The White Sparrow [Elder Scrolls]

A Bottle of Mead

    Fire surrounded her; burning her flesh and cooking her insides. She screamed in pain, a scream that should have sent chills down the spines of all those who heard it. But no noise came out, no sound passed her lips. Soon smoke filled her mouth and nose, causing her to cough. She coughed so hard that her eyes blurred with tears, a pain worse then the fire could ever cause. The pain of weakness.
    She bolted up right in her cot, breathing heavily. The stench of smoke still hung in the air, and the dampness of tears stung her cheeks. She swung her legs off the side and stared at her toes. That dream had plagued her since she arrived in prison, 200 years ago. She knew it was punishment. Punishment for causing the deaths of hundreds of innocent lives. Punishment for rebelling. Punishment for living.
    She rubbed her temples and willed the dream to leave her memory. Something told her to look up, to be alert. So she did. Standing at her cell door was the new guard.
    "Are you okay?" He asked, wide eyed.
    She narrowed her eyes at him, unsure of how to speak. She hadn't used her voice for casual chit-chat in over a century, only to scream and beg. So she shook her head instead, hoping he would leave.
    When he didn't, she stood up and tried to run her fingers through her hair. This, of course, was just a feeble attempt to contain herself. When her fingers got stuck in the tangles, she couldn't help it. She fell to her knees and cried. She covered her face with her hands and sobbed into them. Her eyes burned with the waves of tears. They left trails down her face and splashed on to the cold stone floor.
    She cried for what felt like an hour and soon wore herself down. She wiped her eyes on the filthy cotton tunic the prison had given her, before looking back at her cell door.
    The same guard stood there, he watched her. His eyes filled with pity, and he looked tired.
    "You done?" He spoke in a low tone.
    She nodded and wiped her nose.
    "You cried all night. I never thought I'd hear the end of it," He unlocked her cell door and opened it.
    That had only been an hour, right? How could she have wasted the better part of a day crying? She was used to time flying by fast, she never used to pay attention to it. When you're damned, time has no meaning.
    She was vaguely aware of him entering her cell and closing the door behind him.
    "What do you want?" She hissed out, her voice was hoarse.
    He pressed something cold against her shoulder, causing her to flinch away. Nothing had touched her skin for years, besides what could be found in her cell. Nothing as icy as this.
    She looked and narrowed her eyes at a bottle. It was just a bottle. It was brown with a stamp on its side that read Black Briar.
    "Figured you'd need a drink." He held out the bottle, "As long as you don't beat me senseless with it, I won't be forced to hurt you."
    She smiled a bit and took it, uncorking it easily with her teeth.
    "What's your name?" The guard asked, sitting on the chair that rested in the corner of her cell.
    She shrugged slightly, she hadn't heard it in so long that she had almost forgotten she even had one.
    "You don't have one? That's a load. I heard the captain call you by a name. What was it? Oh! Sparrow. He called you Sparrow."
    She jolted at that title. It all came flooding back to her. How she got there, why she was, who she was, everything.
    "That's not my name." She growled, "that's the scar that was left on Tamriel."
    "My names Roven." He said warily, slightly disturbed by her response.
    She took a drink of the mead, realizing how parched she was. She tilted the bottle back and drained it easily.
    "So what's your story?" Roven pressed.
    "You first." She shot, setting the bottle down.
    He chuckled and looked at his boots, as if his past physically drained him.
    "I was a guard in Helgan. Grew up there. For some reason the imperial legion thought it better to bring the fugitives to my hometown for execution, instead of going to Solitude. So I was assigned to watch over the event.
They had already cut a Stormcloaks head off and were pushing someone else forward. Poor sap, wasn't even on their list. Didn't catch their name. Anyway, the headsman had his axe raised when a massive dragon landed on a tower. It destroyed everything. Not many people made it out alive. I had a piece of a wall fall on my leg." He shrugged, "They deemed me unfit to be a town guard so I got shipped here to watch prisoners."
    "I killed over half the people in Cyrodiil." She admitted and stared at the wall.
    He looked shocked for a second, before breaking down and laughing.
    "You can't be serious! You?" He motions to her, " You couldn't kill a Skeever!"
    "I'm not what you see." She muttered dryly, "this is just a disguise that I've worn for 200 years."
    He stopped laughing and looked at her. The laughter in his eyes died and was slowly replaced with a spark of terror.
    "So. It's true, what the guards say. You really have been here for two centuries."
    She nodded slowly.
    Time flies by fast in the eyes of a Daedra.