When Love Met Destruction

Chapter Three

As soon as Sloan had awoken she had been out the door, eager to explore the town. She had woken up before Lady Eiko, unsurprisingly since her body clock had not yet adjusted to the hours that she would be keeping in her time here. It was her third day in the little village, and she had spent the first two familiarizing herself with the local people and their way of life. She had thought it important to gain some understanding of the people of this land if she ever hoped to not stick out like a sore thumb. After exiting the doors of the inn, she swiftly and nimbly climbed to the roof of the inn and laid her head back to peer up at the night sky. She spent the very early morning watching as the stars begun to fade from the sky to make room for the sun and its unrelenting warmth. As the sun began its trip across the sky, she made her way into a small clearing amongst the trees next to the village. She stopped and looked around, ensuring that there was no one around. After she was sure that she was alone, aside from the critters lingering in the woods, she took on a fighting stance facing a pond on the edge of the clearing and begun to build up a small flame in the palm of her hand. She gritted her teeth at the searing pain and once the fire had grown large enough, she shot a stream of flames at the surface of the pond. She laughed bitterly through the pain at how severely lacking in intensity her flames were and forced even more magicka into her palm.

"Still. Not. Enough." She spoke through gritted teeth, grabbing onto her left wrist with her other hand in an attempt to steady the trembling. She clenched her jaw even tighter as she forced the flames to grow even more, then instantly cried out in pain. If I stop now, I'm never going to get it! Don't you fucking give in, Sloan. Her thoughts were fighting her body's pleas for her to stop as she again increased the size of her fire spell until finally, the flames betrayed her, igniting her own flesh and spreading to her entire hand and wrist in the blink of an eye. The spell in her left hand gave out and she dropped to her knees with a painful scream as she plunged her entire arm into the pond. Soon the water itself became another source of pain and she ripped her arm from the water in a desperate attempt for some form of relief. She sat clutching her left wrist in a death grip as if somehow squeezing the blood supply would stop the shooting pains.

"Dammit!" Tears of frustration clouded her vision but she violently wiped them away. She took in a few deep breaths to calm herself, sitting motionless until she could finally bring herself to inspect her hand. It was severely red, with her charred, blackened skin peeling away from her bleeding flesh. This time it was certainly going to leave a scar. She gathered magicka into her right hand and pressed it to her hand which immediately began to glow with a soft golden light. She held it there for a few moments, then moved to her wrist repeating the process. The skin turned an angry pink, and already she could see it beginning to swell. Some spots remained bloodied, where her spell could not heal all of the layers of skin and flesh that had been damaged. It would certainly require a potion, which she had the ingredients for back in her room at the inn, but for now, the wound was healed enough. Pain still throbbed in her hand, but it couldn't be helped so she attempted to ignore it as she rose from her spot near the water's edge and made her way towards the village. As she made her way into the heart of the village people began to fill the streets. She too walked amongst the shops as they begun to open up for the day, the smell of baking goods wafting through the air. She stopped at a small shop to purchase some bandages with the pocket change that Lady Eiko had given her. She had claimed that it was the extra money from the drunken man's wallet, but she had her suspicions that that wasn't the case. Soon enough the streets were bustling with people going about their daily business and Sloan couldn't help but spend her time people watching. She smiled as she watched a shop owning scolding two kids who had been caught attempting to take some fresh fruit from his stand, their friends giggling to themselves from their spot by a tree a few yards away. It reminded her of the trouble she had gotten into as a child, trying to impress the kids in her little village. She vaguely remembered something about stealing a goat and attempting to sell it to a giant. That had ended with her running desperately through the trees of Valenwood screaming bloody murder. Unfortunately, there was something of a communication gap between her and the giants. She smiled at the memory as she continued walking, staring up at the blue sky. As she was walking with her head in the clouds, she felt her shoulder slam into something solid, almost knocking her flat on her ass until she felt a pair of strong hands grab her shoulder to steady her.

"I'm so sorry! I wasn't paying attention to where I was walking and..." She trailed off when her gaze landed on his face. His face was stunningly beautiful, but his eyes... His eyes were the coldest things she had ever seen, and she had spent her earliest years living in a region that was almost eternally frozen.

"Clearly." He said in a flat voice.

"It was an accident." She altered her tone to match his and furrowed her brow in stress as she tried to figure out if his eyes were so icy because of her or if that was simply their natural state.

"Walking with your eyes on your path usually helps with that." He spoke in the same dry tone, but she had a feeling he was mocking her. She crossed her arms over her chest and looked up at him defiantly.

"Yeah, thanks for the sage advice, almighty asshole." She glared at him as she moved to set foot into the restaurant she had been heading for. At the same instant, the man cut in front of her, walking into that very same restaurant.

"Somebody clearly wants to die today." She muttered to herself as she walked into the building hot on his heels. She had been looking forward to trying this place out all morning, like hell she was going to let some snobbish man ruin her plans for the day.

She smiled to herself as she went to the only free table and sat down. The waitress greeted her and she ordered four dishes before deciding to let her restraint trump her curiosity. As the waitress walked away, Sloan let her eyes scan the little restaurant, the tables had to be pretty close together with the limited room so her eyes couldn't miss the annoyance at the table closest to her own.

"Of course the only free table had to be right next to yours. You're determined to ruin my day, aren't you?"

"You think too highly of yourself to assume that you or your day are significant enough to concern me in the slightest." He voice was calm and even. He didn't turn his head to acknowledge her at all as he spoke, which only served to drive his point home even more. She glared at him before turning her head to face the wall straight ahead of her. They both sat in silence until their food came. Excitedly, Sloan dug into her food immediately, not even waiting for it to cool. She still maintained her manners from Skyrim, which to anyone here would probably look more so like a complete lack of manners. When she reached her last plate of food, she started to notice all of the eyes on her, and she became painfully aware of the difference between her own eating habits and everyone else in the room. She tried her best to recall the lessons Lady Eiko had given her after her first near heart attack when she saw Sloan scarfing down food like she hadn't eaten in eons. She finished her last plate of food and, as she was going to get up to leave, she happened a glance at the table to the left of her. Her eyes instantly went to the plate on the man's table containing very colorful and very appetizing looking little balls on a stick. She cleared her throat awkwardly, leaning over the gap between their tables and pointed her finger at his plate.

"Um, excuse me but... those look really good. What are they?" She looked up at him sheepishly as he glanced at her nonchalantly.

"They're dango," He picked one up almost as if he intended to hand it to her. "And you're correct. They're very good." He said as he brought it up to his mouth and took a bite. "You should've ordered some for yourself."

~~~

Presenting my exhaustion based inspiration for the day! I hope you enjoyed it, I enjoyed writing it! Thank you for reading!

~Cori