Skyrim Fanfiction Series: Nightingale

The Mind of a Nord

        Consciousness faded between the veil of reality and the mind. My pulse thundered in my ears - an irregular beat - bum, bumbum, bum, bum, bumbumbum. My leg burned as my body bounced, flopped astrew the saddle of a horse. My eyelids cascaded upon my corneas as my head thudded against the cold tough leather of the saddle. I knew if I kept closing my eyes, I wouldn't last. It seemed so tempting, to let them shut and let this nightmare reality end abruptly, but it wasn't so. I grew weary, my blood squirting from my leg in long, crimson spurts. Stay awake, Jorgsten. Stay lucid. You must survive.

Darkness.

        I awoke to the stroke of Lydia's hands against my back.

"You must sleep now, love. You'll need your strength for the battle in the morn."

I replied, a strong hint of pride in my voice, "Love, I could take down those Imperial sons-of-bitches in my sleep."

"Sleep is what you need. I fear every time you walk out that door that you won't return to me. Promise me it won't be so." Her voice was soft and pleading in the darkness.

"I promise. I'll always come back to you," I assured her as I rolled over in the soft hay of the bed. I couldn't see her, yet I could. Her silhouette and features were vague in the black of the night.

"I love you, Jorgsten," she whispered to me.

"I love you too."

Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.

        The horse's hooves struck the ground in a rythmic pattern. My head throbbed with pain from the recollection. Lydia was dead. She had been dead for years. I suffered, in a silence too upsetting to explain, about the memory of her death. Suspened in the air as a Thalmor mage crushed her organs inside of her body, blood squirting from her mouth and nose, creating a sound too terrible to remember. My wife, mutilated in front of me. Her eyeballs exploded from their sockets as her steel armor crushed and wretched inward, squeezing her apart.

        Enough of this, I told myself. Yet, her words echoed in my throbbing head as my tears ran down my paralized face. " I fear every time you walk out that door that you won't return to me. Promise me it won't be so." Love, I'm coming home. I'm coming to you. I'm coming to Sovngarde. I just need to close my eyes. Talos, sacrifice me. Rescue me from this hellish nightmare. I'm ready.

Darkness.

        She looked different. Her face wasn't pale. She was glowing. An ethereal figure. Lydia's hand stretched out toward me, beckoning me toward her.

"You've fulfilled your proimise, love."

"I'm ready to come home, älskar."

Her presence faded slightly. "No, love. It is not your time. I'll be here waiting for you when it is."

She faded away, leaving me in the darkness. Solidarity. Isolation. Loneliness. Nothing.

Jorgsten...

The voice was familiar. But to whom did it belong?

Jorgsten, you must stay in this realm. Your time has not yet come...

"Who is this?"

Her body arose from the darkness. Evelynn. Her shirt was stained in crimson, fresh, gleaming blood.

I've passed on to Sovngarde...

Her comment took me by extreme surprise. "Evelynn, so much has gone unsaid - "

None of that matters now. Your future lies with the hooded one.

Galloping Pierced the Eeire Silence.

        A dark voice shouted back to me,

"I'm afraid your little friend has slipped away!" Black Dragon let out a maniacal cackle. "Hope you don't fall into that trench they refer to as death too!"

Whip. The horse sprinted ahead. It seemed as if I'd live to see another day.

Darkness.