Fighter - Skyrim Fanfic (NEW AND IMPROVED)

(Alessia) Chapter Six: A Night in Prison

Alessia's P.O.V.

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Even after the soldiers had dug their nails into the skin of my hands and dragged me hastily away from the chasm, away from my traitor brother, I was paralyzed. Not literally, of course, but that's exactly what it felt like. It felt as though all of my limbs were completely immobile and my entire being felt numb to the core. My brain couldn't comprehend my surroundings, and everything seemed to blend into a confusing jumble of colors and noises. My eyes were watering up from not blinking, but I didn't have the sense to blink them. My eyes were still focused in the same direction.

It was only after Amelio left my sight that I finally grasped the reality of the situation.

They were going to execute me, and not Amelio. He had abandoned me to save his own ass.

As I solemnly went over this new information in my cluttered mind, the soldiers ceased dragging me. They righted me onto my feet, and another guard in their group threw a soldier a small bundle of rope. He barely caught it and proceeded to roughly tie together both of my wrists in front of me. The rope bit into my skin painfully, the bristles of the rope scratching uncomfortably. He moved away with a look of bitter amusement on his face and crossed his arms, and another soldier, this one being female, tied a gag around my mouth tightly. I tried to refrain from tasting the unwashed gag, causing me to curl in my lips.

The guard that bound my hands nudged me towards a cart with a horse harnessed to it that I hadn't noticed before. I obediently trudged over to the seats in the back, straining my exhausted legs to lift themselves up. A cart driver sat irritably in the front, the reins of the horse held loosely in his hands. His posture seemed too straight for comfort. The driver simply stared straight forward as extra weight was added to the back of the cart, occasionally peering to the left of his shoulder impatiently and shushing the horse when it randomly whinnied.

I sat down on one side of the wooden cart softly, scooting all the way to the end of the bench to distance myself from the obviously irked cart driver. Three other soldiers accompanied me in the cart soon after, none of which even spared me a second glance.

Two soldiers - the last remaining of the group that had been sent after us - that weren't in the cart walked up to the cart driver, the one that was obviously the leader of the two standing tall and proud, while the other was shuffling around on his feet almost sheepishly. I couldn't make out his facial features all that well - it was much too dark tonight -, but when he would occasionally throw in a side comment while the leader and the cart driver were conversing, I could determine exactly who he was just by his voice.

He was the Imperial soldier that had been shouting at me when Amelio and I were escaping from the Katariah. The brown blur in the distance that ruined everything because he had seen us was standing just a few feet away from me. I could feel my fists involuntarily clench, and I was glad for the midnight darkness because if the guards on the cart saw me and how irritated I was at that moment, they most likely wouldn't let me out of their sights for even a split second. It was bad enough they were sitting here anyways.

The leader of the pair of soldiers raised his voice, and in response the cart driver followed suit, and I could finally interpret their words, even though, after hearing it, I wished I couldn't.

"We need her at Helgen, and quickly. Tullius will have our heads if the prisoner isn't there by early tomorrow. Which means we have to get going, and now." the soldier persuaded in a patronizing voice.

"Some people need sleep, Al." the cart driver replied uneasily.

"I'm aware of that, and I swear, after this, you can have as much of it as you'd like." Al said, his hands clasped together, almost begging. For a moment, the cart driver seemed as if he was about to object, before he sighed and nodded. He shooed away the two soldiers with flicks of his wrist and an annoyed look, then eased the horse forward into a trot, the cart bouncing creakily behind it, making my bound hands bounce on my lap.