Pale {The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim}

Chapter V: The Red Diamond {Astrid}

ACT I

CHAPTER V

THE RED DIAMOND

{ASTRID'S POINT OF VIEW}

I was ten years old when I followed my father into the forests of Cyrodiil.

I remember how small I was, tiny for a girl my age. I grew large in the coming years, taller than my sisters, taller than my mother, but never taller than my father, for he was the largest man I'd ever seen. I remember it - vividly, in fact - the days where my tiny, ten year old neck would crane, crane back to see a big, blond man, in his big, blond entirety — a symbol of all I wanted to be.

There was nothing my father couldn't do when I was ten, or when I was nine, eight, seven, six, and way, way back. He stood with his shoulders straight, deep blue eyes filled with pride, and wore his golden hair long to match his beard. He was a king, a god, a lord, a strong man with an even stronger ambition. I bowed to him like I would bow to the emperor, and I followed him like a soldier followed his captain into battle. My father used his bare hands to create works of art. Steel swords that shined in the moonlight, daggers so cold they felt like ice on our skin, a set of iron armor to shelter us from the ways of the world...

He was my hero.

I watched him come home everyday... everyday carrying a deer, a wolf, some fallen creature, to feed our family. We lived on the chilly outskirts of Bruma, the snow-capped shadow of the Jerall Mountains where the heartland of Cyrodiil merged with the wasteland of Skyrim, the place where the child within me was forced to grow up...

He ventured into the forest on a frozen Sun's Dawn day, deep into the heart of winter when snow was a blanket and demons found shelter in our heads. I was curious — a curious child with curious eyes and an even curiouser heart — so I took my small bow made of sticks and twine and followed his footsteps into the trees.

His trail was lost to me when the sun began to fall, and I hadn't seen my father since the afternoon he kissed me goodbye. There was a darkness in the woods, he always told me, when the stars made the snow glisten like diamonds, and the moon painted faces in the pines...

I was ten years old when I heard a snarl in its depths, and I was ten years old when a soft blue gaze met hazy gold Septims, the eyes of a wolf with a curled upper lip...

And, soon, the creature had chased me until I'd fallen...

Fallen,

and let it sink its fangs,

into pale and tender flesh...

"We should get going."

A gentle voice cuts into my thoughts, and my aching spine stiffens in alarm.

What a time to remember that.

It is Hadvar, anxiously pacing about the chamber as I rest my head on a damp, mildewy rock that adds even more grime to a greasy head. Sitting up straighter, I nod as I uncork the virescent glass bottle in my lap, place it to my lips, and grimace as the sharp, gooey taste of stamina potion slides down a dry and scratchy throat. They used too much Netch jelly.

Within seconds, the goal of the elixir fulfilled, the dreariness that pulls at my eyelids is alleviated, and I am suddenly wide awake. The tonic — gelatinous and rotten — smells of the ocean, and I can hardly contain my discontent. A little rancid seafood in the belly never killed anyone — quickly, at least.