FROM THE JOURNALS OF GHORBASH "THE IRON HAND" GRO-DUSHNIKH
“Did you notice that burned out house next door?” I ask Lucy as we settle into our room at the Moorside for the night.
“Pretty hard to miss,” she replies in a tired voice.
“I think it would be worth asking about.”
She shrugs. “As good a place to start as any.”
We’ve come to Morthal to hunt vampires. Upon closely examining all records and clues in the Falkreath Sanctuary, we reckoned that the missing member of the Brotherhood was a vampire. We have no clue as to location or anything else. We’ve come to Morthal simply because it was near here that Astrid held Lucy prisoner. The lead is tenuous, true, but it’s all we have, and that’s disheartening. Now we are here, and I can no longer put off talking to Lucy about what’s on my mind.
“Lucy,” I start. That’s as far as I get before she interrupts.
“OK look,” she says, talking fast. “I had this dream a while ago, before I showed up at Dushnikh Yal. I forgot about it until just recently, but it’s been preying on my mind ever since. I dreamed that I found Dushnikh Yal and found you. That part came true. It wasn’t exactly right, like in my dream I showed up at night, but other than that, it was uncanny. And in my dream, you and I went cave-diving, and you died—just up and disappeared right after I’d found you.”
Sudden understanding strikes me hard, but before I can speak, she plunges on. “I couldn’t stand it if that happened for real. I mean, the more I think about it, the worse it feels—like it’s already happened, because it did! Do you see? I don’t want to live without you, knowing you died following me into danger…” Her eyes fill with tears.
Tears? Really? Oh Divines! What do I do? “Stop,” I order and gather her into my arms. She cries, while I hold her. Is this the right thing to do? Finally, she seems to cry herself out, and I sit us both down on the bed. “I keep forgetting that you weren’t raised by orcs,” I say absent-mindedly.
“What does that have to do with anything?” she asks.
“Because if you had been, I wouldn’t have to explain what I’m about to explain. You’d have known it from childhood. Are you ready for this?”
She nods, uncertainly. I take a deep breath.
“Your dream is going to come true, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“What?!?” She pushes away from me.
“Everyone dies eventually, Lucy!” I explain. “And orcs die in battle.” I’m not pulling my punches, because I never want to have to have this conversation again.
She glares at me.
“What did you expect? Were you hoping I would grow old and die in bed? That’s no fate for an orc!”
“Just promise you won’t die until after I do!” she demands.
Is she kidding? “Be reasonable! Not only is that request impossible to honor, but it’s selfish on top of…”
“OH JUST SAY YOU PROMISE!”
“No!” I hold my ground. “What good is a promise if both people know it’s a lie?”
Her hands ball up and her body shakes. “Damn it, Durz!” She stomps out of the room.
I'm tempted to just let her go and get some sleep, but she might try to ditch me again. "Shit!" I follow her.
Without looking at me or speaking, she walks out of the Moorside and over to the burnt out wreckage of the house at the end of the boardwalk. The smell of wet ashes permeates the air as we step onto the iffy floorboards. Lucy stops on the threshold abruptly and looks to her left. I follow her gaze. A small girl stands there. Chills crawl up my spine as I realize I can see through her.
“Do you want to play hide and seek?” she asks. “Find me before the other one does, please. I’m afraid of her!” And the girl disappears.
“Ghosts!” I say. “I hate it when there’s ghosts!”
Lucy gives me a quick look of disdain and turns her back. She begins a widening spiral search pattern starting from the house. I shrug, and join her a short distance away. We search in silence through the darkness for more than an hour, not looking at one another, but concentrating on the task. Finally, Lucy stumbles across an open grave with a casket askew as though someone had tried to recover it and had been scared away by our approach.
Lucy knocks on the casket, and the little girl’s whisper says, “She’s near. I’m scared of her. Make her go away.”
While Lucy asks, “Make who go away, dear?” I glance over my shoulder just in time to raise my shield and avoid an arcing dagger wielded by a pale woman with fangs.
Comments
oo another chapter from Durz!
I really do ... more