Lost Legends

First topic message reminder :

"It can't keep going on like this!" A young woman's voice gasped as two figures dove over a snow drift to avoid detection by passing guards. "We have been fighting for so long that no one even cares anymore!" She added, running her fingers through blue black hair that had already become brittle with the cold.
"Of course they remember, Dex." The young woman's companion replied in an annoyed whisper. "We fight for freedom from the imperial invaders who seek to make us bow down to them!"
The woman who had just been referred to as Dex rolled her grey eyes. "What does it matter who sits on the throne as high emperor? Either way, we're still left down here in the dirt." She added, poking her head up to see if the coast was clear. "The rebellion is just pushing back the tide, sooner or later the imperials will find us all, and execute us as promised."

"You seem to think the Jarl cares one way or the other." Ulfric replied. "You really think he gives Dunmer even a single thought?"

"And look how well that turned out." Dex breathed, her gaze meeting Draco's.

"Why else would he order that we be placed far away from the Nords?" Bree growled, yanking his head back all over again. "Why would he order that we be ripped from our beds and burned at the stake? It's not that he cares. It's that he doesn't want to care!"

"It would have been better if you'd listened to me." Draco sighed, the act making his ribs hurt. "Dex, I was truly trying to help you."

"Or that somebody else gave the order.' Ulfric replied. "The Jarl just lost his queen in the dragon attack, you really think he would care what was going on in the hold, let alone make any kind of order?"

Dex painfully sat down next to Draco, pulling the makeshift dressing he had applied away from the wound in his ribs. "To help someone... Would imply care on your part, and you made it painfully obvious that I served only one use to you." She replied, unable to meet his gaze this time.

Bree leaned back, allowing the man beneath her a better chance to catch his breath. She let go of his hair, but made sure he knew she wasn't going anywhere. "I'm not sure the man cares about anything at all." She breathed, finally pushing off him. "Thank you for helping my mother. It's the only reason you still live."

"You know nothing about me." Draco growled, slapping her hands away. "I am not sorry for what I did. I am sorry for what you made of it."

"If you wish to keep your mother safe, I suggest both of you leave the town right away. I fear this riot will get worse before it gets better." Ulfric replied with a heavy sigh.

"And you do not know me." Dex replied, gasping in pain slightly when Draco slapped at her broken fingers. "I am sorry for a great many things... But at the top of that list... Is meeting you." She added.

"I fear we won't get far without the help of one of your kind." Bree said, turning the man to look at her. She narrowed red eyes at him and shook her head. "You're not much, but you'll do. I am kidnapping you and you will be taking my mother and I to a safer hold."

Draco nodded, though his golden eyes were dark with hurt. "I couldn't agree more. However, it is what it is. We are forced together by fate and I can see now that there is no sense in fighting it."

Despite his sorrow, Ulfric couldn't help but laugh. "Kidnapping me?" He asked, obviously quite amused by this. "Dunmer or no, you are still just a woman."

"Fate is cruel." Dex whispered, then returned to the bed where Draco had left her when he brought her here. There the young woman pulled the guts over her head, anything to hide her tears. No one understood just how much she hurt.

Again there was a dagger at his throat and he was being shoved against the wall by an unseen force. "I am a woman gifted in magicks!" Bree snarled. "You will never call me weak again!"

"I am glad the man who hurt you is dead." Draco whispered. "I would eat his heart given half the chance. I almost wish I could go to the underworld and find him."

Ooc: I really wish spellcheck wasn't so zealous! Guts... I mean, really.

Ic: "Or you'll kill me?" Ulfric asked calmly. "I doubt you have it in you."

"Don't pretend you are sorry." Dex breathed, her voice breaking with the effort to keep the sorrow from it. Though she had openly told Galmar she longed for death after what had been done, for some reason she couldn't tell Draco the same thing.

"Someone once told me there are worse things than death." Bree growled, motioning with her hand. This may have seemed like a senseless act to others but Ulfric would feel his body being forced to move.

"I never said I was sorry." Draco snapped, yanking on the covers over his own body. "Why must you be so difficult, woman? I swear, my last mate was never this much trouble."

Ulfric tried to fight it, but it was no use. His jaw was clenched tightly as his body marched along against his will. "You will pay for this, Dunmer!" He swore.

Dex's grey eyes opened when Draco called her his mate. "What happened to her?" She asked quietly, surprised to find her pulse quickening slightly at the thought that Draco believed her to be more than simply a body to mate with.

"What happened to that tolerance speech aimed at me?" Bree asked, a smile playing at her dark lips. "Come now, Nord. It's not like I'm going to kill you."
Her mother shook her head, looking sadly at him. "I am sorry for this but...perhaps my daughter is right. I do not want to die because of the ill fate of another."

"You were...she was killed when she went off alone to have our child. There is so much intolerance in Skyrim. I do not think it will ever change." Draco whispered, revealing that his guarded behavior was for a much darker reason.

"You should kill me. It will be the only way you will be safe." Ulfric warned darkly. "Unless you plan on returning to Morrowind, there is nowhere you can hide."

Dex was silent for a painfully long moment, wondering if Draco's slip of the tongue had more meaning than a simple grammatical error. "I'm sorry." She finally whispered. "That must have been hard on you... To lose both of them."

Bree laughed softly, pausing until the Nord had caught up with her. "We are taking my mother back to Morrowind, yes. I do not know where I will go from there." She all but whispered. "Do not fret. You'll be back among the stinking selfish masses you call family before you know it."

"I never saw the child. It wasn't as important to me as it was her." Draco muttered, shoving his fingers through his dark hair.

"I do not call them family." Ulfric replied. "I fight for their independence... And receive no thanks for it." He added without thinking.

"She was a dragon, like you?" Dex asked, shifting awkwardly onto her other side to watch Draco. Her ribs were extremely sore, but she was curious about his past.

"Then you belong to the Jarl." Bree decided, nodding her head as if this were the truth and she knew it. "I am sorry for that. I'm sure the great king won't miss you for a little while anyway." She added, handing him a bag she'd packed and turning to pick up her mother.

Draco shook his head. "No. The child might have been but not her. Only her heart was that of a dragon." He turned his head, doing his best not to show her the grief in his eyes.

Ulfric grumbled as he was forced to take the bag. He decided that if he played nice, this elf may even know a way to bring his queen back. "The great king will notice, I assure you." He told Bree with a bemused smile.

"Then... She was Nord? And they killed her for carrying a dragon child?" Dex asked, making the assumption that dragons existed only in Skyrim.

"I doubt Ulfric Stormcloak would even notice if he was missing himself." Bree snorted, doing her best to carry her mother as they walked. The elder elf was weak and extremely fragile. One would seriously doubt that she would make it back to Morrowind.

Draco shook his head, again staring hard at the floor. "She was...it doesn't matter anymore. She wasn't supposed to love a beast like me. She wasn't supposed to know how to speak my tongue. She was...a princess..they called her love treason."

Ulfric shouldered the bag Bree had given him, and took the elder elf from her. "You seem to have many thoughts on the jarl." He commented, the old woman weighing next to nothing in his powerful arms.

"It sounds like a story from the bards college." Dex replied softly. "A princess... I'll bet she was beautiful too, wasn't she?" She added, finding Draco's tragic past all too beautiful in itself.

Bree looked at the tall man in shock. She had not given him the order to carry the elder woman. Her mother snuggled happily into the Nord's arms, resting her head against his chest. "His heart beats strong, Breenan. You should keep him." She breathed.

Draco didn't answer this. He again rested his head on his knee. For a long time he was silent. "You are always beautiful, Dragonborn." He breathed. "It's your curse and mine."

"I am afraid that heart belongs to another." Ulfric told the elder elf, his tone heavy. "Even death won't keep me from her."

The room was suddenly filled with a heavy silence as Dex tried to form some kind of response to what Draco had just said. "That's... Not possible!" She finally breathed, sitting up to look at Draco with wide grey eyes.

Bree nodded silently. "I shall never marry." She vowed, looking worriedly toward the city gates as they drew closer. Several of the Windhelm guards were milling around and they were turning away Dunmer who were running toward them.

"I have been alive for two hundred years, girl. Don't think you are the first of your kind." Draco whispered, still not looking at her.

"If you truly wish to leave the city, you will follow my lead, understood?" Ulfric breathed as they drew closer to the gates.

Dex continued to watch Draco for some moments more, then nodded her head ever so slightly. "You're right. You've had the love of a princess, how does anything compare to that?" Dex couldn't express how much his words had just wounded her, and so decided to step outside to breathe in the cool night air.

Though her mother nodded, Bree gave the Nord a suspicious frown. It took her a moment but she nodded as well.
"Stop there." The guard growled at them, holding up his sword in Bree's direction. "No Dunmer are allowed to leave the city."

"Are you all right?" A young Nord woman was standing outside the doors, obviously having the same idea. "I was pretty worried when your husband brought you in."

"By who's orders?" Ulfric asked firmly. "I know for a fact the Jarl did not approve the tearing of Dunmer from their homes!"

Dex turned her head slightly to let her gaze meet the other woman's. "You spoke to him?" She asked, thinking maybe she could get a straight answer from this stranger that she could not get from Draco himself.

"Then you would be wrong. The order came from his right hand man. Galmar Stone Fist told us himself that the Jarl wanted the Grey Quarter cleaned out." Bree was beside her captured Nord now, her fingers digging into the arm that held the bag of supplies.

"He's a very quiet man." The young woman confirmed. "But yes, he told me a few things. He even asked for healing items. He told us you'd been attacked in the wilderness?"

"And you do not recognise your Jarl when he stands before you?" Ulfric asked, though he knew it was a long shot. "Galmar does not speak my word, he is taking his anger out on the innocent!"

Dex was wise enough not to blow the cover that Draco had created for them. "It was a pack of wolves, too many for us to fight off and escape injury." She replied. "My... Husband... Did he happen to mention where he planned on going next? He is sleeping, and I don't wish to wake him."

Though it was clear the guards didn't truly believe him they weren't about to test the theory either. "Take these two then and go." The one speaking told them, opening the gates only enough for them to slip through.
They were several steps away when the elder elf began to laugh. "Oh what a show, boy. You'd make a rather good Jarl yourself I say."
"Indeed." Bree agreed darkly. "If he wasn't a stuck up Nord." She added. She most certainly wasn't smiling.

"He told us he planned to go toward Helgen but I tried to talk him out of it when I helped make you comfortable." The young woman explained. "He didn't seem to know that a dragon destroyed that city. It was a terrible loss. Have him head toward Whiterun. The Jarl there will be more helpful than the one in Winterhold." She added. "But...maybe you should have a look at him when you're feeling better. I thought I saw some blood on his shirt this morning when he came out for mead."

"You would rather I was an invading imperial?" Ulfric asked as they walked. "If you hate Nords so much, why did you leave Morrowind in the first place?" He asked, glad at least that they had made it out of the city in one piece.

Dex nodded at this. Even if she didn't know Draco all that well, she knew he was too proud to admit when he was Injured. The dark haired woman lowered herself awkwardly to the ground, leaning her back against the inn wall once she was there. It was an odd feeling to be jealous of someone who was already dead, but knowing Draco had loved a princess made her feel all the more worthless.

"I was trying to save my family from Red Mountain." The elder elf whispered. "My husband was killed by Outlanders. It was only me, my son, and my daughter. I wanted them both to have a chance. My daughter's destiny was here so this is where we came. I suppose...it did not work out for her either." She explained.
"I've told you before, destiny is a fairy tale for Nords, mother." Bree snapped, making sure she walked ahead of them as they passed the stables.

"Your husband is a good man, miss." The young woman said, turning to head back inside. "Even if he seems a little rough around the edges. But I'm sure you already know that don't you?"