vigil reawakened [p][m]

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489 words | private - layla shadowblade | mature content

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she knew.

her breathes choked anxiously from her lungs, rising as warm mist before her face. her footsteps fell jagged and flighty, spurned to a near sprint by fear. the maiden knew she was being followed.

it was a sad story. she’d been but a girl - was still barely a woman - disenchanted and disillusioned, lead astray by honeyed whispers of righteous cause and the unknown horizon. in some ways, she was just like the jarl, but unlike sevrend she’d faltered in her cause. when the full ramifications of her crimes became clear she’d fled, thinking the cold stone and imperial guards of solitude would preserve her.

foolish. none could escape stendarr’s justice.

ducking into the residential quarter, the woman hastened her footsteps, hoping they’d lose her trail within the bustle of peasants and merchants. it was a mistimed play, better suited to the daylight hours than the dead of night. the streets were silent - without a forest to obscure the trees - and it wasn’t long until white cloaks rounded the corner before her, vicing her between two parties of assailants.

gradually the vigilants tightened their strangle, ambling slowly inwards, trapping her within a small circle. she was comprehensively outnumbered. for the briefest moment her lip trembled as she rounded upon sevrend, but to her credit, she steeled herself with a dry swallow. resignation was written in her features.
”h-how did you find me?” her voice was meek and fearful, but her posture held all the boldness she could summon.

the jarl half smiled.
”we see all.”

sevrend drew his blade fiercely from its scabbard and in one smooth motion crunched its pommel against the woman’s nose. with a spray of crimson and a shriek she crumbled, splayed against the steps of a nearby home. there was a moment of hesitation in the jarl. sevrend didn’t like this. to slaughter his mark at the door of an innocent bystander, to bend so liberally the laws of solitude...

yet, justice could not relent.

twirling his sword stylishly, sevrend spoke with stark authority.
”meredith balerik; for your part in the murder of jarl igrod ravencrone, the practise of witchcraft and the committing of heinous crimes against hjaalmarch hold, i sentence you to death by blade edge.” seizing up the woman by the scruff of her robes, sevrend poised the tip of his sword at the base of her neck. this was his preferred method. in this moment he could lock eyes with his victim and - in that seemingly infinite, somehow intimate second they shared - the spirit of both executioner and condemned was measured.

”may stendarr have mercy upon you.”

with a thrust of his wrist it was done. the final surviving conspirator responsible for the murder of the previous jarl crumbled to the stone path, dead and bleeding. sevrend savoured that victory for a moment before issuing a gruff order to his bannermen.
”prepare her body for burial.”

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[LAYLA SHADOWBLADE .]

why promises are snapped in two, and words are made to bend .

The commotion on the steps was not what she had expected it to be. Of all the synerios she could have expected to be playing out on the front steps of her home, the Jarl of Morthal hunting a witch was not among them. She had been finishing packing a few things for her husband’s departure the following morning, but had been disturbed by the noise. To see the body of a woman on her front steps was surprising to say the least. She never would have brought any work so close to home. It had been hard enough to deal with Widow’s Watch as close as it was to Solitude. She never would have hunted a witch in the town. she most certainly would not have murdered her on her own doorstep. Blood was harder to remove from stone than it appeared, and her husband would be home and panic. She doubted she could come up with a decent story that would not make him worry. Anything would be better than telling the love of her life, who thought she was nothing more than an enchanter and an alchemist , that her past had decided move up into her present. The fact that her past was bloody was only icing on the sweet roll. ”It must be a great blessing to be allowed to commit murder with the force of an army at your back.” Her voice was sharper than she spoke to any other man, laced a special combination of familiarity, contempt, and respect that she reserved especially for Sevrend Ire. She had not kept up with all of the contacts from her witch hunting, for various reasons. And Sevrend for the most obvious. If there was ever someone who could tempt her back into the life, it was Severend Ire. Their contact had already been waning when she had decided to marry Taros. Once she decided to be devoted to her husband first and the hunt second, there was no option of reuniting with Sevrend. Not for one drink, or one story about adventures past, or even a letter from a courier. Neither one of them were really the letter writing type. They had fought together, killed together. He was her brother, her companion, and he was one of very few men that she would not seek out in battle. She could not count the number of evils they had conquered together, but that had been a different time, a time when she would have readily sought out a coven of hagravens single handedly. She was mostly unsure about his real jurisdiction in Solitude. Under the banner of Stendarr, it was one thing to murder a citizen of Solitude, though she did not recognise the woman. But to  put a woman to death for crimes against a jarl of another hold? She worried that his actions may have crossed lines. Not that she worried about him personally. Sevrend was a fighter and always would be, but the country had enough trouble without more inner conflict. She frowned placing her hands on her hips, looking extraordinarily like her mother. ”Pity that it was my doorstep you choose to soil. You are fully aware that this is Solitude and not in the hold of Hjaalmarch, I assume.” She stepped down the stairs, picking her way over the body and around the blood that was seeping across her step. She stood taller than he was, as she always had, looking down at him wit the the same judgmental look that she always carried for him. She ingored his companions completely. They were of no consequence to her, and she was relatively certain that even pregnant she could handle them. Sevrend like to be the most powerful in a group. ”You know you’ll have to clean this up.” She wanted to ask him into her home to have him tell her what adventures he had been having with out her. Certainly how he came to have command seemed like a story worth hearing. But, she did not want to bring Sevrend into that part or her life. She wanted him to still know that she was the same Layla who killed witches and necromancers with no discretion. The Layla he knew was more likely to strike him for bloodying her steps than to ask him in for sweet rolls and mead. It was bad enough that her pregnancy and civilian preferences were obvious, she had no desire to show him any more of her current life. To have him know her as a housewife would be as distressing as having Taros know that she was was a killer.

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word count - 779 . tag - sev . outfit .

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vigil reawakened ---

[atrb=border, 0, true] 415 words | private – layla shadowblade | mature content

[atrb=border,0,true] “spare me, woman.” indifferent, bored words. criticism washed from sevrend with all the ease of dirt from flesh. even in those early days, when there had been protests held and rotten tomatoes hurled in the streets of morthal, sevrend had been unflappable. now, the people of hjaalmarch looked upon him as their own personal tiber septim. this day in solitude was no different. no, he’d not immediately recognised her voice. “stendarr cares not for your bleating. go back inside.” no more than a moment had passed before the vigilants brought the oil. they worked fast, knowing the sacrament of purging better than they knew the lines of their own palms. fortunate sevrend was for that, too. the solitude watch would be upon them shortly. that voice interrupted once more, cutting through this most righteous ritual with her ignorant detractions. the feminine tones were still not familiar. she was, for now, still just an inconvenience. sevrend wheeled upon the intruder fully, blade held threateningly at his side. the jarl has struck down innocent bystanders before, he was certain he would do so again. “where we stand is irrelevant. i assume you have sense enough to recognise when you are the lamb before the lions? go.” twas then that he gazed upon her face and all things became clear. or perhaps they became foggier still. “layla?” disbelief hung heavily upon his words. layla. she who struck from the dark. she whose fury had been so violent they’d often suspected her a former cultist. she who walked apart from them and yet always at their side. an enigma. here. sevrend could not fathom it. “what are you-“ the jarl’s question was dashed by the shriek of a spark. his comrades had doused the corpse and ignited the oil. sevrend turned just in time to watch the body consumed by cleansing fire, burning white and hissing as dark magiks burned away. within a second the flames died and there were only embers. the vigilants set upon her body, wrapping it in water-logged linens. sevrend turned back upon layla slowly, head cocked quizzically to one side and features wrapped in a bemused smile. “we already have cleaned. solitude was dirtied by her presence. you of all people know that.” the jarl lowered his sword and allowed his eyes to wander across her midrift, his smile growing ever more confused and more than a little derisive as he saw the lump there. “you look horrible. what have you done to yourself?”