Chapter Text
Daggers from the Skyforge reflected torchlight as they snipped through leather straps and cloth alike, cutting fabric like scissors did hair. A woman's hands forcefully pressed her down while the man's violently reached to rip away armor, to tear away clothes. Breast-shaped chest plate clanking to the floor: backplate soon to follow: ripped out from underneath. Clawed through clothing and cut open garments, 'till nothing but the pale skin of a Nord woman remained to be seen. Smooth, soft, naked, and scentless. Scentless… truly a werewolf hunter. She smelled of nothing. And whenever her rebellious struggle for survival proved too much, broken knuckles and armored feet reminded her of the opposite: she'll never rise again.
Yet she laughed. Blood in her hair she laughed: sparkling joyous laugher. Heartfelt, happy, rich, and infectious—laughter spawned from a bleeding mouth—echoing throughout the stone-covered room, flooding and flowing continuously down the corpse covered hallway. Laugher that sounded like victory but in truth hid defeat! Was the motivator denial, or purely mania?
So much blood, stabbing at all my senses. Constant taste of thick runny pain; sight of red reflecting crimson; scent of copper steaming iron; feel of sticky splashing wet. It was all dark. Painful. Most of it's mine, one hand: shredded and pierced, the other: fractured and broken. Side of my waist burning as 'warm' oozed out and ran down my thigh. But it didn't hurt, not really: crazed anger, split with intent, still held the pain at bay, forced it aside for one final purpose! And once that final purpose has been completed—the sole reason for me still standing—the pain can kill me for all I care. So yes… most of it was mine. But that won't stay true for long; for my axe had returned to my bloodied hands; risen high above me.
This shouldn't be easy, for she didn't deserve easy… yet it was: off with the feet.
Vengeful and enraged eyes set, mentality split and broken: axe crashed down. And shattered bone.
A sudden high shriek and her laughter turned into cries. A cry; high-pitched and sharp; shocked and pained, but brief in its existence before it so easily returned into laughter.
But not for long, shortlived, as, again, my axe rose from the floor. Mechanically; fluid; firmly, it rose. A rising pole. Almost by itself, it rose: finally dripping with the blood that so many times had eluded its taste—fleed its bite. And as it again stood tall, risen above my head! It plunged to taste her once more.
And her cries turned into screams: Excruciating: Heart-shattering yet beautiful. Eyeopening even in its echoes. Emotional in its prolonged rawness. And Intimate in its pure and honest touch.
For what was her laughter but a lie to reinforce her attire? What was her cry but surprise at the stricken event? And what was her scream but realization for the truth?
Yes. Realization:
For fragile is the construct of make-believe, and cruel is the consequence of reality.
A solid window turned shattered glass, it all comes crashing down revealing nothing but empty air and a dangerous lack of safety. It's what one gets for hiding behind facade for so long: a mask void of emotion. A mask granted purpose not to hide emotions, for they showed clearly, but to safely keep them locked away. Locked behind cold steel as not to spill into the world for who could truly handle that? Insanity let loose: the purest of joys for defilement sacred in their horrid form. Innocent and clean, honest and gay, youthful and pure. To her, it was all of that and more. Yet in the eyes of others, it is only disturbing, twisted, contorted, and wrong.
For however the sabercat tears at the deer, its actions can never be considered evil. That is the nature of things. And through nature, her actions were nothing but natural: as she now lay, as nature intended.
And now that her mask's dropped, the masquerade's ended, all that's left is a naked fiend of a woman. A degenerate so savagely open to all the elements; bare and blatant; restrained of modesty; void of pride—yet she showed no shame. She still portrayed her sadistic nature: element: glee and laughter.
But in my eyes: keepers of primordial hatred apartheid my own, I saw only opportunity: she'll get what she deserves. And we won't stop until we've made her justice.
A pathetic display of a being. So delicate and fragile, lacking even the ability to stand on her own two feet—no more jumping around. Ha! Because she no longer has feet! How fun isn't this.
"Hush-hush-hush," I said: words hardly of my own making. But yet they came between her hysteric spurs of a laugh as I threw my axe aside and went down. Reached for her severed feet. And took the disconnected pale dead pieces in my hands to cast them out of my way!
"Cloth," I said—growled—reaching for the cut and torn clothing Aela hastily brushed off the floor to slide toward me before she returned her hand to press down on that violently naked shoulder, tearing for her cackle chuckle.
Blood pulsating out of her wriggling limb as I held it down and wrapped it up with the cloth: I won't have her bleed out until I'm done! I'll take my time, as she did Ysolda!
One bleeding thing's done, another bleeding thing to go. And still, she's laughing. Laughter combined shrieking! I despised the music she sang!
There! All wrapped in preparation to drag out on the ordeal she's about to forfeit with plead! I'll make her beg before it's over! If it'll ever be?
I turned my eyes for my prize—her painfully joyous face—felt her naked legs limbs scrub against my scrotum as I scooched up her soon-to-be-dead body: bloody handprints left on pale-white skin as my hands besieged her beauty in aim for vengeance!
She is beautiful: A joyous face burning with laughter even in pain, smooth white skin covered in blood, perky breasts, and a firm body down to her… I was about to think ¨toes,¨ But that's beyond my humor. Even her pubes held a golden charm.
All of it wasbeautiful. Too beautiful… So I'm about to destroy it!
Ooh, how we moved: left hand reached for that skin beneath her navel, just above those golden pubes of hers, skin-tight ripped to her muscles, yet our sharp nails fond grip within a slim fold: pierced—bit—through the skin, and begged to ripher open!
Withstand! I told ourselves in fragile rage, for this requires delicacy. Savored!
Fumbling, my right hand found the dagger by my belt and drew it for her skin. It stopped as it touched her belly, its tip poking, to the point of cutting as it pressed down on her belly.
My left hand hurt as it gripped, pierced as our blood run down the side of her waist. My right hand ached for its broken bones as it clenched the dagger with full intention to cut!
So why couldn't I?
The blade had stopped. Hands clenched in anger as the blade's edge felt stuck against her skin. We intended to cut her! Yet I had stopped? Why?
"What?!" she said, let out, laughed with degradation.
We looked up, met her face across her naked body: hysterical yet enthusiastic, wide eyes atop a twisted smile of insane glee.
"Is this is your first time?!" she continued, a sick nod between clenched teeth as she met our eyes, yet her eyes held stern and hard anticipation. "Don't be nervous! Just do it! Do it! Nothing turns me off like a guy without confidence!"
Those eyes of pleasure and glee… so 'set, ' piercingly aware. Mania. Craze.
¨Just do it…¨
Yet she had said those words. And it was enough to push us over the hair-thin threshold of that remaining border! For, kill! my mind said, Murder! common sense shouted, and Avenge! my heart told! So much more than any inflicted seek for honor could possibly demand ravaged within me to burnt an end to her wretched existence!
"Don't—" Aela quietly interrupted split thoughts far too late to be heard: for thosewords had gotten to me: dug inside, probed our mind for actions to be!
Yes. Her words were said and actions proven as my hand clenched onto her skin and the dagger slid across her stomach: let's cut open the price!
A whisper in the back of my dull-dark mind: ¨For it is rarely worth the price,¨ let's see about that!
It cut! Clean, and straight across. Pelvis bone to pelvis bone, it cut—not too deep now, trough the skin only, no need to ruin the meat.
She yelped, screamed, a sharp sound of pain—a shrill behind a squeal—through gritted teeth for the sting of my blade, and before her teeth parted to fully let out her voice, the blade turned and cut down the outside of her thigh. We scurried back as the cut harshly dug its way down to her knee—slit, slit, slit—a clean line of thin growing red on her pale Norther skin.
Hands exchanged dagger, the other side.
Mouth finally opened and scream she did. All of it. Her legs kicked beneath me and Aela pushed her down as her body rebelled at my second long cut. And as my dagger reached her second knee her scream, again, returned into laughter of madness and mania: desperate insanity leaving her lips. Frantically open eyes bulging for the ceiling as her deranged laughter sang throughout the room and echoed down the hall. Enjoyment!
Still, it didn't hinder us as our hands reached for the deep cut at her waist—claws finding grip beneath the warm dark blood to act out vengeance in its most ironic form: if Krev tortured with patient beauty and lustful graze, we'd torture with ruthless rage and horrid bloodthirst—and we ripped down!
Mania-laughter returned sudden scream: instantly drowning out the ripping sound of skin tearing from her flesh.
It came off so easy, so harshly—the fresher the ¨kill,¨ the easier the skinning—reveling red abdominal muscles and white-pink traces of tendons and fat. The red quickly darkened in its hue as bare flesh reacted to the open air: tiny vessels crying blood. Ooh, the smell:
So fresh.
Stomach's unveiled, re-steadied grip on fold-down skin to rip once more. Another morbid tear down her waist—repugnant and dreadful yet determined and set! Guess where the skin stuck? We took the dagger and cut that part too!
"Turn her over!" we growled—standing, crouching up—as hands reached for her leg to flip her.
Silently, stunned, Aela did as told against Krev's apathetic struggle at pain rather than us. She was neither laughing nor screaming now, only pained moans and whimpers left against her will as we turned her. Her hands fumbling air.
A new ¨canvas¨ naked for the work: dagger found greedful purpose once more: another effortless snit through her ridden exclaimed whimper—side to side—across a small tight lower back. The sound of metal hitting stone as I threw it aside after all the cuts were made: the dagger's purpose is no more.
Her hands reached for Aela's forearms, clenching them above her head as her face pressed down against the flat, cold, stone—gripping and clenching—she knew what was about to come. Fully.
Who anticipated it the most? We could already ¨taste¨ it.
Same, same! So tear her open! Ripp it off! Insides, upswing! Two cheeks, two hands: the pure symmetry of viral irony, how easily vengeance shall unfold. It¨ll be done, see it before us! Rip it out!
It happened… skin ripped away. No cry heard: pain forced upon her stunned silence. I wished to see her face: pressed onto the stone. Wonder what faces she's making?
I stood back as, with violent easy and effort, it riped off—like tearing off a too tight a pair of pants, riping. Even the bandages tore from her severed ankles, folding over, leaving her stumps bleeding warmth. Her body screamed for help far more than her throat now could: shock forcefully digging into her soul! If she even had one?
It didn't matter, she could clinch at Aela's arms all she wanted to, it changed nothing of our intentions: we'd make her suffer as she had done her! For this… is justice.
She didn't scream. She didn't scream as I stood behind her, holding her loose skin in my hands. She barely even moaned.
Had she passed out? Died?
But I did stand behind her. Holding her loose, pale, pink skin in my hand; one part of me wanted to shove it in her face and show her what we've done, and the other part of me… wanted to eat it. To rip her open with my nails and dig our teeth into her abdomen! But we didn't, for I wanted her to suffer!
Yes, I wholeheartedly hoped she felt what she'd inflicted. I hoped, and begged, the air itself burned against her open flesh. I reared at the stone beneath her to bite at her revealed muscles. I hoped everything that touched her inflicted pain. I… hoped she suffered for simply being alive!
A dull feeling running throughout our body as we looked upon her red display of hopeful agony. It felt somewhat calming.
It…. was beautiful.
Brutal. Unreal. Horrid… but she was beautifully displayed in the pain I hoped we'd inflicted
In its own sense of putid and nake purity she is beautiful: pure, naked, revealed, and soon to be abandoned. For I have turned her laughter into cries. Her cries into screams. And as soon as her screams admit plead, when she begs for death! We'll leave her… We'll deny her! We'll leave her to rot in her own pain and agony, anguish and torment! Yes… We'll leave her to drown in this pool of her own blood.
As I promised you before.
But something was missing. The final touch. The completing detail.
I turned around and looked over the floor, eyes searching for the pair. There may not be any stakes of silver lying around, but there's silver alright: her daggers.
I went over for one as I saw it, continued for the other as I saw that: both of them still covered in my blood: a reminder of my forgotten pain.
Holding them both in my red-covered hand, I brought them over as I returned to her: dropping to my knees over her as my free hand reached her shoulder to flip her back once more.
Her expression was unconscious: a sleeping beauty.
But that only angered me more. How dare she look peaceful?!
I grabbed her breast with my left hand and squeezed it flat as I aimed the blood-covered dagger. It's tip against her skin. Pressing to pierce.
"Stop…" Aela suddenly said: silently, as if she didn't breathe.
"Why?" We said—felt like growled—looking up at her kneeling by Krev's head, still pressing down on her slack shoulders.
What reason could she possibly have for me to stop? Was it pity? I doubt it. Reluctance? Disgust? Hardly: she's seen far worse. Or, don't tell me, a woman's pride then?
It was hard to make out what she felt. All her silver eyes showed me was scare and worry: two feelings I doubt she could feel.
"I'm…" she stared with a sudden firmer voice, not taking her eyes off of me, "I'm not one to speak against torture… but this? This is just cruel."
"Cruel?" we said, rekindled fires burning before they exploded: All spit and ears heating, shared eyes popping, and chest, bursting, "Cruel?! It's what she did! It's what she did to my wife! To Ysolda! She! Deserves everything we've done! and more…"
The ¨¨calm-before-the-storm¨ was the expression she showed. But I knew no storm was coming. After all, Aela didn't know. Not all of it. But we didn't care.
"…Be lucky Skjor was already dead when she began skinning him! For Ysolda wasn't! Be lucky 'we' were the ones to find her that time and not the other way around! For if she'd come for you, as she's done me, you'd never use the word ¨cruel!—¨"
A peal of tiny laughter beneath our faces surprisingly interrupted us: I thought she had been unconscious. Dead even. Yet that single joyous laughter, peeling, was so heartfelt… honest… and warming. It was enraging. She let out the opposite of what I had hoped for: we had hoped for pleads!
"In the end…" she laughed, excitingly and open, "I won! I tamed him for you! And every time you call for him, you'll think of Me!" She laughed. With tears in her eyes she laughed, no way to tell if those tears were of joy or pain. All we knew, was that we hate it!
And that rage took over as we squeezed that breast flat once more and aimed that curved dagger to pierce it! Broken hands ruled by fury!
A picture, movement, in the upper corner of our eyes as Aela swiftly let one hand go of Krev's shoulder, reached behind her back, and drew her dagger to bring it to Krev's throat.
And the laughter turned silent as she slit it.
"No!" instinct roared. Twitching and snapping, we let go of the dagger as our arm moved on its own accord—buttons popping open and my Vambrace split and fell heavily to the floor: dark fur squeezing out from the already dark arm of the fur-suit—reaching for Aela: for she had deprived us of our prey and will take her place!
She tried to jump back, but her wounded leg wouldn't allow her, and our hand found a place at her troat: clawed fingertips touching behind her neck.
A gurgling sound beneath our feet as we rose: Krev shocking on her own blood.
All sharp fangs and gnarls as Aela's feet left the floor—what has she done!? Moon-Silver eyes turned deep-fire yellow—we'll end her!
Her arm moved accurately beneath my vision, fast, a sharp burning stab through my forearm: Skyforge steel piercing through.
My hand let go for the cramping pain, and she fell to the floor before we could react.
We hastily looked at our dark rugged-furred arm for the dagger straight through it, as Aela found footing on the floor, and ripped it out.
The steps forward felt more natural than any steps had ever done before: Kill. Slaughter. Deah!
¨Vengeance served beneath my feet, no need to heed, for accursed rage, shall be my steed.¨
Aela fumbled on her feet, scurrying back. Wounded. Away from us. A wounded girl ready for the taking.
¨Eyes on the prey, not the horizon!¨
"Stop!…" she pleaded, screamed, "…remember why we're here!" Eyes of dull-yellow, still, filled with the fear we begged to feed upon. "You're going 'feral,'! she shouted: quickly rizing to a readied stance, her sword drawn on an injured leg. Moon-silver eyes: still holding that touch of fear and worry.
Everything was… My body felt freezing and heating at the same time. but somehow, I stopped. He didn't, but I stopped.
¨Feral,¨ her word hat hit me like a brick wall, ¨Remembe why we're here:¨ vengeance! was it?! Was it done?
Something hard hit my knees: the stone floor. I don't… I? My hands?! I can't see!
The bones in my right arm felt like hot iron. Burning pain from ripped and torn muscles. A sharp sting up the sie of my neck. All voices and torment in my mind:
Don't seek that power… It's rarely worth the price.
Some can't separate the animal from themselves—so they turn, some, indefinitely.
Anger is a double-edged sword.
Don't worry about me, old man, I can wield it.
It's not you, I worry about… but the boy.
"Aela…" I suddenly said, let out, looking down at my hands. What's happening? I don't—
Everything felt wrong: not because it hadn't, but because I finally, truly, thought of it. I never should've.
One hand looked normal on my lap—as normal as it could—the other one…. horrid: furred and clawed and torn apart. Rigged from what it used to be.
It wasn't my hand! Was it? Is it? Everything's blurry.
It's hard to describe the sensation of crying when raging hatred is so much more than beyond overwhelming: what am I?
But it was only one hand… or is it? I… I don't know.
I don't know anything, anymore.
"Aela…" I repeated, let out once again through a broke throat, looking over my shoulder at the body behind me. That semi-skinned corpse of horrid fragility. She never wore a ¨mask¨ did she? She was always everything she told herself to be. Even in the end. I hadn't killed her, I had massacred her, "…what? Have I done?!"
The most horribly honest person I ever met.
"Calm down!" she more than said. As I looked back at her, her eyes still showed fear as she stood back on that wounded legs, holding inured arms; wide open and Standback: she stood no chance against a werewolf, were I to turn.
"Calm down?" I asked, cried. Troat felt broke as I lifted my head, feeling don't-know-what as everything tore within me.
Did he want out? It didn't feel that way, not as it had done when I found Ysolda. Yet… everything felt wrong. Not painful, but wrong. Broken.
"Calm down," I repeated, silently to myself, trying to understand the meaning behind those words. But my mind raced: what do we want? Is it done? Are wedone? Why are we here?
Why are we here?
For vengeance.
And we don't care if we die.
I don't care if I die. Me?
"It's okay," I heard her say.
It's okay? It is done. And strangely enough, the thick black fur protruding through the gaps between opened buttons slowly receded and drew back. It slowly drew itself back into my skin. I could feel the bones aching as the reluctantly shrank.
Why? Were we done? Were we? Are we?
My hands felt light on my laps, yet everything else felt heavy. Inside and out. I couldn't breathe, yet I did. "What have I done?" I repeated.
"We've avenged them," she answered.
But all I could see was my broken hands. ¨Them?¨ How? It doesn't. I don't understand. I don't want to understand.
"It… changes nothing," I said. because it didn't.
"It changes everything," she said.
"No…" I whimpered, "it doesn't," for how could it? "They're still gone."
"They're avenged."
"But… they're still gone."