Dual Fate - Chapter 2

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    Chapter 2

    Troublesome Rest

                    After about a day, Aradiel woke up from her unconscious state in the late evening. She noticed Falindir was asleep, and decided to leave him be for a little while, and let him gain his consciousness back as well. She knew all too well that he would be exhausted. She stretched out a bit, and then looked around, to see what had happened. By now, Falinesti had already migrated from their location, so returning home wasn’t an option, if she even wanted to in the first place. After looking some more, she came across what appeared to be the battleground, before the Wild Hunt. But the beasts had already devoured the dead bodies, so all that was left was a few bones, and scattered swords, shields and other weapons across a dead field. 

                    Aradiel returned to the place where she had fallen, with a set of armor she managed to find, as well as a couple of bone daggers. Falindir was still sleeping, so she decided to set up camp for the night. Using the survival skills her father taught her, she lit up a fire, and huddled around it.

                    She sighed, “Well, isn’t this just fantastic? I’ve-,” she started to cry, “I lost my father and my little sister in a single day. Now I’m stuck out here, far from home…” Aradiel broke down into tears. The commotion woke up Falindir, and with the sight of his twin in tears, he quickly rushed over to her.

                    “Hey Ara… It’s okay. It’s alright. Shhh. We can make it through this alright?” Falindir reassured her, “It’s very tragic… I know. But, we can still do this. Thyra went out with no pain, and Father has been recognized by Y’ffre enough to participate in the Wild Hunt! While we may never see them again, they will live on forever, in our hearts.”

                    Aradiel wiped the tears from her eyes and hugged Falindir tightly, “Thank you brother. But, what will we do about getting back home? It would have been taken over by beasts by now, or even worse – destroyed…”

                    “I guess that is true… there is no returning home now,” said Falindir in a hushed tone

                    The twins sat around the campfire for a while, just thinking and recuperating. The two were extremely exhausted, and their minds couldn’t focus on a single topic. The two rested some more, until they were awoken by some sounds coming from the bushes and trees around them. It was the howling of wolves.

                    “Did you hear that Falindir? I think we found our dinner for the night,” joked Aradiel.

                    “I definitely heard that,” Falindir examined the area, “come on let’s go check it out!”

                    The twins headed out in the direction of the sound, weapons in hand, they were prepared for any attack coming their way. The two could have been glued to each other’s backs! They worked dynamically, scouting where another couldn’t see. Finally, they got close enough to see the wolves out in the distance. Falindir pulled back his bow string as to prepare for a strike. He breathed in deeply, when suddenly –

                    “Falindir watch out! ,” screamed Aradiel, as a wolf jumped from the bush beside Falindir, and pinned him to the ground. Aradiel quickly punted the wolf in the rib cage, and plunged one of her daggers into the wolf’s head.

                    “Huh. Not bad,” said Aradiel, pulling her dagger from the wolf’s skull, “Not bad at-“

                    Aradiel quickly stopped dead in her speech as a group of wolves surrounded the twins. About seven of them in total, all very feral and ready to feast on Bosmer flesh.

                    “Ara, I think now is no time for boasting. Maybe get to killing instead?” said Falindir in a sarcastic tone.

                    “Yeah, No problem brother,” said Aradiel as she wiped her blade on her pants, and got into a position to strike. Falindir drew his bow once again, and took a slight step back.

                    “Ready? One, two,” Falindir said slowly and silently, “THREE!”

                    Falindir released his arrow, plunging straight into one wolves head. Aradiel dashed forward to slash at the Alpha, who jumped up and knocked her off balance. In a flurry of fur, blades, claws, and arrows, all hell had broken lose in this small area of the forest. At one point a wolf managed to jump onto Aradiel, and started to slash at her. Falindir picked the wolf up off of her, ripped an arrow from his quiver, and impaled the wolf straight through the heart. A lot of wolf fur and blood was shed until only the Alpha remained, growling and walking in a circle around the twins, preparing to attack. It pounced, and gave a good slash across Falindir’s face, before landing and then knocking Aradiel to the ground. Falindir with all of his might tackled the large wolf and gave it a powerful punch to the face before kicking back over his sister. She plunged her dagger into the wolf’s side, wounding it crippling it. The Bosmer boy got up and fired his arrow directly between the wolf’s eyes.

                    Falindir sat down with his sister breathing heavily, “Well. That was fun,” He joked.

                    “Sure was,” Aradiel wandered off into thought, before jolting up with a strange burst of energy, exclaiming, “I’ve got it! We can go off on a journey together! If this was fun, we can experience more of it. We could meet new people, see new things! We’ve wanted to explore Nirn for a very long time, have we not brother?”

                    “Yes! That is an excellent plan! We’ll do it for Thyra and Father! They always wanted to leave Falinesti, but now they will never get the opportunity…” said Falindir

                    Great! We will leave tomorrow then! But first things first we need some rest, and of course, we need to figure out what to do with all of this wolf meat!” joked Aradiel.

                    And so the two, gathered up the wolves, and brought them back to the fire, and ate until they could eat no more. Of course, as normal Bosmer do, they saved every piece of the wolves. Aradiel made some bone throwing knives, and Falindir made another full quiver of arrows, with the remaining bone.

                    The two slept very well that night, and dreamt of their upcoming adventures.