Board Thread:Roleplaying/@comment-3293219-20140525223412/@comment-3293219-20140528122322

Nepht strained as the light hit her face, groaning and kicking her legs, like someone had just thrown a sheet over her and she was trying to get it off. The Dunmer wanted to sleep in, stay in her dreams where she was happy and carefree. But sadly, reality came crashing down and her senses were going crazy, demanding that she got up and moved out of the sunlight.

The teenager crawled to her feet, mumbling and rubbing the back of her head as she looked around, seeing that Manja had beaten her to it somehow.

“Morning, sleepy!” The Nord chuckled as she approached her, stepping over the fire pit, which had been doused out overnight.

“How’d you sleep?”

Nepht blinked as her eyes adjusted the light, rubbing her hands in her eyes to regain focus as Manja blurred back into her retina.

“Like the dead…” She mumbled, forcing a smile as she felt rather proud of the fact that she was able to joke about it so easily. Manja got it immediately and began to laugh, turning away and examining the edge of the camp site.

She began to look around in the hopes of getting her bearings, squinting slightly as the morning sun beat down on her, making her sympathise with her Vampire companion…

“Okay, according the rumours? Agatha lives… Just through this clearing.” Manja informed her, turning back with a grin, to match her cheerful tone.

“Hopefully? We’ll have pinned her down long enough to find her, in her house.”

Nepht stepped forward, looking to Manja in confusion as she scratched her arm.

“Have you… Been here before?” She asked, curiously as she stood by the Nord’s side.

Manja looked to her and shook her head before turning her attention to the path ahead and taking her first step.

“No… I didn’t know Agatha lived up here… Lilly said that she had a house in Skingrad but that was a long time ago and I already knew that she had abandoned that…”

“Lilly?” The young Dunmer asked, raising an eyebrow as she had heard the name before…

“Her daughter…” The Nord replied, to fill her in as she hadn’t talked about Lilly much, over the last six months. Mainly, because Nepht had never asked about her, for obvious reasons…

They continued to trundle through the forest; Nepht folded her arms as she began to feel cold in the shade. Normally, she’d step out, into the hot sun but being a vampire, it meant going from one extreme temperature to another and she loathed it…

She could hear birds twittering and singing above her, she looked up to see a yellow-tit fly from one branch of a tree to another, making the leaves shake and drop water on her face. The Dunmer would normally complain but she was in a pretty good mood today, so she let it slide...

<p class="MsoNormal">She stopped to look at her friend, who had zoned out as she wandered along, seeming deep in thought. Thinking about past battles no doubt, reliving her triumphs in her days as an adventurer and her later days as a hero.

<p class="MsoNormal">“That rabbit tasted like crap…” Manja suddenly spoke, prompting Nepht to look to her, looking like her pride in her heroic friend had taken a gut-punch.

<p class="MsoNormal">“It wasn’t too bad…” Nepht mumbled, turning her attention back on the road.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Oh yeah? Oh… That’s right; I gave you the best bits…” Manja sighed, instantly feeling bad about it as it sounded like an attempt to guilt trip Nepht. The Dunmer took it pretty well though…

<p class="MsoNormal">“What are you going to do? Once this is all over I mean…” Nepht kept her gaze fixed on Manja as she spoke, with a worried glint in her eye. Manja had lost her brother, C’laro, her camp, Rowan… Sometimes, Nepht thought that she was all that Manja had left and she was just another burden, a burden that Manja was happy to bear but still…

<p class="MsoNormal">“I…” The Nord rambled for a moment as she tried to think of a satisfying, yet vague answer.

<p class="MsoNormal">“I dunno…” She ended up shrugging and looking away, looking into the sun and squinting as it hit her eyes, smiling as she felt the cold mountain air.

<p class="MsoNormal">The Dunmer nodded and looked down to her feet, it’s not like she had an answer either…

<p class="MsoNormal">“Will you go and look for Rowan again?”

<p class="MsoNormal">Manja sighed in response as she was very tempted to do so, the way that Rowan looked, when he asked for ‘fresh air.’ The Nord spent days blaming herself for letting him leave, in that state… He was grief stricken, she could see that much. She pondered on it, every day, for the last six months but she could never think of a good reason. Was he close to that woman? The one that stabbed him? From what she could remember, they were sort of intimate but not in a close way… Then again, they may not have known each other at all, perhaps she was just some femme-fatale bandit, who lured people in before murdering them and taking their stuff but then again, she was so nicely dressed and well groomed, it didn’t seem plausible…

<p class="MsoNormal">“I… Don’t think I’d know where to start…” Manja admitted, which was true as Rowan could be anywhere. He could be dead, a mere six feet away from that cabin, where he had wandered off, in some nook or cranny, that they never searched as they combed that area or he could be back in Riften or in some other city or out on the high seas, living his dream. Though the Nord did wish for his safe return, she would probably pick up where that witch lady left off, if he was to return to her after a sailing trip, after what his sudden disappearance put her through.

<p class="MsoNormal">“I can’t imagine that we’d have much of a trail to follow…”

<p class="MsoNormal">Nepht nodded in agreement, Manja knew Rowan better than she did and even to her, Rowan was a puzzle…   She only spoke to him once or twice but she wasn’t all there before, stuck in a depression induced trance as she spent most of the time zoned out, thinking about her suicide attempt, the curse that was forced upon her and those who had betrayed her…

<p class="MsoNormal">Even then she could tell that Rowan hated her, always looking at her with disgust and contempt, it was all Manja’s idea to take her with them, she knew that… She had hoped to improve their relationship, if he was ever found but the longer he was missing, the longer this felt like a pipe dream.

<p class="MsoNormal">“I guess you’ll be going back home? To see the folks?” Manja whispered, with a smile as she pulled some branches back and allowed Nepht to pass through.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Y-Yeah… First time I’ve seen them since I went to Riften…”

<p class="MsoNormal">“You looking forward to it?”

<p class="MsoNormal">Nepht stopped and frowned, her eyes trailed along the path ahead as she began to think on her answer. Manja could see that she was troubled and deep in thought; the Nord stepped in front of her bent over, to look her companion in the face.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Something wrong?” She asked, sympathetically.

<p class="MsoNormal">“N-No… Not… ‘Wrong,’ it’s just that…” Nepht swallowed before looking up, finally meeting Manja’s eyes and welcoming smile, which was enough to make her want to talk.

<p class="MsoNormal">“I haven’t seen them in so long; I don’t remember what they look like anymore.”

<p class="MsoNormal">Her companion cut her off as she placed her hands on the teenager’s shoulders, causing her to shake a little as she grinned.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Well… All the more reason that you should get back to them and remind yourself, right?”

<p class="MsoNormal">Nepht looked up at her, with a smile, she nodded in response, prompting Manja to let go and turn around as they continued to walk deeper into the forest.

<p class="MsoNormal">“You should come back with me! I’d love it if my mum and Tabith could meet you.”

<p class="MsoNormal">Manja chuckled to herself, hanging and shaking her head as she found herself amused by Nepht’s enthusiasm. Though the idea did appeal to her…

<p class="MsoNormal">“I’d… Like that, catch up with Veneficus and Corelas maybe…”

<p class="MsoNormal">Or what’s left of him…

<p class="MsoNormal">Manja wasn’t aware of the former Thalmor agent’s progress; she assumed that he would be as he was when they dragged him down from Red Mountain. It was like he had been lobotomized. He didn’t recognise anybody from his past, every time she spoke to him or held his hand, it was like meeting him again for the first time as he looked puzzled and lost.

<p class="MsoNormal">She noticed the look in his vacant eyes, at the funeral. He didn’t know why he was there, he couldn’t read the insignia and he didn’t know why they were burying the sheet and why everyone was so sad to see it go.

<p class="MsoNormal">And yet… He still shed tears.

<p class="MsoNormal">Manja was one of two people to notice but it was like he had resurfaced for a moment, enough of him to express some form of emotion, erasing that glazed expression and replacing it with something else, a pained look of grief. The Nord tried to avoid thinking back to the funeral, it was like willingly salting an open wound but it was her last memory of her friends…

<p class="MsoNormal">The last thing they did as a companionship…

<p class="MsoNormal">“But first…” Manja added before Nepht could ask her if she was alright, like she often did when she thought back to the past. “We’re going to the tavern, in Falkreath.”

<p class="MsoNormal">Nepht looked up to her and smiled, tilting her head, in a manner similar to Petra, something she did for a while as a child and occasionally did, without knowing it.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Why?”

<p class="MsoNormal">Manja chuckled as she kept her eyes on the road, bringing her index and middle finger to her chin as she rested her head on it.

<p class="MsoNormal">“I want to see how red your little face can get.” She replied, instantly bursting out laughing as Nepht looked back to her, heavily confused. Eventually she worked it out or maybe gave in to peer pressure and began to laugh herself.

<p class="MsoNormal">The two of them fell into silence as they approached an old cottage, seeing the old stone building, which was rather homely, like one of those charming little cottages that you’d see on the cover of a child’s story book. The small, wooden, homely place was oddly surrounded by crows. The crows didn’t seem to pay any attention to the travellers as they were too busy pecking away at the crops, eating away at the recently planted seeds as they stood on a toppled scarecrow, which lay, face down, in the mud.

<p class="MsoNormal">Nepht found herself shrinking as she huddled up, wrapping her arms around herself as she made her way past the threatening birds. She had never considered herself to be afraid of crows as they were quite common in Cheydinal and the surrounding area. But these birds were somewhat frightening; they circled them and cawed loudly, like they were getting ready for them to die, so that they could pick the still warm flesh off of their bones.

<p class="MsoNormal">Manja stopped on the doormat, looking down at the embroidery on the door mat, which didn’t mean anything, to her knowledge. Still, the Nord decided to avoid stepping on it, knowing her luck and Agatha’s macabre nature, it probably covered a bottomless pit. She held up her hand, hovering it over the door, like she was expecting it to be cut off by a hidden guillotine before knocking twice, hurriedly and taking a step back.

<p class="MsoNormal">The two of them stared at the front door, listening as the footsteps of the resident grew closer as the key scratched against the lock and a loud clunk could be heard. The door slowly opened, with a creak…