-Blackwood-
As night falls Shade, Talshaza and Tyranius gather around a fire, warded against the night. The day had been spent looking around Leyawin...or what had once been the small town. It had been destroyed and only a scattering of people still called it home...for lack of any place else to go.
Talshaza pokes the fire with a finger. "We never found Rufico's body. He could still be alive," she says.
Tyranius is silent a grim expression across his face. When they had been searching the city the Dunmer woman had told them of the horror they found at Theodyn and Rufico's house. Even if they did find him, would he help them, or was he as lost to the darkness as the rest of the world? "Thought about looking for my pack," Tyranius at last says changing the subject. "But rules forbid it."
Shade glances at the Imperial a quizzical expression on her face. "So many rules are gone," she says. "Perhaps your rules are as well."
His expression only grows grimier. "If that was true Wolfy and Pup would be fighting this. Rules against that too. Not heard anything like that," he says and then changes the subject, "Prince?" he says.
"Bal, Peryite, and Namira," Talshaza responds. "But they never seemed to have an actual hand in what the scourges have done."
"And even the Princes have rules they are bound to," Shade says. "Their own, the compact. This…," she frowns. "Seems different." the Khajiit frowns as she says this and her claw idly scratches nonsensical patterns into the dirt. "Would any Prince let their followers get this strong? The Reachman must not be the only ones who have started to view them as gods."
"When we did...what we did," Tyranius says. "The Princes were NOT quiet. Not direct, but not quiet. They did not like how strong Pup was...and the fact he was a Demi Prince made by Molag Bal." A frown crosses his face. "They are silent now."
A chill sets over the three. How can such powerful beings be so silent in this? "I was asleep so long…," Talshaza quietly says. "I know Living Gods. I know how strong they are," there is a silent question in what she has said.
Shade's expression turns dark. "Ri'Zakar's dragonic power annihilated Rimmen from the face of Northern Elsweyr," she hisses. "He has taken so many Khajiit, all their power combined with his own. Lyssavi IS his rabid horde in a way no one fully understands. Xahrshi steals the very essence from the were beasts and it has made him so much more than a mere vampire, and Spiders-In-Scales took Lorkhaj's song and changed it from a whisper to a scream. More than just Khajiits fall under its sway now, and add to his power."
Talshaza pales. "What...what did you say about Lyssavi?" she whispers.
Shade's eyes find the Dunmer's and the fear in them. "He can see through their eyes. It is why we must remain hidden as much as possible. Why we must try to avoid them."
The Dunmer closes her eyes. "That is how they found us five years ago. We fought some of them… and then I went back to town via a portal and Leaps decided she needed time to walk back on her own." the Dunmer whispers and then her eyes open and she stands up. "I...I need a moment," and as Shade starts to rise she shakes her head. "No...I...I…." but even as she says this she knows her companions will not let her be alone. It is too dangerous, being alone those five years ago is what led them to ruin. But everything is overwhelming and before they can make a move she opens a portal and leaps through and it slams shut behind her.
"Damn it," Tyranius says before he lies down, ax near enough to touch, and as Shade stares at him he says, "She could be anywhere. Can't do anything but trust she'll keep herself out of trouble."
The Imperials eyes close and Shade is about to protest before she notices just how haggard his face is. He had kept the helm on all day, seemed to prefer it, but had taken it off for camp. Never once had he faltered, even as they kept the search up all day and into the night and she had forgotten he was a werebear fighting off the inevitable end. So Shade lays down and closes her eyes and sleep takes her more quickly than she expects.
The crimson light and the dark, a faint mist hangs over the land. Talshaza knows she should not be on her own. It is how Leaps was lost, those long years ago that seem like yesterday. Leaps, who had the bravest heart of them, who was the best of them. Never faltering, never seeming to fear. Just going forth against the darkness, her eyes full of courage and kindness. How had that Leaps become the one that now existed? A Leaps without a speck of light in her eyes, courage replaced with savage madness, kindness replaced with cold brutality. The thought of Leaps like that tore her already damaged heart to shreds and only the thought of changing all of this keeps her going now and so she turns back to the camp. She did not go far, she knew the portal magic might not work a second time
Before she can take a single step however a shadow emerges from the dark and she feels a sharp wicked blade at her throat and a hand grab her arm wrenching it back. "I will give you last words before I send you to The Void," a shadowy voice hisses in her ear.
The blood freezes in the Dunmer's veins at the knife at the throat but one thing cuts through the fear. The voice is familiar, although it is filled with so much more darkness than the last she heard it. "Rufico," she breathes.
The grip tightens, the knife nearly cutting her. "Do NOT say that name," the assassin hisses. "That name died when my light was taken from me. When your friend MURDERED my family."
His words confirm her darkest suspensions. That Leaps was irrevocably changed, that all that had been light and good in her had been eradicated. The Argonian claw marks she and Shade had found at Theodyn and Rufico's, the sheer savagery of. Her heart, already so broken, still does not want to believe it. But she stared into Leap's eyes searching for a spark of the Leaps she once knew...and she found not a single trace. "No…," she whispers.
"I hear the doubt in your voice, you KNOW truth," Rufico says and the knife pierces slightly her skin a single drip of blood falling down her neck. "Can not risk that you are like HER. The Void...The Void is the only answer."
With a chill, she knows he means it, means to end her, kill her. His voice is filled with darkness and loss that is deeper than the void itself. "I am not," she whispers. "It breaks me that my friends are lost beyond my reach. Lost in darkness so completely there is no reaching them." A hint of her flames briefly flares and then retracts. "If I was lost as well would I not use my flames, that was once Iveryni's against you?"
A soft growl from the assassin. "Then where WERE YOU?" he responds in a broken voice. "You were to be the heroes as we once were. You were not to run from it! Not turn into monsters that would...would murder an innocent child!"
The agony in the words of a man on the brink of the abyss. All the ways she could think to explain would not light the darkness that Rufico was lost in. "Everything is lost. Shattered beyond repair, beyond recovery. All I knew, all you knew." she whispers a tear falling down her face. "If not for a single drop of hope to change all of this I would let the fire take me...and as many of these monsters that I could before I fell."
A heavy pause and then the knife falls from her neck. "You believe that," Rufico says. "But I cannot. Without my light, there is only The Void, only death, and blood," he lets go of her arm and steps back turning from her. "You believe that," he says again, and once more a heavy pause. "...the shadows may watch out for you. But do not rely on them. Do not rely on me. I am nearly lost, utterly. I live only to take her life, for she took my light," he says and then vanishes into the shadows.
Talshaza turns around. "Rufico…," she whispers, although she knows he's gone, for now. Another one lost in the dark, but if they could change that...if they could. It is all that keeps her going. The smallest of hopes and she turns and walks back to camp.
A soft breeze rustles Shade's fur and the feel of twin warmth's surrounds her. Slowly her eyes open and she sees Talshaza and Tyranius sleeping and the fire but embers, the night lit by the faint remains and the faint glow of the runes cast by the Dunmer to protect them against the night, and there on a log sits a woman clad in soft gold and silver armor with hints of blue and a hood, her face is nearly completely covered by a mask that resembles a Khajiit, only a hint of chocolate brown skin is glimpsed. It is a stranger in camp, a threat...but the stranger has no scent, no physical presence. And her energy...soft and warm and familiar. "Are you they?" Shade whispers.
The woman shakes her head. "Faint shadows in the ever-lasting dark, their voices have faded," the woman responds.
"Then who are you?" Shade asks.
"One lost in the desert, engulfed by the storm. I prayed to Tava, but it was something else that answered. And so my old life and self came to a close and now I am the whisper for the two that cannot speak, that cannot be free, that move closer to the end of existence every moment that passes," she answers and a sense of overwhelming grief engulfs Shade. "I am to aid you and your companions when I am able. Forces block the way, drown the whispers, drown all hope." she gestures at the night around them. "I cannot know what the darkness covers, you must dive down and see with your own eyes." The woman focuses her gaze on Shade her dark-colored eyes intense under the mask. "Summerset. You will find the start of the darkness there….although is that truly the start? Nevertheless, it is where you and your allies must go."
"Why…," Shade starts to say, so many questions in that single word. But between one blink and the next the woman is gone. Shade slowly lowers herself back on the ground but it is a long time before sleep claims her again.
When morning comes Shade and Talshaza share their night over breakfast. A silence falls for long moments. An assassin in the shadows shattered and lost, who may or may not aid them when needed. And the Redguard woman who seems the last link to the shattered moons. "Damn," Tyranius says his gaze troubled before he grabs his helm and thrusts it on his head before rising, his thoughts on the former hero, whom he once fought against. Pushing the thoughts aside he turns to Shade. "You trust her?" he asks.
The Khajiit is quiet for a moment and then answers, "She feels like Jone and Jode...just a whisper of them, but enough. She whispers for them, she is the Whisper of the Cats."
"But not a cat," Tyranius says with a small smirk under his mask.
"I know that cannot be the strangest thing you have heard or seen," Talshaza interjects as she readies the portal for Summerset.
"Perhaps a cat cannot speak for them," Shade says. "Khajiits are falling. Without the moons, with the scream of Spider's song, we are falling into the abyss. Someday, nothing may remain of who we used to be as a race, but twisted demons and Ri'Zakar. And by then he may be more dragon than he ever was a cat. So perhaps this is the only way they can help us. Before…." she trails off. Not saying the obvious agonizing truth. What time they have is nearly at an end.
The portal opens and the Dunmer woman looks at the two. "Then let us find what we need to find and change all of this. Before WE run out of time as well." Again not saying what they all must be thinking. Leaps has seen Talshaza. The chances she has told the Scourges…they will very soon be hunted by beings they no longer have a hope of standing against in a direct fight.
Tyranius stares at the portal for a moment then shrugs. "Let's go," he says gruffly and passes through the portal followed by the two women and it shuts behind them.
From the shadows, a set of glowing eyes follows the closing of the portal and a demonic growl reverberates.