Chapter Text
Dark Passenger
The haze of fog was everywhere, and what wasn't grey was black. A void with the faintest presence of water, and a ground she could not see. Her chest was open from a gaping wound that bled--and yet she felt no pain, only weakness and a sensation of being incomplete. She could be something new, she felt, but...
Your hands are made to kill.
I don't want to kill. I want to create.
There was then a presence behind her, taller and broader, and at such a height that she felt as a child before him. He moved to to her right and lifted her hand. Then the fog before them cleared. But she was more focused on him - his hand was a confusing mix of textures - smooth scales, soft skin, coarse fur, all at once.
What you want to happen does not change what IS, my child. Your hands are made to kill.
They can do other things. Why do they have to kill?
Because that is what they were made for.
She looked ahead, and saw a village in flames, golden-armored, winged elves waiting to burn those who ran from the gates, and anger overcame her. She tried to move forward, but the man at her side held her hand tightly.
Let me go. They are dying! I have to save them! LET ME DEFEND MY PEOPLE!
Do you see now? Your hands are made to kill.
LET GO! LET ME GO!
Only if you admit to me the truth...
The next word was inaudible but pain sprouted within her merely at hearing it.
No. No, that's not me. That's not who I am.
The man seemed to chuckle at that. Whatever you call yourself, remember - you are what I made you, no matter how hard you try to fight it.
Then, suddenly, he was gone, and she was surrounded by the winged elves...but not a one of them was alive, and her hands were stained with blood.
Sadrith jerked upright, feeling her hands wet and her sense of orientation - wrong. She was on her belly. For a terrifying handful of seconds she was unsure if she was asleep and dreaming, or awake and not.
Where am I?
Then the cold.
Am I dead?
Ice and rock. For another, longer stretch where she didn't feel real but knew she was awake, she still wasn't aware of where she was. Then she saw Torovan, occupied with writing (something?) and everything came back. Her cheeks flushed, and a wave of embarrassment rushed over her. She tucked her hands into her armpits to warm them.
If she didn't know any better she'd think his presence was increasing these incidents. She only rarely dreamt of the shadow man and his scoldings before, but since starting this journey it had happened at least twice. Maybe it was just the anxiety...these were nightmares, and being tense and worried about everything only made everything worse.
She had to keep up the mask more with him than she did alone. It only made sense.
Stop. Think. Where are you? What are you doing?
Haemar's Shame. Stopping because of the blizzard. Too cold to go on.
Sadrith reach for a bottle of mead and guzzled a third of it.
"One usually eats before doing that," Torovan said, "Or did you sleep that poorly?"
"I never sleep well," she replied without looking at him, and still hazy, added, "The nightmares just getting worse, is all."
"Nightmares?"
"Some shadowy man..."
Torovan stiffened, she could hear him shifting in place, the sudden sharp breath.
"What did he look like?"
"I never saw his face." Sadrith yawned, "I almost never do."
She couldn't understand his sudden change. Why should he care what a man in her dreams (nightmares, she corrected herself) looked like? But since he didn't look as though he was going to let up about it, she decided to say a little more.
"He's always been a shadow, but...tonight I saw his hand. Fur, scale, skin...several things at once. But I know it was the same as the others because of his voice. I couldn't forget that voice."
Shut up. Shut up, he doesn't need to hear any more!
"Anyway, it's nothing. Just something that happens sometimes."
"You don't take dreams as seriously as you should," Torovan replied. The letter he finally folded up, and on its backside she glimpsed words she immediately forgot. "They can mean a variety of things. They could be a sign of danger to come."
"I doubt elves with wings being dead is a sign of anything." she said, and on seeing the strange questioning look on his face, reached for her bag. Her mind was telling her quite firmly that going back to sleep wasn't going to happen, and art would help her anyway. "I'll just..."
Torovan moved over beside her as she got out a roll of paper and a stump of charcoal. Normally she couldn't get the oomph to draw so soon after waking, or at least not comprehensibly, but right now--
The scene with the dead winged elves from her point of view. Her own bloodied hands raised.
"Those are Ayleids," Torovan said, his voice hardening, "You dreamt of this?"
"...somewhat," she shook her head and crumpled the page, grabbing another and starting on something else. Sigurd, she thought at random, Sigurd from the rush of whatever-that-was when she'd nearly died at Helgen.
"What do you mean, SOMEWHAT?"
"What does it matter to you?" Sadrith grumbled. "It's only a dream."
"People do not just dream of things such as this for no reason." Torovan unfolded the crumpled drawing. "You aren't taking this seriously enough."
"I have strange dreams all the time and they haven't affected me yet."
He gave her a look. "Given what you are, and given you possess at least one daedric artifact--"
"I'm not saying I agree with you, but if I did, this isn't Nocturnal, she doesn't ask things of me in dreams. I get notes from--one of her other devotees, who is...closer to her."
That was the way it had been since she'd become a Nightingale. Karliah made her home in the Twilight Sepulcher, and defended it, sending notes if it looked likely for her to encounter a problem too large to be solved on her own.
She hated that she was spilling so much but it was almost thrilling to be able to move on to a second drawing so quickly.
"It could be one of the others. Which artifacts have you possessed?"
"A...few. The Sanguine Rose, the sword of Jyggalag, the--ah, the Wabbajack. Of course. The Prince of Madness would explain this. There. Problem solved."
Torovan went strangely silent, and glanced down at the lines taking shape beneath her fingers. The bridge, Sigurd, the hateful weapons...
"This," he said, "THIS is something to be concerned about. Is this what you saw when you said 'the bitter, bitter end?' You were bleeding out fiercely, I expect you don't remember."
"I think so." Sadrith shook her head, and put that paper aside too. "My memory's not good at the best of times."
There was a long, long, uncomfortable pause.
"In all of these dreams," Torovan spoke slowly, hesitating more with every word, "Did you ever see...a golden mask?"
Once again the feeling she was forgetting something important.
"No." She was starting to get tired of the questions, tired of the typhoon, but the damn fool wouldn't turn his back long enough for her to get her skooma out, and she couldn't stop running at the mouth for certain until she got some. "Not once. Are you--done interrogating me?"
The anger she assumed he was feeling was suddenly gone, or at least she perceived it that way. Anything more she tried to ignore.
The following conversation went by unspoken consent to different matters - their supplies, food and otherwise. The horses would be easier to feed once they made it out of the mountains and into the Rift proper. The blizzard appeared to have let up, so they'd have to get going.
"And what of your supplies? Will I need to feed you again?"
"I haven't run through what I've collected that quickly," Torovan replied, "And as I already told you - I will NOT be taking your blood again."
On a septim her mood turned, and she felt the typhoon of her mind kicking up in earnest, the rushing river with it. Maybe it was that she wanted to lighten the mood, or to tease him for his over-concern - either way, what came out next was more flirtatious than it needed to be.
"Why not? It's been a while since I had a body as chiseled as yours close to mine, and you should get SOMETHING out of the exchange."
"You." Torovan huffed, his hands shaking, "Are an impossible. IMP. You're meant to be a serious hero doing a job. Where is THAT person, the one Sigurd was so confident in?"
She's the mask I wear.
"She exists." Sadrith shrugged. "But I rarely travel with people anymore...so having someone with me so consistently--I suppose I've just been lonely. This wildness'll pass. Everything always does. I could promise not to speak at all, but--"
She stopped.
"Would you rather make the rest of the journey alone? If I'm frustrating you this much I can simply go back to Winterhold and tell Sigurd it didn't work out. I don't want to waste time - yours or mine."
"You'd give up just like that, simply because you think I find you annoying?"
"Well I'd be going to Riften anyway--" Sadrith stopped and took a deep breath. "--well, I'm useful enough you don't want rid of me yet. So...let's start the day, shall we?"
He turned his back to wrap his bedroll back up and pack up the rest of his things, but she still felt there almost wasn't enough time to get her daily dose of skooma. She kept fearing he would turn around and see her with the bottle, but it thankfully didn't happen.
And by the time they were ready to go, her own things were packed as carefully as her thoughts were orderly.
The chaotic river was gone, replaced with wonderful silence and calm.
The exact opposite of what was waiting for them in Ivarstead.
In the rocky canyon it was easy to miss, but when they finally hit the treeline it was obvious. A plume of smoke was rising from where Ivarstead was. Sadrith's first instinct was to go directly towards it, and she turned Jarla that way.
"That's too big to be from a bonfire...or if it is one, it's an overly large one."
"I wouldn't think they'd burn the wood it would take to make one that big," Sadrith said, glancing over at Torovan.
They kept to the trees with a view of the path near the bridge. When they got to a rocky outcropping Sadrith shuffled through her bags for a spyglass, climbed the rock, and looked as best she could in Ivarstead's direction.
A few flashes of golden armor was all she needed, but she saw more. Some of the villagers dragging bodies of their fallen--was that Temba?
What in Oblivion are the Thalmor doing this far east and south?
She clambered back down the rock and looked to Torovan.
"Thalmor. There are Thalmor in the village, and--" Sadrith practically growled the words, and reaching into one of her bags for the helmet to match the rest of her armor.
"What are you doing?"
"There are people down there. People who NEED ME," she said, "I am not going to simply go around."
She was bristling outwardly, snarling internally, roaring and ready to go.
"I wasn't going to suggest that you do. If you go off half-cocked like this, you'll get yourself killed. Especially wearing THAT armor. Wearing it doesn't make you invincible."
I know it doesn't, but it feels like I am when I wear it. I feel like nothing can touch me when I wear it.
Torovan tilted his head. It seemed for a few moments that as he looked down on her from Snow's back that he could see straight through her. "We don't even know how many of them there are."
"Easy for me to check." Sadrith grinned and looked toward the village. "Got a Shout for that. It's not loud, don't worry about them hearing us."
She climbed back up the outcropping of rock, and Shouted softly, "Laas Yah Nir."
The village lit up with red spots, visible only to her. Forty in total...she'd forgotten how many people lived there, but it was nowhere near forty.
"At least twenty," she said, "I can't remember exactly how many people live here, but..."
Sadrith looked up at Torovan.
"Now are you going to help me, or am I going to have all the glory to myself?"
"I don't know if you are brave or mad," Torovan replied. "We should try not to kill them all."
"I would like to give them a good fright, but if you're not going to help me with that--"
He gave a sigh, and once standing beside her reached down to pull the ring from his hand that she had stared at those days ago at the College. It captured her attention again, that golden appearance of two segmented rings stacked atop each other, with a green stone to cap it. He placed it in her waiting palm.
It seemed he had changed his mind, but why she could not guess. She didn't ask, knowing or at least guessing that he wouldn't answer her.
"This ring should help, but I'll expect it back once we've cleaned them out." Torovan paused, and said, "It would do well to be silent as you go through."
Here he smirked, showing his fangs, and Sadrith felt a rush of excitement.
"Cast silence on me then. Just to be safe...or not, I won't be able to heal myself."
"Oh, that won't be a problem with that ring..."
"It heals...but won't you need it, then?"
The bastard chose that moment to cast Silence on her, and spoke quickly afterward, "I've a number of invisibility and healing spells to call upon...since I took your blood, my magic on the whole has been stronger."
A pause. He bent down just slightly, and untucked her hair from beneath the helmet, as she was putting on the ring. She wouldn't make the connection until later that it was because her hair was white.
"Now go, and give them Oblivion. I'll be close behind you."
There were still a number of questions she had, why he would give her the ring, why he had so suddenly changed his mind, why, why, why...but a burst of wind suddenly struck her head on, and she felt the sudden sensation of being released from something...
...she walked in silence down the path, her sword and when the first of the Thalmor saw her, a spell was tossed.
Only to bounce harmlessly as if off of a shield. She laughed in silence when she saw the justiciar who threw one of the fire spells bow back.
When she saw the look of fear on another's face.
And as her sword bit into the first of the Thalmor, Sadrith heard once more the voice from her dream the night before.
Your hands are made to kill.