Chapter Text
2 Sun’s Dusk, 4E 202.
It took weeks for her opportunity to arrive. Alinya was patient, reminding herself that she was an Altmer, that recklessness would not serve her and she had as much time as was needed. She endured Ulfric’s attentions, and he mistook her retreat into her own mind, her daydreams of freedom, as resignation. He taunted her with it, and she rose to the bait just enough to keep him from suspecting she knew something he didn’t.
What was the phrase the matchmakers used? Lie back and think of Alinor? She lived it now. But the Alinor she thought of didn’t belong to the Thalmor, or even the Dominion. It was hers, a concept that reality would never, could never touch. She took comfort in that. Her mind was her own again.
So it was that she was standing on a moonlit shore, Secunda glowing serenely down at her, even as somewhere in the distant but encroaching present Ulfric pinned her to the writing desk and took what he wanted. The waves swept in to just barely touch her feet, the moon’s pale face reflected in calmer waters than would ever be seen on the Sea of Ghosts. Masser was gone, but she didn’t mind; it was a bloody and dominating moon, anyway. Secunda, dear sweet Secunda, was ever overshadowed, but for here on her shore.
Alinya’s ears twitched; Ulfric was licking them again in the present, trying to draw a reaction. Her body shuddered and her mouth twisted as it tried to hold back the inevitable moan.
Looking up from underneath fractured moonlight on the sea…
Drawing her imagination-cloak around her like the emperor’s regalia, she stepped into the water. The waves pulled back from her, farther, farther, into the horizon. When they returned, a great crest that blocked out the moon and the sky, she stared up into the face of the tsunami like she was looking into the mystery of Aetherius. And she opened her arms wide.
Alinya snapped back into reality as the wave crashed down, just as Ulfric’s teeth closed around her left breast and bit.
A strangled noise, half groan, half scream, tore from her throat. She writhed, but Ulfric still had her pinned, had wrapped her legs around his back in some awful parody of a lover’s ecstasy, had her delicate half-starved wrists grinding like a bird’s bones in one hand. He did not let go, until some self-preserving instinct made her still, sobbing and shuddering. And even then, he did not move.
“Please…” she managed to get out between sobs.
His lips quirked and his eyes shone with that same sadistic glee, but a beat later he loosened his grip and drew back to admire his handiwork.
She didn’t want to look, but she caught the red in the corner of her eye and couldn’t stop herself. He had been far enough around her breast to miss the nipple and areola, and nothing was missing, at least, but the marks were raw, bleeding, and jagged in the shape of his teeth. Her stomach lurched at the sight. And her breast felt like it had been ripped off.
“Hmm,” he said, as if about to criticize an ugly painting.
“Please,” she gasped.
He looked at her face, frowning, and released her wrists, stepping back.
She lurched up, gripping the edge of the desk, and tried to get her legs under her, but she was still sore, and—
Her vision swam, and her blood pounded like a war-drum. She collapsed face first onto the floor in front of the desk, narrowly missing the chair and sending a sharp spike of pain through her when her mangled breast hit the cold hardwood. Ulfric made no move to catch her. He paused for only a moment before striding toward the door, yanking it open, and leaving.
She didn’t know how long she lay there, spotting in and out of consciousness, but some time later she was dimly aware of hands rolling her over and a hiss of shock and disgust, before the soothing chime of Restoration and that familiar golden glow invaded her senses. Her consciousness sharpened, until she was aware that it was Wuunferth, trembling with an unchecked rage, holding his wrinkled hands to her breast.
“Oh…”
“Hush,” he said, not quite a snap, or at least the ire wasn’t directed at her. Ulfric stood behind, watching, arms crossed. His gaze was heavy on her, made worse by Wuunferth’s presence.
When Wuunferth was done, a bead of sweat rolling down his temple, the wound itself had closed, though the scars — shining silver against her golden skin — would fool no one. He stood up without a word, smoothing down his robes and staring at nothing. The look on his face was a puzzle she did not have nearly enough time to solve.
“Can’t you—” her captor began.
“I am not a healer, Ulfric!” Wuunferth snapped, whirling on him. “I am not a healer, or a priest, or even a stitcher! I am not qualified for this!”
Ulfric raised a brow, slowly unfolding his arms. “How dare you speak—” His voice was tight, controlled. Leashed.
Lying forgotten on the floor, Alinya flinched. Oh no. This would never, ever end well. She rolled away and took refuge under the writing desk, folding herself up as small as possible.
Wuunferth was undeterred by his employer’s signs of imminent violence, however. Or perhaps he did not recognize them. “I am not, despite your demands, a monster, either,” he growled. “I have been afraid for too long. I should have stopped this sooner.” He straightened his back. “I should have stopped you sooner.”
Ulfric went utterly still.
“I resign. I quit! Find someone else to stand idly by while you heap abuses on an undeserving girl. I will not be part of this.” He stepped around Ulfric and stormed out, leaving the scent of a lightning strike in his wake. Magicka, Alinya realized from her hiding spot. Wuunferth was showcasing his power, or barely restraining himself from attacking.
Ulfric spun on his heel and leapt after, bellowing for Galmar.
Heart squeezing painfully from the near miss, it took a few moments for Alinya to understand what she was looking at. The door was open. Ulfric and the guard were gone. Here was her opportunity.
Scurrying out from under the desk, she breathed the Aura Whisper with something akin to reverence. It hurt to smile after so long, but she did it anyway.
Now to get out.
Alinya was out the door and down the hall in a blink, turning her head frantically to listen for footsteps and look for auras or escape routes. She’d never been in this part of the Palace of the Kings before, but she had no idea how long Wuunferth’s dramatic exit would give her, how long it would take before Ulfric realized his mistake and came after her with murder in his eyes. The corridors all looked the same, and she had gone in the opposite direction from the men and so had probably missed the stairs. She tamped down a swell of panic and Whispered again.
Red. In the distance but getting closer to Ulfric’s quarters. Any moment now she would be discovered. She yanked open the first door she came across and barged inside.
It was a stairwell, a tight coil leading up into the darkness. Up. There was no down. Fuck. She took it anyway, bounding up the steps as fast as her long legs would carry her.
Shouting in the distance. The quarters had been found empty.
At the top was a ladder leading up to a trapdoor, and a stand with a full guard’s uniform including a heavy cloak, fur boots, and gloves. She donned these, tasting freedom on her lips.
She emerged onto the roof and into a raging snowstorm.
~*~*~
Gone. The Dragonborn, gone. His Pet had decided to betray him at last. She wouldn’t get far, and she would know the price for her lark.
He’d left Galmar with the task of escorting the former court wizard from Windhelm. The citizens should have seen a head roll, but Galmar had pled for mercy, and Ulfric in his infinite benevolence had allowed the traitor to keep his life. But he was exiled from Skyrim. He could go cozy up to what was left of the Empire, or go straight to the witch-elves for all the king cared anymore.
Because halfway back to his quarters he’d had the feeling he was forgetting something, and when he’d rounded the corner and seen his door was open, he’d known.
But she wouldn’t get far. He rounded up his loyal guards and set them off to search, with explicit instructions to let him handle his Pet. And of course, within a quarter hour he was on the roof, squinting into a blizzard at the small, shaking form curled up next to the kitchen chimney. She was just a strong gust away from disappearing over the edge.
“Pet,” he called over the storm. She must have been freezing. He would warm her up quick enough, but he needed to get her inside, away from prying eyes. He never should have allowed W— the traitor to look at her. Bad things happened when anyone but him saw his Pet.
He stepped closer, then closer still when she didn’t seem to notice his approach. “Pet, I’m not going to hurt you if you come back now,” he lied, stopping an arm’s length away. If he lunged he could grab her, but he hoped it wouldn’t come to that. It would be better for his image if she came back of her own accord and her screams echoed through the Palace later.
She shuddered — a more visceral thing than the shivers, and not from the cold — and turned away.
He tried to stop the growl, but just as he was about to discard the notion of his image altogether, just to have her back, helpless to his attentions again, her head darted back up, eyes wide and unsure. She stared at him, searching his face, and oh, he was good at this, this lie-without-lying. The serious, honest set to his features may have sealed her decision, and her fate, for she darted her gaze away, then back, as if making her choice to trust.
“I am tired, my king,” she said quietly, and he had to read her lips to understand over the howling wind. “I can’t…”
He closed the distance and reached down, drawing her up. She went easily enough, pliant in his arms, but swayed when she was on her feet, eyes half-lidded. “Pet?” he asked gently, already thinking of how he would wake her up in his chambers.
She hunched over, resting her head against his chest though they were of a height, and grasped his arm with one hand. “Tired, so tired…”
“Pet, let’s get you—”
She tilted her head up, face twisting with her hate, eyes hard as ebon and twice as dark with her fury. “I am no one’s Pet, you piece of shit,” she hissed, and he didn’t even see the blade before it plunged into his side. She twisted it — oh, how it hurt and yet didn’t compare to the stab in his heart at her quiet rage — and left it there.
Then she kicked hard at his knees, grabbed him about the chest, and levered them both over the side of the roof with the strength of the desperate.
Dimly he heard his guards shouting from above as they free-fell, heard his blood pounding frantically, but mostly his world narrowed down to a kind of white noise and her eyes, inches from his own. The ground was rushing up, no way either of them would survive—
She smiled wide, winked at him. And she Spoke.
Feim.
~*~*~
Standing just outside the stain Ulfric had left in the snow on the open ground behind the Palace of the Kings, Alinya breathed again. The air hung heavy with blood, she was covered head to toe in viscera, but she felt lighter than she had in a long time. The snowstorm was calming into a powdering, fat, fluffy flakes swirling around her in a dance as the sun went down.
Shouting in the distance, and then the troop of guards rounded the city wall and spotted her, taking up a great cry of grief and anger. They surged forward as one, swords drawn.
Shit. She tried to flee, but the snow was deep past the impact zone and she was weak from months of captivity. Whirlwind Sprint would not work — she still couldn’t raise her voice enough to Shout. She would be cut down with her back turned at this rate.
Lightning arced through the air and hit one of the guards square in the chest, leapt to another guard next to him, left both of them twitching corpses before they even hit the ground. Then a fireball whizzed past Alinya — she felt the searing heat pass her by — and exploded in the middle of the group, and Wuunferth was suddenly there at her side, one hand around the reins of a great dapple-gray horse and the other still casting. His robes were singed along the sleeves, and a shallow cut on his back ran diagonally from hip to shoulderblade, dripping blood and staining the cloth.
“Get on and go,” he shouted above the screams and the sizzle of magic. Another group was rounding the corner.
She clambered on — she had ridden a horse once, long ago, but it was not one of these great lumbering Skyrim-bred workhorses — and jerked the reins until the horse turned toward the east and the frozen river-mouth.
“May your gods and mine bless you and keep you, Wuunferth the Unliving,” she called down to him. He nodded once, not looking at her. The guards were advancing, Wuunferth’s spells were coming at longer and longer intervals, there were far too many—
“Go!” he shouted, smacking the horse on the rump. It bolted, leaving her clinging to the reins as it galloped faster than she had ever gone, faster than she would have gotten relying on Whirlwind Sprint and the inevitable Shout-exhaustion. She was at the river in a flash, the sure-footed beast only slowing down a fraction on the ice though it cracked and groaned.
The last she saw of Wuunferth the Unliving, former court wizard of Windhelm, he was standing in the middle of a circle of guards, still in his fighting stance but utterly still, magicka gone out. Then she had to turn forward again, guide the horse up the mountain-path that led to the Pass, the Pass that would lead her to Morrowind.
Not a minute later, her own magicka came surging back, and she had to fight back the urge to cry into the wind whipping at her face. When she paused the horse to look back again, at the top of the Pass, Windhelm’s walls were just dark smudges in the gloomy distance, and the lights of the city were oddly muted through an ice-fog coming up from the Sea of Ghosts. She saw no torches or other signs of a pursuit party, but this did not make her feel glad. And the dragon’s roar, echoing off the mountains around her as the ancient beast glided in from the south and wheeled over Windhelm, did not make her feel anything at all.
She did not look back again, even as she crested into the Velothi Mountains and Skyrim, the land where she had known she would die, disappeared into the oncoming night.