Convincing Valerica was more Ralsten's doing than Serana's (Serana was convinced he could talk a fish into walking on land), but the elder vampire saw the wisdom in taking steps, if highly unusual ones, to preserve their kind and their food sources. She agreed to not interfere and had retreated to her laboratory to continue her necromancy research with an eye toward discovering if there was truly a cure for vampirism.
((Continued below cut))
As the years passed and word slowly (and quietly) spread a mage named Falion arrived at the castle -- they became close companions and spent many hours in the laboratory, discovering that prized cure though Falion opted to accept Valerica's offer to turn him in the end, desiring the eternal time of immortality to continue his studies.
News of the cure was taken to the Dawnguard and soon people were trickling in seeking it.
-----
Serana hadn't intended to place herself in a ruling position but in retrospect she supposed it was destined to happen. She and Ralsten began small and it was difficult to not be discouraged as time and again they found themselves wiping out small dens of vampires who refused to come to heel.
Slowly, however, they began rooting out those first ones willing to obey and serve -- there was resistance initially over feeding off animal blood but through a combination of kindly speech, careful threats, and the knowledge that many of their kin had already been destroyed there began to grow a small group at the castle that bent knee to Serana and Ralsten's rules, and when the cure was discovered many took it and the population there was ever changing as people arrived, were cured, and left. Some chose to remain vampires and stay within the court's protection, and were present to welcome the newcomers and see to the daily operations within the castle's walls.
Serana and Ralsten's affection for one another never faltered, and while their "rule" such as it was was firm and unyielding they did it coupled with fairness. Serana often found that Ralsten was her moral compass as there were times where she strayed back toward the teachings of "power takes precedence." It was times like this that made her ever grateful that she had him at her side.
When the Jarls heard of their growing influence they came together, concerned and threatening destruction. To her surprise the Dawnguard spoke on their behalf and brokered a deal where ALL who came to the castle had to be cured or destroyed.
Outnumbered and bitter, but ultimately grudgingly accepting of the chance at life, Serana had no choice but to agree.
Months later, however, over dinner and after a lengthy discussion, Serana and Ralsten downed the vials of blood taken from Valerica before the cure was forced on her and then continued their work.
-----
As her father had hoped and dreamed for her Lucia grew into a strong, intelligent, graceful woman who learned the bard's trade and traveled around singing the epics and legends.
She never stopped penning and singing songs of her father's bravery and adventures, however, which estranged her from her peers and eventually she was quietly pushed from society as her skills and services were no longer requested and she was given no other assignments.
Even though she eventually shuttered her father's store and ended the lucrative trade contracts she had been left a fortune and frugal living meant she had more than enough to live on into her twilight years.
One night, as she lay old and feeble in bed, she and her wealth disappeared from her home. None knew what had happened to her, but the world moved on.
In the courtyard of a castle not far from where she'd grown up was a well-tended, often visited grave.
-----
He had sought Lydia out a final time just to thank her for her service when he'd found that she had been dismissed by Faraan and Eveline and sent back to Whiterun. There she'd been assigned to another Thane and had married him eventually -- Ralsten had thanked her for everything, wished her well, and then vanished completely from her life.
He knew no higher joy than spending time with Serana - their work was hard but he was, as ever, her 'big armored idiot' and willingly put himself between her and any danger that decided to look their direction.
When the Jarls threatened them, before the Dawnguard had stepped in on their behalf, he'd spent many tense meetings with them explaining time and again what they struggled to do and why, and how it benefited mortals and vampire alike. He thought that if he'd had more time, or less pressure from the Empire, that he could have swayed them to their cause eventually -- the Dawnguard's assistance was invaluable in saving them, though the price for it was a bitter one to pay.
Many times he found himself sitting in the courtyard, weeding around the simple gravestone placed there for his little girl -- Serana often left him alone when he came out here and he didn't fault her as Lucia had never been hers even though the girl had only been his for three years or so. He still remembered with crystal clarity how he'd found her begging in the streets, had dressed and fed her, then dressed himself in his finest clothes and went to confront the family that had driven her away from her birthright. The looks on their faces when he'd declared their farm's produce would never once be permitted in his trade routes or stores was priceless and still something that brought him amusement even now.
After the attention of the Jarls and Empire had moved elsewhere, confident that the court was sufficiently cowed, Ralsten had gladly taken the blood again and gone to rest in his coffin that still remained side by side with Serana's.
There were still many tiny, forgotten pockets of Skyrim to search. Their work wasn't done.
-----
They never did give this new venture a name so this newly established court was still known as Volkihar...but they felt, as time went on, they were redeeming the name.
The castle was dark, dreary, and crumbling in many places that hadn't seen people in centuries -- as the population there grew there were craftsmen among their ranks and they set about repairing and tidying the place up, making it something livable again.
There were those who were thralls that were freed from the magic and sent on their way as well as people who sought the cure, and when they left they didn't forget the court they'd dwelled within even though it was just for a short time.
Soon there was first a small fishing village on the shoreline, keeping the boats and docks well in order and helping people to make the crossing to the castle. As more were cured and left there grew small pockets across Skyrim full of grateful people -- those that had been cured, those that had been freed, and those who had family that had been cured or now lived within the castle's walls. They quietly sent everything they could spare to the castle to support those that remained there, and soon they had more than enough to ensure that none that sought them would go hungry.
Soon alongside the thralls and vampires came regular people seeking shelter and a means to earn their living - those desperate enough to seek help among a despised people. These people were slowly directed out to the little towns and farms that sent the supplies, with the instruction to be discrete.
There were many times where individual holds and cities took up arms and attempted to confront the castle's inhabitants -- they were met with words first and violence second. A time came where the attacks slowed but then the Jarls came together to force the issue of Volkihar's growing influence.
Many who were forced to take the cure still chose to stay, and there were whispers that the Lady and Lord who led them were somehow powerful enough to be immune to the cure as they seemed unchanged in appearance and manner after the declaration.
Slowly but surely, even though support for Volkihar never grew very large, it became self-sustainable and consistent.
There came a night, finally, where the Lord and Lady vanished - none know to where, but the creation left behind continued without them for decades until finally being dismantled and its inhabitants scattered across Skyrim by the combined armies of the new generation of Jarls, and the name Volkihar and any legacy tied to it was scrubbed from history.
"This place looks so different from when I was locked away."
They had been on the road for nearly two weeks now -- the walk from the mountains where Dimhollow Crypt was located was a long one, and avoiding main roads (to avoid people) coupled with having to also cross the marshes near Morthal had slowed them down considerably. They were at last nearing the mountainous region where Solitude lorded over the surrounding lands and thankfully had gotten this far without trouble.
There were many times they had traveled in silence, as well as many times that Serana had voiced amazement at how much the world had changed. She didn't speak much in general, but the more she spoke the more it occurred to him how...old she had to be. And the more he realized her age, and how long she'd been locked away, the more -- he wouldn't call it a fear, really, more of a concern on how hungry she probably was at this point...and yet, she hadn't made any attempt to hurt him, or tried to steer them into a town or farmstead where people gathered, nor had she mentioned or even seemed concerned with being hungry. He thought he should be suspicious about it, as though she were planning something he hadn't figured out yet, but really he was just...confused, and tried not to think about it overmuch.
((Continued below cut))
"What's so different?"
"I'm not really sure...it looks familiar, but at the same time very different. It's hard to explain."
He grunted in acknowledgement; after that they'd walked in a comfortable silence until the sun was just beginning to set. In the very far distance he could see the Blue Palace, and knew they would need to veer to the northwest to eventually reach the main road to get up and then over the mountain range that the city was built upon.
"Do you...know how long you might have been down there?"
"I...can't really tell. I feel like it was a long time. Who is Skyrim's high king?"
Ralsten chuckled and earned himself a questioning look from the woman. "That's actually a matter of debate at the moment."
Her expression and tone went flat. "Oh, wonderful. A war of succession. Good to know the world didn't get boring while I was gone. Who's fighting over the throne?"
"Well, on one side you have Ulfric Stormcloak, jarl of Windhelm. On the other is Elisif, widowed wife of High King Torygg."
"I've not heard of Ulfric, and you say Elisif is... Are either of them particularly well supported?"
Ralsten blew out a sigh. "Well, the Empire supports Elisif, but there's a lot of people across Skyrim who are loyal to Ulfric."
Serana slowly turned her head to him. "Empire? What...empire?"
Again, the absurdity of how old this woman had to be struck him, and he tried very hard not to laugh. "The Empire. From Cyrodiil."
"Cyrodiil is the seat of an empire? I must have been gone longer than I thought. Definitely longer than anyone planned... Please, let's hurry. I need to get home so I can figure out what's happened."
He nodded, and gestured to the city near the top of the mountain and at the Blue Palace perched on the giant stone arch, both just barely visible through the trees they traveled under. "That is Solitude there, and your island will be on the other side of that range. We'll be over it by tomorrow afternoon."
Serana nodded, though she looked troubled and didn't speak much after that.
They walked until night fully fell, then made camp along the side of the road; aside from a single patrolling guard they saw no one and heard nothing more than the sounds of insects and wildlife as the wilds came alive around them, and Serana still did not speak as Ralsten laid out a horse hide blanket for them to sit on beside a small fire.
Much later, with the fire dying down, Ralsten finally broke the silence. "We are heading to your family home...was it them who locked you away?"
Shifting uncomfortably she refused to meet his eyes. "I'd...rather not get into that with you. If that's all right. I'm sorry, it's not that... It's just, I don't know who I can trust yet. Let's get to my home, and I'll have a better sense of where we all stand."
The wood elf nodded to her, offering what he hoped was a reassuring smile. "Fair enough. What should I expect, when we reach there?"
"...I'm not really sure."
"Can you tell me nothing of your home?"
"I already mentioned it was on an island...and, thinking about it, hopefully we can find a boat to take us there. It's not the most welcoming place, but depending on who's around I'll be safe there."
At that Ralsten straightened, looking at her in confusion. "Safe? Why wouldn't you be safe in your own home? If your family is there..."
"Let's just say that my mother and father had a bit of a falling out. Don't worry, I'm not in any actual danger from them or anything like that...it's just going to be unpleasant to run into my father. We don't really get along -- ugh, saying that out loud makes it sound so...common. A little girl who doesn't get along with her father -- tell me you haven't heard that story a hundred times."
He laughed quietly and prodded at the smoldering embers. "Perhaps I have. But, your story is still unique because it's yours and no one elses, no matter how similar it may seem to something you've read before."
The look she'd given him was at first confused, then she'd smiled and looked to the stars, commenting on how she was grateful she could see them again. Some of the tension had faded, and they began to idly chat about Skyrim - it's weather and seasons, what holds and regions still existed and soon Ralsten found himself explaining the war as well. After awhile, as their conversation fell away and the night grew deeper, his attention shifted from his ancient vampire companion to his current situation.
He felt that the Dawnguard would skin him alive for not killing her and taking the Elder Scroll she carried -- Isran seemed to be an honorable, intelligent man - definitely shrewd and strong to have survived this long hunting vampires - but while he seemed to present his cause as righteous, as a way to protect Skyrim's people, Ralsten suspected hatred drove the man more than anything else. He could definitely see Isran wanting to kill Serana without fully exploring who she was, why she was locked away, and why she possessed an Elder scroll...on one hand he didn't want to believe the man could be that shortsighted, but on the other he really, really hated vampires and never missed an opportunity to remind others of that fact.
That Serana was...nervous about her father and couldn't tell him what to expect when they'd arrived at her family home was also of concern, and he wasn't certain how he could or should prepare for what they were walking in to. And, being as they were going to an island, if it happened that he (or they) should need to quickly escape...unless they found someone willing to take them over and then wait there Ralsten expected they would be rowing a boat themselves and there was no quick means to cast off and get away from the shore if it was just them...or him. Especially not if it was just him, in his heavy armor -- and that was assuming he could even reach the boat quickly enough.
So many unknown variables...it was starting to make him nervous himself.
-------------------------------------------
The conversation with Harkon was a bit of a blur. Ralsten remembered the introductions (and the striking, intimidating figure of Harkon himself) with a crystal clarity but it felt...rushed, in his mind. Rushed and charged with an anxious energy, and with a relief that he'd made it out of there.
Granted, he'd only made it out of there because the Lord had banished him; it made his stomach clench as he remembered the hand raising, the spell hitting him, and then collapsing backward into the boat he and Serana had arrived on. The Lord had, as a thanks for rescuing his daughter, given him the choice of becoming a vampire or walking out alive but after his refusal he'd declared that the wood elf was banished, and that had brought to mind nightmarish planes - the places that daedra walked, or were "banished" to when defeated - and he'd truly not known what to expect as the magic swallowed him up and then spat him back out elsewhere.
It was a relief to see the familiar sky of Skyrim over his head once the panic of the forced relocation had worn off and Ralsten had slowly rowed the way back to the mainland alone.
There were other minor details of the encounter that stood out more than others. Harkon had boasted how he was one of the oldest and most powerful vampires in Skyrim, and the wood elf had assumed it was to try and entice him to take the "reward" offered for Serana's safe return...and, he would be lying if he hadn't thought for a moment that such a reward would be forced on him, standing there in the great hall surrounded by Harkon's vampiric court.
And of course...that terrifying demonstration. Part man, part...beast. Bat. Gargoyle? Ralsten had no words for the form, only a memory of pallid skin stretched over muscle, dressed in gold and gems and with clawed hands, feet, and teeth that looked like they could tear right through his steel plate.
But...he'd made it out. The Lord had kept his word and spared him this one time because he'd rescued his daughter. Serana and the Elder Scroll she'd carried were both still within the castle, and Ralsten knew trying to reach either of them again would be suicide - he was left without Serana, and without answers.
The return journey to Fort Dawnguard was considerably more tense; Harkon had promised only to spare him then, that one time, and declared him prey afterward like any other mortal. That an entire room of vampires had seen his face, and heard his name...Ralsten supposed he would need to be far more cautious, especially if Serana mentioned he was a member of the Dawnguard to any of them (if they hadn't considered him an important target then, they certainly would if they heard about THAT little detail).
It was past midnight, after a week of hard riding, when he found himself climbing the path to the fort; he'd made the trip unscathed and unbothered... But, he was not looking forward to reporting to Isran, and he'd planned to do so in the morning but found Isran pacing in the main foyer when he entered the fort.
"You. You've returned. So, any luck? Was Tolan right about the vampires being interested in Dimhollow Crypt?"
Ralsten shouldered the heavy door shut, letting loose a sigh he felt originated somewhere near his toes before turning to face the man. "Yes...the place was crawling with vampires. Tolan was right, and he's dead - the vampires killed him. He went in alone before I got there."
Isran pressed his lips into a thin line, irritation clear on his face. "Damn fool, I told him not to go. The Vigilants always had more bravery than sense... Did you at least find out what they were looking for in there?"
Ralsten jerked his head to the side, nodding toward room off to the left - if he was going to be kept from bed filling Isran in right this moment then he was going to do it sitting down and out of his armor. After a moment Isran nodded and stalked off that direction; Ralsten followed and moved to the far empty corner, beginning to peel his armor off and hang it on a rack hanging from pegs hammered into the stone wall.
"-they were looking for a woman that was sealed in the crypt," Ralsten went on, once he was down to just his boots and the padded cloth clothing he wore under the plate. He dropped onto a stool; Isran remained standing, and began to pace.
"That doesn't make sense. Where is this woman? Who is she?"
The wood elf hesitated -- he knew he was mere seconds away from enraging the man. "...I don't -"
"We were attacked while you were searching," Isran interrupted. His tone was sharp and Ralsten looked up in surprise; the man continued to pace but it became more agitated, Isran himself looking ready to strike something - or someone - down. "I should've known it was only a matter of time before they found us. It's the price we pay for openly recruiting. We'll have to step up our defenses, take measures to stop them, and to do that we need any and all information you found about this crypt, and that woman. No delaying."
At that Isran directed an icy glare at the wood elf; Ralsten subtly leaned back on his stool, ready to move if the man moved toward him. He'd expected Isran to be as direct and...well, sour as ever, but now knowing that he was wound up from an attack...
"The woman, she - she wanted to go home. So I took her home. To a castle on an island near Solitude."
"...and?"
"She's the daughter of a powerful vampire lord. The castle is where they're holed up."
Isran stopped and spun on a heel to face him. "And you delivered her right to them? Are you mad?"
Ralsten held up his hands, a guilty look creeping across his face. "It's...it gets worse. She had an Elder Scroll."
"What? And you didn't stop her? You didn't secure the scroll?"
"I'm lucky I made it out alive at all. I...I took her there expecting to learn more of what was going on. There was a castle, and I was taken into its hall, there were ten vampires there, along with the Lord Harkon. There were simply too many of them and not enough of me to have done anything, Isran...I'm sorry. And, Lord Harkon himself...he's a monster. I don't think I could handle him on my own either."
Isran ground his teeth, spitting out "-so they have everything they wanted, and we're left with nothing." After a moment he closed his eyes, inhaled and exhaled slowly, his expression visibly relaxing some, then looked to Ralsten again. "I suppose you ARE lucky you're not dead. Or worse...one of them."
"He...tried, actually. He offered me the chance to become a vampire - to join him. I obviously said no," Ralsten added quickly as Isran's expression hardened again. "When I said no he magically threw me out of the castle, and I got out of there."
Isran nodded then rubbed a hand over his face and beard, going back to pacing. "By the Divines, this couldn't get much worse. This is more than you and I, or anyone else left here, can handle. We're going to need help. If they're already bold enough to attack us here then this may be bigger than I thought. I have good men here, but... There are people I've met and worked with over the years. We'll need their skills, their talents, if we're going to survive this. If you can find them, we might have a chance."
Ralsten inwardly groaned - he'd been hoping to get at least one full night's sleep before being shoved out the door again. "All right...who am I looking for?"
That earned him a begrudging chuckle from the man. "Right to the point, aren't you. I like that." His expression hardened briefly. "Not like those fools in the order..." Isran sighed again, suddenly looking older than his years. "We should keep it small. Too many people and we'll draw unwanted attention to ourselves...moreso than we have already, that is. I've two in mind. I need you to find Sorine Jurard - Breton girl, whip-smart and good with tinkering - fascination with Dwemer, weapons in particular. Last I knew she was out in the Reach, convinced she was about to find the biggest dwarven ruin yet."
Nodding wearily Ralsten reached for his bag, rooting around until he pulled out a tightly rolled handful of maps, held closed with a simple leather tie. He sorted through them as Isran watched, rubbing at his eyes. "The Reach...you can't be more specific?" Isran merely shook his head, and Ralsten inwardly groaned again.
The Reach was a fairly sizeable stretch of land; if she was studying dwemer ruins that narrowed it down only slightly. Maybe someone in Markarth would know of her...but having to search through so much land seemed rather daunting. And that was IF she was above ground -- dwemer ruins were, for the most part, underground. If she was wandering about in one of those there was no telling how long it'd take to find her.
"And the other?"
"His name is Gunmar. Big brute of a Nord, hates vampires almost as much as I do. Got it into his head years back that his experience with animals would help - trolls in particular, from what I hear. Last I heard of him he was out scouring Skyrim for more beasts to tame. Bring the two of them back here and we can get started on coming up with a plan."
It took all of his strength not to throttle the man. A woman somewhere in the Reach and a man somewhere out in the whole of Skyrim? How did Isran expect him to possibly find these people?
"All right. I'll head out in the morning," Ralsten finally muttered as he pushed himself from his stool and staggered toward one of the hide-lined cots pushed up against the wall.
"Sleep is for the weak, elf."
"I'd argue sleep is what keeps me from becoming weak. I am exhausted and I'd make nothing but an easy target." He perched on the edge of the cot and met Isran's disapproving gaze without flinching. "I will leave in the morning," he repeated, speaking slowly and firmly.
Isran grunted - Ralsten wasn't sure if it was a sign of Isran seeing sense or merely too frustrated to argue - and left. He waited until the other man's footsteps had grown too faint to hear, then dragged his feet up into the cot he sat on and stretched out. It was dusty and smelled of mildew but he was too tired to truly care.
"The bow...you have Auriel's Bow! I've heard it described in tales, but I could never have imagined its beauty."
Isran's usually sour look was replaced with one of awe as he looked over the bow Ralsten held out.
"We need your help with this, Isran," Ralsten said quietly.
"Indeed. The day hasn't been won while Harkon still walks Tamriel. But what of Serana? Can she be trusted to lift a blade against her own kind? Her own family?"
((Continued under cut))
Eyes narrowing Ralsten yanked the bow out of the man's reach -- Serana was standing right next to him and Isran had spoken of her as though she wasn't even there. "I trust her," he growled, staring Isran down.
After a moment Isran nodded. "I suppose that's as much as I can hope for. Let me address the Dawnguard, then we'll be off. The men deserve to know we've finally gained the upper hand."
Ralsten stayed in the doorway with Serana - neither could move further into the fort without risking injury off spells meant to detect and protect against vampires. Isran walked about, gathering up those Dawnguard members that were in the fort and having them group together in the main entryway and then stood before them.
"Everyone! For too long we've allowed these vampires to poison the night and kill our people! Now, we finally have the means to strike back! We now have Auriel's Bow. The gods themselves have favored us and we must answer with action! The time has come to finally put an end to Harkon and his unholy prophecy! We will march on their lair and destroy those wretched abominations so they can no longer corrupt our world! This is our fight and this is our fate! This is the time of the Dawnguard!"
The Dawnguard erupted into cheers, many gleefully calling for the heads and blood of the vampires; Ralsten felt distinctly uncomfortable in the midst of their fervor -- he was, after all, one of those (even if unwillingly) that they were clamoring to kill, and Serana was part of the family they were about to wipe out.
Serana's expression was neutral, unreadable; when the group turned toward the door Ralsten shouldered them open and headed out into the night, Serana behind him and the small army that was the Dawnguard behind her.
The ride to castle Volkihar was hard and long; Serana and Ralsten didn't need to rest but the horses, men, and the armored trolls with them did. Each night as they set camp they stayed separate from the others, sitting together alongside their own campfire.
Ralsten noticed Serana preferred to sit close enough that their shoulders were touching and he found he didn't mind that in the slightest; he very much wanted to talk to her, to try and take her mind off what they had to do but with the others within earshot he didn't want to make her feel awkward...and it saddened him to realize that he couldn't speak freely to her here. He had to content himself with sitting close and hoping that if she felt the need to speak she would, and that she knew he would certainly answer her if she did, the Dawnguard be damned.
When they finally reached the castle it just was turning to dawn; the sky was gray and dreary and made the castle seem even more foreboding.
Counting Ralsten and Serana, and Isran, there were twenty gathered here; they marched together up the bridge leading to the castle and made it halfway before the doors were thrown open and a rush of vampires - ten in total - came out to meet them.
The air was split with the roar of the armored trolls as they charged ahead of the Dawnguard; Ralsten drew his weapons and ran with the others to clash with the vampires -- he felt the pull of their draining spells and cracked the nearest man - a Nord vampire he'd not seen when he'd brought Serana home - in the jaw with his mace then jabbed downward into his thigh as the man staggered.
Slowly but steadily the Dawnguard pushed and cut their way up to the front door -- a few gargoyles came to life but were quickly torn to pieces by the trolls and left alongside the butchered bodies of the vampires that had come out to meet them.
Once inside the castle Ralsten recognized Harkon's inner court -- all these men and women, vampires all of them, rushing up to meet their invasion. These were stronger than the other lesser ones that had been sent to slow their approach and as they pushed inward a few of the Dawnguard were cut down or had their throats torn out with weapon and fang.
"Go!" Isran suddenly yelled over the din. "Find him! Take him down!"
Ralsten peeled off from the group and hugged one of the walls of the hall; Serana darted over to join him and he followed her at a quick pace up some stairs and to a door that was blocked with a hanging, spiked gate -- she yanked on a chain that was hanging against the wall in such a way that it was well disguised against the brick and the grating slowly rose into the frame above the doorway.
Ralsten knew she knew exactly where they were heading and followed her without question until they finally stepped through a pair of wide double doors and into a dimly lit room with balconies and stairs to either side, and ahead of them on a raised platform was some sort of fountain, made to look like Molag Bal's face (or so Ralsten thought - it looked nightmarish regardless of who or what it was supposed to look like) that spilled a continuous flow of blood into a basin beneath its mouth. The ceiling was vaulted with the only light being what little filtered in through narrow windows set high in the walls and there were gargoyles on platforms near the upper corners -- it brought to mind some sort of cathedral or temple, only dark and profane.
Floating before the fountain was Harkon himself, in his beastly...form, whatever it was. His taloned feet hovered above the stone floor and his wings twitched over his shoulders as his gaze fell on them.
"Serana, my darling. I see you still favor keeping that pet."
Serana's expression hardened and she began to purposely stride toward the man. "You know why we're here."
Harkon snorted. "Of course I do. You disappoint me, Serana. You've taken everything I provided for you and thrown it all away for this...pathetic being."
Ralsten saw her hands ball into fists.
"Provided for me?" she repeated, looking at her father in disbelief. "Are you insane? You've destroyed our family. You've killed other vampires. All over some prophecy that we barely understand. No more. I'm done with you." She looked back to Ralsten and he saw the bare determination in her eyes. "You will not touch him. Not again. Not ever again."
The way she'd said it made his stomach oddly flutter, but then Harkon's laughter made Ralsten's skin crawl; there was no time to consider the flutter -- the elf slowly pulled the bow from his back and nocked an arrow but didn't draw it just yet.
Holding the arrow was...strange -- it gave him a sense of unease, as though he innately knew just how severely the weapon he held could hurt him since he too was now undead (and he suspected that he would feel this way even if he didn't already know what the arrows could do, which made the unease even worse). Ralsten pushed the feeling away and hefted the bow with gritted teeth, ready to draw and fire; Harkon's gaze move from Serana to the bow, then he locked eyes with Ralsten briefly before his attention flicked back to his daughter.
"So, I see this dragon has fangs. Your voice drips with the venom of your mother's influence...how alike you've become."
"No." Her voice was sharp, then her tone lowered. "Because unlike her, I'm not afraid of you. Not anymore."
The vampire lord was silent a moment before his attention moved back to Ralsten. "And you..."
He moved as quickly as Ralsten remembered and seemed to appear in front of him in the blink of an eye; those clawed hands reached out to try and rip the bow from Ralsten's grip -- he was too close to shoot even if he'd had the string drawn so instead he jabbed at Harkon with the arrow.
The arrow's tip barely scratched the vampire's skin but an effect like flame racing across parchment spread from the thin line; Harkon snarled and drew back, leaving Ralsten standing with the bow still in hand and with an arrow that no longer glowed. He dropped the arrow and drew another as Harkon turned to meet Serana's attack; gone was her spellcasting and she was instead swinging at him with the sword she'd taken from Ralsten's little armory -- he couldn't think of a time when he'd seen her use it before and until now Ralsten hadn't even known what enchantment the dwarven blade carried -- Harkon had reached to grab the blade in one large hand, and while the blade's edge didn't seem to penetrate his skin at all there was a burst of flame upon contact and again Harkon was forced to recoil back and away from the burning magic.
Silently thanking the Divines that the enchantment was exactly what they needed at this moment Ralsten drew the bow and fired -- his arrow skimmed across Harkon's shoulder, leaving another tiny bloodied line but once more sending a rippling flame across the vampire's skin, and when it struck the far wall behind him there was a small blast of released magic against the brick.
Harkon turned a hateful face toward Ralsten. "You've turned her against me! I will darken the skies and I'll drain the life from you!"
The air was suddenly full of flapping wings as Harkon turned into a swarm of bats and engulfed the elf; Ralsten swung the arrow in hand at the swarm until it struck one of them and created a small explosion that also singed himself but it didn't stop Harkon -- the bats kept diving in and clawing and biting at him, trying to reach the lower half of his face or worm through the openings in his helm to blind him.
Keeping firm hold on the bow in one hand Ralsten dropped the other to his belt and pulled his mace free, swinging wildly and feeling the continuous thuds of connecting swings until finally the bat swarm pulled away and it was Harkon, fully formed, diving for him again. Ralsten dropped the mace to grab a handful of the arrows this time and dove forward to meet Harkon's dive, gouging several of them into the vampire's gut and across down toward the hip; Harkon's screech of pain set his ears ringing but it drove the vampire away -- he turned into the swarm of bats again and rapidly retreated to the blood fountain.
"Fools..." he growled. He reformed and raised his hands over his head and with a crackling noise two of the gargoyles along the walls came to life.
Ralsten whipped around and shot one of the arrows in hand at the nearest gargoyle - the enchantment on the arrow was spent and it bounced off the gargoyle's shoulder without leaving so much as a scratch. Before the creature could close the distance between them Ralsten swung the bow to his back and ducked to pick up his mace where it'd landed on the ground at his feet (which meant he was forced to drop the other arrows - there was no time to slip them back into the quiver and their enchantments were expended besides); when he straightened he had drawn his sword too and brought both around in dual underhanded swings that caught one arm of the gargoyle and knocked it to the side while the other's momentum was narrowly halted before it could rip into the elf's shoulderguard.
Its head darted forward to snap at him; he jerked his head back and shifted his left foot to hold his weight, then pushed forward off his toes to again catch an arm as it slashed down toward him -- he caught the wrist between the haft and blade of his weapons, held up in a crossed position, and twisted them as he twisted at the trunk to sling the gargoyle off balance to the side and into a pillar that supported the balcony nearby. As the gargoyle bounced off the stone Ralsten brought the mace back around in a backhanded swing to smash into its ribs (did it have ribs or was it a stone construct? He really didn't know) and knocked it to the floor, then planted a foot into its chest to somewhat pin it in place and kept swinging at it as it flailed and clawed at his legs.
When he finally managed to smash its head in the metal plates, studs, and the leather of his boots were an utter mess of deep gouges and grooves, and he didn't want to think about what he'd look like if he hadn't been armored.
Abruptly he was lifted from his feet and thrown across the room to crack into the wall under a balcony -- Harkon was after him again, with Serana close on his heels and still attempting to get a solid strike in with her fire-enchanted sword.
"FUS!" Ralsten Shouted - not the full force of the shout, as Serana was too close and he didn't dare risk hurting her as well.
The shortened shout hit Harkon in the chest and pushed him back down the stairs; Ralsten clambered to one knee and got the bow up and ready, then loosed another arrow that actually embedded itself into Harkon's hip and sent the full effect of the arrow's enchantment rippling across his skin and charring it black, and the vampire let out another enraged but pained growl and spun to knock Serana flying with an open handed slap but Ralsten could see a slash across his shoulderblade that was blackened around the edges of the cut.
The elf placed another arrow near that gouge and finally, Harkon's clawed feet dropped to the ground as he stumbled and writhed as he burned. As he turned again to Ralsten the elf fired again, and again, awkwardly climbing to his feet and advancing step by step as each arrow found its mark and forced Harkon back.
Serana stood; Ralsten held back his next shot as she came forward, bringing the sword over her head and down to cut deeply into Harkon's shoulder, the flames spreading up half the man's face even as black blood sprayed into the air.
With a weak cry Harkon changed and a swarm of bats retreated toward the blood fountain. Ralsten rushed down the stairs with another arrow ready, and as the swarm paused in front of the fountain he fired into its middle -- the arrow passed through the bats but struck the fountain and the nova of released magic engulfed nearly the entire swarm.
Harkon shrieked - a terrible noise that Ralsten swore he could feel in his teeth - and the bats began to crumble to dust even as they struggled to reform him; for a very brief instant the image of Harkon appeared, his face twisted in pain and hatred, his hands claw-like and reaching toward them.
"No...Serana...your own father..."
His voice echoed as he turned to ash and rained down into and around the fountain.
Then, there was nothing but the sounds of their own panting.
Ralsten stood for several moments with an arrow ready and waiting, somehow expecting that this wasn't the end - that somehow, that pile of ash would reform into something worse and come after them with a vengeance.
But...nothing did. The room was silent and still, and not even the blood fountain made noise.
The sword fell from Serana's slack fingers and she slowly walked up to the ash pile, kneeling down beside it -- a moment later and Ralsten carefully edged up behind her, then they both jumped and spun around as the double doors behind them were thrown open.
Isran and three Dwanguard (two men and a young woman, none of which Ralsten knew) charged in, then skidded to a halt to look about in tense confusion; after peering into every nook and cranny of the room Isran lowered his weapon and stomped up to stand before Serana and Ralsten, staring down at the ash at their feet.
"It's over. He's dead...and the prophecy dies with him." He looked grimly satisfied for a breath, then surprisingly his expression softened into something resembling pity as he looked to Serana. "I... I suppose this is difficult for you."
Serana glanced to the ashes, then stood to face Isran. "I think my father really died a long time ago. This was just...the end of something else. I did what needed to be done, nothing more."
Isran nodded slowly at that. "I think perhaps...I think you did more than that. You have my thanks."
Ralsten glanced to Serana and found she looked just as surprised as he did - Isran had spent all this time openly despising her...only to thank her now.
The man spun on a heel and gestured for the three with him to head back out of the cathedral. "We'll do a final sweep of the castle -- make sure no one is hiding. Find us outside when you're through here."
They swept out of the door without a backward glance; when they were gone Ralsten sighed, shoulders slumping in relief, then turned to face Serana.
"Are you all right?"
She had a few gashes visible across her leather chest piece, and an openly bleeding gouge on her arm; he quickly pulled her away from her father's ashes and over toward the stairs, sitting her down and tying a cloth around the wound.
"It's hard to believe, but we did it. We actually did it," she said quietly.
He studied her face -- she didn't seem grieved or sad, just...somewhere between relieved and tired; it didn't take long to determine that the gashes across her chest and stomach hadn't penetrated to skin and were just damage to the armor and then he dropped heavily to the stone beside her feeling the sting of sweat in dozens of tiny scratches across his chin and neck from the bats.
"He can't hurt you again. Or anyone else, for that matter," he said into the silence.
She didn't respond to that; they sat in silence until yet another Dawnguard member (another woman that Ralsten hadn't met before) came to fetch them. Serana stood and left the room without looking back and Ralsten followed her, all the way out to the main hall. There were some that were stacking the bodies of slain Volkihar vampires in a corner and a handful of others were tending to dazed, confused men and women that were dressed in rags and covered in obvious bite marks and old scars.
Serana took all of this in, then headed to the front doors and stepped out into the midday sun. Ralsten followed her, wincing and shielding his eyes against the brightness and feeling the dull burn of the sun on his skin. She led them halfway down the bridge (there were bloody smears to mark where the vampires had been slain and dragged off, the bodies nowhere to be seen) then took a deep breath and turned to him.
"Well, now that's done."
Ralsten nodded. "It is." He eyed her silently for a moment; in his mind he could suddenly see everything they'd seen and done together, every little thing he'd felt...and a fear settled in his gut that this was truly it. "What will you do now?" he finally asked, hesitating.
Serana seemed to consider that for a moment. "I'm not sure. I could see if I could stay with the Dawnguard...for as long as they'd let me. They're respectable fighters, even if their leader is a bit shortsighted. I think they could see the benefits now of having a vampire on their side."
Ralsten chuckled awkwardly. "I somehow doubt that would last long. Surely there's a...better choice."
She nodded, smiling faintly. "You're probably right." Shielding her eyes she turned to look back to the castle.
"You could come with me," he blurted out, then bit his lower lip.
"What?" she looked to him in surprise, blinking at him wordlessly for a moment. "I-" her expression cycled through a few emotions that were too quick to catch and then she looked away from him. "Maybe. I feel..." She looked back up to the castle. "I want to. I truly want to. But I feel I should make my peace with this place first. There's a lot of bad memories here, but good ones too." After a few breaths she glanced to him again. "Though the memories I've made with you have been the best of my life."
Ralsten felt that odd stomach flutter again. "I'd be more than happy to make more with you. More adventures, more... Whenever you're through here. However long it takes you. My home is open to you, my company is yours any time you want it." He took a few steps toward her, resting a hand on her shoulder and meeting her gaze. "Call, and I promise I'll come."
He sent a nervous glance toward the doors and saw no one watching, then leaned forward to place an awkward kiss on her temple.
The gesture clearly surprised her, and she swallowed hard before looking away shyly and clearing her throat. "I'll... I promise I'll find you, when I'm done here." Once she'd had a moment to compose herself she looked back to him with a smile. "What will you do in the meantime? Where will I find you?"
Ralsten found himself both disappointed and thankful at the subject change. "Ah...well. I think I shall remain with Isran -- the Dawnguard's researchers are still looking through their tomes and records to find a cure. If you don't find me at the fort, then I will be at home. I won't hide from you," he added, tone teasing.
"All right. Until then..." She rested a gentle hand on his arm, then stepped forward to pull him into a hug.
He hugged her tightly. "Be safe, Serana. You know how to find me."
A lucky blow and a single misstep was all it had taken to send Ralsten and a Falmer plummeting off a bridge and into a river below them; while the wood elf wasn't in his full plate armor he was still rather heavy and with that extra weight he simply didn't have the strength to both fight the river's current and also keep his head above the surface -- the river dumped him over several falls until he washed up, coughing and vomiting water, on the iced over shore near yet another Falmer encampment. This camp had only four Falmer in it and Ralsten made short work of them (taking advantage of the fact that they were not prepared for him to suddenly be in their midst) and then he'd had been forced to duck inside one of their stinking huts and rapidly strip off his armor and underclothes.
Each time he considered how lucky he was that he was unable to feel cold he seemed to find something new to really make him appreciate that detail, and now even though he couldn't feel it he knew he was definitely in danger of freezing solid now that he was soaking wet; quickly scavenging through the other huts at the camp turned up enough straw, wood, and scrap to build a fire and keep it going for (hopefully) long enough to completely dry his clothes and armor and once he'd spread those out he moved to huddle next to the flames to warm up his iced-over hair and body.
((Continued below cut))
It was difficult to focus as he baked next to the flames; the more insistent and gnawing thought distracting him was of Serana -- he'd only taken one Falmer over the side with him when he'd fallen and they had been fighting a group of six (one of which had been behind the others and pelting Ralsten with ice). He knew that Serana was more than capable and didn't think the Falmer could actually kill her, but she could be injured...bleeding out in the blizzard, or knocked off as he had, or any other unpleasant and nerve wracking scenes his mind could dream up.
As the wood popped and crackled next to him he tried to force himself to think of anything BUT that; he thought of home and Lucia...but that was overshadowed by the worry of what would happen if he couldn't cure himself of this vampirism. And then there was the worry of dragons reappearing, and even without the bow or Serana Harkon could still find a way to harm many and--
Hunching over he put his head on his knees and tried to empty his mind entirely.
Several hours later his clothing was dry enough and he was able to dress himself; there was still too much moisture in the padding and straps of his armor (especially in his boots) to risk putting it on and the wasted time along with not knowing where Serana might be and what may have happened to her was driving him mad.
In another attempt to calm his mind he began to pace in the limited space at the back of the hut, the fire still burning away merrily and in a sudden gut punch of alarm Ralsten realized that what he was hearing wasn't just the fire -- there were footsteps coming this way, and they were going at a quick pace.
Inwardly he groaned and picked up his sword, hugging the inner wall of the hut to stand with his back to the wall next to the hut's opening; he expected to hear the growling or raspy breathing of a Falmer but...no, the footsteps were too even - too uniform - and the breathing he heard was ragged but not...not anything like the Falmer.
Cautiously Ralsten stuck his head around the edge of the hut's opening, and he almost dropped his sword when he realized in a rush that Serana was the one hurrying this way -- she stumbled here and there on the ice and had the one lantern they'd brought lit and held in front of her, with her other hand ready with the glimmers of a spell.
"Serana!"
Her head whipped toward him and even at this distance he could see relief on her face; she hurried to him and he grabbed her by the shoulders to sweep her into the hut, looking her up and down.
"You're uninjured? They didn't hurt you?"
"You're alive!" she said instead, ignoring his questions. "I thought -- when you fell, I thought-"
"Very nearly, very nearly," he replied, shaking his head. "I'm not and it doesn't matter. Are you all right?" There was ice and snow caked in a thin layer across her shoulders and back and he saw with some dismay that it was decidedly thicker across her thighs and the tops of her boots. "Did you get wet? Here, sit down-"
He guided her toward the fireside where he'd been sitting on a folded bit of old sackcloth; she collapsed but it seemed more out of relief than exhaustion, and Ralsten found himself running a hand over the snow clinging to her legs.
"You're going to freeze."
"I can't believe I found you alive."
"Get those boots off."
It seemed neither was all that interested in directly answering the other, but Serana at least bent down to try and work the frozen leather boots off her feet and calves; Ralsten knelt at her feet and helped and could see how the fabric of the cloth pants she wore under the leather was stuck to her skin.
"--how deep - how wet did you get?" he asked, looking up to meet her eyes.
"To the waist. It's fine-"
"No," he interrupted. "Just because we can't feel the cold doesn't mean our bodies won't freeze. Get those wet clothes off, while we still have a fire to dry them with."
She stared at him a moment, then raised an eyebrow. "I don't have any extra clothing to wear while these dry."
"Neither did I - I just sat here nude. I'll put my back to you, but I don't want you freezing."
Serana looked...uncertain, but Ralsten moved to sit on the other side of the fire, crossing his legs and laying his sword across his knees as he stared into the gloom beyond the hut. Behind him after a pause he heard her unbuckling her belt, then the sound of leather rubbing on leather and a few pained noises as she no doubt reached the parts that were frozen to her.
"...you'll have to tend the fire, if you don't want me turning around," he said into the silence that followed.
He heard more shuffling, more sounds of cloth rustling and then a few sharp thuds as she shook something out, then there was quiet.
"-you can turn around, if you want."
Very cautiously Ralsten turned and saw that she'd beaten the snow off her cloak and had it across her lap; her leather pants, the cloth ones beneath it, and her boots were neatly arranged near the fire's edge, and bare leg from knees to toes was all Ralsten could see.
He tried not to look at them. "How did you find me?"
"Entirely by accident, I think. After I killed those Falmer I retraced our steps until I found a spot against the cliff that I could climb down...then I had to find a way in through the ice, and I fell through it a few times walking along the river. I- I really wasn't sure if it was a good or bad thing that I hadn't found you washed up somewhere." She looked uncomfortable at the thought. "...I don't know what I would have done if I'd found you dead."
Ralsten smiled weakly at her. "Carried on, obtained the bow, and stopped your father. You'd do just fine without me."
"Maybe. But I wouldn't want to."
He looked at her curiously, and she shook her head more at herself than anything else.
"I mean - I wouldn't want to have to finish this without you. We've come this far...suffered so much," she added after a breath.
Ralsten smiled at her; she smiled back and smoothed her cloak over her knees.
Her things took less time than his to dry; they both ended up redressed and fully armored again just as they ran out of fuel for the fire -- they left it smoldering as they strode back out into the frigid air.
"There isn't an easy way to climb out, is there?"
Serana shook her head. "No, there isn't - we'll both end up soaked again if we try to get out the way we came in."
Ralsten blew out a frustrated sigh. "Right. I guess we'll see what we can find in here."
"...please tell me the ewer survived that tumble."
He had to laugh at that. "Yes, yes it did. Let's get out of this...wherever this is."
-----------------------------
"Look at this place..."
Ralsten didn't reply; after days on end of fighting through Falmer camps (at this point it was more a Falmer city -- he'd seen far more of them in this one valley than he'd ever seen in any ruins) they had come to a bridge of finely worked stone that crossed a wide, deep canyon, and on its far side was what could only be the Inner Sanctum, or at least the entrance to it.
The architecture was unlike any Ralsten had seen, all pointed stone archways with worked...was that silver? Iron? He couldn't tell, but there was skillfully worked, decorative metal grating on the windows that faced them, and just barely visible through the main archway was some kind of courtyard.
"This looks nothing like what the Falmer favor."
"Time changed them, and not for the better. This...place, this view..." Serana walked onto the bridge and about a third of the way across, leaning against the railing to look down into the canyon.
To their right was more cliff face (this place seemed to be built into, or carved from, the mountains it was nestled in) but to the left, seen through the bare sliver between the canyon's walls, one could spot the sinewy and snow-coated tops of the Falmer village's huts -- he didn't care much for the reminder of what they'd fought through for the last week but if one looked out instead of down there was nothing more than exposed icy walls that reflected the pale blue of the sky, and dotted along the canyon walls were the nests of hawks, some visibly roosting undisturbed by the two that stood on the bridge looking at them.
They crossed the bridge slowly, taking in the view, then found themselves in a courtyard at the base of an enormous statue of Auri-El; the statue towered over them and despite the weather and its age it was still intact and only slightly tarnished.
To either side of the statue were the bases of stairs leading up to a platform where a basin mounted on a pedestal waited; they climbed the stairs with an unspoken excitement -- they were finally here, after such a difficult journey.
The basin on its pedestal was set on a slightly raised hexagon of stone and from its base extended some carved grooves that stretched forward to join with that of a carved sun emblem that was in front of another door that no doubt led deeper into the Sanctum.
Ralsten took the ewer from his pack and pried the top open then poured the water into the basin; a hole he hadn't noticed in the bowl before opened at the water's touch and it drained out as quickly as he'd poured it in. The elf frowned and opened his mouth to say...not exactly the type of words one should utter in anything resembling a temple, but moments after the water had drained into the pedestal it began to seep out of the pedestal's base and into the three cut grooves into the stone floor, which Ralsten had assumed were decorative when he'd first glanced at them.
Surprisingly the water didn't immediately freeze and all of it made it to the end of the grooves to empty into the carved relief of the sun emblem of Auri-El. For a time he and Serana watched the water flow and perfectly fill the sun carving to the brim...and then, the stone beneath their feet began to groan and vibrate, and the sun-shaped handles upon the spun and ponderously unlocked.
He sat the empty ewer on the ground and went to grab one of the handles, grunting and straining to pull the old metal door open; Serana stepped inside ahead of him and immediately stopped just inside the door.
"These Falmer are...they're frozen in the ice. And I thought the Soul Cairn was creepy."
Brow furrowing Ralsten moved further into the room; this place definitely felt like a temple but the ceiling had caved in in several spots, including one place in the center of the room that allowed some sunlight to reach inside and fall over one of the altars to Auri-El.
And, the room was just...full of frozen Falmer.
They were all frozen in poses that suggested they'd been fighting or trying to seize something when the freezing effect had struck them. And some had been frozen atop of small, raised platforms that Ralsten thought may have been places to stand and pray at some time in the past, but now seemed to be displaying these unfortunate Falmer.
"This is...well, awful," he said, voice hardly above a whisper.
Even whispering his voice still echoed unnervingly, and he could hear the crackle of ice and the trickle of rock and snow resettling.
"Let's just find the bow and leave."
He led the way further into the temple; when he reached the altar at the center of the room he found that the light coming in wasn't because of a hole in the ceiling due to neglect but because of purposeful design -- at the very top of a circular hole was another decorative grate made to look like the sun's rays and daylight was peeking through the narrow opening. Ralsten paused to consider the shrine and decided it was probably best he not touch it and moved on to find two doors at the back of the room that led further inward.
Peeking through the doors he found a narrow, hallway-like room with more raised prayer places, a few long tables, and more frozen Falmer, as well as yet another door; the moment his foot crossed the threshold into this room however several thundering cracks and snarls of challenge came from the room they'd just left.
"They're...alive?" Serana asked, sounding amazed.
Ralsten spun around and saw that the frozen Falmer were breaking free and charging at them...but while they moved and howled, they were still...ice - little more than statues come to life.
One came tearing at him from the side; it was the wrong side for the mace so Ralsten swung his sword instead and glanced off the Falmer's rock hard, icy skin. Swearing quietly he followed up the ineffective swing with slamming his shoulder into the Falmer and dashing it into the wall.
Serana's draining spell surged around him and struck the Falmer -- to Ralsten's relief the creature began to falter and he had the time and the space between them to raise his mace and crack it off the creature's head, snapping off one of its ears and sending it skittering across the stone floor. The Falmer didn't notice the injury nor did it bleed from it and it seemed as much ice on the inside as it was on the outside, which made Ralsten wonder if these were truly frozen Falmer or just some kind of magical construct made in their image.
A blast of lightning shot over his shoulder (he felt something like static ripple across his entire body as it passed) and struck the Falmer dead center and sent it exploding into jagged shards; the other frozen Falmer that had awakened - including a pair of chaurus - were almost upon them now. Ralsten returned his sword to his belt and hefted his mace, gritting his teeth and determined to hold this doorway...and hoping the ice Falmer weren't smart enough to circle around through the other door and come up behind them.
Ralsten met the next Falmer with an underhand swing that caught it in the hip and stumbled it; his hair rose again as Serana shot her lightning once more, which sent the Falmer backwards into the floor with a large scorch mark across its face but ultimately still intact. Using the downed Falmer as a springboard Ralsten leapt over it while bringing his mace around in a wide arc, knocking two more over and shattering off an arm at the elbow on a third; he left the two he'd knocked into the floor for Serana to finish off and charged forward to meet the rest of the oncoming group -- two Falmer and two chaurus.
The two chaurus spat at him in near perfect unison; he braced for the burn of the poisonous spit but instead only felt a...well, it was a sort burning, but not the exact type of pain he was expecting and it was only on the small amount of skin visible between the sleeve of his breastplate and the top of his gauntlets. He brought the head of the mace down toward the forward-most chaurus and managed to clip its mandible on the right side as it wrenched its head to avoid the blow, but the second chaurus spat again and hit him square in the chest with some of it splattering up to soak his neck and into his beard, leaving Ralsten cursing at the fact that this set of armor didn't have full facial covering.
Hissing at the burn he raised an arm to catch the hand of one Falmer slashing at him with its bare hand - the hardened ice form of the thing made its fingers into sharp, nasty looking talons - and then slid to the side to avoid the grapple attempt by the other. Grunting and putting all of his weight behind it Ralsten swung the Falmer whose arm he'd caught and sent it stumbling into one of the chaurus, then was surprised when the other dove at him and seized his leg in its mandibles; it yanked backward and set Ralsten to the floor flat on his back, which gave the other Falmer the opening it needed to jump on top of him and scratch and claw at his face and then his arms when he covered his head with them.
The lightning that struck the one ravaging him traveled through the elf's body too -- it brought to mind uncomfortable memories of being at the mercy of that orsimer vampire, seemingly so long ago, but the blast sent the Falmer flying (and the lower half of one of its legs soaring in the opposite direction of the rest of it). A second blast followed immediately, driving off the chaurus that still held Ralsten's leg in a painful grip; he managed to aim a kick at the second chaurus that sent it sliding backward and then rolled to his knees and swung down with his mace in the same motion to connect solidly with the Falmer Serana had just blasted.
As Ralsten was still feeling the effects of the mild shock off the lightning spell his blow wasn't all that powerful but it put a noticeable crack into the Falmer's stomach that extended down to its waist; it hissed and snarled at him from where it writhed on the floor seconds before Serana blasted it to pieces, peppering the elf with razor sharp slivers of ice.
He felt a hand on his shoulder right before Serana hauled him backward from the remaining Falmer and chaurus pair, sliding him across a slick of ice made from chaurus spit; one jumped for him and he batted it aside into the doorframe right as Serana latched onto it with her draining spell. With Serana handling that one Ralsten climbed back to his feet and swept around him in an arc to send the chaurus tumbling to its side then he threw himself on top of it, beginning to pummel it over and over as ice chips broke away and pelted him, the floor, and the nearby wall. By the time he had beaten the creature into a pile of shattered ice Serana had blown the other to pieces and moved on to the sole Falmer left standing; she kept hurling lightning into it until it too blew apart and sent pieces scattering across the temple floor.
Then, there was silence.
Ralsten sucked in a breath and reached up to wrench his helmet off; he scrubbed his hands through his beard and over his neck to try and wipe away any clinging spittle from the chaurus (his beard had needed trimming even before he'd been made a vampire - he didn't think it had grown any since his turning, thankfully, but if it had been as close cut as he'd preferred to keep it then he wouldn't be contending now with hair that was matted and frozen with the burning poison).
"That all of them?" he panted. He noticed a smear of blood on his gauntlet alongside the greenish chaurus spit; there were tiny cuts on his chin, neck, and face from all the ice slivers and they were just deep enough to draw blood.
"Looks like it." Serana slowly looked about the room -- not all of the Falmer had come to life but there wasn't really a way they could determine if they eventually would.
Ralsten loosened his armor enough to reach into his undershirt and pull out a rag to wipe his face with, smearing away the blood and greenish spit before wadding it into a ball and dropping it to the floor at his feet; he cautiously moved over to one of the unmoving frozen Falmer and took his mace to it until he'd hammered the head loose and knocked it to the floor. Serana walked with him and kept watch as he systematically did the same to all the other frozen creatures in the room, then they went back to the doorway they started at and began to carefully creep further into the Inner Sanctum.
They continued to find frozen Falmer and chaurus the further they went through the eerie, darkened halls of ice -- Ralsten broke each of them apart, just in case.
They came to an area where the walls had fully caved in and ice and snow had spilled inside and kept accumulating over the years; a wind whistled in through a hole somewhere and it was strangely unnerving to go from a dreary temple back into the inside of a glacier...but then ahead of them they spied a crack in the ice clinging to some of the familiar brick of the temple's walls, and when they'd slipped through they found themselves in some kind of...chapel-like chamber, with more frozen Falmer arranged in two parallel lines leading up to a throne, and sitting upon that throne watching as they slipped inside was a pale figure with piercing golden eyes -- it was another snow elf clad in white armor with black decorative trim.
At first the snow elf did not move save for the occasional blink, but he stirred at last as Ralsten held out an arm to stop Serana from venturing further into the room.
"Did you really come here expecting to claim Auriel's Bow?" the elf snapped - his voice echoed strangely in the room, and while the tone was sharp the elf gave off an appearance bordering on boredom. "You've done exactly as I predicted and brought your fetching companion to me."
Serana frowned at that. "Wait, is he talking about me?"
"Which, I'm sorry to say, means your usefulness is at an end!" the snow elf went on, face contorting into a sneer.
He waved a hand idly and some of the lines of Falmer before him sprang to life with a chorus of crackling noises that were echoed in the dimmer reaches of the room -- Falmer that they had not seen when they'd entered thanks to their attention being drawn to the snow elf who could only be the Arch-Curate.
Ralsten hefted his mace and aimed a kick at the Falmer that reached him first, then parried the one behind it and ducked yet a third one's attempt to claw his face. His ears began to ring as Serana cut loose with the lightning again and their world turned into a whirlwind of dodging flailing, pale limbs and sending broken pieces to the floor to shatter and create a rather treacherous, slippery area.
"An impressive display but a wasted effort. You delay nothing but your own deaths!"
The Arch-Curate's words were barely audible over the sounds of battle; a sudden vibration and rumble shook the entire room.
"Watch out! He's pulling down the ceiling!"
Serana's warning came quickly enough for Ralsten to dive out of the way of a chunk of rock and ice that broke loose from above and smashed to the floor; another wave of Falmer came rushing at him from the gloom and he was quickly swarmed and reduced to swinging desperately with his mace to keep them at bay, all semblance of finesse in his attacks gone as he struggled to keep their hands off him.
Another rumble and then Ralsten was driven to his knees as more of the ceiling collapsed inward -- a wide slab of rock crushed some of the Falmer nearby but Ralsten himself was showered with rocks the size of his head that left him staggering and stumbling to get free of the cave in.
"Your life ends here, Vyrthur!" he heard Serana yell -- she sounded angry and determined, with no sign of pain or hesitation in her voice.
"Child, my life ended long before you were born! I won't let you ruin centuries of preparations..."
"Surrender and give us the bow!"
Ralsten kicked himself free as the other two shouted at one another, then the entire ground seemed to heave under his feet and an even bigger cave in rained down around him; he was again forced down to his knees and tried to shield his head with his arms as rocks crashed down onto and around him; his vision swam after a particularly solid knock on the head and when he came to his senses he found Serana shoving stones out of the way to reach out to him -- he was on his stomach, covered in dirt and ice with his ears ringing, and Vyrthur wasn't visible from where he lay.
"Are you all right?" she grunted and shoved a rock aside that was laying across one of his wrists. "Come on, we can do this. I know we can. He's up there on the balcony. Come on!"
At her urging he dragged himself from the cave in; it seemed the ceiling collapse had also rid them of the attacking Falmer, and sunlight was streaming in as the Arch-Curate had pulled down so much of the ceiling and walls that this chapel was now fully open to the elements.
As he stood and staggered toward the throne and the balcony beyond it Ralsten was aware of an exhaustion that he'd never felt before; he hadn't slept at all since leaving the castle and since vampires were incapable of actually sleeping anywhere but in a coffin he hadn't had any sort of rest aside from the few times they'd stopped to sit -- his body ached and his arms felt so heavy, and there was now a hunger burning in his gut too but he knew eating wouldn't solve the exhaustion any more than sitting still for a few hours at a time had...and he wondered when he would even get the chance to sleep again.
Serana was rushing out onto the balcony ahead of him; he sucked in a breath and hurried after her, trying to ignore the bone-deep weariness and pain.
This balcony was like standing at the top of the world. The clouds and the tops of the mountains were all around them and as he glanced over the carved stone railing to his left he could see far below the lake where they'd battle the two dragons.
Vyrthur waited for them at the middle of the balcony, face twisted in disgust and anger.
"Enough, Vyrthur. Give us the bow," Serana said, her tone low and threatening.
Vyrthur snorted. "How dare you. I was the Arch-Curate of Auri-El, girl. I had the ears of a god!"
"Until the Betrayed corrupted you. Yes, yes, we've heard this sad story."
Ralsten came up to stand at Serana's side as Vyrthur laughed bitterly.
"Gelebor and his kind are easily manipulated fools. Look into my eyes, Serana. You tell me what I am."
Serana stared at him for a long moment, silent, then looked faintly surprised. "You're...you're a vampire? But Auriel should have protected you..."
"The moment I was infected by one of my own Initiates, Auri-El turned his back on me. I swore I'd have my revenge, no matter what the cost."
Serana's look of surprise changed to a skeptical one. "You want to take revenge...on a god?"
Vyrthur glared at them, eyes little more than slits. "Auri-El himself may have been beyond my reach, but his influence on our world wasn't. All I needed was the blood of a vampire and his own weapon, Auriel's Bow."
"The blood of a vampire...Auriel's Bow..." Serana repeated slowly, realization creeping across her face. "It...it was you? You created that prophecy?"
Vyrthur began to slowly stalk toward them. "A prophecy that lacked a single, final ingredient...the blood of a pure vampire. The blood of a Daughter of Coldharbor."
Serana stood her ground as the Arch-Curate walked within arm's reach of her; her expression slowly hardened as he spoke, and when he stopped she shook her head...then suddenly rushed forward to grab him by the collar and bodily lift his feet from the stone. "You were waiting...all this time for someone with my blood to come along. Well, too bad for you...I intend on keeping it. Let's see if YOUR blood has any power to it!"
"What trickery is this?" Vyrthur hissed. He kicked out at her and she threw him back toward the balcony rail.
He quickly regained his feet and rapidly launched a spell aimed at Serana; she side stepped it and it slammed full force into Ralsten - it was some kind of shard of ice, far larger and with more force behind it than Serana used and it blasted the wood elf from his feet and into the railing behind him.
He slung an arm over the railing and used it to drag himself back upright; Serana and Vyrthur continued to trade spells, the elf exclusively trying to strike her with ice and her alternating between her draining spell and the lightning. Neither of them seemed to be paying him any mind so he waited and watched, and then when Vyrthur danced away from one of the blasts of lightning it put the man's back to Ralsten.
He charged with both sword and mace, bringing them down across Vyrthur's shoulders and back in an X-shaped dual slash; the sudden reminder that Ralsten was there too dragged Vyrthur's attention from Serana and in seconds later he was cloaked in a swirling, howling snow storm that drove Ralsten back toward the railing again.
The shield of snow and wind also deflected or at least absorbed part of Serana's next bolt of lightning and didn't seem to faze the snow elf in the slightest as he aimed and then slammed another shard of ice into Ralsten point blank; Ralsten let out a yelp of pain and rolled, then dropped several feet as he rolled off the edge of the steps to the floor below them and got wedged briefly between the wall there and what seemed to be another altar to Auriel.
Vyrthur snarled as Serana latched onto him with the draining spell, using both hands to channel it through the roiling storm of snow surrounding him; this too didn't seem to faze him at first but after a few steps toward her he grimaced and hissed out a spell of his own.
A frost atronach materialized a few feet away from Ralsten and immediately turned to pummel him. Ralsten ducked the summoned creature's giant arm and backpedaled to gain some space to fight the blasted thing.
Up on the balcony above him Serana and Vyrthur continued to fight -- Vyrthur grew tired of Serana's draining and struck her with a draining spell of his own and it turned into a contest of wills as they stood locked on to one another.
Ralsten continued to dance around the swings of the atronach, knowing if any of them connected he'd likely lose his head or even get knocked over the side...and as that thought struck him, he glanced up again to where Vyrthur and Serana fought.
They were far enough apart that...
He ducked around the atronach's arm a final time and rushed for the stairs, coming up behind Serana; he wrapped his arms around her waist and crushed her in against him, meeting Vyrthur's disdainful gaze.
"FUS RO DAH!"
The shout struck the snow elf and threw him backwards like a child's toy; the stone railing of the balcony caught the Arch-Curate at the calves and flipped him backwards, sending him plummeting head first off the balcony to the ground far, far below.
For a moment neither of them moved -- Ralsten still held Serana to him and her feet weren't even touching the ground, but when she stirred in his arms he slowly lowered her, then remembered the atronach and spun to face it but found that it had disappeared.
Serana moved to railing and looked over it, down to where the body of the Arch-Curate could be seen; even from here they could pick out the brilliant red stain spreading across the rocks and snow.
She let out a slow, steady sigh and closed her eyes, lifting her face to the sun and wind. Ralsten let himself drop to the ground, leaning back against the railing and trying to ignore how all of him, inside and out, ached.
"We did it...there's no way he survived that. But where's the bow?" Serana asked into the silence. "He definitely didn't have it on him."
Ralsten opened his mouth to reply when the altar down below them rumbled and stone ground against stone - what he thought was an altar was another wayshrine rising from the floor, and to their surprise Gelebor walked out of it.
He solemnly climbed the stairs, looking to them both questioningly; Serana subtly nodded her head toward the railing and the Knight-Paladin moved closed to peer over, staring down at the body of his brother dashed against the rocks below.
"So, the deed has been done," Gelebor said softly. "The restoration of this wayshrine means that Vyrthur is dead, and the Betrayed no longer have control over him."
Ralsten hesitated, then looked up to him. "The Betrayed weren't to blame, Gelebor. I'm sorry."
Gelebor looked to him in confusion. "What? What are you talking about?"
"He was a vampire," Serana answered, which prompted Gelebor to turn his attention to her. "He was controlling them."
Gelebor nodded, clasping hands behind his back and staring down to the stones. "A vampire? I see...that would explain much. Deep inside, it brings me joy that the Betrayed weren't to blame for what happened here."
"Why?" Ralsten asked. He pulled himself to his feet again and rested against the railing, bracing his arms against the stone.
Gelebor smiled faintly to him. "Because that means there's still hope that they might one day shed their hatred and learn to believe in Auri-El once again. It's been a long time since I felt that way, and it's been long overdue. My thanks, to both of you."
"You're welcome," Ralsten said reflexively - it felt awkward to say and it had escaped his mouth before he'd had a chance to realize what he was saying.
Gelebor looked between them. "You risked everything to get Auriel's Bow, and in turn, you've restored the Chantry. I can't think of a more deserving champion to carry it than you. If you wish to learn more of this bow, or for me to enchant the arrows to use with it, you've but to ask. I'd be more than happy to help."
"Enchanted arrows? Enchanted with what?"
"We call them Sunhallowed arrows," Gelebor said. He turned and led them down the steps to the wayshrine.
The inside of this wayshrine bore a pedestal instead of a water basin, and displayed there atop it was the bow. Gelebor gestured and stood aside, and Ralsten stepped in cautiously to reach up and take it.
It felt warm to the touch and looked a lot like the armor that Gelebor and Vyrthur wore; there was a dusty quiver full of arrows waiting there with it, and Ralsten carried both bow and quiver out to show Serana.
She ran her fingers over the bow's grip. "It's...not as shiny as I was expecting. Still, it's beautiful." Looking up she met Ralsten's gaze and smiled.
Ralsten returned the smile, feeling relieved to finally have the weapon in hand; after a few breaths he broke the gaze and turned his attention to Gelebor. "What will happen to you now?"
Gelebor inhaled slowly before replying. "Even with Vyrthur gone and the Inner Sanctum destroyed, my duty as a Knight-Paladin of Auri-El remains. I've been sworn to protect this vale and everything it represents until I die." He went silent, staring thoughtfully to the wayshrine. "For the time being these will remain open. If remnants of our kind who escaped the betrayal at the hands of the dwarves exist out there, perhaps they will find this place one day."
"Do you think there's many out there, still?"
"With my brother dead it's quite possible that I'm the last of our kind," Gelebor answered after a pause. "But it is also quite possible that there are some other isolated conclaves of snow elves nestled elsewhere on Nirn. For now I will remain here, on the overlook and continue trying to keep the Sanctum free of the Betrayed. You're welcome to return here at any time, of course," he added.
"What about the arrows?" Serana asked. "You called them Sunhallowed...what does that mean?"
"This bow was said to be carried by Auri-El himself into battle against the forces of Lorkhan in ancient and mythic times. It's craftsmanship has no equal anywhere within Tamriel and possibly beyond, and it is said it draws its power from Aetherius itself - channeling it through the sun. Therefore, when an arrow is loosed from the bow, it produces a magical effect very similar to being burned by fire. With Sunhallowed arrows you would be able to produce a much more spectacular effect...causing bursts of sunlight to envelop your foes. It would certainly hurt anything but is especially devastating to the undead."
Ralsten held the bow a bit more gingerly at that -- this would be an incredible weapon to use against Harkon but as he himself was now undead...if someone managed to get the bow out of his hands and turn it against him or Serana...
"...and blood?" Serana asked quietly. "Vyrthur mentioned something about using blood."
"Well, using an arrow with the bow that's been dipped in blood may cause it to function differently...corrupting its purpose. That's of course if you're foolish enough to try it," Gelebor added. The disapproval was clear in his tone and Serana nodded in understanding.
Ralsten took a deep breath. "How do I get some of these Sunhallowed arrows? You said you could make them?"
"I can."
Gelebor looked down to the arrows as Ralsten offered him the quiver that had been left with the bow; he carefully removed one of the elven arrows and tested it between his hands, then nodded. "These will do. And I can always make more, provided you bring me good quality elven arrows in the future."
"Thank you."
Gelebor took the quiver and retreated back toward where the throne sat on its dais; Ralsten again dropped to the stone to lean against the balcony railing, peering out through it at the nearby mountains. It was a beautiful, peaceful view; Serana joined him but sat facing him instead with her legs crossed underneath herself. He could tell she was troubled and didn't need to guess what was on her mind.
Having the bow meant they could now confront her father. And confronting her father meant killing him.
"Hey," he murmured after a time. "Are you all right?"
"...I think we both know the answer to that," came her answer. "It's...it's time to face my father. If we don't, he'll keep chasing us for the rest of our lives."
"We'll face him. Together," he said, putting heavy emphasis on the final word.
The smile she flashed him was a grateful one and another stretch of silence fell between them.
"-if we head back to the castle and kick the front door in, we're going to be knee deep in his friends."
Ralsten nodded. "And he knows we know about the back door now as well."
Serana huffed out a sigh, not looking thrilled. "Let's head back to Isran and let him see what we've got first. I'm betting he'll lend us a sword or two..."
Nodding again Ralsten glanced beyond her to where Gelebor was doing his incantations and rituals over the arrows -- whenever the Knight-Paladin was done they would set out immediately.
The main foyer of the fort was quiet despite the number of people standing in a circle along its walls, Dexion Evicus in their center and with Serana's Scroll in hand.
"Now, if everyone will please be quiet, I must concentrate," the priest said, finally breaking the silence. Slowly - almost reverently - he pulled the Scroll open and stared into (or through) it.
"I see...a vision before me, an image of a great bow. I know this weapon! It is Auriel's Bow! Now a voice whispers, saying "Among the night's children, a dread lord will rise." In an age of strife, when dragons return to the realm of men-"
At the mention of dragons Serana glanced to Ralsten; he barely caught the movement out of the corner of his eye.
((Continued under cut))
"-darkness will mingle with light and the night and day will be as one," Dexion went on. "The voice fades and the words begin to shimmer and distort. But wait, there is more here. The secret of the bow's power is written elsewhere. I think there is more to the prophecy, recorded in other scrolls. Yes...yes, I see them now... One contains the ancient secrets of the dragons, and the other speaks of the potency of ancient blood."
Dexion let out a long breath. "My vision darkens and I see no more. To know the complete prophecy, we must have the other two scrolls." Just as carefully as he'd opened it he allowed the Scroll to retract back into its case, turning to look first to Ralsten, and then Isran.
"Come on, old man. You should get some rest," Isran said. Dexion nodded and walked away, following Isran to the side room with the cots; the other gathered Dawnguard members slowly dispersed as well, leaving Serana and Ralsten standing alone in the foyer.
"Two more scrolls..." Ralsten muttered.
There was a touch at his arm - he looked down to Serana, who in turn nodded her head toward the door leading out of the fort. The elf followed her outside and some distance down the hill before she turned to him.
"I have an idea on where to begin our search for the two other Scrolls."
"Why didn't you say something inside? Why come out here?"
"I didn't want to risk anyone overhearing and either trying to stop us, or...trying to stop me, mostly."
Ralsten blinked at her in surprise. "I wouldn't let them harm you."
"You can't stop an entire fortress of men and women if they decide they want me dead after all. We've read my Scroll...they probably think my usefulness is nearing its end. Anyway," she sighed. "For one of them, at least...I think we need to find my mother, Valerica. She'll definitely know where the one for blood is, and if we're lucky she might even have it herself."
"You said you don't know where she's gone, though." Ralsten glanced up toward the fort briefly but saw no one outside.
"The last time I saw her she said she'd go somewhere safe...somewhere that my father would never search. Other than that she wouldn't tell me anything. But the way she said it... 'someplace he would never search.' It was cryptic, but she called attention to it."
Ralsten rubbed a hand down his face, scratching at his beard as he thought (he needed a trim, but there wasn't time to care). "Somewhere he'd never search...or maybe, never find. Could she have sealed herself away like you?"
Serana shook her head. "I don't think so. She said she wanted to stay awake in case the situation fixed itself. It had to be one of us, and...well, she's so much more powerful than I am. It just made sense for her to be out here."
"Fair. I may need some time to think on that -- and so will you, probably. You HAVE been gone awhile."
She smiled at that.
"What of the other one? The one about dragons?" he went on.
"I..." she hesitated, looking somewhat sheepish. "I wish we'd known before, when we were already in Winterhold, but I think we should try asking there at the College. That's where Dexion was headed in the first place -- why else would he be going?"
"Another good point. We'll make Winterhold and the Scroll about the dragons our first...I guess we can call it an attempt, since there's no guarantee we'll learn or find anything and we have no idea where to start looking for your mother. But before we go there again, I need to stop in Solitude."
"...why?"
Ralsten gestured at his armor. "I'm not going out into the world, knowing there's a clan of vampires out to stop us, without my heaviest armor. And I broke one of the armguards before -- well, that part doesn't matter. What DOES matter is I need my armor repaired and the only one I trust to do that is the man who forged it in the first place, and he works his forge in Solitude." He paused, lightly biting his lower lip, before fixing her with a look. "It is also where I live, and I wish to stop at home to resupply. ...I think the degree of trust I'm offering you is fairly obvious."
Serana nodded slowly. "No, I understand. And I'm...grateful, that you're comfortable enough to extend that trust to me."
Ralsten returned the nod then turned to trudge up the hill toward the fort. After a few steps he finally heard Serana's footsteps crunching along behind him.
--------------------------------------
"Solitude is beautiful - moreso than I expected."
"It's an old, pretty place," Ralsten replied as they both hopped out of the back of the carriage to begin the walk up the hill to the main gates.
"And you live here?"
"I do. On the far end of the city from these gates, of course. But the smith is along the way and, assuming he's not swamped, he ought to have the repair work done by tomorrow morning."
Ralsten felt slightly foolish as they approached the guards at the gate; he was wearing his steel plate - everything but the helm and the armguards, both of which were stuffed into his bag (and taking up the remaining space inside it) - and he couldn't help but feel stupid walking around in such heavy armor but with his hands and head bare.
It at least meant the guards recognized him on sight and waved him in with a greeting, neither of them bothering to give Serana more than a cursory glance. Once inside Solitude Ralsten felt himself relax a bit: this was home, and home meant peace and safety.
He led her through the familiar streets and up a ramp where the sound of a hammer striking an anvil could be heard; a bald man in brown clothing and wearing a heavy smith's apron was hunched over the sword blank he was hammering into shape, and did not look up as they approached - it was likely he didn't hear them over the hammering and Ralsten didn't want to startle the man so he waited until the other lifted the sword to check an edge, then cleared his throat.
The man turned around, spotted him, and his eyebrows raised in surprise. "Well, look who it is. It's good to see a crypt hasn't collapsed in on you yet."
Ralsten chuckled; the smith put the sword back into the flames of the forge and extended a hand to him. Ralsten clapped a hand to his, then glanced to Serana behind him.
"This is Beirand, one of the finest smiths in Skyrim. And hopefully, a smith free enough to fix a piece of his work."
Beirand looked him up and down. "Don't tell me you lost TWO pieces."
"No, no, only the guards. Here-" Ralsten reached into his pack and pulled them out, offering them to the Nord.
Beirand took them and turned them over in his hands. "Just a broken strap, eh? I could have that fixed by evening. Looks like the leather snapped and the rivets came free - simple enough to repair."
"Take your time, I'm not leaving until the morning."
The elf dug his coin purse out and hefted it, but Beirand waved him away. "Payment when its done."
"Fair." He stuffed the purse away and nodded to the smith. "I will see you in the morning."
"Aye," came Beirand's muttered reply as he turned back to the sword in the forge, dropping Ralsten's guards to the ground at his feet.
They returned to the streets and were walking in the direction of the Blue Palace; here and there people called out to Ralsten, greeting him or teasing him - many times there were shouted comments about how he was in one piece this time, to his apparent embarrassment.
"-it's starting to sound like you're only known because you tend to come home injured," Serana commented after the fifth time someone made the joke.
Ralsten chuckled, then cleared his throat. "Well that's not the ONLY reason I'm known here. See that shop?" He gestured to a stone building tucked against the wall of a stone archway they were approaching -- there was a small open area in front of the building with a well, and beyond the well tucked against the wall of the building opposite the one he'd indicated was a cluster of market stalls. The stone building he was pointing at looked newer than the ones around it, and the sign that hung above its door was adorned with a round, banded shield and a hammer and sextant laid over it.
"That's mine. My grandfather started it - just a simple stall like the ones you see there, but he grew the business, and my father grew the business, and now it's fallen to me."
She gave him a quizzical look. "So you ARE a merchant. Why go crawling through caves and crypts?"
"As I said before - later."
Her look tinged with frustration and she followed him in silence under the stone archway. They traveled passed a few stone residences until he took a sudden left into a narrow alley between two of them, emerging onto a wider street that led directly up to the Blue Palace itself; Serana's steps slowed as she took in the sight of a multi-story home next to a towering building with a tower at its top.
"These houses are huge -- what's that?"
"That is the Bard's College, and the house next to it is mine."
The look she shot him was one of amazement; he fished a ring of keys from his pack and stepped up to a door set at street level, unlocked it, then held the door open for Serana to step inside ahead of him.
She went ahead of him down the short hallway, and stopped in the first room near the fire pit in the floor. "This is...this is amazing. And its yours?"
"Aye. A combination of adventuring, a willingness to help those in need and protect my city, and shrewd business deals got me here," Ralsten chuckled. He looked a little embarrassed as he carefully moved around her and hurried into the room beyond that one to where a pair of wooden mannequins were arranged on sturdy iron stands; the elf dropped his pack to the floor at their feet then set about taking his armor off and hanging it on the nearest mannequin, leaving himself in just his padded cloth shirt and pants as well as his boots. Serana hadn't moved from near the fire pit, and he stepped around her again to duck into a room to her right.
Inside it along the walls to the right, the rear, and along the one the door was set into were barrels, crates, and a few storage chests. The far corner of the room had bedroom furniture arranged there; Serana trailed in behind him as Ralsten went to one of the smaller chests atop a pile of crates and opened it - there was the gentle tinkling of glass on glass, and Serana peered over his shoulder in at the bottles arranged inside the chest, some empty and some not. The elf sorted through the ones filled with...something... and began setting them out on the top of a nearby barrel.
"A vampire hunter. An adventurer. A merchant. And a...dragonborn? If I heard correctly?"
He grunted in response and didn't elaborate, and she tugged on his arm until he turned toward her.
"Who exactly are you?"
He paused, closing the chest and resting an elbow across it. "Ralsten Hawkeye. I don't use my family name all that often - not that you'd recognize the name anyway. Really, no one knew of my family until my grandfather... I think. I know nothing of my family history further back than him."
She stared at him a moment then moved back out into the fire pit room, circling around it to look through the various things on the shelves -- bottles, alchemical ingredients, scribbled notes and books with recipes, corks and the wax needed to seal the bottles closed, and with an alchemy table pushed into the corner.
"How do you not know your history?" came her voice from the other room.
Ralsten came out of the little storage room, a cluster of bottles held between his arm and chest. He shook his head and put a finger to his lips to indicate silence; she opened her mouth to say something but stopped when there was the sound of pounding feet on the floor (ceiling?) above them.
"Papa! I knew I heard the door!"
A young girl -a thin, brown haired Imperial child in a green smock - came rushing around the corner to throw herself at Ralsten's waist in a hug.
"Oof - there's my girl." He patted her head with his free hand and tried not to let on that her head had hit him in that spot where an enthralled Dexion had struck him with the dagger, where he knew a purpled bruise stretched from the middle of his ribcage down toward his stomach. "You're growing like a sapling."
"Are you staying home this time?"
"Unfortunately not, little one," Ralsten said, smiling down at the girl as she turned a disappointed look to him. "I've business to take care of and will be leaving in the morning."
"Aw..." The girl's attention moved from her father to Serana. "Who's that?"
"This is Serana - she is traveling with me for the time being. Serana, this is my daughter Lucia."
"Hello..." Serana said, managing a smile and then looking at Ralsten in confusion when Lucia turned her attention back to the elf.
"When are you going to stay home?"
"Soon, soon... Have you finished your chores and letters for the day?"
"Uh huh. Lydia showed me how to hold a shield today!"
"Did she now? That's good. You should learn how to protect yourself -- even a bard needs to know how to fight."
With a smile he inched his way over to where he'd left his pack near the mannequins; he pulled his coin purse free and handed the entire thing to the girl. "Here - go get something fresh for dinner."
"Ok!" Lucia darted up the stairs, then there was the sound of a door opening and slamming shut.
"...you have a daughter."
Ralsten looked from the stairs to Serana, nodding. "I do."
"Adopted, I'm guessing. She looks nothing like you."
"Doesn't mean I care any less," he said. He squatted and rested his pack on the floor, then began to store the bottles inside it. "Go ahead and make yourself at home. I'll be a bit getting together everything I plan to carry with us."
He began to move between the store room, the shelves of the little alchemy space, the shelves in the room with the mannequins that held enchanting supplies (with an arcane enchanter taking up most of a corner). Serana didn't stray far but made sure to stay out of his way; any questions she had were met with "Later" until she stopped asking, then she'd followed him up the stairs into the house proper and entertained herself with admiring the home while he still picked through the contents of cabinets and wardrobes.
Lucia came home soon after, accompanied by a stone faced Nord woman that Ralsten greeted warmly, introducing her as the aforementioned Lydia. They ate dinner together, Serana politely declining with the excuse that she'd eaten recently, and Lucia spent most of the time talking, filling her father in on everything she'd done over the last month or so that he'd been absent.
It grew late; Lucia was sent off to bed and Lydia retired to her room in the lower level soon after, leaving Ralsten and Serana sitting together in the kitchen.
"I envy you, you know. You and your daughter."
Ralsten stared at her from over the edge of his cup, swallowing before replying. "Why is that?"
She gestured to the place around them. "A home that's actually a home, and not some crumbling, dusty castle. People here who know you and seem to care. A daughter who has a parent who cares..."
"Were you ever close with them? Your parents, I mean."
For a moment she was silent. "My father...no, not really. I did spend a lot of time with my mother, but she saw me more like a protege than a daughter. And now...you already know about my father's obsession, and my mother's not a whole lot better...but if we find her you'll see that soon enough."
Ralsten leaned back in his chair, feeling the warmth of the fire on his back. "So you and your father were never close, but you and your mother got along...for a time, I guess."
Serana nodded, sighing. "It was very sudden. It was almost like one day we were a normal family, then the next I didn't know who they were. I'd try to visit my mother in her garden and she'd quickly shoo me away, saying she was too busy. After all that time with her being my only friend..." She sighed again and shook her head, looking up at him. "What about you? What were your parents like?"
He rubbed a hand across his beard and didn't respond for a time. "...I'm told they were good people. I'm sure I'd miss them, if I'd known them."
She winced. "Oh, I'm sorry. Didn't mean to bring up a bad memory."
"It's not...bad, exactly. It is however tied in to all those questions you keep asking me." He smiled at her and drained the mead from his cup, setting it delicately down on the table. "If you still want to know I don't mind sharing, but you might think I'm crazier than I already am if you knew the whole story." She nodded, and he sat up to brace his elbows on the table, resting his chin in a hand.
"Like I mentioned downstairs, I only know my family history as far back as my grandfather, and even then I barely know a thing about any of it. At some point in the past my family left Valenwood - I don't know when, what generation, or even why they left. But they ended up here...my grandfather was an amazing archer, I'm told. And through his hunting skill he fed my grandmother and father, and began to sell off the excess...that started as just a tiny market stall, but my grandfather slowly grew it. And then when my father was old enough HE also helped grow the business - from what I was told, he traveled around on behalf of my grandfather, establishing trade contracts and the like. Eventually, they amassed enough wealth to buy that shop you saw earlier."
"But we didn't live in Solitude at the time," Ralsten went on after a pause. "I'm the first of my family to do so, in fact. My grandfather had built a tiny farm south of here, which my father inherited -- he used the wealth they had to slowly make it more than a hut with a mud floor in the woods...he made it a home. He hired a Breton couple to run the shop's day to day business, and my parents lived on the farm away from the bustle of the city."
He fell silent again; Serana was content to wait for him to speak again without prompting.
"One evening, my father was outside chopping wood and my mother was inside with me -- I was just an infant at the time. A woman came out of the woods. She was a vampire, starving and desperate, and saw my father alone and an easy target...she attacked and killed him, and was feeding off him when my mother came out to check on him -- the vampire killed her too."
Serana's gaze dropped to the table, staring a hole through it. "I... I'm sorry."
Ralsten shrugged. "No reason for you to be sorry. Anyway, this woman - she was going to move on, escape before the murders were discovered, and then she heard me crying inside and realized what she'd done. She could have left anyway - left me for dead, for a wild animal to get, or she could have killed me herself...but, she came inside, dressed herself in my mother's clothes and burned her own, and took me to Solitude. My parents were known for allowing travelers to sometimes stay with them and that's what saved this woman as she spun a tale of being a guest of my parents, only for them to have been attacked while she hid with me. I'm told the guards spent three weeks combing the region for this rogue vampire...never found it." He chuckled dryly. "She stayed and raised me, moving into my family's farm and acting as a steward until I got old enough. Then she told me the truth, and walked into Solitude's main square and announced what she was -- they cut her down in the street where she stood, and I was held and tormented for a month by guards and priests checking to make sure I wasn't corrupted or turned myself... If you can picture it, imagine a frightened young boy locked in a room with just a bucket and a cot, having just seen his mother figure killed, and never knowing what night would be the night the priests would kick the door in again and check if I'd grown fangs."
"No wonder you're hunting vampires," Serana said quietly, after Ralsten had gone silent. "That's truly awful."
"Yes, it is, and...yes and no, on why I'm hunting them. There's a lot of-- most people don't see it as more than a vampire having orphaned someone, then taken advantage of them to save their own skin. Me, on the other hand...she was kind, she never bit or hurt me, I never saw her harm anyone. I'm pretty sure she was surviving off the blood of our cattle and goats...I remember seeing strange, bleeding cuts on them from time to time that I couldn't figure out what might have caused them. And, if anything, she taught me two things. First, you don't do the right thing because it's easy, you do it because it's the right thing to do. And second, everyone will have that choice in front of them sometime in their lives, and you shouldn't assume what someone is going to choose because of who or what they are."
He stood and retrieved a bottle of wine from one of the shelves, coming back down and gesturing at her with it; she held up her hands to refuse it, and he poured a small amount of it into his cup before setting it on the table between them.
"If she could make the choice to do what was right, rather than what was easiest, then I'm curious to see if anyone else of her kind is capable of that."
A silence fell between them, interrupted only by the crackle of the cooking fire that was beginning to burn out behind him. Ralsten seemed comfortable with the quiet while Serana looked decidedly uneasy; he slowly sipped his wine, gazing up at the ceiling.
"You're hunting them, to try and find a "good" vampire, then."
He nodded, attention still on the stone beams and tile above their heads. "Basically. I always thought - well, I was always told, that vampires were irredeemable things. Evil. Driven by hunger and a need to just...spread misery wherever they went to somehow increase their power through fear. She wasn't like that though." His gaze dropped then to meet Serana's own. "Neither are you. Seems I might have finally found one."
He could see the gradual change in the man's face; Isran had seemed at first relieved to see them, if a little confused about their meeting place. When he'd gotten a good look at Ralsten however that relief and confusion gave way to suspicion, anger, and an undisguised disgust. He started to stomp toward them when the wood elf held up his hands.
"Stop," Ralsten said quietly. He made no move toward his weapons or the man, though Isran drew his warhammer. "I know you know what I am now. I know you want to destroy me...out of hate, out of pity, whatever your reasoning might be. This...this wasn't intended. I didn't ask for this, Isran. I got captured, and...and turned."
"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't cut you down where you stand."
((Continued below cut))
Ralsten stared evenly at the man. "I have two reasons, actually." He gestured at the handles of the Scrolls sticking up over his and Serana's shoulders. "Three reasons if you'd stop and think. I'm betting that Harkon is expecting you to do exactly what you're wanting to, right now -- turning me sows distrust, and killing me robs the Dawnguard of another member as well as the knowledge I carry about the prophecy and how to stop it. I can only imagine how amused he'll be if you actually do it."
Serana's eyes flicked to him at the lie but she remained silent and soon turned her attention back to Isran.
The man grit his teeth, staring them down, then returned his weapon to his back. "What happened?"
"We were looking for the Scrolls -- we found one with the help of a scholar near Winterhold. It was down inside a dwemer ruin, hidden away in one of their contraptions. The other was held by Serana's mother, in the Soul Cairn. -- I'll explain what that is later," he added, seeing Isran's brows knit together in confusion again. "While we were trying to find her mother, Harkon attacked us... We were both captured, and..." Ralsten trailed off, running his tongue over his teeth.
Isran's attention moved to Serana. "And I'm guessing you couldn't stop them?"
"I-" she started.
"-don't you dare try to blame her. She was outnumbered, WE were outnumbered. I was turned -- I don't know if he intended to force me to join him or to cause chaos in your ranks. I do know that I -- Harkon needs to be stopped before he can do this to anyone else. Tell me there's a cure for this."
"And if I said there IS no cure?"
Quietly Ralsten glanced to Serana; her expression was calm, unreadable, and he gave her a tiny smile before looking back to Isran. "I guess if anyone would know, it would be you and your Dawnguard."
"Flattery will get you nowhere with me, vampire."
Ralsten frowned at him. "It's not flattery if it's the truth. I was trusted by you until the fangs appeared -- now I'm not worthy enough for your help? After everything I've done and suffered for the Dawnguard?"
Isran's eyes narrowed. "If you were turned by them then you are suspect."
"Then cure me, damn it!" the elf growled. "What's happened to me won't change the fact I intend to stop him and his prophecy, but if you won't help...then I guess we're doing this on our own." He looked to Serana at that and she gave him the barest of nods but her expression remained unreadable. "At least let Dexion read these Scrolls so we-"
"He can't," Isran interrupted. "He can't read anything at the moment."
"What?" Serana asked, eyes widening. "What do you mean? We need him."
"He's gone blind. Something about not having properly prepared himself."
Ralsten groaned. "Of course... Now what?"
"We don't know. We weren't even sure you'd return."
The three stood in silence for a moment; Ralsten could feel a dampness seeping into his collar and there was water beginning to bead on Serana's shoulders -- if it weren't for the fact he barely felt cold anymore, remaining this close to the falls in this chill...
"Can we speak to Dexion anyway?" Serana asked finally. "Surely he'd have an idea on what to do, or where we could go or who to speak to. We can't just...leave this undone. We have to stop my father."
Isran studied them both wordlessly, a sour expression on his face; after some time he turned to climb back into his horse's saddle. "I will bring Dexion to you. The fort is protected with- it's protected against vampires, and I will not lower the defenses for your sake and put us all at risk."
Serana nodded. "Then we'll wait here."
Isran turned the horse's head up the pass and made it a few steps before Ralsten called after him.
"Isran, wait-"
The man turned to him with a look of annoyance.
"Hidden within the straw of the cot I was using is a small bag," Ralsten said. "I would be indebted to you further if you could bring it with you, when you bring Dexion back."
He stared Ralsten down for several moments. "Fine." Turning back to the path Isran kicked the horse into a gallop, leaving Ralsten and Serana standing together in the road.
Ralsten watched him go until he was out of sight, then blew out a frustrated sigh. "I guess we should plan on traveling to Cyrodiil, if Dexion can't help us."
Serana sighed through her nose, nodding. "You're probably right. But I hope that's not the case." She turned to look up at him. "...you lied to him for me."
"Of course I did. I won't let him or anyone else blame or harm you over this mess. Telling him the truth and the whole story wouldn't have changed that either."
"Is..." she started, then trailed off and moved to go back to where they'd been sitting.
"Is...?" he repeated.
"Is a cure what you really want? Or was that just to shut Isran up?"
Ralsten came over and dropped to the grass beside her, thinking. "...a bit of both, I guess. It's just...I think of my childhood, and I recognize that it's possible I could exist like this without hurting anyone if there's no choice. But I must also remember what they did to my mother when they learned what she was. I have my daughter to think of-" he bit off the words, glancing at her.
A sort of wistful smile crossed her face. "I envy her...having a father that truly cares." When she looked up to him again her smile was kinder. "I believe she has father that will raise her well, no matter what afflicts him. And I truly hope she never has to witness you dying in front of her."
Ralsten chuckled. "That's truly my main fear - what this would mean for her, regardless if I died or not. If I absolutely had to I suppose I could empty that home...have my grandfather's farm rebuilt. Live close enough to Solitude for Lucia to go to the Bard's college but far enough from there that I would stand a chance at hiding what I am."
"Rebuilt? What happened to it?"
"When they learned my adopted mother was a vampire, after they threw me into that cell to keep watch over me and make sure I wasn't corrupted, they burned the farm to the ground. I still hold the deed to the land but nothing remains there."
"Oh," Serana said, brow furrowing. "That's terrible...to lose your family and your home in such a short time. Where did you go?"
"The Breton couple that my father had hired to run the storefront, Feraan and Eveline, took me in until I was old enough to be fully on my own... I'm trusting Lucia to them, and to Lydia, if anything should happen to me -- they're getting on a bit in age but they have a very shrewd daughter they're teaching to take their place, and I know they'll take care of Lucia without question and would raise her well."
Serana nodded at that and a comfortable silence fell between them. It slowly crept towards evening and when she'd offered him one of the blood potions he'd declined and instead took his crossbow and disappeared into the forest. He was gone for nearly an hour before he came back with a dead wild goat slung over his shoulders.
He set about shaving off a strip of the coarse fur from around the goat's neck, then cleaned that spot with a rag soaked in the river.
"What are you doing?"
"I can't speak for you but I'm hungry, and I'd rather keep those potions for a time when we've nothing else around."
"You're hungry because you're newly changed," she said quietly. She got up and came to stand over his shoulder as he dried off the shaved areas with a another rag he'd pulled from inside his shirt. "Those who have recently turned take some time to adjust and will feel the hunger more...keenly, I guess. And more often."
"How long before it all...ah, settles?"
Serana shrugged. "I don't really know...I'm sorry. You're the first I've ever sired, and my parents took care of growing our clan on their own terms. Since it didn't involve me they weren't all that forthcoming with information."
Ralsten nodded and stood, getting away from the muddy shoreline and back to the place they'd sat together in earlier. The goat had a crossbow bolt sticking out of its chest, closer to its left shoulder but it had sunk in deeply enough to kill it in one shot; as he sat down Ralsten braced it against the cliff's base -- sort of balancing it on its hooves in his grasp.
"Well," he sighed, not looking especially eager, "I guess we'll find out of this IS how my adopted mother survived all those years."
He bent his head to the shaved neck of the goat and after a few false starts finally shut his eyes and bit down. Serana watched him silently; after a few swallows he straightened and looked to her.
"It's like drinking water...it's nothing compared to...to..." He grimaced, not really wanting to complete that thought.
Serana looked thoughtful at that - almost curious - and Ralsten shuffled away on his knees to offer her a chance to try it. She bent to drink from his bite and fed briefly, then leaned up to nod to him in agreement.
"Go on," she said as she wiped her mouth clean. "I don't need to feed just yet."
Ralsten fed until he felt sated, then butchered the goat properly and wrapped the cut meats in its own skin -- when Isran came back he would offer it to him to take back to the fort's larder in the hopes that the goat wouldn't be left mostly wasted; he kicked the guts and bones out into the pool for the fish and scavengers to find then returned to his spot beside Serana, leaned his head back against the cliff wall, and closed his eyes.
-------------------------------------------------
"Wow. Look at this place. No one's been here in centuries. I doubt there's any other place like it in Skyrim. It's beautiful."
Ralsten wholeheartedly agreed with Serana's sentiment; the Ancestor Glade stretched out beneath them -- they'd entered through a dark and gloomy tunnel cut through the mountainside and had emerged at the top of a ridge overlooking the glade, with old and worn stairs carved into the ground leading down to where springs bubbled and stonehenges dotted the pools.
The air here was hot and humid and as they descended the stairs clusters of moths the size of songbirds fluttered out of their path to swarm above the flowers and reeds along the pool's shore.
In the very center of the glade was an area of pools that had been built up higher than the ones around it, and there was a large stone there with a circular opening carved into it that had something hanging from a pair of hooks within it. Ralsten went to examine the stone and its hanging object while Serana carefully waded over to rest her hand on the trunk of one of the slender, pink-flowering trees that had taken root in the pools.
Ralsten reached up into the hole of the large stone and pulled free what looked like a curved, double-handled blade; near him, strangely, was a pillar of light that came from the sky -- he could see no source for it nor could he see the "top" of the pillar, and it was as wide as the pool it ended in.
"I've never seen anything like this...have you?" He examined the blade briefly, then looked into the brightly lit waters under the pillar - nothing seemed out of the ordinary about it, and there was no sound here save for the bubbling of water and the rustling of the grass in the gentle breeze.
"No. I've not even heard of any place like this, not even in a book," Serana answered. She glanced curiously at the blade he held, then reached up to pull a branch of the tree down and smelled it. "Odd. The flowers don't have a scent."
"Maybe not to us," Ralsten said after a pause. He looked toward the northern shore where a swarm of the moths fluttered. "Those things wouldn't be here if there wasn't something luring them."
"I guess that's true," Serana replied.
He stepped over beside her and looked at the tree; there were squarish spots where it seemed the bark had been stripped away and then regrown. Looking between the blade in his hand and the size of markings on the trunk he knew this had to be one of the canticle trees Dexion had mentioned, and that he held the knife needed to remove the bark.
"All right...draw knife, and tree, and bark..." Ralsten murmured to himself as he set the edge of the blade in place and gave it an experimental tug downward.
The knife bit into the bark but he only managed to move a tiny bit - maybe the width of his smallest finger, if that - and with a grunt he began to pull and tug, working it down through the bark until he held a strip of it that was the width of the knife and about as long as his hand from fingertips to his wrist. A smell somewhat familiar, something like fresh cut pine, filled the air around them...and then so did a few of the moths that were fluttering nearby.
Serana smiled at the sudden attraction then looked around to spot other swarms nearby. "It looks like Dexion was right. I wonder how many you need..."
With a shrug Ralsten stuck the blade into his belt and waded away from the central pool toward the nearest cluster of moths on the nearby shore; they joined the others in flying around him -- there were already enough that he could feel the breeze of their wings as they circled him.
"Unless my vision's playing tricks..." he heard Serana say from somewhere behind him, "there's some kind of magical effect around you already."
"Is there?" Ralsten asked, looking around. He could only see flapping wings; it wasn't until he moved toward the steps they'd come down and then circled around the shoreline toward a thin waterfall that he caught a glimpse of his reflection and saw a sort of shimmering halo around him - faint, but it was there.
He walked halfway around the shore of the bubbling pools, gaining an ever growing group of moths swirling around him.
"Woah -- I think that might have been what we're waiting for," Serana called from where she'd remained at the central pool. "You're surrounded with this...glow."
The elf moved back to the center and stepped into the central pillar of light (he could think of no other reason for it to be here) and took the first Scroll Serana handed to him.
She studied him, looking worried for a moment. "Are you...ready to try this?"
"I'm either ready or about to go blind, or mad, or both," Ralsten answered, giving her what he hoped was a reassuring smile even though his stomach was knotting up with anxiety.
He took in a breath and held it, and then slid the scroll open. Images flashed through his mind, as did words and sounds; it all seemed to hit him at once but he knew within the perceived chaotic mess was a certain order, if he focused...so he did, and was hardly aware of himself handing the scroll back to Serana and taking up the second one.
And then, as suddenly as it had hit him, the rush of sound and images were gone, as were the moths; he didn't think he'd passed out but he "came to" to find Serana kneeling with him in the pillar of light, worry in her face and with her hands on her shoulders being the only thing keeping him upright.
"Are you okay? Almost thought I'd..." she trailed off a moment, searching his face. "...that I'd lost you there. You went as white as the snow."
"That," he started, his words feeling strange and so quiet compared to what he'd seen. "-that felt strange," he managed after a pause to pull his thoughts back into order.
"I could see it in your eyes...you looked about a thousand leagues away." After a few breaths she pulled her hands away and settled them on her knees, leaning toward him. "What did you see? Did you see Auriel's Bow? Do you know where we can find it?"
Ralsten licked his lips, mouth feeling dry. "It's in a place called Darkfall cave. The scrolls gave me its exact location."
She smiled, looking excited and relieved. "Then let's get going. I want to get there before my father has a chance to track us down."
Nodding, Ralsten stood with her and began to wade to the shore and the steps that were their path out of here...then, from the direction of the tunnel that led to the glade came the familiar howl of a death hound.
"Of course," Ralsten sighed, pulling his weapons from his belt.
----------------------------------------------
Things had taken such a strange turn.
In the Darkfall caverns (as beautiful as Blackreach had been, full of glowing plants and creatures) they had met Gelebor who, in return for telling them their way forward to obtain Auriel's Bow, had asked that they kill his brother, Arch-Curate Vyrthur.
At first they'd refused and questioned why he would ask such a thing; Gelebor had solemnly told them of the true history of the Falmer and their disappearance, and called the twisted and ugly Falmer that now populated the darkest reaches of Skyrim "The Betrayed" and explained how they had swept into this chantry and had killed all but himself and his brother...whom he believed was now corrupted by them, and needed to be destroyed.
With no other way to obtain the bow they'd had no choice but to agree; Gelebor had thanked them, given them an ewer and instructions on how to get from wayshrine to wayshrine, and sent them on their way. They'd gone through the first wayshrine and kept moving forward until they'd emerged in a hidden valley that was...wet, and cold, and gloomy. A persistent wind blew and with it carried the peculiar, crisp scent of snow and somewhere distant but near enough to hear came the sound of rushing water.
"I think I prefer the caves to this, and I thought I was tired of caves," Serana said somewhere behind him, just barely audible over the wind.
For a time Ralsten and Serana stood at the entrance of the cavern system, eying the dreary landscape; there were crumbling roads and broken arches and pillars that they could see amidst the scrub grasses and felled trees. Gelebor had given them only a general idea of where the wayshrines were inside the vale so it was up to them to actually locate them -- the only ones they knew would be fairly easy to find would be the first one that was along a road just outside of this cave, and then one that overlooked a large, frozen lake: finding both would be simple (especially the lake) but for the rest of them they would have to explore until they'd located them all.
They followed the barren path until they reached a split then had followed the northern path until they spotted an ethereal figure through the skeletal trees -- their first wayshrine. Prelate Athring had greeted them and proven to be just as incapable of answering questions as Gelebor had warned them he'd be; Ralsten had stumbled through the correct means to communicate with the spirit (which seemed to be simple yes or no answers) and then the Prelate had allowed him to step into the wayshrine to dip the ewer into the basin at its center. With that completed they'd gone back the way they had come and followed the path in the other direction, passing beneath a relatively intact archway and traveling through a roughly hewed pass cut into the mountain.
The pass was clogged with webbing and several frostbite spiders they'd had to quickly dispatch as they'd dropped down on them from above but soon Ralsten and Serana found themselves in a whole other valley...and this one was snowy and full of ridges, waterfalls both frozen and flowing, and a river that was only partly frozen over.
Ralsten groaned -- once again he was thankful he couldn't feel the cold as the snow pelted him. Behind him Serana pulled her hood up, then crunched a few steps ahead to try and peer through the swirling white.
"Any direction look better to you than any other?" he asked.
She was silent for a moment, then pointed to the south. "I think I see something that way but it's hard to tell from here."
He looked again to the waterfalls, to the river, and up and down the shore and saw nothing to give them direction. "It's as good a choice as any."
Her eyes were sharper than his; the further south they went, sticking to the river's edge, the more apparent another shimmering, ghostly figure became, and soon Ralsten was standing before Prelate Celegriath. After another bumbling yes-or-no conversation he was dipping more water into his ewer, and the Prelate ignored him afterward just as Athring had after he'd taken water from that basin earlier.
They could see no way to cross the river safely from this end of it; they went back the way they'd come and he wasn't certain how long they walked as the snow made it difficult to see more than a few feet ahead of them -- he assumed they'd long since walked by the pass they'd come through to get to this valley.
"There has to be a way across this river," Serana muttered as they stomped along. "Even if time has broken it by now."
Ralsten nodded; the further up the river they went the closer the treeline and cliffs came to the shore until they were winding their way among the pines and able to see even less through the low-hanging branches and the snowstorm. At last he heard a sigh of relief from Serana, and stepped out from underneath a pine to stand at her back, staring ahead to what she'd spotted.
Finally (though it wasn't a mortal-made structure or anything of the like) they'd come to where the river began -- a large waterfall pounded down into a pool that then flowed outward, and here there was a bridge of thick ice over the pool furthest from the fall's base as well as the shore that curved around the pool's edge. Ralsten, even though he wasn't in his heaviest plate, didn't want to risk the ice and they picked their way along the pool's shore and crossed over to the other side, finding themselves staring up a rather treacherous looking stone staircase carved into the rocks.
The climb up was tense with several slips and an overall slow going but soon they were crossing through another pass (this one seemed like a natural gap, unlike the one they'd come through earlier) and found themselves in yet another valley, but at least here the wind and the snow weren't such an annoyance.
The river here was free flowing and not iced over but to their north was another stone pathway along a ridge that led to a natural stone bridge; on the other side of the valley from where they stood was another wayshrine, with its ghostly guardian standing out against the snow like a beacon.
They headed toward the bridge and in the distance they could still hear the waterfalls that fed into the wide river. The top of the mountains that surrounded them were shrouded in clouds and barely more than shadows through the cover but overall it was a...strangely peaceful, amazing view.
"It's beautiful here."
Ralsten nodded. "It is. I'm getting rather tired of the snow though," he added after a moment, shooting her a grin.
Serana laughed quietly. "So am I. But it could be worse."
"It could, but I'd rather not press my luck."
Halfway across the bridge Serana sighed. "That's not promising."
Ralsten turned to her and saw her looking into the distance; following her line of sight he could see another stone bridge, and it was lined with a fence made of the strange, sinewy building material the Falmer used.
"I was hoping they would have left after wiping out the chantry's people," he grunted. He supposed it was stupid to have hoped there wouldn't be any here.
The fencing on that bridge was the first sign of the Falmer that they'd seen but it gave them little comfort to know to expect them somewhere else in this valley. Ralsten quickly collected the water from the wayshrine and as he stepped out of the shrine he noted what seemed like pillars and another path leading down behind it; cautiously he walked around to the back of the shrine and there could spy stairs and a path down -- was there another shrine in that direction? There was only one way to really find out...
Standing at the top of the stairs gave them a surprisingly wide view of a great frozen lake that stretched out from the stairs's base, and that out in its center was...it was mostly a cluster of stones atop a small hill jutting from the ice's surface, with stairs that led up to a large stone that wasn't of the same type as the rest around it. It was strangely familiar to Ralsten and at the lake's edge he'd weighed the risk and reward of trying to reach that stone without truly understanding why he felt drawn to it; Serana hadn't seemed to understand why he'd care either but had agreed to follow him regardless and together the two of them very carefully slipped and skated out toward the large standing stone.
The closer they got the more it became apparent that the cluster of stones were built on top of the other rocks that formed the lake's edge and that it was here that the water fell from the lake into the river below.
"What is this thing, exactly?"
"A...well," Ralsten started. The hard ice under his feet gave way to slightly softer, powdery stuff as they reached the base of the steps that led up to the enormous stone that was oddly out of place. "If I'm right..."
As they climbed the steps a part of that stone began to glow; ancient glyphs awakened and as Ralsten reached the top he recognized the language of the dragons carved there -- a singular word that burned brightly in his eyes as well as his mind.
Gaan, it seemed to whisper to him -- he knew it was 'stamina,' or at least that was as close a word as he had to explain its meaning.
"What's this?" Serana asked, gently reaching up to touch the stone carved with the word. The stone itself was covered with snow and ice, but the word had burned outward and was most visible. "It seems so out of place."
Ralsten shook his head, gathering his thoughts (learning a new word always made his mind a bit fuzzy as it sank in). "It's another Thu'um - usually they've been carved into these giant walls with...with dragon statues and decorated pillars and history carved in with it. I've never seen just a plain rock out in the middle of nowhere."
Serana trailed her fingers across the stone's surface, then began to brush and pick ice out of other carvings near the Thu'um. Ralsten stood at her shoulder and was able to pick out the words she uncovered, but he only knew the words of power because they MADE themselves known -- he could read but not understand what was written here.
"Het...nok kopraak...d-do...svolo..." he murmured quietly, then shook his head. "I only understand this one here, gaan -- some are powerful, some aren't."
"And this is some kind of history?"
He nodded. "From what little I've learned from the Greybeards. I don't know the language and at best I can only sound out what I see...only the words that're actually words of power are the ones I just...learn, because I'm Dragonborn." The elf eyed the stone as Serana continued to uncover more of the words there - no more jumped out at him as powerful and he was left looking at words he could repeat back to her but not translate.
"I guess we should keep moving," she said then, dusting her hands of snow. "Though it would be interesting to come back and try to translate this someday."
"Assuming we can find a book or one of us learns the tongue," he chuckled.
Together they went, side by side, down the stairs, then Ralsten came to a stop as he felt the ground under his boots...pulse. It brought to mind the feeling of dropping something heavy to the floor near his own feet and he looked around warily; Serana had much the same careful look on her face - it was clear she'd felt it too - and her attention was roaming around their surroundings.
Then, with a pair of earsplitting cracks, two large...things...burst out of the ice out near the center of the lake. At first Ralsten had only the impression of bright colors but then he heard a familiar roar; eyes narrowing he glared up at two oddly colored dragons that were circling overhead and clearly eying them.
"Stay on the stairs here if you can," Ralsten ordered quietly, gaze briefly flicking to Serana. "I'd rather not risk us both getting knocked into this lake and trapped under the ice."
One of the dragons dove and a line of flame spewed from its mouth; Ralsten dove one way and Serana the other, landing in the snow as the dragon's breath melted the ice they'd been standing on - it refroze just as quickly as it had melted, taking on a sheen not unlike a mirror's surface.
He had gotten a better look as the dragon flew by -- this one was different than any he'd seen before. Its belly scales and the webbing of its wings were a pale yellow that blended into a muted orange, and what were normally spikes on the other dragons were flat, armored scales that extended down its spine - these were a bright blue, and its tail was flattened and wide like a beaver's.
The second dragon came down close on the tail of the first; Ralsten saw the maw opening to spew fire directly at him and sucked in a breath.
"FUS RO DAH-" the shout exploded out of him; the dragon had the sense to try and dip out of the way but the shout's power clipped the tip of a wing and sent the beast in a spiral to crash into the ice.
Ralsten stood, then immediately slipped on the ice and dropped to one knee; of all places to be fighting not one but two fire-breathing dragons, on top of a frozen lake had to be the absolute dumbest place he could think of.
Hoping that Serana would find ample cover near the rock wall (the dragons wouldn't be able to directly dive on her if she kept ducking around the sides) Ralsten began to slide and scramble for the far shore in the hopes he could lure both dragons that direction and fight them on solid ground.
One dragon certainly fell for the ruse and dove to lace his back painfully with another tongue of flame but the dragon's path forward had it swooping over the shore and beyond; hissing in pain and feeling blisters already forming Ralsten managed to get his feet onto the lake's shore and began to sprint up the stairs as best as he could. An approaching roar alerted him to the fact that the second dragon was also close behind him; he spun and then dove to avoid another breath of flames, then dragged himself upright and pulled his crossbow off his back.
He fired twice at what he believed was the first dragon that had attacked (there wasn't any way to tell them apart) and noted with some satisfaction that the belly scales weren't as impenetrable as the ones on their brethren; the two bolts sunk in and the dragon roared in response, dipping its wing to turn on a wingtip and dart higher and out of his range. It would take far more bolts than he had to actually kill one of them like this unless he somehow managed to hit one in...an eye, or sever an artery, or...or something else immensely, stupidly lucky.
He let the crossbow swing to his back on its strap and pulled his mace and sword (he no longer had his paired set of maces, thanks to Harkon) off his belt and readied himself to try and strike if one dove again.
The dragons didn't leave him waiting for long; one came in low and skimming the ground, its strange, beak-like mouth snapping for him as the other swooped in perpendicular to its sibling, spewing fire. To avoid the flames Ralsten found himself diving at the dragon who was attempting to snap him up in its mouth; at this awkward angle he bounced off the scales with his sword but managed to crack a mace into the joint of the jaw as the dragon skidded by -- the dragon roared and caught him in the side with one of its wings, sending Ralsten flying back several feet to land on his side and roll, but the blow to the head had clearly hurt the beast.
The one that was flying quickly turned however and sent a shower of fire at him where he lay in the snow; feeling his skin blistering again he let go of his sword and in desperation threw out his hand and cast the only spell he knew.
The swirling, wispy red energy hit the dragon breathing the fire and began to tear its health and strength from its body; he felt some relief as the stolen energies returned health to him and began to mend his burns and blisters. The dragon seemed to figure out something was wrong and went to fly away and out of his reach; without knowing what it'd truly do Ralsten lifted his head and let loose with the Thu'um he'd only just learned.
"GAAN!"
The dragon attempting to fly away began to falter, then dropped to the ground to hop a ways away and turn to fix Ralsten with a brilliant blue eye, its chest heaving as it panted; gritting his teeth (not ALL of the burns had been mended by...whatever that spell was and had done) Ralsten stood and brandished his weapons again. This dragon, along with the one he'd struck in the jaw, spread out to flank him.
The one to his left opened its mouth and roared and then the roar was abruptly cut off as a spike of ice was incredibly, precisely shot into the exposed roof of its mouth; Ralsten charged in to take advantage of Serana's amazing strike, bringing his mace around to smash into the joint of the nearest wing while plunging his sword through the webbing, gouging a long and jagged tear through it. He ducked the next blast of fire as the dragon retaliated then was sent rolling across the ground again as the other dragon slammed its head into his hip; Serana continued to harass the dragon with the injured wing with ice but Ralsten could also see the glowing red of the draining spell striking it too.
When he came to a stop he hooked his mace back to his belt and took up his sword with both hands; it felt odd to be holding just one weapon but he knew he could put more strength behind the swing if he held it in a two-handed grip. Darting forward he threw himself in a skid on his knees as the other flanking dragon let loose with another gout of flame -- it mostly struck the other dragon who didn't seem too fazed by the attack but the flames blinded it enough that it did not see Ralsten rising to his feet and coming forward to jam his sword into the side of its neck, scrabbling in the snow to drive the blade in deeper.
Its roar was more of a pained shriek and Ralsten threw himself to the side to avoid the flailing head and wings; at a perfect moment it turned toward Serana and she threw ice down its throat, with the flattened armored scales along its spine bending outward strangely to suggest the ice had penetrated deeply and had been stopped from blowing out the back of its neck by the scales.
The strange, fire-like effect was already eating away at its form as it collapsed to the snow and as Ralsten stood he felt the almost invigorating effect of the dragon's soul entering his body; he was breathing heavily and sweating just as badly - he couldn't truly feel the cold but he could feel the crackle of ice beneath his armor as his sweat froze and stuck armor to skin.
The other dragon was charging at him from across the snow; Ralsten extended a hand out to the beast and sent that draining spell reaching for it. It nimbly dodged to the side and leaped into the air, its beak-shaped mouth open and arching down for him.
The shout Ralsten loosed blew the dragon's head to the side but didn't halt its forward motion; his sword carved a strip of meat and scale from its neck and shoulder but the dragon's momentum sent them both tumbling to the ground with all of the weight of the huge beast falling on top of him. He felt all sorts of unsettling pops across his body and a blinding pain from being crushed beneath the damned thing; moments later the dragon crawled off him and crawled along the ground, leaving a thick trail of blood staining the snow behind it. Serana ran forward, both hands out toward the beast and channeling that red-tinted spell.
The dragon shuddered, snapped at her weakly, then slumped to the ground and bled and died. Ralsten was only faintly aware of the dragon's soul entering him as he gingerly pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, panting and hurting in ways he'd never felt before.
Snow wafted up as Serana threw herself down beside him. "Are you all right?"
"I don't think...I broke anything...but that really hurt," he panted. He couldn't lift his head to look at her and had to stay there hunched over the snow for some time before he felt like he could move. Everything ached but his ribs especially so; very carefully he moved to retrieve his sword from the dragon's remains then Serana helped him to slowly make his way back up the stairs to the wayshrine.
The Prelate there did not acknowledge them; on the inside of the shrine the walls seemed to be portals to other areas - probably the shrines they're already been to - but it still blocked the wind and acted as a fully sheltered structure. Serana helped him lower himself down against one of the walls that wasn't a shimmering portal, then sat beside him anxiously.
"I'll...I'll be fine," he managed weakly, smiling at her. "I just need to sit here a bit."
"You're just saying that to make me worry less."
"Did it work?" he asked with a tired chuckle.
Serana just shook her head and stayed at his side, staring out into the blowing snow as he rested.
She wasn't sure how long they'd stayed like that, kneeling together in the garden. When she'd gone to peek out the door she found that Orthjolf and Vingalmo were still there, politely "offering" to escort her back to her wing of the castle.
Her room was...exactly as she remembered, even down to the cups sitting on a low table. Everything was covered in dust and cobwebs and Orthjolf had laughed as he'd slammed the door behind him -- then, there was the click of the lock turning.
Ralsten had obediently followed without a word, and when she looked to him he was in turn looking back at her expectantly.
Aimlessly she wandered the room for a moment, ignoring memories of better times; she finally brushed the dust off a chair and sat down next to the cold and lifeless fireplace. "Ralsten, come here."
The elf came over immediately. "Yes, Mistress?"
((Continued below cut))
She winced but waited until he'd settled at her heels, looking up at her. In all her years of being a vampire Serana hadn't made a thrall before -- there were always plenty to feed from at the castle and as she'd not been allowed to leave there had never been a chance to even consider creating a thrall of her own. There was no sign of Ralsten in his face or in his eyes - he was physically awake, yes, and moving around, but he seemed so empty.
When they fed from the thralls and cattle they had always cast the enthralling spell before biting -- it was well known that they wouldn't fight back while under someone's control but a creature in pain would still squirm and move even if they weren't fully aware of their situation and that made feeding a hassle at times. No one spell seemed to override another and for the most part thralls obeyed anyone giving them orders regardless; the spell seemed to bury them further (or so she thought) so they didn't feel the need to flinch and squirm...but was that true? WAS that the reason she'd been taught to always cast it before feeding off the cattle and thralls?
Would this wear off if she didn't?
She reached out to trail her fingers down Ralsten's cheek, then stroked his hair; his expression didn't change and he didn't look away - he sat and waited for her orders.
"Ralsten, I need you to do something for me."
"Yes?"
"Fight my control. Wake up. I don't want you obeying me, I want you back."
Ralsten stared into her face unblinking for several breaths; eventually his brow furrowed as his expression changed to one of confusion. "I'm sorry, Mistress. I don't understand."
She sighed heavily - she hadn't really expected that to work. "It's all right. Just...sit there, and let me think."
Ralsten nodded and settled on his heels as instructed. Serana leaned back in the chair and stared up to the dark, web-choked ceiling.
Her father was not a kind man; it may have seemed a mercy or a kindness for him to allow her to have Ralsten as her own, but she knew better - especially since he'd mentioned the Scroll she'd escaped with before. Ralsten was a concession only because he was also leverage: Harkon did not and had not cared about Serana's happiness in a very long time. This little charade of...of showing affection, or something...was only the start of what was going to be something unpleasant to bear.
She tried the door and found that yes, Orthjolf had definitely locked it behind him; there was nothing in the room she thought she could pick the lock with, and even if she'd found something she didn't know how to pick locks. Ralsten did...but, thralls weren't exactly precise or careful and she doubted he could manage it in his state.
They needed to find a way out of this room and then out of the castle...Ralsten wouldn't survive for very long if they didn't.
After her attempt at ordering him to fight failed, she tried the only other thing she'd seen work: when Dexion had been beaten to his senses and freed. She felt every blow keenly but Ralsten took them without complaint, only seeming confused at what he could have done to have earned her ire; he was bloodied and barely able to move when she stopped - she'd had to force herself to harm him in the first place, and seeing him in such a state...it burned in her heart. She'd bandaged him with strips torn from old gowns still hanging in a wardrobe, and had let him lay his head in her lap afterward to rest.
Her prediction that Ralsten was a pawn as much as she was was proven a few nights later when, instead of Rargal bringing in the pitiful amount of food being provided to the elf, it was Harkon himself who came.
"How do you find the company, child?"
Serana sat stiffly in a chair near a tiny slit of a window; as usual Ralsten sat on the floor at her feet, ever ready to tend to his mistress. "I find I miss the open skies."
"You'll be able to enjoy them soon enough." Harkon came in further, dragging a finger across the dust gathered on a book shelf. "I remember when this room was bright and vibrant."
"Then you don't remember it at all. I spent as little time here as possible."
He grunted. "Yes, yes... If memory serves, you spent entirely too much time with your mother, willingly ingesting the poison she fed you."
"She wasn't wrong," Serana said softly.
Harkon's gaze snapped to her, eyes flashing. "Tell me, my dear - where has my Scroll disappeared to?"
A pit of ice seemed to settle into her stomach. "I don't know."
"I find that hard to believe."
"If it's not here I don't know," she lied. "And I don't care."
"You should," he muttered. The lord closed his eyes and seemed to gather himself, and when he looked up again she had the distinct impression of a snake ready to strike. "What I do, I do for our kind. These mortals are beneath us, they-"
"You really don't see, do you?" Serana interrupted. "You can't be that blind."
"We are destined to rule, child. And I will see it done."
"You want to allow vampires to walk around without fearing the sun. You want to -- what, destroy the sun? Block it? Bring eternal night?" she went on in a rush. "How can you be so short sighted on what that truly means?"
"I see you took in more poison from your mother than I thought-"
"Why do you refuse to listen?" Serana interrupted again. "Don't you think that the whole of Skyrim, if not all of the world, would rise up to set things right again? You may hate mother but she's right -- there'd be wars, we'd be hunted. And even if we managed to overcome all of the fighting and bring things under our control, what then? No sun means the plants eventually die, no plants means the animals that eat them die. With no plants and no animals to feed to the thralls then OUR food dies. And then we'd die."
"What an endearing little nightmare you've dreamed up," Harkon snorted. "As dire as those your mother liked to screech about to any who would listen."
"What you want is nothing more than a dream - an impossible one," Serana snapped. "It's going to end in us being killed, either by mortals or by time."
"My patience and my mercy are not infinite, daughter," Harkon said into the silence that followed. He spun on a heel and began to walk to the door. "I expect my Scroll to find its way back into my hands...or, there will be consequences."
At the door he paused and turned to fix his gaze on Ralsten, still kneeling at her feet; he left then, the door closing and locking with a series of gentle clicks.
Serana felt the knot of ice that had settled into her stomach at the sight of her father spread out to the rest of her. She again looked to Ralsten.
Her questions earlier of, 'would this, COULD this, wear off' came to mind again, but then were overtaken by another, singular thought:
I don't have the time to find out.
Harkon clearly needed her to carry out this prophecy -- that was why her mother had sealed her away. Her father may not know HOW he needed her but it was enough that he wouldn't dare hurt her...but Ralsten...
She looked around the room; the tables, the chairs and wardrobes, the ancient four-post bed in the corner that hadn't been touched in centuries...everything was covered in a thick layer of dust, only disturbed in those places she'd restlessly paced.
The only thing in the entire room that had been free of dust, somehow, was the coffin that stood against the wall - the same wall that the fireplace was set into. She didn't believe for a moment that someone had come in to dust just the coffin without touching anything else, but much like her questions about the magic that enthralled Ralsten she didn't care nor did she have the time to explore it.
With a sinking feeling, she knew there was...really, only one solution to saving herself and Ralsten and, by extension, the rest of Skyrim.
"Follow me," she ordered gently. With the wood elf at her heels she moved over to her coffin; it was an elongated octagon of fine wood, padded and lined with a soft velvet. It was heavy - so much so that it didn't need to be attached to the wall to prevent it from tipping over but instead stood sturdily on its bottom edge. "Help me move this - we're going to lay it on the floor, flat."
With Ralsten's assistance they muscled the coffin away from the wall and turned it to lay it flat; once it was down and laid open, she stepped over to look up into Ralsten's eyes.
"...I know, from what Dexion said, that you're in there...able to see and hear me. I know. And...I want you to know, that we haven't a choice -- we haven't the time... We need to leave this place now, and--"
She stopped and swallowed hard; Ralsten still showed no signs of himself, giving her the same earnest, attentive look he'd worn since he'd "awakened" as a thrall.
"Sit down in the coffin, Ralsten."
He quickly moved to obey, and when he was seated she stepped in after him, settling in his lap and straddling his hips. Carefully she removed her armor and then the undershirt beneath it until she had just her undergarment on her top half; the dagger on her belt slid soundlessly from its sheath and she held it in a shaking grip then dug its tip into her shoulder and dragged it down toward her collarbone.
Thick, deep red blood began to slowly well up - vampires bled much more slowly than mortals did. She looked Ralsten in the eyes again for a final time, then reached up to clasp her hands behind his head and gently guide him down to the bleeding gash.
"Drink, until I say stop."
The elf clumsily pressed his lips to the wound and began to suck. Serana felt sick to her stomach over what she was forcing on him, but strangely she felt nothing at all physically from him feeding.
Much like she'd never made a thrall before she'd also never created a spawn; she had no idea how much of her blood Ralsten would need to turn and so she let him drink for a long time, then softly told him to stop and sit up.
He did, his mouth and beard stained a dark red. Serana cleaned his face with her undershirt, then laid her hands to his shoulders and pressed him gently down into the coffin on his back.
"Stay here and rest, Ralsten. Don't move unless I tell you to."
"Yes, Mistress. I..."
She climbed off him and perched on the coffin's edge. "You what?"
"I feel...strange..." he whispered. His eyelids drooped closed and his breath hissed out in a slow, contented sigh.
Serana remained there, watching as he fell asleep. Her throat felt tight and once she was certain he was fully asleep she leaned down to press a kiss to his forehead.
A sudden hitch in what had been slow, steady breathing was what first alerted Serana to Ralsten awakening.
She hurried away from the window slit and over to the coffin; Ralsten's eyes were closed still but he was twitching as he lay there, beginning to stir. Gently Serana laid a hand on his chest and waited.
His eyes slid open - they glowed a soft gold not too different from her own. He sucked in a sharp breath and looked around, seemingly alarmed by the sight of the coffin's walls pressed in so closely to him.
"Ralsten-"
His hands shot up to grab the sides of the coffin, trying to pull himself upright; she grabbed him by the upper arm to help him sit up and kept hold of him as he looked around in confusion, his breathing ragged and rapid.
"Shh, Ralsten- it's all right. I'm here. Calm down."
"Serana..." he swallowed hard and looked to her; his eyes were wide open, fearful and confused. He went to try and crawl over the coffin's side and she pushed him back down.
"Sit a moment, and come to your senses. I know-"
"-what's- what's happened? What's happened to me? I- I'm so...hungry," he gasped, reaching up to dig fingers into the hair on either side of his head.
"Shh...calm down. Breathe." Serana reached up to carefully de-tangle his hands from his hair, then cupped his face and turned him to look at her. "Breathe."
Shaking he reached up to place his hands over her own; for some time they sat like that in silence, Ralsten visibly growing calmer until he closed his eyes, exhaled slowly, and then opened them again to look at her with a--
With a look that was decidedly "him" - he was awake, he was aware, and he had returned to her.
"Serana..." he whispered, squeezing her hands.
She let go and stood, holding his hands and helping him stand upright; he swayed a bit but then stood firm, gaze roaming around. After a pause he pressed a few fingers into his mouth, feeling the fangs that were now present.
"I...I'm so hungry," the elf said, looking at her. "What do we do now?"
"We need to get out of here and down into the castle proper. We'll find something for you there, and then we need to escape."
He nodded along at her words, but at the mention of escape he shook his head. "No. No, we - we have to still find your mother."
"It's too dangerous to go back to the garden-"
"We have to," Ralsten interrupted. He began to slowly move to the door. "We've no other ideas."
"My father knows we can get down there."
"If we move- if we can get there quickly enough before we're noticed missing...maybe...maybe we'll have a chance."
-----------------------------------------------
Their plan had to been to wait for day again; it took so long for Ralsten to find something serviceable enough to use to pick the lock that it was nearly midday by the time they were free and creeping along the castle's halls.
They thankfully met no one as they slipped down the stairs and found themselves skirting along the rail that overlooked the main hall.
"My father must not be expecting that we'd..."
Ralsten nodded silently but didn't reply. He was following closely behind her as she guided them down the stairs and into a room that smelled overwhelmingly of blood; there was a long table in the middle of the room with a mutilated corpse laid out atop it. There were cabinets and shelves lined with blades, bottles, and torture instruments, along with blood-stained kegs that leaked red fluid to the the discolored stone beneath it.
The hunger within Ralsten surged to the forefront of his mind; Serana took him by the hand and led him to one of the shelves where she grabbed a bottle that was...large, ornate. It was an exaggerated, tear-drop shape - more squat than tall - and made of a ruby-tinted glass with a patterned, spiked golden metal bonded to the glass. She pulled the cork free and wrapped his hands around it.
"Drink this. All of it."
He didn't need encouragement - Ralsten pressed the mouth of the bottle to his lips and began to hungrily gulp its contents. It was thick on his tongue, coating it, and was as sweet as nectar; he emptied the bottle quickly and swallowed several times after -- Serana watched him quietly, and nodded in approval when he was done.
"You'll feel better soon."
He carefully set the empty bottle back onto the shelf; as the blood coursed through him the hunger faded and, for the first time since Harkon had ambushed them in the gardens, he felt...normal. Like himself. Or as much as he COULD feel like himself, considering he was now a vampire.
Serana was moving about, stealing every blood potion that was in the room and shoving it into a sack she'd emptied potatoes out of. Most of the potion bottles were the smaller ones Ralsten had seen before (the ones that had been shattered when that dwemer trap had sent them into that pit) -- there were only six of the larger, ornate bottles. They clicked against one another in the sack; there weren't any packs or other means to carry the potions and Serana had no idea where Harkon may have tossed Ralsten's pack (and everything in it).
"We don't have the time to look around elsewhere," she'd whispered once she was done.
He nodded in agreement. "How do we get from here back to the garden?"
Serana hefted the bag over a shoulder and inched to the doorway, stopping and standing there silent and still, listening. "--follow me..."
Together they had dragged the more intact table and chairs in front of the door they'd come through, as well as the door they'd tried to sneak in through before; they would hardly do a thing if anyone tried to get in here but even a few seconds bought was better than another sudden ambush.
Any admiration for the beauty that remained was gone, for Ralsten; he was far more interested in finding what clues they could and then getting out of here as quickly as possible.
Serana was visibly nervous as they roamed about the garden together, neither willing to leave the relative safety of the other's side; Ralsten found his discarded helmet and the ruins of his breastplate - he couldn't wear the breastplate, not with the straps that held it to him all snapped apart, and he felt foolish thinking he could wear the helmet when he had nothing else on but a shirt, pants, and plain leather boots.
"Where did my boots go?" he'd wondered aloud. "And the rest of my armor?"
"My father made me order you to change clothing, remember?"
Ralsten didn't respond immediately; it was true that he'd been awake and aware inside his own mind the entire time but things still felt a little jumbled since he'd awakened as a vampire, almost like it was all out of sequence. "Probably...? It's a bit of a mess up here."
She smiled at him, though it was tinged with guilt and a hint of sadness. "You'll remember in time."
Eventually Serana left him to roam and went to walk around the large sundial in the middle of the garden.
"Something's wrong with this moondial, I just know it."
Ralsten came over to here from where he'd been poking about in a tangled patch of dead deathbell. "Moondial?"
She looked over her shoulder at him with a small smile. "Moondial. The previous owners of this castle had a sundial here, but that obviously didn't appeal to my mother. She persuaded an elven artisan to make some improvements. See the plates? They show the phases of Masser and Secunda now."
Ralsten glanced down as she gestured at the circular plates around the giant, pointed dial; some were made of polished white stone, the others were a polished stone that was a sort of dark gray-blue color. "Did it work?"
"That's the thing...what's the point of a moondial? I always wondered why she didn't just have the whole thing ripped out. But she loved it. I don't know. I guess it's like having a piece of art, if you're into that sort of thing."
Nodding, Ralsten circled around to the other side of the moondial, his foot nudging one of the plates. The metal and stone depiction of the moon clanked and moved slightly. "Seems some of these are loose."
Serana peered around the dial at him. "--not just loose, some of them are gone. Look-" she pointed to a few spots on Ralsten's side that were missing the stone crests, and not because they were depicting a phase where the moons weren't visible.
"-why would some be gone? Would you father have tried to damage this?"
"Maybe..." she murmured. She stepped from the dial and looked around at the overgrown and mostly dead mess. "I wonder if those crests are anywhere out here, still. Look around - even in this mess they should stick out."
Ralsten nodded and went back to roaming the outer edge of the garden; now that he had an idea of what he was looking for he found one crest that was a crescent of white stone laying among a twisted mess of dead tall grasses -- he'd overlooked it before as the grass was white and so was the crest, but he waded in and pulled it free.
He carried it back to the dial, found the correct spot for it, and carefully laid it into the indentations in the stone where it belonged. "How many are missing?"
"--two more," came her answer.
It took him a bit but he found two more - both made of the darker stone, one representing a full moon and the other a half moon. When he'd returned both to their spots around the dial there was a deep rumble, then the dial began to ponderously spin on its base.
It spun halfway around, pointing its tip in the opposite direction, and then the stone around the dial began to shift and drop down -- a stairwell was formed minutes later, leading down in a tight spiral to something beneath the dial.
"Very clever, mother. Very clever," Serana murmured. She carefully made her way down the stairs and through the door at the very bottom. "I've never been in these tunnels before...but I'd bet they run right under the courtyard and into the tower ruins."
Ralsten stepped in through the door behind her; hanging beside the door was a metal hoop on a chain. He pulled on it and the dial above them spun around to reseal the entrance.
They looked to one another. "I've never even seen this part of the castle before. Be careful. I don't know what might be around," Serana said.
They began to head deeper into the castle ruins; countless hallways, rooms with tall ceiling, everything choked with dusts and webs, skeever and spiders and skeletons running rampant.
After a particular nasty run in with a sword-wielding skeleton along with a gargoyle that had sprung to life they stopped in a room with a row of wide benches, the walls lined with weapon racks and shelves with dusty, ancient potion bottles.
"Let me teach you something," Serana said as she tied off a bandage around Ralsten's bicep. "Give me your hand."
He placed his hand in hers and her fingers began to glow in that strange, almost bubbly way that he'd seen her do before. It seemed to tug at his strength and health, but not in a way that it drained it from him.
"Do you feel that?"
"I do. What is it?"
"Something that should help keep you alive. This is the spell..."
After poking around in all the abandoned, sometimes destroyed rooms, after wiping out who knew how many skeletons and gargoyles, and finding countless pull chains and hidden switches to open doors disguised as walls, as fireplaces, and as shelves, they'd arrived in a spacious study.
Underneath the vaulted ceilings was a two tiered place, shelves and tables along the walls full of books, dusty and rotting alchemical ingredients, and bones and bottles. Sunken in the center of the room was a ringed stone area but it had no drain or anything to otherwise indicate why it was designed that way or what its purpose was.
"Look at this place. This has to be it. I knew she was deep into necromancy... I mean, she taught me everything I know. But I had no idea she had a set up like this. Look at all of this." Serana moved to the center of the room, beside the strange ringed structure, and turned slowly in a circle taking everything in. "She must have spent years collecting these components. And what's this thing?" She looked down to the rings in the floor. "I'm not sure about this circle, but it's obviously...something."
Ralsten nodded in agreement and came in to stand beside her. "What exactly are we looking for?"
"My mother was meticulous about her research. If we can find her notes, there might be some hints in there about what she was doing and where she might have gone."
To his left were stairs that led to the upper area, and to this right a wide table and a small nook with books. He decided to check the little nook first. "Your mother maintained quite the laboratory."
Serana was heading for the stairs. "I had no idea that this laboratory even existed. She had an alchemy set up in her drawing room, but nothing that even comes close to what's here."
"What did she research?" he asked. He reached out to rub a thumb down the spine of a book, wiping away the dust and trying to read its title.
"Looking at what's here, it looks like she was trying to advance her necromancy."
Ralsten pulled a book free and opened it, looking for its title page when the spine proved too old and crumbling to be legible. "To what end?"
Serana was on the upper level now and her voice was distant and echoed in the large room. "I don't know. Certainly not longevity - kind of a waste of time for a vampire."
Slowly Ralsten went through the books on the shelf in the little reading nook; all of their covers were falling apart and some detached when he opened them to check the titles.
All, that is, except for a small red book he'd found tucked between two others, pushed back far enough between the books to either side that he didn't see it until he moved one of them and the bright red had caught his eye. He slid it free and opened it, leafing through the pages briefly before moving over to one of the benches near the bookshelves to sit down and actually thoroughly read through it.
"Any luck yet?" Serana's voice echoed down to him.
"--I think I found your mother's notes."
"You did?" She came hurrying down the stairs and over to him. "Let me see them."
He handed the book over and she sat down beside him. "I read a bit. What's this..."soul cairn" she mentions in there?"
She glanced up from the pages to him, brow furrowing. "I only know what she told me. She had a theory about soul gems. That the souls inside of them don't just vanish when they're used...she thought they ended up in the Soul Cairn."
"Why would she care where the souls went?"
She returned her attention to the pages again but kept talking. "The Soul Cairn is home to very powerful beings. Necromancers send them souls and receive powers of their own in return. My mother spent a lot of time trying to contact them directly, and to travel to the Soul Cairn herself."
Ralsten scratched his beard, grunting slightly at that and looking around at everything in the study. "...do you think she figured it out?"
Serana sighed, closing the book on a finger to keep her place and catching his gaze with her own. "That circle in the center of the room -- that definitely must be some type of portal." She ruffled the corners of the pages briefly, then went back to reading.
He remained beside her, occasionally stealing glances at the pages; after some time she stirred and turned her attention to the circular...portal...thing in the middle of the room.
"If I'm reading this right, there's a formula here that should give us safe passage into the Soul Cairn."
"And you're sure that's where she's gone?"
"I don't know where else to search," she replied after a pause.
"All right." Ralsten stood and moved out to stand in the middle of the room, looking at her from over a shoulder. "What do we need?"
"Let's see..." Serana stood and brought the journal with her, keeping it open to a certain page. "A handful of soul gem shards, some finely ground bone meal, a good bit of purified void salts... Oh. Damn it."
He blinked at her. "What? What's wrong?"
She held the book up toward him - a formula was written out but all he could see were diagrams he didn't understand and writing that was too tiny to read from where he stood. "We're also going to need a sample of her blood. Which...if we could get that we wouldn't even need to try this in the first place."
He hummed to himself, chewing on his lower lip. "--you share her blood. Would that work?"
"We'd better hope that's good enough. Mistakes with these kind of portals can be...gruesome. Anyway," she closed the book and let her gaze slowly roam over the dusty shelves. "Let's get started."
She again headed up to the top level while Ralsten began his search on the lower.
"Is there anything you can tell me about the Soul Cairn?" he called up to her as he sorted through a top shelf.
"It's a tiny sliver of Oblivion, the realm of the daedra. It's ruled by unseen being known as Ideal Masters."
"What are they?"
"No one really knows. As far as I've heard, no one's seen them and returned to Tamriel to tell about it."
"How can you be sure these exist? Maybe they're something disguised as something else."
He heard a tinkling - she must have been moving bottles around. "I've read stories. Stories about fools that managed to...communicate with them. You give the Ideal Masters souls, they give you powers to summon the undead. It's all very business-like. I'd doubt it'd be anything trying to hide what they are - daedra tend to be fairly direct about themselves after awhile. They want to be known and worshiped, or at least known and feared."
Ralsten nodded to himself and moved on to the next shelf. "--why do you say the necromancers are fools?"
"Because most of the stories are of the Ideal Masters duping the necromancers, who end up dead or...wishing they were dead."
Ralsten kept searching; he found what he assumed was the bonemeal in a large silver bowl on the same table as a collection of bones and skulls. He carried the bowl with him and headed toward the stairs to join Serana on the upper level, but on the way up the stairs noticed what could only be the soul gem shards sitting atop a short, squat cabinet. He grabbed them and met Serana at the top -- she had a silver bowl full of void salts, and she led the way over to a chalice that was perched on the balcony rail that overlooked the circular portal.
They put all of the ingredients into the chalice, then Serana carefully cut into the crook of her elbow and squeezed some blood in on top of it all.
The instant her blood dripped into the chalice the rings of the portal came alive -- they rotated and moved, splitting in half with some arranging themselves upward toward Serana and Ralsten in a sort of stairwell down, and the rest all sank downward into the floor as a purple vortex appeared.
"By the blood of my ancestors..." Serana whispered. "She actually did it...created a portal to the Soul Cairn. Incredible." She seemed to admire the swirling purple energies, then looked up to him. "I'm ready when you are."
Ralsten nodded; he wasn't quite so...eager to descend into the vortex. "What will you do if we do wind up finding your mother?"
"I've been asking myself the same thing since we came back to the castle... She was so sure of what we did to my father, I couldn't help but go along with her." She fell silent a moment, then in a much quieter tone, "I never thought of the cost."
He smiled kindly at her, hesitantly and gently resting a hand on her shoulder. "It sounds like everything she did, she did for your sake."
Serana smiled at the touch of his hand. "Possibly. I guess even a vampire mother is still a mother. She worried about me. About all of us. But she wanted to get me as far away from my father as possible before he really went over the edge."
Ralsten took a deep breath then took several steps down toward the portal. "--you know, in a way...it sounds like she was sort of selfish about it, though."
He heard her much lighter footsteps on the stones behind him. "She...wasn't. Not always. But I think you're right. She was practically smirking as we left home. Almost like she was proud of herself. Like...she didn't want to just stop my father, she wanted to stick it to him too."
"We won't know until we find her, I guess."
"Yes...yes, you're right. I'm sorry. I just didn't expect anyone to care how I felt about her. Thank you."
He turned to flash her a grin. "Are we ready?"
-------------------------------------
"I'd heard - read - stories about the Soul Cairn, but never thought I'd see it myself. So far it's...about what I imagined."
They'd emerged at the top of a stairwell made of stone rings, into a place that was dark, foreboding... The soil was like ash and was dotted with black brick ruins and tall, curved stone monoliths along with smaller ritual stones sunk into the dirt. Here and there were brilliant purple-white...pits, of some kind. They could hear a strange rushing noise if they drew close to any of them, and as they carefully walked through the desolate landscape they could see and hear the cries and moans of confused or regretful spirits that they could see walking about, or spot just out of the corner of their eyes before they vanished again.
"Look at this place...I can't imagine choosing to come here. My mother must have been terrified."
"Do you know anything else about here?"
"Just what my mother told me. I've also studied a bit on my own, but there's not much. When something is trapped in a soul gem, and then the energy is used for powering an enchantment, the remnants are sent here."
Ralsten stiffened - he was fairly adept at enchanting his own weapons and armor. He bought the gems from any wizard or shopkeep who happened to have them and had never wanted to know where they'd come from, and also hadn't given any thought to what happened when the gems were used. "ANY soul gem?"
"Well," Serana said after a moment. "I think it's specifically the black ones. I don't know if the Soul Cairn takes just any leftovers."
They walked along in silence for a time. "--do you think we're going to run into the Ideal Masters? Why are they collecting souls? And why would anyone want to deal with them?"
"I don't think anyone's ever met the Ideal Masters. I'm not sure anyone knows what they look like...they could be underground, flying above us...they might BE the ground. I have no idea. As for the souls, there's lots of theories. Some say they feed on them like I - we... - feed on blood. Others think they use them as payment to an even higher power...like a currency. A very strange currency. Whatever they're doing with them, they've been harvesting for millennia. No telling how many souls are trapped here."
"And necromancers?"
"Look around you. There are some extremely powerful undead here. Even a necromancer as seasoned as my mother would be willing to spend years trying to get access to them."
"Access...you mean, summoning them?"
She nodded. "Exactly. It's a lost art. Most necromancers just raise up whatever bodies are nearby. A simple trick, raelly. Child's play. But bringing something from the Soul Cairn gives you something much more powerful." Serana fell silent then, attention moving about as they walked along what looked most like a path through the foul place. "My mother wanted to keep the Scroll as far from my father as possible. I was sealed away with one...if she has a second, I can't imagine a better place to hide it than here."
Solitude appeared just as it had the last time she'd been here; she walked freely through its streets with her hood down as she'd found over the last several months that the glow of her eyes was a lot less noticeable in sunlight and had learned to endure its brightness in order to pass as human. No one stopped or challenged her as she walked a familiar route and approached the large house that had seemed so impossibly perfect to her before...but, as she approached the house something seemed...off.
There were heavy stone planters near the steps that lead up to the second story door, the street-level door had been bricked up and had ivy growing up it now. Wooden boxes hung from the windows full of flowers and once she was close enough she could see that the second story door was different from what she remembered.
It gave her a feeling that something was wrong, and that feeling had her pausing for a moment before she knocked on the door.
At first no one answered; after several minutes she knocked again but louder this time and still there was no answer. The feeling of wrongness intensified but she told herself that perhaps he just wasn't home -- but then, there was the sound of several locks clicking, and the door opened just a crack and a small girl peeked out at her.
Serana tilted her head, trying to get a clear look at the child. "...Lucia?"
The door opened a tad further, the girl squinting up at her; the child's face suddenly lit up with recognition and she opened the door. "I remember you! You're papa's friend!"
Serana sighed silently with relief. "Yes, Lucia, I am. Is your father home?"
The girl's face fell, but then just as quickly scrunched up into a conspiratorial look -- she stuck her head outside and looked around, then gestured for Serana to come inside; once she was inside the girl locked the doors again, then held a finger to her lips and tiptoed up the stairs to the left, leading Serana up to what could only be the girl's bedroom.
"There. I don't think Eveline is home but I don't want her to catch you." Lucia shoved the door shut and leaned against it, looking up at Serana.
"...where's you father?" Serana asked again. The feeling of wrongness had blossomed into a feeling of dread that settled like a pit of ice in her stomach when the girl shook her head.
"He's not here anymore."
"What do you mean?" Serana asked quickly, trying to keep her voice steady.
Lucia didn't answer right away; she went to a chest at the foot of her bed and rooted around inside of it, tossing out books and clothing until she straightened, holding a much smaller, plain wooden box.
Serana's hands clenched in the fabric of her cloak. "Lucia...where is your father?"
"They found out papa was a vampire and made him leave," the girl answered finally, turning toward her with the box in hand. "He writes me letters and I'm supposed to be allowed to write to him too but Eveline keeps taking them and throwing them in the fire when she thinks I'm in bed. I quit giving her the letters but I hope papa doesn't think I don't love him anymore because I haven't been writing."
Serana stood there stunned at the news, the feeling of dread now wrestling with a surge of guilt -- he'd been forced to leave, because he was a vampire? How long ago? Where had he gone?
This is my fault.
She shook herself back to the present when Lucia shoved the wooden box into her hands.
"What-"
"I've been saving my letters. I heard Faraan say papa lives on a farm now - I don't know where that is, but if you find him will you give him my letters and tell him I miss him? And that I've been trying to write to him but they won't let me? They keep saying I need to forget about him..." Lucia trailed off, sounding as sad as she looked.
"I... Yes, of course. You're sure you don't know where this farm is?"
Lucia shook her head. "No... If I did, I'd go live with him instead. Faraan and Eveline are nice, but they think going to the Bard's college is a waste of time and want me to learn how to be a merchant instead. But I don't want to sell things, I want to learn how to sing and play the flute."
Serana nodded, feeling dazed and still feeling the guilt keenly. "I'll make sure he gets these, Lucia. I promise."
Lucia's face broke into a wide grin. "Thank you! You should go before Eveline gets home...we'll both get in trouble if she finds you here."
Lucia escorted her down the stairs again and let her out the door; Serana stood in stunned silence on the front stoop, hearing the locks click back into place behind her.
In the eight months since she'd last seen Ralsten, they'd found out what he was and had driven him from his home.
It was a small comfort to know they hadn't killed him outright but his situation was entirely her fault and now she didn't even know how to find him.
She tucked the wooden box under an arm and made her way back out through the gates of Solitude, looking out over the expanse of land to the city's south...he could be anywhere at this point and she had no one she trusted enough to ask about him -- the Dawnguard had told her he'd only stuck around with them for a month or so after they'd cleared the castle and she didn't dare risk asking anyone here.
There was a lot of Skyrim she'd seen and none of it had had Ralsten in it. She supposed the only answer was to keep looking.
-------------------------------------------------
It took three weeks to find the little farm tucked in amongst a grove of trees, far to the southwest of Solitude.
The farmhouse was long and narrow, and looked to be one story with some kind of attic built on; it was surrounded with fencing that was constructed from untreated felled logs pounded into the earth which encircled the house as well as a large pond behind the house itself. Six goats and a pair of cattle milled about in the wide yard with a very minimal barn built behind the house near the pond, pushed up against the fencing, and on the side of the house opposite the barn was a fenced in garden area full of cabbage and leek plants.
She found the gate to be unlocked and pushed her way inside, following a plain dirt path up to the front door; at her knock there was a sudden loud baying of a hound (which admittedly startled her) but much like at the house in Solitude no one came to answer the door at first.
This time she was determined to beat the door down until either someone answered or someone came home and found her; the dog kept barking inside as she kept knocking, and finally...the dog was silenced with a sharp order from a familiar man's voice, and the door was pulled open.
Ralsten was clad in a loose shirt that was hanging open - it had ties but they were left undone - as well as dark cloth pants, both equally wrinkled. He looked like he'd just woke up, but his sleepy look changed to one of confusion, then his mouth hung open slightly as realization crossed his face.
"Serana?"
She stepped inside and threw her arms around his neck, hugging him tightly; at his feet a large, scruffy gray hound sat and panted, tail sweeping the floor and slightly wiggling the dog's hindquarters back and worth. Ralsten finally hugged her to him then as the shock wore off; he was hard muscle under her hands - it was very different from hugging him in his armor, and he smelled faintly of woodsmoke.
When the hound finally hopped up and began to jump on and paw at Serana in its excitement she let Ralsten go; he grabbed the hound gently by the scruff and nudged him out the door, then closed and leaned against it, staring at her.
"I...I can't believe you're here."
Ralsten looked...almost exactly as she remembered him. He had three scars down the left side of his face - they were too jagged and wide to be claw marks from anything she could think of - and he had a paler, older look to him that seemed to be slowly melting away in his excitement.
"Here, here - sit," he went on, almost falling over himself to pull out a chair from the desk that was pushed to the wall right beside the door.
The inside of the farmhouse was neat and cozy; she could see a wide bed to the far right, in the corner between the wall and the side of the fireplace. The fireplace was made of sturdy, round stones cemented in place and with a plain but varnished wooden mantle -- hanging above that mantle, to her surprise, was Auriel's Bow and resting atop the mantle was the mace and sword she remembered him wielding when they'd defeated her father.
There was the desk to her immediate left -- it was covered in a few books, ink wells, quills, and rolls of parchment stacked in a tall pile, along with a few scattered, cut sapphires weighing down what looked like maps of The Reach. Further off to her left was a small table with a pair of benches on either side, a ladder that led up to a loft above their heads, what looked like stairs leading down, and the floor beneath her feet was polished wooden planks.
It all seemed new and well-kept, but compared to the house in Solitude...
She swallowed as the guilt rose again. Ralsten pulled a stool from beside the fireplace over so he could sit near her - it placed him at her feet again she realized - and he seemed to not know what to do with himself or his hands.
He finally clasped his hands in his lap and simply stared at her, like he couldn't believe what he was seeing.
"I can't tell you the number of times I wondered if I'd see you again."
She smiled weakly. "And here I thought you would have forgotten about me."
"No, never," he said quickly. "I could never forget you."
The earnest way he'd said it warmed a bit of the ice in her stomach. She looked around at the room. "...what happened, Ralsten?" she asked softly. "Why are you here instead of home?"
Ralsten's smile flickered briefly and he blew out a sigh followed by a small chuckle. "It doesn't really matter. How have you been? Where have you been? What sort of adventures have you gotten into without me?"
He'd said it lightly - teasing her - but she wasn't about to let him duck the question. She reached out to cup his face in her hands, forcing him to look her in the eyes; the scars she'd noticed were very new and hadn't filled out yet - she ran a thumb over the ridges, frowning.
"Ralsten. What happened?"
For a long moment he was silent, then he ran a hand over his hair. "Where do you want me to start?"
"Where did you go after we parted ways?"
"Back to the fort. I stayed with the Dawnguard for...about a month, I think. The scholars there looked through every book and scrap they had and couldn't find any mention or hint of a cure. Isran said he would inquire elsewhere but that in the meantime there was no reason for me to stay, and I wasn't exactly welcome there either...so, I left. I went and got Lucia and Lydia in Whiterun and went home. For awhile I kept my vampirism hidden just by not staying in Solitude for all that long - which, thankfully, wasn't unusual for me so no one suspected anything was wrong, and Lydia swore not to tell anyone after I'd told her the entire story of you and Harkon...so, it was all fine, until Delphine found me."
Serana looked at him curiously. "Delphine?"
Ralsten nodded. "Delphine - the last member of the Blades, some group that used to serve and protect the Dragonborns in the past. She found me, and I learned the true reason why all the dragons were awakening and what my destiny as Dragonborn actually was... That's where this came from-" he said after a pause, pointing to the new scars across his face. "Alduin, the World Eater. This...ancient dragon destined to devour the world -- MY destiny to stop him. I actually had to travel to Sovngarde itself to face him, once and for all...I stood beside ancient legends to strike Alduin down, but it wasn't easy -- it nearly killed me, in fact. When I was returned to Nirn I was badly injured, and I summoned Durnehviir to carry me back to Solitude."
He frowned heavily at the memory, then shook his head. "If I'd been thinking clearly at the time I would have done anything but that. When they were tending to me that's how they found out I was..." He shrugged, and she didn't need him to elaborate to know what he meant.
"I'm sorry..." she said after a moment. "This is my fault."
"No. Absolutely not," he replied sharply. He rested a hand on her knee, shaking it gently until she looked to him. "This isn't your fault. It's the fault of your father's, and no one else."
She couldn't look at him for long. "-why didn't they kill you?"
"They waited until I woke to demand answers. I told them everything - our fight against the prophecy, my fight against Alduin. I reminded them of everything I'd ever done for Solitude and that I'd been living peacefully among them for months before they learned. I explained feeding off animals, I-- ...I threw myself on the mercy of the Jarl. I made my case, and then I begged them not to make Lucia an orphan a second time, or to force her to live through what I did when my adopted mother was killed in front of me. Elisif, against the counsel of her court, granted me that mercy -- I was locked in a cell while they built me this place. Most everything I owned was given to Lucia, with Faraan and Eveline named as her stewards, then I was banished here and told to never step foot in any city again. Thankfully they allow me to write to Lucia so I wasn't suddenly gone from her life."
At the mention of the letters Serana swung her pack around and dug inside to pull out the little wooden box. "I stopped by your house in Solitude, looking for you. Lucia asked me to carry these to you - she said she's getting your letters but that Eveline kept destroying her answers to them."
Brow furrowing he took the box and turned it over in his hands, then figured out how to slide the lid free and looked down at dozens of folded letters stuffed inside it; a fond smile crossed his lips. "I had a feeling..."
"Ralsten..."
He sat the box on the desk and looked back to her. "Yes?"
"Whether you believe it's my fault or not...I'm sorry. I'm sorry my struggle ruined your life."
He inhaled and exhaled slowly, then smiled wistfully at her. "It's not your fault, and it's turned out better than I could have hoped for. Lucia is being cared for, I've left her a fortune, she'll grow up into a kind, intelligent woman, and she didn't have to witness the death of her father."
"It's terrible that they turned on you so quickly, after everything you've done."
"It is," he agreed, but then shrugged. "But it could be worse." He stared at the floor for a breath or two, then looked up to her with a genuine smile. "I've missed you. What have you done while you were gone?"
She smiled at him - hearing that finally fully melted the cold feeling in her stomach though it didn't fully banish the guilt. "Well. After you left I walked through the castle. I found a lot of things we'd stolen over the centuries - belongings of people who were lured here and made into thralls. I made sure the Dawnguard stragglers took it to give to the thralls that were rescued from the dungeons...I had no need for it and I didn't really want to look at it. It's difficult to really - to really face the horrible things you never really saw or thought about. We were followers of Molag Bal but I guess it never really sank in what that meant, and I never saw or understood the terrible things my parents and clan were doing." She paused, rubbing the palms of her hands against her thighs. "I was taught that power was everything, and that I was better than everyone else and meant to rule. It's just what you believed and desired when you followed him. I never had any reason to question it until this prophecy came around and I realized how little power I actually had, how little choice or control I had in my life, and how alone I really was."
She fell silent and he waited patiently at her feet; she gave him a strained smile after a moment. "Did I ever mention how one becomes a Daughter of Coldharbour?"
He shook his head, and as she quickly explained the ritual his expression went from happiness, to confusion, to outright horror -- never once did she feel he felt disgusted BY her, but he was horrified to hear what it truly meant to be a Daughter of Coldharbour.
"I...that..."
She nodded quietly, staring down into her hands in her lap. "At the time it was just...something expected of the women who followed him. Few survive it."
"If your father wasn't dead I think I'd be heading to kill him right now."
She blinked at the anger in his voice and looked to him; his fists were clenched, as was his jaw.
"I cannot believe a parent would put their own child through something that...that..."
Serana just nodded. After a time Ralsten closed his eyes and took a deep breath, appearing calmer as he slowly exhaled.
"-anyway," she went on. "I... In a way I was afraid to go find you. I didn't want to bring more strife into your life, so I traveled some on my own...I've seen a lot of wonders - Skyrim is full of all these forgotten little places, and full of history. And while it was enjoyable, it just felt...empty, after awhile. I wasn't exactly bored, but I was -- lonely," she said after a pause. "I've had a lot of time to think and I realized I missed you. When I went to the Dawnguard they said you'd left and had been gone awhile...then I went to Solitude and you weren't there either."
"But you found me," he said with a chuckle. "I never meant to make it difficult to you to find me again...I was really limited in what the Jarl would allow me to do. I wouldn't be surprised if a guard shows up soon to make you leave -- I'm pretty sure I'm being watched."
"Have you not been allowed to leave here, at all?" Ralsten nodded and she frowned heavily. "They've trapped you here."
He nodded again. "More or less. It's not so bad a life...simple. Peaceful. Grow some crops, milk the cattle and goats, trade it for feed for the animals I survive on. I don't need the meat but I find fishing is a good way to pass the time - I might someday be able to trade it for coin."
"That you can't spend anywhere," Serana said flatly.
"Well. True, yes."
"You can't mean to tell me you're happy here?"
"Happy enough. I'm alive."
Serana sighed, pressing her lips into a thin line and staring a hole through the door. It just wasn't fair for this to happen to him.
Ralsten gave her a kind smile and stood. "Are you hungry? Tired?"
She shook her head, watching as he moved over toward the stairs; he disappeared down them briefly then came back up carrying a pair of glass bottles full of a red liquid. He set them on the desk within her reach and returned to sitting at her heels.
"I've found if I leave no air in the bottle then it doesn't dry out. Makes them a bit messy to open up though," he chuckled.
She reached out to take one of the bottles but didn't open it, instead holding it just to give her hands something to do. "...what happens if you leave?"
"I don't really know. I've not given it any thought - I didn't want to leave."
"Why?"
"Well. It would have made it harder for you to find me if I was moving around."
"But you don't even know if they'd allow you to leave? Or what will happen if you DO leave?"
Ralsten slowly shook his head, then looked at her thoughtfully. "Are you wanting me to leave? With you?"
Serana carefully returned the bottle of blood to the desk and shifted the chair to face him; after leaving the castle she'd gotten rid of her Volkihar finery and had settled on a set of plain leather armor in a dark brown -- the chest of the armor had a strap from left shoulder to right hip with a loop that her belt fed through, and hanging from the belt were several pouches and a sheathed dagger. Her hand trembled as she slid it into one of the pouches - it held only one thing, and the little metal medallions that hung to either side of the pendant on the chain gently rattled against one another as she pulled it free and held it cupped in a hand.
She jostled it up and down in her hand a moment, then hung it from her fingers and used both hands to slip the chain over Ralsten's head.
He looked down and caught the pendant between his thumb and forefinger, looking at it and then looking up at her in surprise and letting it thump back to his chest.
"I - like I said, I've had a lot of time to think. To figure out what it is I want," she said softly, smoothing the amulet of Mara against his chest. "If you're not tired of me yet, I'd like it if you belonged to me again."
He opened and closed his mouth a few times, stunned, then he finally nodded and pressed himself into her lap, on his knees in front of her. "I - yes, of course. Always."
She slid a hand through his hair, feeling lighter at heart. "I'm glad...I'm glad you'll be with me." She paused, then laughed quietly. "Though I don't think either of us will be welcome in any temple."
He straightened and gently squeezed her arms, then stood and tugged her after him; he led her down the stairs into a cellar that was cool but dry, with a dirt floor and walls. There were shelves and some crates stacked along the wall - a leather tarp covered the bottom layer of the stack - as well as a rudimentary alchemy table that was bloodstained in the far corner near to where Ralsten's armor was piled in a heap. In the very middle of the room was a coffin, its lid hanging open and lined with what looked to be pale blue cloth of some kind.
The elf led her over to a small locked box sitting on one of the shelves and unlocked it with a key he fished from a chest; when he opened it and turned it toward her she saw it was full of rings, necklaces, and cut gemstones.
"What's this?"
"I was forced to leave everything I had at the house behind -- they only let me keep what was actually on me when Durnehviir dumped me into Solitude's streets. When I was working with the Dawnguard, I kept a bag of gems and jewelry hidden in my cot so I'd have things to barter with if I needed to resupply but didn't have the coin or time to return home."
She looked up at him somewhat surprised, a distant memory coming to mind of Ralsten asking Isran to bring a bag back with him when he'd brought Dexion down to speak to them.
He lightly jiggled the box at her. "We don't need a temple, or a priest's recognition. Take whatever you like. Take all of it, if you want."
She sorted through the various rings until she found two that were roughly the same and were the right sizes -- both were silver, one with a square cut emerald set into it and the other a smaller round emerald with a pair of even smaller diamonds to either side of it. Taking the one with the square emerald she slid it onto Ralsten's finger and he in turn slid the emerald and diamond one onto hers.
He closed the box and locked it again, then leaned forward and kissed her. When he pulled back she ran a finger underneath the chain of the amulet.
"I guess it's a good thing they put a bed in your house." The look he gave her was one of...she wanted to call it boyish shyness; she tugged on the necklace and led him back up the stairs by the chain.
It was clear he wasn't exactly experienced in the act but his timidness was endearing and she was able to mold him in her hands, kind but firm -- certain in what she wanted out of him, and sure in how to instruct him. When they were through and satisfied since they were unable to sleep they laid together and enjoyed the closeness of skin and sweat; Serana decided she quite liked how his toned muscles felt under her hands and wasn't shy about curling up on his chest. He soon idly twined his fingers with hers and put a kiss on the top of her head.
They laid together for the rest of the night, until dawn was beginning to peek through the windows.
"Are you sure...that this is what you want? What if Isran finds a cure?" she asked into the early morning quiet. She rolled over to look at him, folding her hands on his chest and resting her chin on them.
Ralsten considered her a moment, then looked to the ceiling. "...even if I get cured I can't go back to that life. The best thing I can do for Lucia is to let her go - she'll never live a normal life if everyone in Solitude is constantly suspicious of me." He went silent for a time, then looked to her again. "And even if Isran finds a cure, that decision isn't entirely mine."
"What do you mean? Of course it is."
He shook his head. "No, it isn't."
Serana met his gaze and couldn't help but feel confused. "I don't think I understand how."
He reached up to adjust the straw pillow beneath his head. "It's as much your decision as mine. If I'm cured and you aren't, you'll outlive me -- well, by that I mean, if I die of old age and not because something killed me. I'd leave you alone in the world again."
She was silent for a long moment, mulling that over -- she had to admit he was right: she WOULD outlive him if he was turned human again. It was a thought that hadn't really occurred to her...but...
"What if I get cured too?"
The look her gave her was part surprise, part confusion. "Why would you?"
It was a good question, really.
"I think..." she began, truly considering it as she spoke. "That... Maybe, I could truly be my own person. Not a vampire, just...me. Whatever happens, whatever I might end up becoming."
"Fair. Really it's something of a moot point if we never learn of a cure, but then I guess it's either we both get cured or neither of us get cured if we do."
She smiled -- she could agree to that; as it grew lighter outside she found herself growing sleepy - it had been a very long time since she'd actually slept. Ralsten must have sensed it or seen it in her face; he bundled her up in the thin blanket, pausing only to tug his pants on, then carried her down to the cellar. He lowered her feet inside the coffin and laid her down, bringing a hand up to kiss her fingers.
"I seem to remember something like this, only in reverse."
Ralsten chuckled. "Rest."
"What about you?"
He jerked his head toward the stack of crates, sitting atop others with a leather tarp separating them. "I'll be all right."
She wasn't completely clear on what he meant but she nodded and pulled the coffin lid closed and was asleep almost instantly; it was already late in the evening when she finally woke, and when she pushed the lid open once more she saw a second coffin next to her -- the crates along the wall were no longer stacked and the leather tarp was tossed across the alchemy table.
This second coffin was not nearly so finely crafted as the one she lay in - she wondered if Ralsten had made this one himself - and she ran gentle fingers over the lid before climbing the stairs and dressing herself, then taking one of the bottles of blood and draining it.
Some hours later Ralsten stirred and came up, drinking the second bottle and then settling on their wedding bed.
"Where shall we go first?"
She hesitated a moment - there was a lot she wanted to say, and explain...a lot that she'd thought of while trying not to think of him. It had been mostly to give herself excuses to not come back - to forget and move on - but now that she was here, and he was hers again... If she actually went through with the crazy path she'd thought up for herself, he'd be there with her...but what if he didn't agree? It was too important, she felt, to leave unexplored -- and, in a way, it was as close to his heart as it was to hers. Something deeply personal.
"When I was trying to explore, I was avoiding towns and people. I didn't want anyone to realize what I was...but eventually the loneliness drove me mad. I started going into inns just to sit in a corner and listen to people around me. It's what made me realize - really realize - how much I missed you, and wanted you with me."
Ralsten smiled at that - it was almost shy and she smiled back at him with a genuine affection.
"But... As I looked at all these people around me living their lives I started wondering what I wanted to be...to become. All this time I've only ever been the daughter of Harkon and Valerica, a follower of Molag Bal, a Daughter of Coldharbour. I did what I was told or what was expected of me without questioning it. That's not a life, that's a prison. And now I'm out of that prison -- what now? There was a night where I was puzzling out that question when I heard some men talking about the war going on...and I had this terrible thought."
Ralsten was watching her, listening intently; when she paused he gestured for her to go on, and she took a deep breath as a sudden nervousness of him not understanding (or worse, not wanting to help or stay) blossomed in her.
"--my father liked to say power takes precedence. It was everything to him. One other thing he liked to remind everyone of though was how our clan was responsible for a lot of the vampires that are in Skyrim now. If that's true, each generation out there is of our bloodline, and our bloodline would have grown weaker with each one. I know there were plenty of times where my father had the lesser vampires killed off if they were causing too much trouble, overstepping their bounds, or increasing the risk of exposing us. If these lesser vampires know of their family tree, so to speak... My parents and I are the oldest and purest of blood in Skyrim -- with him gone, and my mother still in the Soul Cairn, what if the other vampires grow bolder and try to seize power and control?"
She watched as the intent scrutiny on his face gave way to surprise, and then an uneasy thoughtfulness. It seemed crazy to contemplate, and the first time it had come to her Serana had dismissed it as delusional...and yet... Before they (or at least, before Serana herself) truly understood what the prophecy meant Valerica had been concerned about a war between vampires and mortals -- that was one of her main reasons for not wanting the prophecy to come to pass as it would guarantee that their kind would be outnumbered and wiped out by the combined armies of the world.
It wouldn't be nearly on the same scale but if other vampires saw an opportunity in her father's death to try and seize power and influence...there'd be fighting not just among the vampires but between vampires and any mortals they revealed themselves to.
"So..." Ralsten started, drawing the word out. "What... What do you want to do? I'm not sure I fully understand what you're trying to tell me."
Serana nodded and didn't blame him in the slightest. "With my father gone, it's possible some other vampires may try to step into the throne that's left empty. That would pit vampire against vampire, and that would definitely draw attention from any mortals they're not careful around. That war my mother was so worried about may happen on a smaller scale spread across all of Skyrim."
Ralsten's eyes widened. "I-- yes, I see what you mean now. That would be terrible, for everyone." He rubbed a hand through his hair, smoothing it mostly back into place. "What do we do though? What CAN we do?"
Serana went quiet; here again was the fear that he wouldn't want anything to do with this crazy plan and by extension her. Still...this was something that was equally hers and his as well - something close to the heart that she felt he would understand.
She lifted her head and looked at him. "I remember a good man searching for one good vampire...he was raised by one, found one, and became one himself. But maybe there's more out there."
He stared at her for a moment, looking puzzled. "You... Want to hunt these vampires down?"
"Sort of. You're a good man who happens to be a vampire, and your mother was one. And you found me. Maybe there's others. Maybe we can gather them together and rid Skyrim of the rest, without sparking any wars that would be in danger of wiping out our kind. And if my family really is the reason vampires exist in Skyrim...maybe it should be up to me to end that legacy too."
"That sounds like you want to build a court to replace your father's."
"It would be nothing like his."
"Well obviously not exactly," Ralsten said quickly. "But I'm trying to understand -- even if we gather any good men or women with us, what then? It's not going to make the world any more welcoming to us. It might stop fighting between vampires but it doesn't mean people are going to stop and think about whether they're killing a good or bad one."
"No, it won't make us any more liked. But it'd be a way to stop a lot of needless death for everyone involved."
Ralsten nodded, lowering his head to stare down at the floor in thought.
Serana felt a bizarre sense of relief -- all of that had been churning in her mind for some time now, and he hadn't outright dismissed it OR her. An end to Harkon's - Volkihar's - legacy, and a way to preserve her (their) kind as well as the mortals they shared this world with...it felt like the right path to take.
(And, in a sort of selfish way, at the very least it should give the Dawnguard pause and hopefully slow down any deliberation on whether Skyrim would be better off without her and Ralsten - something she'd felt needed to be addressed eventually with how coldly she'd been received at the fort).
Ralsten finally nodded to her, smiling. "Wherever you go, I will follow." His smile faltered after a pause however. "What if... What if your mother doesn't approve of your idea? Or tries to stop you, or rebuild the court under her control?"
"...we'll deal with that if it comes to that, I guess." She glanced around at the farmhouse -- she had to admit there was something appealing about forgetting about this nonsense and living a simple life here. "What happens to this place when you're gone?"
"The guards come by every couple of days to check that I'm obeying the jarl. I guess it'll fall to Lucia as well once they find I've deserted it...hopefully they'll care for the animals."
Ralsten penned his final goodbye to his daughter -- they would have to wait until the guards came by at least once so he could give them Lucia's letter. Serana spent the time getting used to the ring on her finger and the thought that for the first time she'd gotten something she wanted AND had full control over what direction her life took; Ralsten hid her down in the cellar when the guards came by, closed inside the coffin, and hours after the guards had left they were slipping out of the farmhouse and into the night.
Ralsten left the gate open behind him and when the hound refused to stay put and kept following them Serana had convinced him to let the dog come with them.
"We can always find a new home for it along the way. It'll probably be easier than trying to get it to stay there."
He'd begrudgingly agreed but days later when the dog wandered off on its own he'd seemed relieved.
It seemed very...natural, and comfortable, to be back on the road with him and while she wasn't looking forward to the Soul Cairn or confronting her mother again...she had a lot of things now that she'd never had before, and holding that thought close brought her a lot of comfort and helped dispel the stomach-churning anxiety she felt each time she thought about what they planned to do. No matter what happened, whether they succeeded in their crazy, half-planned endeavor or not...they were free, they had one another, and they would survive even if they couldn't save anyone else. And if they could convince her mother then she knew the rest would be ridiculously easy in comparison.
When they finally reached the castle and the portal to the Soul Cairn lay open at their feet, she took a deep breath and looked to him.
"Any sudden second thoughts?"
He chuckled and smiled at her fondly. "My trust is in your hands, as ever. I'm right beside you."
