Pale {The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim}

Chapter VII: Before the Storm {Astrid}

ACT I

CHAPTER VII

BEFORE THE STORM

{ASTRID'S POINT OF VIEW}

The first time I met Death, Her face was still, pale, and glistening, and She cradled me in the embrace of powdery white snow. It was in the days of 'be careful', when mothers, clutching children too close to their breasts, cautioned brave-heart sons and reckless daughters that all creatures were cursed with poison on their teeth, and the forest at dusk was a respawning of our parents' own worst nightmares. We spouted promises to our mothers of never leaving their sight, even the most defiant of us did. Absorbing tales of little girls in big red hoods and men donning pelts to become the beast inside, we never imagined ourselves to be the ones to succumb to gnashing-teeth fates or the whims of criminal tongues. We were Death's non-believers, dynamic and bright and burning inside, in the days that fate was only a myth and 'be careful' were words just waiting to be ignored...

It was in times like these that I made my mistakes, and soon days became nights, tales became truths, and confidence in Life became solace in Death. These were my thoughts when I laid face down in a blanket of white dust, my leg benumbed from the cold penetrating my skin and poison coursing fast through undefiled veins. The bite in my skin was growing deeper as razor fangs traveled farther, and my cowardice was gleaming as empty screams echoed through trees I was convinced I could traverse. I was gone in innumerable ways — and as a ten-year-old with big dreams struggling to fit into the top half of the hourglass, it hurt the most that 'Stupid Dead Girl' was all I would be.

My saving grace emerged quickly, and the one wielding it much quicker. A shot of red light burst from small gray hands, tangling itself around the wolf with a speed dwarfing the rapid beat of my heart. Soon, as if under a trance, the animal fled, whimpering in a way that made me think it was playing copy-cat, and a gray-skinned boy lifted me from the ground like a soldier raises his fallen comrade in battle. I marveled at the lilac in his eyes as I struggled to remain conscious, and tears fell like rivers down frostbitten cheeks. Soon, they'd freeze to my skin.

"Where do I take you?" the boy asked, his sweet accent foreign in a sheltered mind.

My leg was on fire after falling snowflake kisses, and my waning breath left me clueless about the words that left my lips.

Between silent sobs, me: "Home."

Somewhere in my heart, I felt he knew exactly where that was.

~♦~♦~♦~

Present-day tears replace past-tense sobs as I once again observe my battered lower half. This is the first bath I've had in four days, and it's in someone else's house.

Hadvar and I arrived at his uncle's residence two hours ago, but I can barely remember what happened in between. A jumbled mind flashes vague images of nodding along to an account of the dragon attack, and a surfeited stomach reminds me that stew and mead comprised my most recent meal. Quite vehemently, I have been instructed to stay the night, and Hadvar's Aunt Sigrid thinks I am far too grubby to sleep in one of her beds without sufficient sanitary measures.

Thus, here I am.

If the bite on my leg is gnarly at best, then the drops in my eyes are heartbreaking at worst. There is no formula for dealing with scars. Of course, one can stitch them — but sometimes, the thread comes loose, and the resulting waterworks can be too much to contain. Perhaps, my brain whispers in that nasty Father voice, you need to accept the fact that you cry more often than you should.