I don't even have a clue about how I got here."
The man gazed at her with unwarranted sympathy.
"Do you really want to know?" He asked, looking down at his feet.
Laira's neck slightly withdrew in concern. She nodded apprehensively, unsure why he would ask her such question.
"Our men were hit by an Imperial ambush as we were trying to cross the border," the man spoke in the same, sullen tone. Then, he looked at the auburn-haired man, whose bruised up head still hung over his shoulder, bobbing to the cobbled road. "Just like my kinsman, over there."
"Imperial soldiers found you curled up and unconscious alongside a few men in our squadron, just off the border at the base of the Jerall Mountains. I don't know how you got there. Divines' sake, I hope it was nothing too grim, knowing what the soldiers do to women they hold captive…" He trailed off, wincing at the thought. Laira gulped. She looked down at her body, tensing, feeling for damage. Luckily, she was unscathed, aside from the rope burn about her wrists and the hangover that was starting to pass.
"From what I've heard, the Imperials must have mistaken you for one of our spies," the man continued. "They bound you up and threw you in here with the rest of us."
"Spies…" Laira repeated, unsure what to think. "I'm not sure I follow."
"That man beside you," he looked to the gagged man seated at her right. He sported long, dirty blond hair with small braids at the sides. He was clad in Viking regalia with a dark, fur cloak draped over his noble, steel plated armor, accentuating his hulking shoulders. "He is Ulfric Stormcloak, Jarl of Windhelm, the True High King."
Ulfric looked at her with an unreadable, piercing gaze. The rag over his mouth obscured his expression beyond his thick, furrowed brow. Though he was bound up and sitting down, the man still towered nearly two feet over her head, imposing his regal presence.
"He's the leader of our army, the Stormcloaks. We fought to liberate the sons and daughters of Skyrim from the tyranny of those Imperial bastar—" The blue-eyed man spoke, then stopped himself. "No offense."
Imperial. He kept mentioning that word. Laira lifted an eyebrow in confusion.
"Pardon my tongue, sister. I have nothing against your people, truly. I'm wise enough to know that the common folk have no say in the dealings of emperors and kings." The man clarified.
"My people…" Laira repeated, attempting to processes his words.
"It's the rulers of the Empire, those spineless men and women who signed the White-Gold Concordat and bowed down to the Thalmor," he continued without raising his voice, filled with vitriol. "It's their foolish sympathizers who willingly chose to side with the Legion, and those damn elves, who took away our right to worship Talos, who think we'd let them trample us under their dirty, elven boots and submit to their every word—"
"Watch your mouth, prisoner!" The coachman cut him off, yelling from the front of the wagon.
"They're the ones that make my blood boil," he finished in a hushed tone through gritted teeth.
Laira was lost for words. The slew of unfamiliar names failed to make sense in her aching head. He had spoken of war and espionage, of Imperials and Stormcloaks, and the mention of elves. She really was in another world.
"W-What kind of place is this?"
Before she could get a response, the man to her left, who had been knocked out cold, finally began to shift. Lifting his head, the auburn-haired man fluttered his emerald eyes, looking around in visible confusion. He looked at Laira with a dazed expression, before his head turned to acknowledge the man who sat across from him. Their gazes met, and the blue-eyed man greeted him with a friendly, yet somber tone.
"Hey, you. You're finally awake."
つづくTo be continued...