Pale {The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim}

Chapter III: Unbound {Astrid}

ACT I

CHAPTER III

UNBOUND

{ASTRID'S POINT OF VIEW}

Hadvar makes me feel like I am home in a dank, old watchtower that smells like a forest and forge all at the same time, a housewarming party in something not a house.

He paces like he is trying to shake off the fear. At least that's the way I do it.

"Looks like we're the only ones who made it," he says. No one else is around. That makes me scared. "Was that really a dragon? The bringers of the End Times?"

I know the answer, but I can't bring myself to say it.

All I do is exhale.

"We should keep moving," he says. "Come here. Let me see if I can get those bindings off."

I approach him, but the exchange is tentative. Standing with my left foot off the ground a little as he travels behind my back, I am suddenly greeted by a gentle sawing at the rope, heavy and chaffing, between my wrists. It feels like he is being careful not to cut my skin, but I can only imagine its condition: blood stained and smeared with mud. What could a small nick possibly do? But, there I stand, breathless, letting him be painstaking anyway. Grateful, I am very grateful.

I try to acknowledge him, but the words don't come free.

"There you go," he says to me. I hear the rope fall to the floor, and he makes his way around me once more. "Take a look around; there should be plenty of gear to choose from." (His accent is very heavy at the word gear.) "I'm going to see if I can find something for these burns." (Same with burns.)

I look to his arms, seeing they were touched by flames, but I'm distracted by a wooden table set at the end of the room. A large candelabra illuminates that side of the tower, but it still appears dark - very dark, easy to trip and hurt myself. And, although the shadows tell me not to and my mind whispers 'lackadaisical', I wish to sit for a moment. Sit, and heal.

After an eternity of strenuous mental preparation, I finally limp to the seat.  While my feet find the table top, elevated just high enough for comfort, I sit uncomfortably, and once again sullen eyes observe my ravaged lower half. 

My left ankle has become swollen, shaded lightly with either a black shadow or a purple bruise. Probably both. It hurts when I move it - ouch - but I do not wince; I grit my teeth instead. My jaw must be strong with all this teeth grinding I do.

My hands rest on my knees, and I grimace. There are rope marks on my wrists, a slice surrounded by dried blood across my left knuckles, and dirt and red and grit and skin under short nubs I like to call fingernails. (My thumbs have no cuticles. I have bitten them both off. Protein.)

I must look like a corpse.

It is odd using my fingers again, so I pretend to grasp air, flexing stiff, tired joints in an effort to warm them up. (Hadvar must think I'm crazy.) Once I feel nimble enough - a tiresome effort in itself - I focus on remembering how to use my special talent.

I am no mage or medic, but I am a neophyte practitioner in the fine art of novice Restoration magic. Healing spells. Weak in my case, but it should take the pain away.

I close my eyes and think, imagining a ball of gold braided with silver appear in pale and damaged hands, and decide everything I want fixed about myself, from my injuries to my hunger to my gaunt and bony face. (Maybe even a topsy-turvy on my love life, too.) It doesn't take long, however, to realize fixing all that would take the equivalent of a master mage, and as expected, the radiant sliver of magic I once had flickers and disappears.