Utilizador:Mogribus/My Fanfiction

Alwin's bone pick

The skeleton approached us in a hunched, shambling gait, its joints rasping, it's claymore swaying just above ground. It stopped a few feet before us... and charged. As tall as I was, I cowered behind Alwin's small frame, eyes closed and mouth open to scream. Nothing happened. Just silence, then the boy's giggle warmed the cold air.

"By Vile's horn, you're funny... it won't hurt you! Come on, look at it! Varan...". I dared open my eyes at the bone warrior. It hadn't charged, but knelt before us, blade fixed in the dirt.

"Get up, bag 'a bones, you've done your part!" ordered Alwin. The skeleton obeyed, grinding and gnashing its joints with every move it made to stand up, almost twice as tall as the boy. "We did them good, didn't we?" asked Alwin and the skeleton eerily shook it's skull in agreement. "You've cut their gullets good, didn't you?" The thing lifted its finger and mimed slicing its own throat. Alwin burst into laughter, and the skeleton mutely followed suit, in a grotesque imitation, which only made the boy laugh harder: "You know... you are just as silly as this other one!"

I didn't know or care if he was talking to me or the skeleton. I just gathered myself and made my way through the amalgam of weapons, pieces of armor and pieces of flesh, a landscape seasoned in blood and feces. What could they have done to Alwin to bring such woe upon themselves? I stumbled upon a head. In disgust, I rolled it with the tip of my staff to get a better look. Edwarn's face had retained it's last grimace, fixed in that very instant when Alwin's snare and the servant's blade struck in quick succession. I couldn't imagine a mysticist magister throwing a soultrap with such accuracy, least of all an imberb neophyte. I looked at Alwin, trying to devine his age. He looked as small and frail as any breton or imperial boy, but from what I knew of altmers, he could have already been in his late twenties.

Soon enough both of us were walking amongst the mangled corpses, checking them for... anything, actually. We never knew what piece of garbage the old man might consider a vital ingredient for his activities. Alwin picked up a mace and clumsily swung it around. It made him look like a child even more... one old enough to be my father. He gave me the mace. "Hold this..." he said, "...we take the weapons".

"What... all?"

"Yes, all! You take the swords and axes, I'll get the bows and arrows".

"What do we need axes and bows for? We're not warriors, we can't wield them".

"Our summons can" - he pointed to the servant. "The old man will show us how to bind a better skeleton to a scroll today... he told me that you once you learn it, and with enough blood, you can summon it anytime you want! But for that... weapons".

I knew right then and there that I would end up carrying everything while Alwin would just skip around me and babble his boyish nonsense (necromancer boyish nonsense) all the way back to the cavern. I surrendered.

"Well... all right. You seem to know better".

"Of course I know better!" - Alwin was suddenly irritated. "Where's your head at?"

I looked down. Edwarn stared back.

"That's what we soultrapped this vermin for! Didn't we?" He placed such conviction in that "we"... this carnage wasn't my idea. Alwin broke my musing: "Varan... you hear me?"

"Yes, I do, I'm... just a little tired, that's all. Sorry, let us... rest a little?"

This calmed him rather quickly... but not his enthusiasm: "Come on, you'll rest at the cave. Up you go, come on! We have bones in plenty and now... look! Weapons and a full gem! Enough to get started on a Guardian, don't you think?"

"I don't know what to think" - I mumbled absently, wondering how on Nirn I was going to carry all those weapons. I knew we would also return for the bodies. It seemed that "Packmule" was my middle name.

"Well, I think" continued Alwin as he lifted up the gem and gave me his widest grin, "that Edwarn's soul will make one fine servant".

I caught a glint of madness is his eyes.

"Who's boss now, eh Edwarn?" and Alwin's laughter warmed the cold air once more.