Merry early Christmas! My gift to you: one chapter from each of my stories. Thanks for reading them!

 

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Things may have gone on that way indefinitely - although chances are I would eventually have lost myself to the beast within, just as I had in Markarth, and been hunted down like a rabid dog - but, somehow, it turns out that a super powered sex fiend murderess is boring to watch. Fortunately, action wasn't taken until after I met Delphine and journeyed with her to kill the dragon in Kynesgrove.

 

To catch you up on what that means, Delphine was the proprietor of the inn in Riverwood and was the one who grabbed the Horn of Jeryun Windstalker (or whatever) and left the note. Turns out she had done so about four months previously, so good thing there isn’t any wind in that crypt or I may never have got the note.

 

Delphine turned out to really be a Blade in hiding. The Blades were an ancient organization created to help the Dragonborn kill dragons. To make sure I really was Dragonborn, we travelled to Kynesgrove and witnessed a dragon being brought back to life by Alduin. Then we killed it. Then she got to watch me flop like a fish all over the dragon’s empty grave as my body infused its soul while I panted and moaned. To her credit, she made no comment, just waited until I had my breath back and then told me who she was, what the Blades were, and her purpose.

 

A week later, after a quick trip to the Greybeards to give them the horn they had sent me to find (and pick up the third word in Fus ro dah, my reward for completing their trial), Delphine and I met again in Riverwood to discuss options. It was there that she proposed the ill-fated infiltration of the Thalmor party because she was convinced the Thalmor were behind the dragons’ sudden re-appearance. I was feeling nigh invincible by that point, so I agreed.

 

At first things went swimmingly. The forged invitation wasn't questioned, no one paid undue attention to me, and soon our inside contact - I have forgotten his name. Isn't that terrible? I was not of a mind to pay attention to such things at that time - and I had slipped away through the kitchen.

 

The interior of the building was empty, of people and useful information. The trouble began when I slipped out the back door to make my way to the next building. There were a large number of guards and, although I was naked and thus didn't make much noise, I wasn't going out of my way to be particularly stealthy. I was noticed and there was a general rush. I smiled and started slashing away with Dibella's swords. There was soon a pile of corpses around me, but I kept the living guards enthralled, and they kept coming forward to their doom. I almost gave in to the rush of lust but decided there wasn't enough time to fuck them one at a time.

 

Then I did one of those figurative jumps out of my skin as a voice spoke into my ear, so close I could feel hot breath on my cheek.

 

"Borrrrrinnnnng!"

 

And just like that, my power was gone. Dibella's swords were snuffed out like candles; the miasma of seduction that held the soldiers in the courtyard enthralled dissipated. A wave of cold so bitter that my naked body went numb before my brain even noticed the temperature rocked me to my core. I felt, suddenly, very foolish and weak.

 

I staggered back, tripped over the bodies of the slain that had fallen behind me, and landed with a hard thud on the snow-covered stone walkway. I blinked as flakes caught in my lashes. I hadn't even realized it was snowing until then. I felt like I had just woken up from a very long and arduous dream. And I was so, so cold. My teeth started chattering, and I huddled into a ball in a fruitless attempt to find just a mote of warmth, barely noticing the numerous swords that were, only a heartbeat later, pointed down at me.

 

Rough hands grabbed me, lifted me, and I cried out as my arms were yanked behind me so roughly I was afraid my shoulder had come out of its socket. They dragged me toward the very building I had been trying to infiltrate. Blessed warmth flooded through me as we entered, and I felt almost grateful even as I was led, stumbling, down some stairs and into the dim but surprisingly not-dank basement, which had been retrofitted into sort of a small dungeon.

 

There were three cells on one wall, two on the other, only the first occupied, this by a man who hung in manacles bolted to the wall. Whether he was alive or not I could not ascertain. I was taken to the third cell and likewise shackled to the wall.

 

And there I was left for...how long? No way to know. Long enough to stop shaking from cold and therefore stop appreciating the relative heat. Long enough that my traitorous bladder gave out. I spread my legs as far apart as possible, hoping the straw that blanketed the floor would soak up most of it, but it splattered all over the wall and my legs. Sometimes I wish I was a man.

 

Long enough to think. What had happened? I thought through my experience. The voice that had spoken in my ear was familiar - the naked red god who had twice pulled me to his realm. He had appeared to be helping me, but this was the opposite of help. What was his game? I had no answer, only questions that rolled through my head over and over.

 

This useless circle of thought was interrupted by an elf, a tall and lanky male with the narrow features and squinty, angled eyes that are the hallmark of their species.

 

"I'm going to ask you some questions. If I believe you are being forthright, you will receive food and water. If I believe you are holding anything back, you will receive punishment. Are we clear?"

 

Slave mode kicked in, and I nodded obediently, eyes on the floor.

 

"Good. What were you doing in the courtyard?"

 

"I got lost looking for the bathroo..." Bright pain locked my teeth together, then forced them apart again so I could scream. Every molecule of my body burned. If your entire body was cut with a million paper cuts and then you were dunked in a tub of lemon juice, you might have a small idea of what this pain felt like. It lasted for a few seconds, and a lifetime.

 

I panted into the silence that followed, throat sore, tears trickling down my face, noticing only dimly that I had bitten my tongue.

 

"Why must every interrogation go this way? Why not spare yourself the agony? You're going to tell me eventually anyway - might as well do it at the start."

 

I didn't answer, just slumped against the wall, arms held akimbo above me, eyes on the floor. "Your invitation was a forgery, obviously. What were you looking for?"

 

"Love, in all the wrong pl..." Pain, again, more intense than before. I felt as if my skin was being flayed from my body. When it went away, I was surprised to discover that I was not bleeding.

 

It went on like this for some time. I don't know how long. Days, weeks, or maybe only hours. The elf asked questions, I answered them, I was filled with pain. He would go away for a time, leaving me to stew in the stink of my own feces and urine. He would come back, sometimes with a thin, nasty tasting substance that he would force down my throat. It didn't curb my growing hunger, but the liquid eased my aching throat and kept me alive.

 

I become aware, over time, that the anticipation of the next visit was almost as bad as the visits themselves. He would not come at regular intervals, at least as far as I could judge. Sometimes, indeed, he would leave, then turn around and come right back in, and we would go through another session of Q & A. & T.

 

Can't leave out the torture.

 

Eventually, of course, I broke. As he said, it was simply a matter of time, and even someone as accomplished as Delphine would have had no chance to rescue me. When I confessed that I was looking for evidence of a link between the Thalmor and the return of the dragons, I saw the first expression other than boredom on his face (I will give him this - although he clearly held no qualms about torturing me, he did not seem to have a sense of cruelty about him. He was, pretty clearly, simply doing his job.) He looked surprised.

 

"Why would you think we had anything to do with dragons?"

 

"I don't know. That's just what the Blade told me." It was the one thing I was able to hold back - I didn't give them Delphine's name. I told them a person who just called himself "the Blade" had contacted me. It is the only thing that keeps me from devolving completely into shame when I think of those times - I did not give them the biggest piece of the puzzle.

 

Soon after I had given him everything he felt he could get out of me, my interrogator released my arms from the shackles and gave me food - bread, clean water, some sort of savory soup. I ate it with the gusto of...well, of a starving prisoner. Moments later I threw it all up, cursing myself as I did so for eating too quickly.

 

More time passed, marked now only by regular trays of food, which I ate with more care. Nourishment eased the shaking of my body, and my shoulders eventually stopped aching from all the time they had spent holding my weight while I was unconscious or asleep.

 

At last, just as I was beginning to feel like a normal person again, the elf stopped in front of my cell door.

 

"Your punishment has been decided. You will be executed tomorrow. Pray to your gods for mercy."

 

It hit like a blow to my gut, and I could only stare with incredulous, slack-jawed horror as he walked away. After some time, my brain began working again.

 

Really? This was how it was going to end? All the suffering, all the pain and humiliation, just to be executed? Was all this Dragonborn crap meaningless?

 

I didn't pray, exactly, but I did think about the naked red guy, and spoke to him as if he was sitting next to me. "You got me into this by taking away the powers the others gave me. If you have some sort of plan, now would be an excellent time to implement it."

 

Naturally, the only answer I received was deathly silence. I have never felt so alone as I did that night (I assumed it was night) as I huddled in a corner of my cell, alternately shaking in fear and raging at the unfairness of the universe.

 

I heard them coming. A sharp rattling, the sound of multiple footsteps, the ringing of metal. Five elves in golden armor came for me, and I...I gave up. I didn't fight or protest as they manacled my arms behind my back.

 

I have always wondered why people who are being led to their executions don't fight with every ounce of their being, scraping for that one in a billion chance that some miraculous path to freedom will present itself. Now, I know the answer - pride. The last vestige of human pride takes over when you are marching to your ordained doom. In that moment, when your free will has been stripped to its core, there is only one choice that is yours, and yours alone, to make: how do you want to die? Will you go mewling and begging, knowing that it will do no good? Will you fight and struggle, also knowing it will do no good? Or will you draw up your courage and your pride and face doom dead on, staring it the eyes, daring it to take you, promising it will rue the moment you pass on?

 

I chose the last. I shrugged off the hands that gripped me, kept my head high, my back straight. I didn't look around, even as we stepped outside into the shockingly bright day. The headman's block sat in the middle of the courtyard, stained dark by the dried blood of those who had faced it in the past. Three other prisoners preceded me, each caught in their own thoughts and dealing with the fear in different ways. I watched in detached interest as they were led, one after the other, to the block, forced to kneel. Watched the sharp axe fall, heard the dull squish and the thunk of the axe biting into the wood of the block. Watched the blood spurt like red ink into the snow.

 

My turn came soon enough, and I stared the headsman in the eyes as I walked forward. I have always been good at stare downs - I did not blink as I approached. He looked away first.

 

I knelt before the block before the elf behind me could force me down, ignoring the three heads that still sat in the basket in front of me, and laid my head on the block, eyes facing the executioner. My last impressions of life were of the cold, slimy blood that stained my cheek and matted in my hair, and of the feeling of a knee pressed into my back so my dead body would not flail blood in every direction. The headsman raised the axe. There was a pause as it hung at its apex, when time itself stood still.

 

You know that old cliche, the one about your life passing before your eyes before you die? It's true. In that infinite moment of time, just before the potential energy of the axe became a kinetic lightning bolt of personal destruction, I saw it all, every moment that I had lived, lived again in the space of a blink of an eye, and I wept.

 

In the end, it all came to naught - all those I had loved and hated, kissed and struck, my parents, my siblings, my friends and rivals - whatever reason I had had for living, it meant nothing now. The moment passed, the axe began its fatal descent, and I felt my body brace itself, and I laughed in the back of my mind - or maybe out loud - at the absurdity of it all. Then the axe struck true and the world went dark. 

 

Don't feed the bastards. They'll just want it all.

 

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