Honorbound

Drip… drip… drip…

Miz’ri blinked and squinted, her eyes adjusting to the darkness of the room. She lifted her hand, a white light forming in her palm, and held it out. Rain was leaking through the stones, though she couldn’t say where. The furniture was old, the wood rotten. The entire stone keep was falling apart and, on the outside, partially sitting in the river. She had hoped for somewhere drier to wait out the freezing rain, but anything was better than being out there. Miz’ri stepped forward into the damp room.

Her cousin had warned her that Skyrim could be a desolate place, and a cold one. She hadn’t realized how true that was until she’d already arrived with all her belongings. Skyrim had been quite the culture shock so far. It was a far cry from her posh life at the university back home. The College of Winterhold wasn’t so bad, though; in fact, she was beginning to miss its dormitory towers and massive library. But the College was far away, and dreaming of her warm, dry bed wouldn’t make it any closer.

Drip… drip… drip...

The dark elf peered into a hallway, then quickly snuffed the light in her hand. Further down the hall was a lit torch. She hadn’t noticed any torches in the windows from outside. Bandits? How many would there be in a place like this? Grimacing, she crept forward into the hall.

About halfway through, she began to hear mumbling. A bandit, she figured, waiting in the room to the right down the hall. Whatever he was mumbling about, he sounded angry. Miz’ri flexed her hands in anticipation. If there was a group of them holed up in here, she would have to be ready for anything.

“...bloody Thalmor…” The voice came from the room more clearly as she drew closer.

The mention of the Thalmor piqued her interest. Miz’ri sidled along the wall until she reached the edge of the doorway, and glanced over her shoulder into the room. She had been expecting to see plenty of things--bandits, rogue mages, mercenaries, and now maybe the Thalmor--but she hadn’t expected to see someone chained to the wall. She raised a brow and turned to stand in the doorway fully.

There was a man cuffed to the wall, his hands over his head, with gashes across his broad chest. Dark hair hid most of his face. He was slumped against the wall, breathing heavily and staring at the floor. Miz’ri took a few steps forward. The sound of her boots against the stone immediately roused him.

“When I get out of here,” he began without looking up, “I’ll kill you myself.” 

Perhaps he thought she was with whoever had locked him up. By the looks of it, whoever had done it had done more than just lock him into an empty room. Miz’ri allowed herself to move a little closer, inspecting the sight. She could see dark, wet smears of blood on the wall behind him, and various lacerations across his chest and arms.

“What’d you do to get yourself in this much trouble?” she mused.

“Damn you,” he snapped, lifting his head. She was startled by his crazed glare. “When I tear your spine out of your--” He suddenly stopped, his fury gone in an instant. He blinked at her in surprise. She blinked back. Then she crossed her arms and gave him an amused look.

“Go on. My spine…?” 

“Wait. You’re not with the Thalmor, are you?” 

“No.”

“Quick, can you get me free before more come?” 

Miz’ri considered him for a moment. Sure, he looked like he’d had a rough go of it, but she had no idea who he was. He certainly seemed violent enough. Letting him go without asking a few preliminary questions seemed foolish at best.

“What’s your name?” 

He sighed in exasperation. “Kaidan. What does it matter to you?”

“It matters less to me than why you're in here.”

“Choking on my own blood and you want my life story? The Thalmor invited me to high fuckin’ tea. What do you think?” When she only stared at him in response, he sighed again, loudly. “I don’t know. Some Justicars ambushed me outside of Falkreath.”

“What for?”

“Look, I don’t know. They just kept asking about the Blades, and the sword I had. Please,” he said, a trace of panic in his voice, “just help me out of here.”

“Alright, alright.” His desperation seemed real enough. Miz’ri gestured for him to calm down as she crossed the room. “Just know, if you’re lying to me, I’ll make you regret it.” 

“I’m not lying.” He relaxed a little as she stood over him and produced a lockpick from her bag. “You’re a lifesaver. Really.”

Undoing the shackles didn’t take long. They opened with a metallic snap and the man hunched over a little, rubbing his raw wrists. As he leaned forward, Miz’ri gasped at the sight of his back: deep crimson gashes latticed across his skin from a whip, seeping and smeared with blood from where he had leaned against the stone wall. Her hands drifted toward him reflexively, her fingers beginning to glow a soft gold.

“Here...Let me help you.”

He flinched when she touched him gently, one hand on his chest and one on his back, but didn’t stop her. The light from her hands grew and swirled over his skin. Miz’ri watched closely as the smallest wounds knitted themselves closed while the larger ones faded to a less angry red and stopped oozing blood. He stared idly at the ground as she worked. The warmth of the healing magic seemed to have calmed him for the time being. She lifted her hands from the now mostly-closed wounds and patted him once on the shoulder, gingerly.

“There. It’s not a permanent fix--you’ll still need time to heal naturally--but you’ll be able to get out of here without bleeding yourself dry.” 

“...That’s a special gift you have,” he said after a moment. Miz’ri stepped back as he rose to his feet and cracked his knuckles. She felt her heart stammer when he pushed back his hair and revealed his face for the first time. He was unusually handsome for someone in Skyrim, she had to admit. He was tall and muscular, more so than the run-of-the-mill Nord, and his face was angular. When he turned to look at her fully, she could see a crimson tattoo half-hidden by stray locks of hair. 

“Listen...The Thalmor took my sword,” he began seriously. “I know I’ve got no right to ask, but I could use your help getting it back.”

Miz’ri couldn’t help but feel a little thrill of excitement. She’d expected him to run away without thanking her, but this was acceptable. It wasn’t often she got to clear out a dungeon with company--especially company that was easy on the eyes.

“Hmm.” She pretended to act uninterested, looking back at the hall and then at the door on the other side of the room. “You’re willing to confront the Thalmor again just for your sword?”

“It’s important,” he answered firmly. “Just...trust me.”

“Well, if you insist,” she said airily. “Do you know your way through this place?”

“Saw enough on my way in,” he said, visibly relieved. As he continued, he reached up to tie some of his hair back. “The Justicar they left on duty headed deeper in the prison. With any luck, he’ll be cornered like a rat.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Miz’ri adjusted her cloak, deliberately turning away to keep from staring, and made her way toward the water damaged door. She could hear him following. “What did you say your name was again?”

“It’s Kaidan. Do I get to know yours?” He raised a brow.

She glanced over her shoulder to grin at him mischievously. “You may call me Lady Arach.” 

He was right: the Justicar was still alone in the dungeon. It didn’t take much to overpower him and (after Miz’ri allowed Kaidan to get a few well-deserved punches in) throw him into one of the many empty dungeon cells. Miz’ri stood in front of the cell door as Kaidan rummaged through a chest on the far wall. She held up the Thalmor’s ring of cell keys and jingled them at him with a smile. 

“Insolent dark elf,” he spat. “Shouldn’t you be in the slums of Winterhelm?” Though his voice was venomous, it was impossible to take him too seriously. She had been generous in letting him get off with a black eye; if she’d been in the dungeon alone, he’d have been lit ablaze without question. Miz’ri looked through the cell keys idly as she considered it. 

Have I always been so violent? This country is harsh… 

“You don’t have to do this. If you let me out, I won’t harm you. It’s not you I’m after,” the Justicar continued rambling. “It’s him.”

“Mmhm.” Miz’ri tossed the key ring across the room. The Justicar gasped as it skittered across the floor, but she merely waved him off and walked away.

Kaidan had clearly found what he was looking for. In the time she’d been taunting the high elf, he’d donned an engraved chest plate and pauldrons, and was pulling on spiked arm guards when she walked over to peer into the chest. There were a few items left--a mysterious pile of black fur (A cloak? A cape?) and an unusual sword resting atop it. Miz’ri frowned at the chest’s contents. The sword had some sort of inscription running down the side, though she couldn’t decipher the symbols. She jumped when she realized he was standing close beside her.

“Uh--”

“Curious?” Kaidan smirked as he leaned forward, reaching past her to pull the sword and fur out. “Nothin’ special.”

“Special enough to come find them.”

“They’re sentimental.” 

Miz’ri scoffed. It was difficult to imagine such a brute being sentimental. She shut the chest lid while he pulled on what was now more clearly a hooded cape and slid the sword into a scabbard on his back. Now that she looked at him in armor, she wondered how many Thalmor it had taken to subdue him; the man looked...solid, to say the least.

“Come on.” His voice snapped her out of her thoughts. “There’s a door nearby that leads back outside.”

“Sure. Lead the way.” She made sure to wave goodbye to the seething Thalmor on the way out. 

For a long moment, they walked in silence. Miz’ri was unsure where to begin a conversation, or if she should try to at all. She still had plenty of questions, but her new companion seemed perfectly content to keep quiet as they made their way down the hall. The mage kept her thoughts to herself until they reached the door. Kaidan reached for the door handle and she figured this would be the last chance she’d have to ask before they parted ways.

“So,” she began, and he paused to look back at her. “What happened with the Thalmor? Really?”

He opened the door; Miz’ri was relieved to see the rain had slowed a little, but he frowned. He didn’t answer at first, only leaned against the doorframe and folded his arms over his chest.

Then: “...Aye, I guess I owe you that.” Kaidan nodded toward the rain. “I’d been trying to find a way to cross the border into Pale Pass. Ever since Helgen, it’s been near impossible to get into Cyrodiil without a stack of papers for the Empire to keep track of you.”

Helgen. She didn’t know much about Skyrim and its troubles, but she knew about Helgen. After all, she’d been there, and nearly ended up on the sharp end of an executioner’s axe. That, she figured, was nothing he needed to know about. Miz’ri crossed her own arms and nodded for him to go on.

“In the meantime, I’d been picking up bounty contracts to keep some coin in my pocket. Must have drawn too much attention to myself.” He reached up to scratch his jaw. “I’d been camping by the lake when they ambushed me. It seems the Thalmor don’t need much evidence to bring in a suspect,” he continued bitterly. “They took one look at that sword, decided I’d be a good target for interrogation, and dragged me here.”

She was unsure how to respond. So there was something special about the sword after all, despite his claims of simple sentiment.  “...You must have been scared.”

He waved one hand. “Ah, fear I can deal with easily enough, but...there was a moment or two where I thought it might really be the end.” He glanced outside again, then gave her a level stare. “The Thalmor weren’t going to let me go, no matter what I told them. If you’ve been in Skyrim long enough, you’ve probably faced down mortality, too.” Kaidan gave her a small, crooked grin, at which she felt a rush of heat across her face. “Perhaps you know the feeling.”

She certainly did, or at least since Helgen. Miz’ri shrugged as nonchalantly as she could. “Fighting back and coming out alive has been the best way to beat it…So far, at least.”

He laughed at that. “You’re small, but you’re formidable, aren’t you? I could almost feel sorry for your enemies.”

“Almost?"

“Almost.” 

Miz’ri shook her head, rolling her eyes. She had half a mind to go back to the Thalmor in the cell and sling a spell or two, just to show him he should feel sorry for her enemies. The rain filled the silence between them again. She glanced down the hall, toward the room of cells. How long would it be before more Justicars came to check on things? How angry would they be to find their captive freed and one of their own beaten and locked up?

“...They’ll come after you again, you know,” Miz’ri warned.

“Probably,” he agreed. “I’ll be ready for them next time. Live and learn, right?”

“Where will you go?”

“Depends.” Kaidan uncrossed his arms. “You saved my life. Let me take you to wherever it is you’re going. I know I probably don’t seem like it after...all this...but I make a damn good bodyguard.” 

Miz’ri laughed uncomfortably. Part of her wanted to take him up on the offer--a mercenary would certainly keep away any bandits on the road, and he had been truthful so far--though part of her wondered how much she could really trust some random man. Not to mention she was headed halfway across the country, back to the College. He probably figured she was just going to the nearest town...But she would be lying to say she wasn’t a little excited at the prospect of having a handsome mercenary tag along. He had a point; she did save his life, after all.

“Just remember what I said.” Her heart was pounding as she lifted her chin proudly and walked past him out into the light rain. She had an image to keep. “Don’t make me regret trusting you.”

“Heh.” Kaidan shut the door behind them and lifted his hood. “Wouldn’t dream of it, Lady Arach.”