Unique

Hello, all.

This week's prompt was one I took from a notebook of mine, which has a bunch of prompts I wrote down in it. Well, to be accurate, it was two prompts. They were "Unique" and "Family".

Enjoy!

~~

They called you unique.

You had always been different. You were the half-blood child of two races that did not get along. How your parents managed to fight off the hatred that seemed to be ingrained deep into their very souls long enough to create a child, you never knew. But you were their only child. Your mother made it no secret that shortly after, they’d fought, and she’d come out triumphant. 

From childhood, you had endured the bullying. From your mother’s family, from your older half-brothers and half-sisters, other children, even some of the adults. When they called you different, they meant it as an insult. They meant it to crush your spirit, to destroy your confidence. To them, you were just something that they could unleash their hatred on, without fear of repercussion; without a battle, a war, death.

You ran away from home when you were still young. Your half-brothers followed you, to try and drag you back - because they believed you did not deserve freedom. You did not deserve to be happy. You were a mixed-blood monstrosity, whose only purpose in life was to be constantly beaten down by those you were forced to call “family”. 

You evaded them all for years. They set traps, tried to corner you. You were never able to settle down in one place before they found you and destroyed any chance you had of living a normal life. 

Eventually, the youngest of them cornered you. Of all of your half-siblings, he had been the nicest to you. That wasn’t to say he’d been kind, but he hadn’t been as bad a bully as the rest of them had been. Maybe it had been because he’d been the victim of the bullying before you’d come along, and he knew how much it had hurt, to be looked down upon, no matter how hard you tried. 

But there was no kindness in his eyes anymore. He was angry and frustrated. Without you there to endure the bullying, it had been turned back onto him, and all the respect he had earned had disappeared like it had never existed at all. 

He didn’t give you much of a choice. In his anger, he’d forgotten that he was only meant to capture you. That your family had wanted you alive, to keep you a captive victim of their cruelty. Instead, he’d come at you with a dagger, intent on torture and murder. You hadn’t been able to see the boy who’d once given you kindness when there was no one else around to see it.

You were the one who killed him. He’d been too fixated on getting revenge on you, and he’d failed to consider the fact that going straight for the kill was a bad idea. You’d disarmed him quickly, grabbed the dagger before he could recover, and slit his throat when he came at you again. 

Your other brothers had followed. One by one, they’d come at you; no longer seeking to capture you, instead determined to kill you for murdering their brother. And one by one, they’d fallen to the same blade that had ended the youngest’s life. By the time the oldest of them had confronted you, it hadn’t been him leading you into a trap.

It had been you leading him.

They’d arrived, soon after. You never even knew they were coming. You just woke up one night, and there they were, settled around your little camp in the woods; stoking the campfire, digging through your pack, and calming your horse. It was like they’d always been with you, even though you’d never met any of them in your life. 

And they’d called you unique. 

They’d offered you a proposition; to forget who you’d been, and become someone new, as a member of their order. A new name, a new family, a new life. You had the natural skill to become something great, you just need the right hands you guide you. 

You had agreed. They became your new brothers and sisters, your bonds forged in the blood of those who’d wronged, and the gold of those who’d been the victims. 

Mantra

Today's blog post is another Elder Scrolls Fanfiction One-shot I wrote - this time, a newer one, not an older piece I edited. Also, a different OC to the one I used in the last piece.

It is, unfortunately, kinda short, but trying to get it longer just didn't feel right. It feels better short.

Enjoy!

~~~

“I can do this.”

It was the mantra Mist lived by.
It was what she told herself every morning, when she fell out of bed before everyone else and slipped upstairs while the other Whelps - as Skjor liked to call them - snored and mumbled in their sleep.

“I can do this.”

It was what she told herself every day while she was outside, training. It was what she said every time she stumbled and fell, battleaxe clattering to the stone, from a swing too wide, or overbalanced when she lifted it too high over her head.

“I can do this.”

It was what she said when exhaustion tried to knock her to her knees, and her arms trembled with the strain of wielding a weapon almost as big as she was.

The Companions had accepted her into their ranks - reluctant as some had been to accept her joining. She just had to prove that she belonged there, same as the rest of them.

Nightmares

This week's post is an older piece of work I edited. Originally, it was written during Nanowrimo of 2015.

This particular piece is fanfiction, written for Elder Scrolls: Skyrim. Because I can.

~~~

Fire danced in Cassandra's dreams at night. She could still smell the smoke, still see it billowing - thick and black - into the air and blotting out the sky.

Which fire she saw, and which sky was blotted out varied from night to night. Some nights, it would be the moons and the stars blotted out by the rising cloud of choking black. The blaze she saw was a house in Cyrodiil, completely engulfed by the greedy, glowing orange light. Save for the crackling of fire, there was silence, and tall, dark silhouettes moved about from a safe distance, searching the surrounding area, while from an even safer distance, hidden amongst the trees of the nearby forest, she watched in silent, terrified horror.

Other nights, it was the sun and the bright blue sky that was marred with the dark cloud. The fire was in the trees, in the undergrowth. It chased her as she sprinted through the forest, uncaring of the damage she did in the process as she struggled to stay ahead of the blazing heat and crackling roar at her back. From somewhere behind her, growing more and more distant as she ran, horrified screams could be heard. Valenwood was being scarred; a stray flame from a spell gone wrong destroyed every hope she had left for a normal life amongst her own people and left her an outcast.

On every night that the fires danced in her dreams, she woke with a jolt, shaking and sweating and biting back a scream. The two burns that marred her skin ached at the reminder of those distant memories. On her right leg, the burn she'd received while escaping the Cyrodiil house fire ached. On her left wrist and palm, the burn she'd earned from the Valenwood forest fire throbbed.

Some nights, she'd sit alone for hours after waking, arms wrapped around herself as she fought to even out her breathing. She'd listen to the gentle noises coming from elsewhere in the hall; the steady, even breathing of the others who slept in the Hall of Attainment, the constant, gentle hum of the glowing font in the middle of the Hall, the howling of the wind outside, and eventually, she'd be lulled back to sleep - a lighter, dreamless sleep.

Other nights, someone would come running despite her best efforts to stay quiet. Sometimes, it was Onmund or Brelyna, who'd sit quietly in the chair in her room, not even uttering a sound of complaint when she clutched their hands so hard, she thought the bones might break if she squeezed any tighter. Other nights, it was J'Zargo - who'd mutter quiet complaints but would stay nearby regardless, sometimes sleeping in the chair once he'd dragged it to the bedside, or poking around through the books stacked on her desk - or Enthir - who'd just sit and talk to her quietly, distracting her from her past until morning came.

Sometimes she'd look up at her doorway, sensing someone watching her, and see Ancano standing there. He'd always have the same irritable look on his face, but he'd never speak. Not since the first time, when he’d argued with Mirabelle in the doorway of her room. Sometimes, she thought she was just imagining him. As soon as someone else entered her room to check on her, he'd disappear, as if he'd never been there in the first place. He never mentioned it, and no one else did either.

But sometimes, she'd feel a hand on her back, when no one else showed up - not the uncertain hand of Onmund or the gentle hand of Brelyna, but a stronger, firmer hand. Those nights, she closed her eyes again as soon as she felt that hand so she didn't look up. So she wouldn't be left alone when she needed someone there to keep her calm.

The hand would stay, never moving, until her breathing had evened, and her arms had uncurled from around her chest. Only then, when she had shifted and slumped back onto the pillows, would the hand move. If the Thalmor did or said anything to her, she was never aware; she always fell asleep very quickly after that.

And for some strange, rather vexing reason, she always slept the best on those nights, her dreams not haunted by the flames and smoke of her past.

She hated it, but at the same time, she longed for it.

Morsha

This week's blog post is the backstory of a character that a friend created for me for a tabletop RP game we play, as well as a character that's going to feature in a novel I'm planning on writing.


~~~


Morsha had been alive for over three hundred years.

She was originally born a human. A Commoner, living in a small town. As a young adult, she had found a job as a servant in the house of the noble family that owned the land her town was on. They were not the nicest of people - the head of the family was a cruel man, his wife snide and unimpressed, and their daughter a spoiled brat. But a job was a job, and they’d paid well enough, despite their attitude, so she’d stuck with it.

Things changed when their daughter got sick, though. Morsha had been forced into being her personal maid, enduring her yelling and screaming and complaining, while the mother verbally abused her every day for “not making sure her daughter was comfortable and well taken care of,” and the father spend thousands of gold pieces trying to find out what was wrong with his daughter, and why she wasn’t getting any better.

In the end, it turned out to be a serious disease. One that had no known cure. The father had spent thousands more trying everything he could to cure his daughter, but nothing worked, and she slowly got sicker. In a last, desperate attempt, they found a Sorcerer who was willing to capture her soul upon death and put it into a new body, so she could continue living her life.

The family hired a Sculptor to create a new stone body for their daughter. He worked for months, slowly carving the new body to suit what the daughter wanted. It was not exactly the same; it was taller and prettier, possessing claws instead of fingernails, wings that she did not possess, with longer hair and wicked looking eyes.

The body would be stronger, able to withstand many attacks, and resistant to both sickness and death. Anyone who saw it knew that the body would be used for dark purposes by the daughter, once she inhabited it.

The Sorcerer had given the family a necklace, with a pendant that had a small, enchanted gem set into it. The gem was to act as a temporary container for the daughter’s soul when she died since it was likely that she would die before the body was finished.

However, Morsha was the one who ended up with it. The daughter deemed it ugly and refused to wear it, despite it’s purpose being clearly explained to her. Instead, she decided that her servant would be the one to wear it and that she would just have to stay by her side until she died so that her soul could be captured as intended.

But as death drew closer for the daughter, her parents forgot that Morsha was the one with the necklace. They banished her from their daughter’s chambers moments before she passed away, and did not even give her the chance to leave the necklace behind.

When they realised what they had done, they blamed Morsha for their daughter’s stubbornness, and their own foolishness. In his rage, the father murdered Morsha, forgetting that she was still wearing the necklace, and had her body disposed of. The mother took the necklace from Morsha’s corpse and placed it at their daughter’s side, hoping there might still be a chance for their daughter’s soul to inhabit the gem. Neither of them realised that, upon death, Morsha’s soul had been dragged into the gem.

When the body was complete, the mother and father took the necklace to the Sorcerer, convinced that the gem, which had begun to glow due to Morsha’s presence inside it, contained their daughter. As per their agreement, the Sorcerer transferred the soul into the body.

It was at that point that they’d realised their mistake. For where their daughter had been a fair-haired, green-eyed girl, Morsha had been a red-haired, amber-eyed girl, and as the body began to gain life, the colour of the hair and eyes began to change to match what Morsha had looked like.

As Morsha gained sense of her new body and moved stiff stone limbs to gain feeling in them, the mother and father had demanded that the Sorcerer remove the soul from the body immediately - for they would not have a servant wandering around in the likeness of their daughter. The Sorcerer, however, refused; once it has been done, the only way to fix it would be to destroy the body.

They wouldn’t do it. They couldn’t bring themselves to do it. Despite Morsha being the soul inside, the body still resembled their daughter. And while they were trying to figure out what could be done, Morsha had taken the opportunity to slip out and disappear.

It took her some time to adjust to her new body. Being in a body that was not skin and bone - being a Gargoyle - had its ups and downs; she’d had to learn each of them on her own, as she’d not dared remain nearby to learn from the Sorcerer.

Over the next thirty years, she spent most of it on the run. The Noble Family had hired many mercenaries to hunt her down, claiming she was a monster that had murdered their daughter in cold blood. Those she hadn’t been able to evade enough that they eventually gave up and went on to find jobs that would actually pay them, she was forced to kill, before they killed her.

When the mercenaries abruptly stopped coming, she dared wander home. She hadn’t seen any of her family in thirty years; she’d waited for the opportunity long enough.

Reaching home, she’d discovered a horrible and painful thing; after she’d disappeared, the Noble Family had had her entire family executed for Morsha’s “crimes”. That had included her infant sister, who’d only been six months old at the time. Enraged by their cruelty, Morsha made the journey to the Noble Family’s manor, intending on getting revenge for her murdered family.

Arriving at the manor, however, she learned that her previous employers had both passed away; the wife four years previously, and the head of the family only a few months before. With no heirs or relatives that could take over their estate, the manor had been practically abandoned. A butler who had worked for the family for many, many years was the only one who remained, tending to the empty house, the gardens, and the graves of the Noble Family all on his own.

Morsha spent the next hundred and fifty years or so on her own, for the most part. She inhabited the manor, ignoring the butler until he passed away in his sleep. She let everything overgrow, let the manor fall to ruin, and lived in only a couple of the rooms. Over time, she located where her previous body - by then only bones - had been dumped, and gave herself a proper burial in the town graveyard, alongside the rest of her family.

She only left the town for good when rumours of a monster began to spread, and brave adventurers and mercenaries appeared, seeking glory by killing the monster living in the old manor near the town.

In her subsequent wandering, she came across a place known as the Guild. Those that she met there did not bat an eye at the sight of her - with her grey-blue skin, bat-like wings, and claws - because there were others there that were, to be blunt, much more frightening than a Gargoyle.

So Morsha joined them, for even the smallest, frailest looking human was not afraid of her, as many of the villagers and townsfolk she had met, in all her years as a Gargoyle, had been. She would not claim that she had been happy; but she had been content, from the moment she’d stepped through the Guild’s double doors.