“NO!” - ondo (good luck coming up with a plausible scenario for this)
She had known that was only a matter of time before it came to this.
In the distance, she can hear the calling of voices; curses, shouts, slurs, beckoning her. Threatening her. If they catch her, they will kill her, or worse. Two opposing parties have been on her trail since she made her descent from the Snow Throat; a band of Stormcloaks that had set up camp near the base of the mountain had caught sight of her on her way down. If only she could make them understand that she is trying to aide them -- to seek answers; to save them. But they cannot know better, she knows. They see only an elf in a suit of armor from centuries’ past, but it is Imperial armor, nonetheless. They do not see an ally, they do not recognize the hero; they see an oppressor. She supposes that after all that they have been put through in order to fight for their cause, she cannot blame them.
The other party in pursuit is an assembly of Thalmor officers. Though a few of them have been occupied with ensuring that the rival Stormcloaks do not gain the advantage, they do not stray from their initial goal in catching the Bosmer. They know that if Stormcloaks are hunting her, then she must be worth hunting. And anything worth hunting must have information that they can use.
She’d put up a decent fight for a while, the hero never having been one who couldn’t hold her own, but alas, there had simply been too many of them at once for her to fend off.
She pants, a grimace painted across her features, as she all but staggers deeper into the wood, nearing the heart. A hand is pressed firmly to her abdomen, just beneath her rib-cage, blood slipping between her fingers in indication of the wound beneath them. Under normal circumstances, she could call forth a healing spell to take partial care of it, at least, but she has neither the time nor energy to devote to it. She shivers, the frigid air of night settling upon the tundra, eating away at what little strength she has left.
When she believes she has put a considerable amount of distance between herself and her pursuers, she locates the most convenient tree nearby -- it is ancient, but still stable, and the ground beneath it is hollowed out, having probably been used as an animal’s den at one point. Her breaths are shallow and strained now, a clear sign of exhaustion, but she manages to fit herself between a gap in the cluster of roots without fumbling or further injuring herself. Then, finally, under the shelter of roots, she collapses. Her impact with the earth is not gentle, and it saps the rest of her energy.
An hour goes by, and for most of it, she hears only silence, save for the low hum of the wind between the branches. Her hand is still placed weakly against her wound, trembling. It isn’t until another hour passes that she picks up the faintest hint of voices, probably a few miles off.
“The wind...new snow...dogs can’t track her anymore!”
“She must...somewhere...find her!”
Just don’t fall asleep. Her eyes have been fluttering for quite some time now, urging her to close them, the heaviness of enervation so tempting. You must stay awake. At least until morning. Yes, that’s it. If she can at least make it until sunrise, when the wind and the cold subside, then she can allow herself to rest and regain enough energy to heal away the most immediate danger; if she doesn’t manage to bleed out first, or if one of her pursuers doesn’t find her.
It’s almost as if they’ve read her mind, for not even two seconds later, her pointed ears gave a weak flicker at the sound of footfalls crunching the snow just outside the threshold of roots that cover her. And when they cease, she knows that the person they belong to has spotted her. Would it not have been for her complete lack of strength to do anything beyond breathing, she would laugh.
All of this struggling -- this fighting -- just to die like this. In all honesty, she fears no prospect of death. One might even say, after all these years, she’s waited to welcome it.
But this? This is humiliating. She’s supposed to go down in fists, in flames, in rage, with a battle cry burning in her throat. Not in such a cold, pathetic state while she can’t even muster a whisper...
Dying On The Battlefield || OPEN/closed
