The Winding Maze of the Mind: Assorted Stories of Stella Nightstrider

(What is written here is not known IC, if you use it ICly, I will hunt you down and eat you. I will be posting a lot of short stories as I get inspired. Enjoy!)




A small Bosmer girl appearing to be around the human equivalent of twelve years old stands alone in a ring. The miniature arena is made from simple wooden slats, high enough that it can’t be jumped over or climbed up. There is a slight overhang to guarantee that once you are within there is no escape, unless assistance is given from without. The floor is made of packed dirt and the circle of sky above is bright and sunny, the sky of purest blue, and cherry blossom petals drift through the spring air. She stands, little sword and an even smaller dagger held ready, opposed to a sneering Breton who has a wickedly curved sword. “Oh, so I face a little girl? Really? This is supposed to win me my freedom? This will be piece of cake!” he laughs in derision. The girl is silent, sweat starting to bead on her forehead and her palms, this is the first time she has fought someone else other than her tutor let alone with the possibility of death. A million possibilities swirl through her mind, the hours and hours of endless training and drills try to tell her what to expect. She moves her eyes around, looking at the top of the pit, but the sun is too bright and she can’t see if he is watching her or has just left her for dead. She swallows slowly, eyes resting completely on the man again, he senses her fear and grins widely in anticipation.

The man begins to circle her, yelling jeers and other insults to unsettle, he closes with her in a fluid motion and swings his sword to decapitate her. Instead of sending her head flying, it cuts through thin air, the Bosmer parries the blow with her sword and deflects it to the side as she moves under him and tries to drive her dagger into his stomach. She doesn’t move quite fast enough and he jumps back from the dagger thrust, looking warily at her now, reassessing this little spit of a girl. She waits for him to come to her, crouched and ready, unmoving as a stone as she was taught. His impatience would get the better of him, thinking she is frozen in fear and terror. He moves closer and closer, wary of the little dagger in her left hand, when he is close enough to swing with his sword he instead steps forward and swipes at her with his free hand and cracks her in the face. Her head snaps back and she tumbles backward, sword spinning through the air landing a few away, but the dagger lands just an arm’s reach in the dirt from her. She lands in the dirt with a ‘whoosh’ as the air is knocked out as she hits the ground, she lays clutching her stomach with one hand while scrabbling in the dirt trying to grab her nearby dagger and stand to defend herself. Before she can do either the man strides up to her, “Oh, how surprising. The little baby can’t even take a hit to the face, just like that woman I killed. Oh, how she screamed towards the end, that’s what I’m going to make you do. You’ll cut up nice-- “ his speech is interrupted as she lunges to her feet, finally wrapping her hand around her weapon, and drives the dagger into his stomach to the hilt, yanking the sharp weapon up until she hits his ribcage. The man stands in shock as the coils of his intestines tumble out of his body like writhing grey snakes, he scrabbles and tries to put them back in, but fails. Mouth moving in unspoken words he looks at her, wild fear filled eyes meet hers, knowing that he is about to die. She stares back, unable to look away, her hands shake as she moves close to him again. She murmurs in a strangled voice, choking out, “May you find peace in death.” He looks at her in confusion, before she brings up her dagger and cuts his throat open in a single clean slice.

She stumbles back as he collapses with a gurgling sound getting covered in an arc of warm red liquid, he twitches a few times then goes still with glassy unseeing eyes. She watches this, eyes locked the entire time in horror, she sees the light fade from his eyes and the blood turn from a spurting flow to a sluggish river from his neck. After a long time alternating between looking at the corpse and throwing up, she stumbles away from the cooling pool of blood and guts to the wall, leaning against it and gasping. She is pale as a sheet and barely has the strength to stand, staring dumbly at the ladder lowered next to her. Eventually she realizes that it’s the way out and climbs hand over hand, rung over rung, frantic to get out of the pit. The air had begun to choke her and the walls closing in, it almost feels like it will all collapse in upon her. As she clears the top and jumps down on the other side of the pit she stares up at the blue sky, the scent of spring strong in the air, there is no sign of what went on in that horrible pit. The only remains is the blood and other fluids covering her, and the quickly swelling face from the blow landed upon it. It was just a dream she thinks, yes, must have been a dream. But then she remembers the man’s eyes, his horrible eyes, as he realized that he was going to die, the taste in her mouth as she was covered in his blood as she sliced him like a hog, the feeling the dagger made as it gutted him like a fish and the jarring impact when it hit his ribs. She falls to her knees in horror at what she has done, the weight of it crushing her like a boulder placed on her back, she screams and pounds the ground with her fists. Sobbing until she is utterly spent, finally collapsing and laying in the grass and dirt, the young girl stares and watches a little beetle go about its business a few inches from her nose. Too exhausted to think or move, too burdened with the horror of what she has done, she watches the insect intently until the sun begins to dip in the sky.

As the light fades a man approaches, gently lifting her into his arms, heedless of the dried blood and vomit covering her. He is much taller than the girl’s modest 5’2 high, he towers above her at over seven feet tall, his shoulders broad and muscles ripple under his clothes hinting at the strength underneath. His robes are finely made from the most exquisite fabrics, his golden skin is the perfect picture of beauty, the sharp lines of his jaw and pointed ears identify him as that of the Altmer race. He carries the Bosmer girl as if she weighs nothing but air, holding her against him as if she was a squalling babe. She is full boned and on the cusp of womanhood, though when seen against his size she looks to be what she truly is, a lanky child. He carries her up the stairs to a well-tended manor house, inside the walls are empty, the floors bare stone, the air smells as if it had been freshly scrubbed. He walks up a sloping staircase to the second floor, these appear to be private apartments fit for a nobleman. It is filled with luxurious carpet, finely gilded pictures and statues line the walls, and well carved furniture are scattered about. There also are a few toys, very high quality, in a neat row along the wall. They are mostly various stuffed animals in different sizes, a bear, lion, cat, horse, etc. as well as a wooden cart, and other assorted wooden playthings though they don’t look like they have been touched in a long while.

Passing through all the rooms, he comes to a bathroom with a pearly white bathtub full of steaming scented water. He quickly strips the girl, thinking nothing of propriety, after all he has taken care of her for a long time. He lifts her limp form into the water gently, she perks up at the tingling heat of the bath and seems to come out of her daze, hissing as the pain of the water. He hands her a bar of soap and brush, “Wash up child, then you will go rest.” He turns and strides out of the bathroom as she slowly starts to bathe herself, washing away the blood and mess covering her. He goes to his bedroom lost in thought and changes his robes, throwing the soiled ones in the corner, troubled by the turn of events. He paces around the room until he hears her call his name, then he strides in long steps back to where he left her, peering into the bathroom. “Do you need help?” he says as he looks around the door, seeing that she has tried to climb out of the tub but wasn’t strong enough to get all the way out. She is sprawled in a tangle of limbs, legs still in the tub, but her arms pinned underneath herself so she can’t get leverage. She is crying, stuck, and unable to move. He fights the urge to laugh at the scene, quickly going over and helping her out, handing her a clean white robe hanging on a hook nearby. Resting a large, fine boned hand on her shoulder, he guides her to her room across from his. When she climbs into the thick and comfortable bed, he pulls the blankets up to her chin, “Rest now, we will talk more tomorrow alright?” she only nods and closes her tired eyes, drifting off quickly into sleep. He moves his hand and casts a spell of sleep over her, so that she might go a little while untroubled by dreams.

Later, in the dark of night he returns and sits next to her bed and adjusts her hair before letting out a long breath “Oh Stella… I’m so sorry for what I must do to you. So very young, it isn’t fair to you, I know that. The last thing I want is for you to be in pain or suffer, I just wish there was another way. But I must do something, you need be able to defend yourself alone soon, I can’t be around forever to tend to you.” He lowers his head, taking her tiny hand in his, “I only wish your sister could be here, she would know just what to say and do. She loved you very much, more than me. In the end, all she wanted was for you to be safe, wanted me to care for you. I hope one day she can forgive me for what I had to do, forgive me for how I must make your life dark and with so little pleasures.”

He carefully puts a stray lock of hair behind her ear, silent for a long while and watches her breathe in and out before speaking again, “You look so much like she did, even as a child, every day I will see her face in yours. Every word you speak will be with her voice, every tear will be from her, when you are angry at me it will be her revenge against me.” He starts to choke up, fighting the sorrow deep inside trying to claw out from his chest, “I must bear it as my price for what I have done to her. I will live always seeing her in you, never being able to escape. Never again can I even think of another woman, no other will ever share my bed or my heart. I was too late to save her, too late to free her.” He puts a hand to his face, the fear and pain finally breaking through his mask of indifference, still holding Stella’s hand in his.

“I’m so sorry Stella, so sorry for failing you both. Neither of you deserve what I have done or will do, none of it. I almost wish I had died before I laid eyes on your sister, then none of this would have happened.” He is silent for a long while, tears making tracks on his face, but then he seems to grow angry and raises her voice “Never can you know what you hold, never can you know how much I hate you, how much I want you to die so I never see her eyes again! How much I want to strangle you, so you don’t speak with her voice! How much I just want to throw you off the walls to forget and never remember!” he acts like he is about to strike her still sleeping form, but then he relaxes and lets out a long breath, “But it isn’t your fault. I can’t be angry with you for looking or acting as you do, you are innocent in it all. Just a small innocent child….. Though, not so innocent or childish now….” He stands, looking down on her slumbering form, “I only hope you can forgive me one day when you find out Stella, I hope one day you can understand.” He leans down and kisses her forehead, waving a hand and dispelling the sleep spell, before turning and striding out to lose himself in his books for just a little while.

The books don’t work and he only sees Stella’s dead eyes and hears her sobs as she stands over her kill. The sounds are echoing in his head and start to drive him mad, he jumps to his feet, leaving the comfy chair in front of the fire and begins to pace back and forth. “No, no, I had to do it. She had to learn, she had trained for so long already, it was time. I made the right choice, I know I have. We will move on tomorrow and she will be too busy to remember.” Running a hand through his hair he decides to finally go to bed himself, after changing into a nightshirt and pants he climbs into his own soft bed, leaving his door open. After laying there for a little while in the dark, hearing the crackling of the wood in the fireplace, a slight form appears in his doorway. He sits up and looks at her quizzically, she whispers in a shaking voice, “Can I sleep in your bed father? I’m so scared….” He sighs and nods, patting the bed beside him, she scampers over and clambers onto it like something is chasing her. She scrabbles up against him and buries her face into his chest, “Why did I have to do it? I can’t forget his eyes, the sounds, the smells.” She says in a shaking voice. He gently pats her back, moving his shoulders to get more comfortable, “Stella, that is what happens to everyone when they kill for the first time. It will never go away, you will always remember, must remember each life you take. And as to why you had to do it now, it was time. I will not always be here beside you, you must be able to defend yourself and be ready to fight and to kill. If not now, it would have been tomorrow, or the next day. Better you are prepared for when you must be alone, rather than be surprised and unknowing of what to do. He deserved it though, remember what I have taught you. We only kill those that have used all their chances, we do not kill just for pleasure, only when we need to.” He nuzzles her still damp hair, inhaling the familiar scent and it causes a sharp pain in his chest, “I’m sorry for it Stella, but there was no other way to see if all your training had worked.” She makes a few small sounds, then says loud enough for him to hear, “Can you tell me a story?” He chuckles and smiles, “Sure, let’s see here… Let’s do the one about the turtle who lost his shell, hmm?” he starts to recite the children’s tale until her breathing slows and she finally falls asleep against him. He forces his eyes closed, trying to block out the sound of her breathing and the feeling of her hands clutching his, the pain overwhelming him again. Eventually his breathing slows as well, drifting off himself into a restless and nightmare filled sleep.