The Bound - A Tale Of Tamriel

22

22

i. Revna's dream.

Why this? It could have been any other traumatic event in her life, but it had to be this one. She had, somehow, learned how to block out this dream, this memory, years ago. Waking up in the middle of the night, sweating no matter the weather. It wasn't as if she blocked the memory itself, that was always still there, but the dream of it was always too painful for her mind to allow it to replay.

She remembered each and every part of this memory. The burning fire, stacked up with logs. The shadows flickering against the walls. Her Hearth-Mother, lying on the bed, hoarse breathing coming and going in fits and starts. The open wound in her stomach weeping continuous blood through the makeshift bandages.

"Stendarr's mercy, girl! Your back!" Corhan, the irascible old hunter had managed to bring her Hearth-Mother here, safe, but dying. "Let me see to those cuts."

"Leave them." She had been stern, but not dismissive. "I'll be fine. How is Mama?"

She hadn't seen the old man, but she knew that he had been staring at the criss-cross lacerations in her back. She remembered feeling the blood trailing from them, matting her fur. Dripping on the dirt floor of the lodge. But the physical pain was nothing to the pain in her heart. She dropped to her knees, putting the bloodied Jotnbann aside, and clasped her Hearth-Mother's hand.

"There's nothing I can do, girl." Corhan stepped to the other side of Asta, Revna's Hearth-Mother and began replacing the bandage. "If I could get her to a healer, but she'd never survive the journey."

"Mama?" She held her Hearth-Mother's hand to her bare chest and moved a lock of hair away from her mother's sweat sodden face. "I'm here, Mama."

"Revna. My dear, beautiful child." Her mother's eyes appeared to stare at the roof, but she could see nothing, now. Her ragged breathing made talking difficult. "Adira! Where is your Shield-Mother?"

"She's dead, Mama. I couldn't stop them. Mama. They killed her with her own sword! They didn't even let her fight!" It was Revna's turn for her voice to break and she realised she was holding her mother's hand too tight. "But I killed them, Mama. I killed them all!"

"All of them?" Corhan's head had snapped up. "But there must have been twenty or more ..."

"Would you like to go and count them, old man?" She had been vicious then. Taking out anger on someone who didn't deserve it. "Go! See! I tore out their throats with my teeth and claws! I gutted them and took their heads! Go! Look if you must!"

"Revna, my sweet child." The anger subsided at the sound of her mother's cracking voice. "Did you take her sword? Adira's sword?  My beautiful Adira!"

"I have it, Mama." Revna lifted Jotnbann from the floor and placed it into her Mama's hands. "I took it from their dead hands."

With some reserve of strength, Revna's Hearth-Mother gripped Jotnbann, her hands twisting against the leather wrapped grip. One hand fluttered out and, finding Revna's hand, brought it up to the grip of the sword, patting it when she had done.

"So she feasts in Sovngarde, Jotnbann belongs to you, now, Daughter. Carry it with pride. Be a true daughter of Skyrim. For Adira. And for me." Her Hearth-Mother's sightless eyes turned to face Revna, a hand lifting to stroke Revna's cheek. "Be good, little bird."

A final, long, haunting breath escaped her Hearth-Mother's lips and life left her. Revna had wanted to scream and to shout. To tear through this lodge. To go through the entirety of Skyrim slaughtering anything and everything in her path.

But she had slumped. Her fingers slipped from the grip of Jotnbann and she sobbed into her Hearth-Mother's chest, inconsolable. She had knelt there for such a long time. Ignoring the pain in her back. Ignoring the cramping of her legs. She only wanted to stay with her mother for a little while longer.