Chapter Text
Brush and ferns, vines and trunks, leafless and colorless bend and break beneath a tide of foreign flesh. With each snap, blood —not sap— spurts out of the plants. Hot crimson paints her face and pools around her toes. It’s close now and she can see the pulsing and writhing beneath slick skin, arms and legs entwine and become one, then three, then none, then a mouth with too few teeth shining wet in the too-bright moonlight. The maw gets bigger, then bigger still all the while opening wider and wider; and from that churning portal, the crying, singing, screaming, laughing voices of countless origins call out to her, welcoming her, begging for mercy, and begging for more all at once. She feels the tug, the inborn instinct to fulfill the ancient promise of her people.
But she doesn’t move.
The eyes of a thousand people—strangers and old friends alike— surface amongst the wall of living chaos and look at her, into her own obsidian eyes and then behind them —inside her skull, into her brain, and finally into her soul — trying to find that part of her which begs her to join them in turn. An arm, covered in its entirety by a mural of tattoos and ritual scarification —one she recognizes before it has fully extended out towards her- beckons her.
Come back to us. It- him- the arm- his arm speaks to her, breaking through the din without words, without even a mouth to speak. Come home, be whole again. You must be hungry too. Come, Eat . She feels, more than hears, him- it, says as the arm proffers its soft fleshy forearm to her. She hates how hungry it makes her, hates that saliva and not bile is what wells up in her mouth.
She turns, and runs. Runs from the wall of flesh and bone and soul, the sum total of her people that give chase with uncanny speed. Ropes of sinew wrap around trees and pull while legs push from behind, frenzied fingers, talons, and claws rake into the blood soaked soil and drag the mass forward. It needn’t breathe, but does only so she can feel it on her neck. Her feet pound, she bolts through the underbrush, pouring everything she has into her legs, willing them to carry her faster. A lifetime of running below the trees, bounding between their limbs -after prey and foe alike- is not enough to escape the hungering deluge at her heels.
There is a glow ahead —a light at the end of the tunnel of her tunneling vision— a golden radiance that promises salvation.
Flames.
Golden flames rise high into the canopy, their blue corona reaching even higher, as though to blockade the heavens themselves. Everything is consumed, fuel for the inexorable march of destruction bearing down on her with all the speed and mercy of the relentless flesh.
She tries to scream, to turn, to change her course, find some other route away from these two hells; but her body doesn’t respond. Her steps feel floaty, like they’re barely pushing against the ground at all. She can feel the hot and humid breaths of the flesh and the whipping dry heat from the flames in equal measure.
She cannot stop, can only sprint ever closer towards her oblivion.
Eight paces.
Now six.
She was running out of time, out of room, out of hope.
Four paces. This is it. Her clothing begins to smoke, a fleshy tendril whips out and lashes her back, splitting her skin. Instead of pain all she feels is a soft loving caress and in that fleeting moment of peace and comfort her mind is decided. She chooses to pour the last of herself into her legs, and to spend her final breaths pushing forward even faster.
She chooses obliteration.
Three. Her eyes burn too much to remain open, and they close for the last time.
Two paces.
One.
She jolts, breath ragged and heart pounding. Light seeps in under her room’s door and the chorus of indistinct murmurs —accompanied by a percussion of cutlery on plates and mugs on tables— coming from the inn’s main hall ground her in the moment.
Lying in bed and gazing up into the rafters, Cait Orrean regains her bearings heartbeat by heartbeat.
Helgen, she’s in Helgen.
She’s been here…three days? What day is it today? No, it had definitely been three days.
Valewyl couldn’t give an exact date, only a general “...around the end of Rain’s Hand.” Which was fair; she couldn’t know how long the trip would take exactly, or account for delays.
But waiting in here all day everyday has been making Cait antsy. Too many kids in legion armor, too many officers that’d never actually been in a battle, too many naïve soldiers who thought of war as an adventure, a place to find personal glory and become heroes. Too many of the untested with anticipation shining in their eyes where there should be dread. Too many faces that would die before their time. She had picked the few legionnaires who had actually seen battle out of the crowd. She’d bought them drinks, exchanged stories. Exchanged condolences.
An enticing aroma of fresh breads and rich broth brings Cait back into the moment by reminding her that she is starving . She doesn’t even eat bread, but she is consistently vexed by how damned good it can smell.
Cait stumbles across the room and gets as far as opening the door —just enough to allow a sliver of light a few fingers wide to explore her room— before remembering that she isn’t at all dressed. She draws the door closed and her hands down her face with a series of begrudging groans.
Sleep still fogs her mind and she limply begins to wind the silk chest wrap around her torso. After a few failed attempts and far more choice words, she manages to tie off the wrapping. A simple tunic would have been easier for any other person, but the antlers growing from her head—well developed for a Bosmer, with an actual basket and two tines each— like to catch on clothing. Regular shirts are both more frustrating and more prone to tearing.
There had been a soldier in the Legion, she remembers, who suggested she “just cut the things off” after watching the Bosmer struggling with her Legionnaire armor for 15 odd minutes. His only response had been Cait’s face peering out of the shadows through the top of her armor, displaying a bone-dry look of disbelief. She liked her antlers, liked how they looked, liked how she looked with them. Even if she didn’t, it wouldn’t change anything: they’ve long since become an increasingly precious connection to her homeland. Only Green Pact Bosmer could be born with antlers.
Shuffling about the room with half-lidded eyes, Cait trips over the cloak she’d haphazardly tossed on the floor upon her arrival two days prior. She tries to correct of course, to keep upright, but her mind still lags far behind in the stubborn miasma of interrupted dreams. Arms outstretched and bracing for impact she thuds into the nightstand. She feels one hand collide with something, sees for a brief moment one of her quivers, closes her eyes in frustration, hears something hollow bounce off the wall, waits for the inevitable… and hears dozens of bone arrows spill out across the floor. She refuses to open her eyes. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale…deep defeated sigh through clenched jaws. Fuck it, fuck the arrows, and fuck the horse they road in on. Which was her.
At least she’d put the quiver of steel arrows on a chair, out of reach of the apparent danger she posed. Small condolences. She huffs and kicks the cloak under the bed in frustration. She’s always like this after a nightmare. She never even remembers the damn things beyond a few flashing images or lingering emotions.
Rolling her weight onto the adjacent bed Cait pulls on her trousers. Picking up another strip of silk she begins to wrap her left wrist and palm. She takes her time, putting off the day for just a bit longer. Sitting back in bed was probably a mistake, she realizes belatedly. Sleep still calls to her. She checks her right bicep, hoping that wrap hadn’t come off in her sleep again –it had, of course. Grumbling, she digs around in the bedding before finding it wedged between the wall and mattress. As she begins to work, fingers bump the ritual scarring within her tattoo and the image of an arm –similarly, if more extensively, adorned— reaching for her flashes in her mind. While her mind lingers on the frustratingly incomplete image, Cait’s hands don’t stay idle long. Time was, she was proud of the oddly shaped oak leaf that had been painstakingly filled with raised scars —each seemingly overlapping the next like scales. It was a badge of honor that she’d earned through years of rituals, trials and training. Now...now Cait hates looking at it, hates feeling what only serves to be a reminder of the Briar’s, and her own failure; so… she tries to keep it covered as much as she can. She’d never even think of getting rid of them. But still, it hurts.
She huffs. Frustration drives her out of bed, and her foot drives several arrows across the room.
The door to the rest of the inn bursts open with far less finesse than Cait had intended. The inn is buzzing: soldiers with families, and officers with the extra coin to eat there instead of the mess tent are saying a whole lot that Cait can’t make out. Animated conversations become hushed whispers and pointed looks encoded with words she’s not meant to hear or read. Whatever it is, it seems to have put them in a good mood. If any of the veterans had been joining them she might feel reassured. But they hadn’t. She’s had a feeling the Legion has been planning something since she’d arrived, but nobody would tell her what. Not even when plied with drinks. It makes her itch. The atmosphere inside the inn’s bustling main hall feels suffocating and she darts back into her room.
She wants to leave. Need s to leave. Cait grabs her bow, her only full quiver, and her knife. She would go hunting for her breakfast. A good hunt would clear her head.
Helgen is more or less an extension of an Imperial garrison; the first stronghold new troops from Cyrodiil pass through before dispersing to their assigned posts. It isn’t lost on her that she had been spending her Legionnaire pension to stay at an Inn that is essentially part of a Legion base… but there was nothing for it. This was where Valewyl asked to meet her, and Cait wasn’t going to miss seeing her niece for the first time in 30 odd years for the world.
She isn’t particularly worried about missing Valewyl. She isn’t going to be gone for very long. She would find something to eat, then find a cold stream to clear her mind (and scent) and be back by afternoon —late afternoon at most. There’s only one inn anyway, and nearly everyone would be able to point her to the little Bosmer with black eyes and horns if asked. If Vale were to arrive while Cait is out, she wouldn’t be alone for long.
Her bow, her only full quiver, and her knife are all that Cait bothers to grab. She doesn’t even finish wrapping her feet in their linens until she’s atop the front steps. Long strides carry her towards the main gate as quickly as was possible without breaking into a full on run. She does her best to stick to the drier patches of dirt that make up the town’s roads, but it’s no small feat amidst the spring thaw. Watching her steps tries her already-frayed patience and soon ‘her best’ becomes ‘an effort was made’.
“Where are you going?”
Cait freezes in her tracks. 'Shit'. She is so close , the gate is right there . Her jaw clenches and unclenches.
A well-built imperial man posted astride the gateway stands with his polearm lowered to block her path. She blinks, incredulous.
“Out.” comes the Bosmer’s stern but deadpan reply.
“No unauthorized personnel are permitted to leave until-…until further notice.”
He’d almost slipped up. Whatever is happening it sounds like it’s going to happen today . All the more reason to get the goddamn out. She thinks about pressing him —about pulling rank or just blowing right past him— but only for a moment.
It wouldn’t be worth it: too much attention, too much commotion. A rude gesture would just have to do in the meantime. Pointer and index fingers raised and pressed together —implying the offending party has buck teeth like a rodent, and thus, is a ‘salad eater’— she spins on her heels and marches back towards the Inn...then around back. Slipping between the inn’s west wall and a stone watchtower, Cait emerges beside Helgen’s rear wall. It’s still chilly back here, well protected from the sun as it is. That...is probably intentional, Cait reasons, as she eyes the adjacent privy. She scrunches her nose. It doesn’t smell as bad when it’s cold but... it’s still not great.
Still, the drafty wooden shack should prove useful. The space between the back of the inn and the front of the privy leaves just enough room to open one of the doors. Yeah, this will do nicely.
With a few steps running start, Cait vaults into the privy door– and pushing off with her foot, rebounds backwards and upwards against the wall of the inn, then repeats the maneuver to land atop the privy’s roof. An easy–if unpleasant–head start before she clambers atop the stone wall surrounding Helgen. The cold stone numbs her fingers, but does little to slow her. If she can climb the bare trunk of a giant tree in the rain, she can climb some crummy cold rocks.
From atop the wall, Cait looks back over Helgen. Lazy columns of smoke rise above to rooftops, from chimneys and cooking fires dotted throughout. A man is chopping wood with enthusiastic help from a youngster; his son perhaps. A woman pulls a cart with… hay, or something like it, toward the stables. The faint sound of distant conversations only just reaches Cait's ears, but a sudden peal of laughter from somewhere below finds her loud and clear.
Lowering herself down the edge of the wall, Cait prepares for a mildly controlled descent. She looks back one last time. Putting distance between herself and whatever had upset her —or wherever she’d been upset— is always an incredibly effective and healthy method of avoiding problems. But this can only ever be a temporary reprieve. She will come back, and she will wait, and when she can’t wait any longer… then Cait would go looking.
Her niece is all she has left, and she’d left her behind in Cyrodiil.
“I’m not going to leave you behind again…”
Then, Cait shoves off.
Hands and feet slide against uneven stone. Friction slows Cait as she drops. Not by much, but just enough. With the ground fast approaching, Cait pushes off the wall —shifting dangerous vertical momentum into manageable horizontal movement. The impact is rougher than she’d like, turning into a forward roll at the last second– but she’s still young, and her back will forgive her in short order. Silent steps carry her over loamy soil and soft moss, layers of leaves and punky logs. The forest floor is cool and damp beneath Cait’s toes, very much a welcome reprieve from the alternating patches of packed dirt and “mud” —or whatever you’d call the unique blend of old ale, dirt, people piss, and horse shit— that make up the pathways and roads inside Helgen. She wipes the soles of her feet on the moss like someone might wipe their shoes on a rug, then heads north and further down into the mountain valley. Water flows downhill, animals flow to water, and Cait is looking forward to a bit of both.
It wasn’t callous , Cait reassures herself. Her sister had been alive then, so had her brother-in-law, and staying would have been dangerous. The war was over but still fresh, and Thalmor were descending on the Imperial City like hornets on a picnic. Or, perhaps, more like flies on shit.
Cait finds a large flat rock in a clearing. A small snake bathes in the pooling heat along the stone’s far edge. The snake doesn’t seem bothered by her presence, but she tries her best not to disturb it all the same. Cait reasons the day is still young, and she can afford to take a short bath under the sun. The returning warmth, the renewed life, the fresh green growth. Every spring, without fail, it fills Cait with a sense of nostalgia and longing. It reminds her of home.
Ashwyla didn’t look like her sister; Ash could pass for a city elf, Ash could be safe, and happy, and free of a life spent looking over one’s shoulder. She had built a new family, a new home in Cyrodiil. Cait...Cait had no place there, not if it meant putting her niece and sister in the path of whatever danger may come for her. Cait had to leave.She brought it up with her sister and Eridius, apologized for separating them again, conceded to empty promises of visits and letters, felt hollow for it. She was to leave for the home province of a friend –a young Legionnaire named Rikke- who had always made it sound so beautiful.
The stone is warm, comforting, and perfect for bringing feeling back into her feet. The ground may still be cold, but Cait had grown sick of wearing winter coverings four months ago. She’s never felt confident maneuvering in “standard” footwear, even after 20 odd winters of not having a choice. Feet warm again, she thanks the snake for keeping her company, and makes her way deeper into the forest.
There was nothing Ash could have done to change her twin’s mind; but she sure as shit tried. Cait said goodbye, did her best to explain it to a six year old, entreated her brother-in-law to take good care of them, and made her way north. Further from the Dominion. Further from home. To Skyrim. It was to be the last time she would be called Ophiana for three decades; until the 14th of Evening Star, 4E 201, when a letter was delivered to a clerk in Castle Dour, addressed to a name the Legion didn’t have on any record, that by chance happened to catch the eye of an old soldier —and the only person Cait had ever disclosed her real name to.
Hwum hwum hwum hwum hwumhwumbhwumbhwumb hwumbHWUMB
Somewhere within a stand of pine trees a very low pitch thumping vibrates up the mountain. Cait grabs the bow on her back and begins stalking closer on silent steps. A male nordic grouse nearby, beating his chest to attract hot single chicks in his area.
Hwum hwum hwum hwum hwumhwumbhwumbhwumb hwumbHwUMB
Well, it workEd. Cait wouldn’t take a bird this late in the season if she wasn’t certain it was a male. It’s bad practice to take a mother still caring for her young. But male grouse are very much “hit it and forget it”, so Cait can take one with minimal impact.
Hwum hwum hwum hwum hwumhwumbhwumbhwumb hwumbHWUMB
A practiced hand hovers over the quiver on her thigh. Normally her bone arrows would be here, but…
She’s getting close. A fallen log catches her eye through the shifting curtain of pine boughs. Could be his lek. Something takes flight and Cait freezes. No alarm calls, she hasn't been spotted. She hears a clucking chittering on the ground. There's still a bird there. The male wouldn't leave his log with another bird present. One step, two, the balls of her feet making gradual and careful contact with the bed of needles. Cait couldn't be quieter if she was a cat. She slowly draws an arrow from the quiver, it nocks onto the string with a silent snap and the front is braced against the bow’s outer edge by her forefinger.
Cait drops down low, holds herself just a few inches above the ground on her hands and toes, and begins to crawl beneath the boughs that brush against the ground at their furthest extents. When the wind picks up she’s aBle to move a bit faster, bUt only moves at a near imperceptible crawl in the sIlence that settles over the forest in between. There’s a snap beneath her paLm. A twig had died, dried, and been buried beneath a bed of needles; just waiTing for the day iT could screw Cait Orrean over. She looks at her hand, then up ahead, sees a small burst of movement before hearing a flurry of flapping and wHistling. Then silEnce.
The grouse flew, but not far. They’re clumsy in the air, and make a lot of noise. She could have heard it fade into the disTance– if it had faded intO the distance. But it hadn’t. The sudden cacophony ended as quickly as it began. He’s still close.
Patience. A hunter can be fast, strong, cunning, and quiet; but it means nothing without patience. It was the thing her mentor had spent the most time drilling into her, the thing he’d had the hardest time teaching her. The thing he’d begun to go gray over. The thing he had shoWn hEr time and time and time again. Each time she would mess up, or think she was some god’s gift to archeR.y, would push back, bend the rules, sneak out, get lost, act like a dumb kid. He never gave up, rarely lost his temper, and was always, always there for her. Right up until the bloody end.
The image of an arm outstretched sears into her mind’s eye. It’s his arm, but why does it make her feel at once sick and all the more hungry?
The whistle of wind in flight feathers and the soft drumming of wingbeats drift down from the treetops and fall silent a short distance before her. She can see it now: the log, and the grouse preening himself as he looks over his lek like a king might his full court.
Most females would have laid by now, but it’s still early enough in the year that a lost clutch could be replaced. The mating season may be tapering to an end, but this male hadn’t wanted to leave his display grounds for long. He was still young, dumb, and full of... you know . Cait hopes his last visitor had been a conjugal one.
Ashwyla and Ophiana, Ash and Ana, had always been very different people. From the beginning, Ana had been drawn to The Green, had felt a connection to the forest's magic and histories. Ash felt drawn to the animals within it. All Bosmer had the capability to communicate with animals and become skilled archers. But it wasn’t a fully-formed inborn gift. While they are gifts of The Green, nothing was freely given. Everything has a cost, every meal they eat and every hide they wear comes at the cost of a life. Even if that life had been provided to them by The Green, the hunter still needed to actually hunt it. If someone wishes to commune with beasts, they must learn their tongue.
Leather polished to a smooth sheen from use and care alike feels natural and warm in Cait’s hand. She’s laying at an awkward angle beneath a pine tree, lining up a shot. Slowly, she draws in a deep breath. Slowly, she draws back her bow. The wind rises, and boughs sway between her and her target. She waits. She is still, her breath is still, her bow is still. Then the boughs are still, and her arrow flies.