falon.nMay 18, 2014May 18, 2014 at 03:13 AM
#1
Lightning flashes, illuminating the tavern room in silver for the brief moment before the light fades and leaves it dark again. The lamp has already burned out and the sole tenant of the room does not care to relight it. Papers are scattered across a table and the floor, blown by the wind and by an angry swiping paw. Some are still smeared with fresh ink, blotted illegible now by hasty actions.
An empty bottle rolls across uneven wooden planks, still smelling strongly of the Rotmeth it had once contained.
Crouched in the darkest corner of the room, an unrecognizable shadow huddles, gray-furred paw clutching tightly to a sheet of yellowed parchment. The hand is wrapped so tightly around this paper that claws have ripped through the words and left jagged holes where ink was once scrawled.
The creature emits a low, tortured sound, a muted keening that chokes into a muffled sob and the rustling of parchment as a paw is pressed to muzzle.
Emeraldine eyes are black with tears, and her fur shines with the ones already shed.
She drags her other hand across the wall beside her, claws biting into the soft wood and carving deep rivets into the tender flesh.
An empty bottle rolls across uneven wooden planks, still smelling strongly of the Rotmeth it had once contained.
Crouched in the darkest corner of the room, an unrecognizable shadow huddles, gray-furred paw clutching tightly to a sheet of yellowed parchment. The hand is wrapped so tightly around this paper that claws have ripped through the words and left jagged holes where ink was once scrawled.
The creature emits a low, tortured sound, a muted keening that chokes into a muffled sob and the rustling of parchment as a paw is pressed to muzzle.
Emeraldine eyes are black with tears, and her fur shines with the ones already shed.
She drags her other hand across the wall beside her, claws biting into the soft wood and carving deep rivets into the tender flesh.
---
Lightning flashed, illuminating an empty alley and bathing it in silvery light for a brief moment until the call of thunder followed its herald. The deep rumble drowned out the plaintive mewling for several seconds, and in that time the source of those reedy cries had lost its breath.
All was quiet, and then there was another high, broken cry.
He could stand it no longer, and moved from his huddled warm place against the forge wall to seek out the source of the night's disturbance. A bent young man, body twisted by something other than age, rifled through the crates and barrels until his hands found the source of the cries.
A kitten.
Tiny and blind with its ears still closed, little pink mouth open in a pleading mew for warmth, for food, for comfort.
Aleryn picked the sodden bundle up, holding it in one hand as he stared down at the abandoned Cathay-raht Khajiiti kit and considered what to do. He moved his hand over its face, smothering tiny nose and mouth and muffled the cries.
Sharp pricks of pain surprised him as minute claws bit into his hands, clawing at his flesh until blood ran with the rain cascading down his skin.
The madman removed his hand, looked consideringly down at the kitten, and then tucked her carefully into the tatters of his robes, against the warmth of his body and the beating of his heart.
She quieted immediately.
---
Numb fingers reach for another bottle.
They fumble with the cork.
She brings the bottle to her mouth to bite into the offensive topper with sharp fangs and tear it with with a pop from the seal.
She doesn't even taste it as the nameless liquid runs over her tongue and washes down a throat aching from still-unshed sorrow. She does feel the burn in her belly, but the sensation is a distant one, and briefly she considers venturing into the storm to find something... stronger.
Even that thought doesn't rouse her from the painful, cramped crouch she has been curled into for the past two candle-marks.
They fumble with the cork.
She brings the bottle to her mouth to bite into the offensive topper with sharp fangs and tear it with with a pop from the seal.
She doesn't even taste it as the nameless liquid runs over her tongue and washes down a throat aching from still-unshed sorrow. She does feel the burn in her belly, but the sensation is a distant one, and briefly she considers venturing into the storm to find something... stronger.
Even that thought doesn't rouse her from the painful, cramped crouch she has been curled into for the past two candle-marks.
---
Numb fingers reached for another waterskin, the leather cracked with age and poor maintenance, leaking thin white fluid through the cracks. It was a frozen Morndas in the dead of the coldest season, and his bare fingers ached in the frigid air. The only warmth came from the tiny bundle tucked against his skin, and she just radiated heat. He pulled the waterskin into his safe cocoon of ratty skins thrown out by the armourer, and maneuvered the rubber nipple against the front of her gray-furred mouth. Her lips closed around the dark brown erection, and the kitten suckled with unabashed avarice until the skin was empty and she only slurped air for her hungry efforts.
He pulled the nipple from her mouth, and gently stroked his fingers across her soft ears. "Sh, sh... we will have more tomorrow, ja'khajiit." He promised as she nuzzled against his fingers.
For the first time, verdant eyes opened, and focused on his face with a gaze so deeply green, he was lost even after they were closed once more.
He was lost, and would never find his way again.
---
She breathes in raggedly, drawing air into starved lungs with nigh desperation, and disjointedly detangles her claws from the ruined wood. She stares at the splinters embedded under the claw-sheaths and the blood that is starting to well around the broken pieces of wood, and then slowly brings the wounded paw to her mouth. She scrapes her tongue along the wounded flesh, ignoring the pain as she rips the splintered wood out of her skin and spits it to the floor, cleaning the multiplicity of tiny lacerations she’s inflicted upon herself.
She leaves the task half-finished as she takes the bottle again and sucks at the mouth of it, seeking the oblivion that the liquor promised to provide.
She needs to be numb, just for tonight.
She can’t be the one to comfort all their ills, because there is no comfort in this dark empty room.
She leaves the task half-finished as she takes the bottle again and sucks at the mouth of it, seeking the oblivion that the liquor promised to provide.
She needs to be numb, just for tonight.
She can’t be the one to comfort all their ills, because there is no comfort in this dark empty room.
---
She breathed in raggedly, the timid rise and fall of her chest weak and shallow as she tried to draw air into her phlegm-filled lungs. He wrapped her more warmly against his chest, and gently brushed her dark hair from her face.
Her ears burned hot, and he didn’t know how to cool her because cats don’t sweat.
Between the liquid in her chest that he could hear with every rattling breath, and the sharp panting as her body tried to cool itself, he wondered how she was getting any air to actually breathe,.
He feared that the answer was she wasn’t.
Aleryn hugged her tighter to his chest, and plead with her not to die. He had fought too hard to keep her alive this long to lose her to this sickness that was clinging to her fur like burrs from the wood.
It was a Khajiit peddler that gave him the cure, a strange mixture of plants that she promised would drive the illness from the kitten.
It worked, but he never did see that cat again to thank her.
---
She laughs, a bitter sound that echoes harshly in the empty room.
Rain beats against the walls, soaking the table and papers through the open window, dripping puddles that she does not care about on the floor. The water gathers into little pools that reflect the storm’s anger outside, as if the Aedra themselves rage at the injustice.
The thought brings the drunken Khajiit to her kneels to laugh until she retches, splattering the already-wet floor with thin, watery bile that is more alcohol than it is stomach acid.
She washes the taste from her lips with another drink from the bottle already half-emptied and soon to join its brothers on the floor.
Rain beats against the walls, soaking the table and papers through the open window, dripping puddles that she does not care about on the floor. The water gathers into little pools that reflect the storm’s anger outside, as if the Aedra themselves rage at the injustice.
The thought brings the drunken Khajiit to her kneels to laugh until she retches, splattering the already-wet floor with thin, watery bile that is more alcohol than it is stomach acid.
She washes the taste from her lips with another drink from the bottle already half-emptied and soon to join its brothers on the floor.
---
She laughed, high and loud as he spun her in the air, whirled her around so fast that the world blurred into a dizzying spectrum of gradient colour. She couldn’t tell up from down, or sky from ground as his strong hands tossed her into the air again and she shrieked with glee and fear until he caught her again, sweeping her up into his arms moments before she would have hit the ground again.
She clung to his shoulders, to the steel pauldrons protecting them, and he laughed at the way her claws skittered across the metal.
“I thought all cats knew how to land on their feet?” He teased, and she stared lovingly up into his hazel eyes, one part adoration and one part irritation.
“I’m not a cat, Alistair!” She complained, flattening her ears against her skull and curling her lips back from her teeth.
“You could have fooled me, kit.” The teenager smirked back at her, tousling her ears before setting her back on the ground because her father was there to pick her up. The old man didn’t greet the vacationing Templar-in-Training his silvery eyes were lost and distant, and just stared through the little gray-furred girl as she run up to take his hand and started babbling at him about the fun day she’d had.
He didn’t have the heart to tell her that this was his last day in Tamriel, and that tomorrow he would be returning to the Chantry in Thedas.
“No…” The protest is a low moan, almost dead in her throat before it’s birthed. She presses the ruined parchment to her mouth as if she can silence the words with the motion, forget that she’s already read and understood.
Her stomach twists unpleasantly.
Her stomach twists unpleasantly.
---
“No!” The protest was screeched out in a high prepubescent voice, the voice of a terrified child with mixed in with the yowl of a wild cat. Claws slashed ineffectually at the air as she thrashed in the unyielding gri0p of the guard. She flailed her arms frantically, and her mouth was stretched wide in a panicked yowl as every step of the guard brought them closer to the stench of bubbling black tar and sulphur.
“No, no! Please, no! I won’t do it again, I swear, don’t do this!” She pleaded with the strange thought that perhaps that heavy metal helm made him deaf because he certainly did not seem to hear a word that she screamed out from a throat gone raw from the effort.
“Please don’t do this.” She sobbed.
His reply was merely to tighten the gauntletted grip of his fingers in the scruff of her neck and dress.
She saw the pits, the oozing tar that hissed up, and then she was flying through the air.
She couldn’t even scream.
She was silent as she clawed her way back home, but as her Papi cut the fur from her body with a blade that ripped more than sliced, silence was far from her.
No one came to check, but she was certain that every citizen in the town heard the screams from the Khajiit.
who ever knew that a sweetroll would come at such a high price?
---
Dark lips part in a sigh, a soft exhale that fouls the air before her with the stench of liquor and vomit-- that is her warning, and she barely drags herself over the chamberpot before she’s retching, her stomach giving a violent lurch and rejecting the poisons she’s been ingesting with a fierce rebuttal. It’s more than the minor upset of before: this is a fierce purge, every retching sound punctuated by sobs that only make her heave even harder under nothing splashes in the once-empty pot, and she’s just lurching open-mouthed over the gaping hole.
She draws in a breath that is more whimper than air, and sags to the floor again, hands falling limply away from the lip of the pot, and the crumpled letter falls from them finally. She cannot even find the will to pick it back up, and simply stares at the smeared and torn script.
Handwriting she knows well, because doesn’t she exchange letters regularly with the Argonian?
Never before has the written word upset her so.
She draws in a breath that is more whimper than air, and sags to the floor again, hands falling limply away from the lip of the pot, and the crumpled letter falls from them finally. She cannot even find the will to pick it back up, and simply stares at the smeared and torn script.
Handwriting she knows well, because doesn’t she exchange letters regularly with the Argonian?
Never before has the written word upset her so.
---
Dark lips parted in a sigh, a soft exhale sweeter than anything she’s ever tasted before. His scaled hands were tangled in her dark hair, mussing the spiked locks as he tightened the grip and angled her head back to better bite along her throat. He was gentle and rough simultaneously, a jarring juxtaposition that made her head spin even as he held her still.
Slithering tongue slipped over fur, and then the lizard coughed and sputtered. He sounded almost like he was choking, and the sound made her open green eyes in alarm.
“Har?” She whispered.
He sputtered, glittering black eyes shielded behind transparent inner lids as he made a harsh, rasping noise. “You cats and your fur!” He muttered it like an epithet, as he shook bare rust-scaled head and scrunched his lips back from his teeth in displeasure.
Her ears grew warm, and she looked away. “I’m sor--”
“Void take you, if you apologize I’ll send you there myself.”
She shut her mouth, and he shut the door.
---
Jo,
We found his body.
He rests with Sithis.
HD
We found his body.
He rests with Sithis.
HD
TryynityMay 18, 2014