(Note: I do talk about current events, and some involve the Gray Host, however, it is not exactly spoilers. My character stories are not about the main quest, my characters are not the heroes, think of them as random npc's that you come across, in game, or here, in story, that merely touch the main story)
"Your skin, it is so white and cold," she said to me, and it was true. I had not fed in a long time. The clear night was cool, but I was colder.
"You can warm me," I told her, and the shame that always fills me was there again.
She had asked me to meet her here, through a messenger, and she said she knew what she was asking for. If the messenger had read it, he would have thought other things of course.
It is an odd thing, seeing them this way. Them. The mortals.
Mortals. As if I am truly immortal. That is a lie, a lie told to us to make us feel better about the state we are in. A Molag Bal lie to make it okay that he is a *** and a murderer and that he dominates anything that draws his attention.
Yes, I hate him.
Yes, I am his child.
No, I do not serve him.
The Dunmer was willing to give herself to me, in this clearing, on this cool night, under all of these stars. Yes, willing. Wanting. I could not imagine, if I were as she, to willingly give it all away to this nothingness that is the true trade.
She turned her head up, and closed her eyes, exposing her neck as she let the shawl drop, baring herself entirely now. A look of desire filled her as her breathing grew heavier. She was experiencing longing anticipation, similar to what I was feeling as I suddenly heard her heart begin to beat faster, felt the blood coursing harder through her veins as my lips touched her neck. She was thin, but strong, as many Dunmer are. They know what it is like to be rejected, to be outcasts. Maybe that was what drove her to seek me, or something as me. What drove her to push herself against me knowing what a monster I am.
I find that I hate them as well, those so willing to throw it all away. I once knew love, now I only know lust, and it is not the same. As much as I am a dead embodiment of such feelings, she was a living one. A living one, willing to give that life away, as we lusted for something far different than life grants us.
There was a time that I truly preferred the willing such as she. A time when that made it feel better, even though I never let them rise again. I am father to no vampire, and I will never allow such. It is not my destiny to allow more servants of the Lord of Lies. The father of the worst of crimes imaginable.
She did not scream. She did not even flinch when my true face was revealed. Not like many before her have, even the willing when they realized, too late, that it was a monster about to destroy them, not some romantic idea of a man in pain. Instead, she enjoyed it. It was ecstacy to her, and she held me close as I drained her completely.
I gazed down at her naked form, cold now and quite dead, never to be undead. I was not sure that she even cared in the end. Maybe she was simply wishing for something different, and did not care which oblivion it took her to. We were in some strange ritual site. I met her near Solitude, far removed from the warmth of the Gold Coast that I normally enjoy. She smiled, maybe too much, and I, from the time I met her, knew she was more than she seemed. No, she was quite mortal, and quite Dunmer, but still there was more to her desires than I could anticipate.
She smiled too much.
The wind began to pick up, but it was not a natural wind.
"You are his, whether you wish to be or not," he said.
My eyes were probably aglow with the blood coursing through me, and I could see very well in the dark now, even better than before I fed. I wiped the blood from my mouth. It wasn't a conscious movement, but as I have said many times before, while the feeling of humanity has left me, this curse still leaves me with shame.
"No need to bother, I understand completely. I enjoyed watching you feed, and feeling that shame come over you," he said, as he stepped into the ritual site.
My eyes followed him, as did my will, and I prepared myself for anything.
"I am not your enemy. We are not your enemy," he assured me, causing me to gaze about for others.
There were no others, and this action brought a genuine smile to his handsome face.
"I am alone, but we are many. Some call us the Grey Host, but I find that so constricting, as if we must all be some kind of active part of my king's plan."
Yes, he was vampire, but not like me. I am over 200 years old, but he, well, he was older, and while I knew this, I had no idea how much older he must be. It didn't matter. I have actually killed my own. My own elder siblings, if you will. Still, there was something different about him.
"You hate our father, I can feel it. You hate what he did to you, and you hate what he wishes of you. He wishes you to shed all semblance of what you were, and become what he wants of you. He doesn't care, he simply wishes to be amused," he spoke my heart, but I knew I could not lower my guard with him.
"Who are you," I asked, and though I tried to sound more sure of myself when I asked it, I knew I had failed completely.
"A brother, a friend even if you wish it. My name is lost to the ages, and I do not think we are close enough companions for me to share what they call me now. Names, such as yours Jerrin, have power."
"It seems you know my name," I said, and now I was beginning to become agitated with him. I was beginning to form my plan of removing him, or removing me, from this site, when a drop of rain hit my face. For a moment it was nothing, but the smell of it caught my attention.
"It would be only polite...." I began, as the rain came down harder pulling my attention completely away from the creature and to the red mist and the unnatural energy now starting to form around the site.
"Thank you for the sacrifice," the creature said, he himself fading into a red mist, with a light laughter left on the wind.
Before I fled I chanced a look to the dead Dunmer woman, who was now starting to twitch in an unnatural way. Her back arched as her naked form rose from the ground. Her eyes fluttered open, and now, for the first time, I saw it. I saw fear and wonder, before she was pulled into the storm, screaming and begging, until all I could hear was the sound of the storm and the energy.
And then I did flee, as the storm called to me as well.
Edited by Krist on January 19, 2023 4:12PM "Krist the Lionheart? No. Lionheart was my dog" -Krist
"Darling, if looks were everything, I would be king of the world" -Luke
"That place, between day and night, that purple color just before dark, that is where you will find me"- Hughe