Peace ebbed and flowed through Vahlinah’s mind, a serenity that was powerful but gentle at the same time such as the sea. A breeze like the playful fingers of a lover tousled her hair, and she felt ice cold and hard beneath her feet. Grey eyes fluttered open as she found herself standing in the center of a lake frosted over, cruel ice black as night for a deathly still surface. That same peace was still fresh, lifting her soul and bringing a slight smile to her mouth. It was a welcome and strange creature that held the pieces of her frayed soul together as she stood in the strange place. Her breath froze in small white clouds, yet her skin was warm as if she were standing near a fire which was peculiar in itself. Lifting her hands, she fingered the green velvet that clung to her wrists, a luxurious material of which she had never worn before. ‘Green was never really my color…’
Too soon, the tranquility she had found crumbled as her sense found her. All was still save for her heart, stormy eyes scrutinized the frozen lake as she took in the virgin snow, the towering trees, and the sky. Stolen was her breath as she looked in awe at the sky. The night was no longer just a dark blue void, it was a heavenly body filled with a sea of stars and light that danced along the shine of the ice that stretched across the expanse of the grove. It was as if she could steal a star from the sky and capture its light for her own. The golden dust was moving, slowly, but continuously it flowed. With a broken gasp, she placed a hand over her chest as she watched her universe move with the fluidity of time.
“Time does not exist here, it moves like water and sand around this grove. Like a rock in a river.” A deep voice, harsh around the edges but melodic in its own right brushed against her skin. Shivering for the first time in this frozen place, she spun around to face the voice that had haunted her memories for the last, lonely decade. A Juniper tree, twisted and dark, grew from the true center of the water. Its roots dark and wet as it broke through the ice, shards of solid water and frost, sharp and menacing surrounding the base of the tree. It was impossible, but something in her longed to reach out and stroke the very same wood she knew so well. It was so impossibly quiet, her thundering heart was the only sound that filled her ears.
He stood beside the tree, his stance was always so inviting, it was just how she remembered all those years ago. A posture that was not practiced for the sake of perfection, but was somehow perfectly practiced. Vahlinah’s thoughts tangled within themselves as she stood amongst ice, her tongue lost somewhere with her breath. A smile bright as dawn graced the bosmer’s face, “Vah, have you nothing to say to me after all these years?” Lina was numb, her knees weakening the more she stood facing a being whom she herself held as he died. As his soul was stolen from the shell of which she had shared every single of her fond memories with. “This cannot be. You’re dead. I watched you die. I held you as you bled.” She startled at her own voice, glancing down at the ice swearing it was shattering under her weight, but it was just the sorrow and anger in her own voice.
Topaz eyes just as alive as she was, glinted with something she couldn’t name, his jaw clenched as it often did in response to her rigidity. “Please…” The desperation that filled his voice and the air between them broke her heart all over again. His last words echoing in her mind. Taking a single step, she bolted across the surface tears streaming down her porcelain cheek. The ice hurt against her feet as she ran to her beloved Licher. Her friend. The soul mate she lost to the desire of another. His blood was hers. His pain was hers. The realization of her love for him had become a horrible torment, as it came too quickly and much too late. But that grief paled and vanished to the suffering she felt now. His arms covered in leather armor reaching to her, his always sorrowful smile, it was surreal and impossible. What little she had gathered of herself, unraveled at just a single word from his lips.
“Vahlinah…”
Her fingers wrapped around his as the piercing sound of ice cracking abruptly deafened her. Head spinning, it was impossible to have heard the warning in Licher’s scream.
“VAHLINAH!” A blinding light exploded between them, their hands once clasped, slipping apart from the force of whatever the light had wrought. Lina hit the ice, hard, knocking the breath from her lungs and her head hitting the solid lack with a sickening crack. An impact that should have killed her. Sputtering on her side, she clawed at the ice as she tried desperately to find her oxygen. Her name was being called somewhere in the distance, it almost sounded as though it was coming from beneath the ice itself. Black stars filled her vision, and she felt a very real warmth flowing down her face. Opening her eyes, she saw in hues of red as blood flowed into her vision. Coughing, she rolled to her side and wiped her tear soaked and blood blinded eyes. Her name desperately being called. No screamed in a horrible roar.
As her head stopped spinning, she saw as the lake had not shattered but split. An abyssal crack separating her from Licher, except where there was supposed to be water there was only darkness. Worse still, the shadows writhed lapping at the edges of the void like black maggots. “Vahlinah! Please! You have to help me! You must to come to me, now!” Licher stood close to the edge, his hand still reaching out to her. Seeing him this way, completely broken and terrified was horrifying. Crawling to her knees, she felt like all her energy was being sapped away. Her heart fluttered weakly against her ribcage, desperate to get to him. To cross the gap between them, and finally hold him once more. And to be held.
Swaying on her feet, she moved slowly across the ice her eyes never leaving Licher’s. Still her head swam with confusion and raw emotion, it was only his urgency that kept her moving. Finally she made it to the edge, hope flickered in her heart as she saw how thin the crack in the ice really was. However foreboding swept over her like a blistering wind, as steel footsteps hit the ice in rapid succession. Looking up she watched as a hooded man grabbed Licher by the throat, green eyes pierced her own. Gasping she called out just as the silver tip of a dagger sunk into Licher’s back. Vahlinah only felt her scream as her lungs burned in agony, she fell to her knees. Crimson blossomed in a violent rose, soaking Licher’s white shirt.
Covering her mouth she watched as the man twisted the blade, the bosmer’s face contorting in pain as he spoke her name, its syllables wet and begging. “Vah..li..nah…” Closing her eyes she bowed her head and sobbed, clutching her chest. Her nails clawing at her skin through the fabric of a dress that didn’t belong to her. As if watching Licher perish once was not enough, she was cursed to watch him suffer once more. The misery was a physical sickness, that moved slowly and poisoned her, leisurely ripping her heart from her chest. The ranger was no longer just broken, but being killed from the inside out.
The sound of metal against bone careened in her head, forcing her to move her red eyes from her hands to watch her personal hell unfold across shadows that she would never cross. Licher convulsed on the ice, his pooling blood brilliant against the black cold. Warmth. Life. Love. It flowed over the edge, the darkness from the lake devouring it. Lina couldn’t watch anymore, she clenched eyes shut and dug her palms into her ears.
“You should have been with me my golden ingot. He was never important enough to you, so you might as well have held the dagger yourself.” The voice was grotesque, it was the voice of a man who had inhaled fumes from coal and flame for decades. It felt like grease had been poured into her head, no matter how hard she covered her ears the voice repeated itself over and over. Like a dark prayer that didn’t belong to her.
“He was already dead, it wasn’t my fault. It… It wasn’t my fault.” Lina clawed at her ears, begging pitifully for the pain to cease, for the voice to stop the endless cacophony. Surprisingly it did, and she found herself oddly at peace once more curled in a broken heap on the ice. Comfortably numb at the very least, she felt like a ghost. There in body but beyond true reach. Her hand was the center of her being in that moment, holding her like an anchor, and in that moment something pleasantly warm was covering it. Opening her eyes, curiosity moving her to investigate, and what she found caused reality to crash down on her like ice water. For that brief moment she had forgotten that she had watched Licher murdered before her very eyes. She had forgotten how helpless she had been as he sputtered, life pouring from his mouth in breath and blood.
Until now, as she looked into topaz eyes filled with resentment and a once smiling mouth in a thin line, she didn’t feel the pain like she should have. Her hand was wrapped around Licher. The love of her life held the dagger, the steel impossibly hot in her heart.
Choking on blood and tears, her fingers twitched against his knuckles she managed to gasp out a single phrase. One of which her entire existence poured itself into, “Even now… I love you.” Laughter that sounded more like short growls of hatred rang in her ears, this time she felt the unforgiving steel in a jolt of sharp pain. Gasping she folded against him, his breath hot on her neck and her tears cold against his.
“Even now you reek of nothing but the stuff that created pity Weakness. You destroy everything you touch, and because of that you’ve never been loved in your entire life.” The words cut deeper than the dagger ever could. “You’re own father couldn’t have cared less for you, how quick he was to sell you off to a man three times your age.” As he held her with one arm, the dagger carefully kept firm into her chest as her life drained out of her, his other hand mindlessly played with her hair. “Oh how I pitied you, your beauty;” For a second, his voice is thick with desire. “Fascinated me though. There was something so strong in your eyes, and such passion that colored your hair and cheeks. Imagined how surprised I was to discover the falseties you turned out to be, everything I taught you wasted on nothing but an afterthought of greatness.” She gasped as she felt the pressure of weight on the dagger,
“Oh Vahlinah the White, a ranger of The Reach. You. Let. Me. Die.”
Effortlessly, he twisted the knife and shoved her back, the blade ripping apart heart, bone, and spirit. The world spun away from her as she tumbled back, she reached out as her heel slid over the edge. “And now, I finally am able to confide to you how much hatred that burns on for you even now after death.” He growled as he caught her wrist, stopping her from falling into the abyss beneath the lake. “My darling Vah.” His tone was mocking and she could no longer feel. No longer think.
In a place time never touched, she felt her own inner pacing slow. Licher’s grip slowly released her arm, her weight pulling her back into weightlessness. As she fell Licher’s voice reached the deepest parts of her mind, “I will always curse you, my love.”
Vahlinah cried out, sitting up directly in her bedroll, the taste of blood still on her tongue, red hair vibrant and tangled, she looked as though she had truly fought some sort of monster in her sleep. Hand flying to her chest, she ripped her cloth shirt away from her chest and felt for any sign of a wound or blood. Taking a shaky breath, her fingers slid down the chain of her amulet, clinging to Kyne’s symbol.
It had been a dream.
Drawing up her knees, she released the necklace and wrapped her arms around her knees. She watched the fire outside her tent as a way to calm her heart that felt as though it was trying to escape, finally her ragged breathing returned to normal. Taking a deep, cleansing breath, she closed her eyes and flinched as the dream flashed behind her closed lids like a vision. Tears blurred her vision as she pressed her forehead to her knees, her shoulders shaking from a cold that came not from the winter, but from a freshly opened wound. A wound invisible to the naked eye. It had seemed so real, she could still feel the cold of the ice. The softness of the velvet. The warmth of her own blood. No matter how inmaterial those feelings had been, the pain and memories the dream drudged up were no fantasies.
Licher was dead, and she had been the cause for his spilled blood. Moris’ words whispered in her mind as if he was sitting right next to her. However, those friendly assurances would bring her nothing but more self-resentment.
Standing, she left her tent without her cloak for warmth as the cold cleared her mind. The woman took steady paces toward the edge of the Karth, it waters freezing cold no doubt as the night was bitter with winter. Stepping into the water, the sharp iciness of the water cleared her senses and muddled her emotions. Her entire body working overtime to fill her legs with warmth, to sustain her life as was the way of nature. It was a handful of long moments, but Lina was once more numb again. This time she took a sharp breath and submerged herself completely. The dark waters bubbled over her head, all the warmth she once had fled her limbs. An incredible numbness instead taking the place of feeling in her body and mind.
You. Let. Me. Die.
She released her breath beneath the water, her lungs burning.
Pity.
She closed her eyes and let the cold swallow her completely. She would adapt.
Weakness.
Her skin twitched, arms shaking as the freezing waters affected her bodily functions. She would conquer this pain.
I will always curse you.
Soon, the pain was bearable enough as the anguish of cold and lack of oxygen took over. Her will to live wavering. Expel the sorrow from her very soul.
My love.
With as much strength as she could muster, she kicked against the riverbed and vaulted to the surface. Taking a wild breath of air, she coughed and spewed fresh water as she waded to the shore. Rocks dug into her legs and arms as she laid out against edge of the river. Licher’s words ebbed and flowed out of her mind just like the peace she once felt in the dream. Closing her eyes, she felt feeling return to her limbs.
Vahlinah would never again allow herself false peace, she would never look to the skies with hope that one day a deadman would forgive her. That love had long ago died, and perhaps it had taken with it some of her spark. Leaving a black loneliness in its wake, but just like she always had, she would bury it. Just like she buried her dear friend. She had washed away that part of her, the small girl who could not defend herself let alone a dear friend. There would be no prayers. No wishful thoughts. A wall was beginning to grow around her heart, her eyes betraying the remainder of sorrow through a soft grey.
And so, she decided, she would never again weep for the dead.
Author’s Note;
This is simply a glimpse into a world that I have been creating for the better part of two years. This is probably the deepest glance into Vahlinah’s psyche I will ever go into. Thank you for reading! Look out for more about the White Huntress.
Your’s Truly,
W.B
Wander Blue 