Of Daggers and Bows - Skyrim

[two] in these stars

[this is unedited and horrible don't read it unless you want to i guess]

   Chill air breezed among the leaves of trees on that cold, Morndas night. A young woman ushered her whining children into a building to escape from the cold, and a beggar rubbed his arms and breathed out a puff of smoke from the cold. A man darted away from a guard, his hood pulled suspiciously over his face. The branches of spindly trees swayed in the wind, but oddly enough, a single branch of a tree remaining still, with a figure perched on top of it.

   Ava hummed along to the angelic tune of the lute as she sat on a branch of a tree outside of the inn in Solitude. It was a strange sight to see; a wood elf sitting in a tree, her deft fingers plucking at the lute propped on her lap loosely, and her hair forming a chaotic halo around her head, draping down to meet her shoulders. Her head was swinging in tune with the strums, and she gently leaned left to right, her mouth moving in sync with what she was thinking. It was also a strange sound to hear; the expert notes wafting from the instrument seemed to echo, the leaves of the trees shivered as if getting chills down their leafy spines from her music.

   Hadvar was in awe as he watched the rather beautiful woman from his hidden position by a stone opening in the towering walls of Solitude that led down a long flight of stairs if one felt obliged to exit the city, which he was planning on doing. He, however, suddenly felt like as if he wouldn't mind staying in the harsh city, as long as that elf and her instrument would stay, too. Before he had heard the woman and the lute, he was about to escape to Dawnstar to possibly begin a new life. It was hard in the Imperial Army; General Tullius never noticed his obvious desire for a higher rank in the army or simply didn't care, most of his brothers-in-arms were drunk on mead every night, and since he was scrawny and not as muscled as the other men, he was picked on constantly. This was definitely not the life he was planning on leading when he had taken the oath.

   Maybe his uncle was right. Maybe the army life wasn't right for him. He should've remained with Alvor in Riverwood, chopping down trees until he permanently stank of their evergreen scent. His faith in the Empire was sinking; if their military leader couldn't stop to care about one of his soldiers, how could the Empire care for the people of Skyrim?

   But all of his problems seemed to vanish as the simple yet complex tune filled his ears. Complete bliss drowned his senses, and he smelled the scent of a million roses after being sprayed with water, and what sounded like the singing of hundreds of tiny voices in his ears. Hadvar never wanted this feeling to end, but he was yanked, rather unhappily, away from his reverie when he realized no one was pausing and looking joyful or even curious like he was; they seemed to go on with their lives as if she wasn't even there, sitting in the spindly tree next to The Winking Skeever.

   He couldn't place his finger on how the citizens could just ignore the wood elf and the lute. The haunting melody wasn't something that you could just bypass without a second thought. Maybe they're just too distracted to process the sound of the instrument, or maybe it's a composition that they don't particularly enjoy......

   ....or maybe he was the only one who could hear it.

*~~~*~~~*~~~*

   Ava played the last few notes of the song, then let the last, prolonged note fill the air before silencing it with her finger. She let the silence hang, before grabbing the lute rather noisily, opening the latches of the case she'd constructed one dreary day, slid the lute into the makeshift protector, and placed it on one of the higher branches of the tree for safe-keeping. She always put it there, for she was certain no one could reach it, or even think to look there. Most people ignored her, the current gossip of the town, the girl who sat in the tree and played the instrument.