Lorkhan's Eclipse [A Skyrim Fanfiction]

2. Elsewhere

I feel something jab me in the side, and I jerk awake. Brightness assaults my eyes, and I close them as quickly as I opened them. My head is spinning, and I feel like I'm about to throw up.

Actually, hold that thought—

Cries of disgust sound as I retch, throwing myself sideways and clutching at the wall of... Something. Wood. I don't have much time to think about it before my body heaves and I'm hurling up my breakfast on the ground.

The people are speaking, but their voices sound garbled and guttural, and I can't understand anything clearly. I fall back onto whatever hard surface I was laying on, but something grabs me, pulling me up brightness assaults my eyes but I close them as quickly as they opened. There's a violent, sharp, stabbing pain in my skull and there's a sort of pins and needles feeling all over my body.

"Get them in the cart, we need to rejoin the others."

Something is deeply, deeply wrong.

What was the last thing that happened? We were in the car, on the way to South Bank, stopped at a set of lights. Our light turned green and... blinding light, truck horn—

"Never seen anything like it. You sure they're spies? They look more like sellswords."

"We can't take any chances; the less people know about this, the better."

The next time I come to, the world seems less steady. I'm leaning against someone again, but this time it's definitely more upright, like we're both sitting up. The migraine is gone, and the nausea and pins and needles. I guess the sleep did me some good.

"This is the Pale Pass," someone says, a thick accent distorting their vowels. Is that Swedish? Something Scandinavian, and faintly familiar. "We've just left Bruma."

I hear a recognisable grunt beside me as I try to open my eyes again. Dazzling brightness again, but I blink a few times and it seems to clear.

"Hey, you. You're finally awake,"

Vision comes back into focus, and I register the fair-haired man sitting opposite me. We're in a wooden cart, the sort of thing that gets brought to mediaeval festivals and ren faires. Looking around, I realise it's even got the horses and a driver. All around us are tall pines, evergreens with a light coating of... That can't be snow, is it?

I sit up straight, getting a better look around me. Killian's here, thank god, along with the fair-haired guy and two others. I realise with a sort of horror I've been sleeping on the shoulder of another stranger, a guy built like a goddamn bear. He's in similar clothing to the fair haired guy, but has a mantle of grey fur around his shoulders, while the other just has some blue-grey cloth. The third stranger is in a ragged burlap tunic, stark contrast to the other two with all their armour and fur and whatnot.

I realise all of us have our hands bound with strips of cloth.

"It's real," Killian says as I twist my hands, trying to pull free of the bindings. I give him a questioning look, and he nods around us. I let myself pause, properly take in everything around us. What's he trying to say?

"You were trying to cross the border, right?" Fairhair asks, looking between me and Killian. He nods at Killian. "He's barely said five words since we got in these damned carts, won't answer a thing."

Something in his voice sounds... Off. Odd. Not the accent - that sounds like a weird blend of Scandinavian accents, but the way he's talking, like he needs to. Like he's nervous, and he's trying to hide it.

"Maybe he knows the value of silence," the rags guy snaps suddenly, scowling at Fairhair. "If it weren't for you Stormcloaks, I'd be halfway the Hammerfell by now. Skyrim was a nice, peaceful place before you lot made a mess of things."