"That's fine, you can be whatever you like here," Janius said quietly, humouring Kaleeth, "That is, if you can manage to steal my clothes. You've had enough trouble undoing your own." He sat up and tugged at the various loops and knots that secured Kaleeth's dress to helped her slide out of it. "There, that suits you better," he whispered, before laying down and simply exchanging a stare with her in a little competition to see who could stay awake the longest.
These white walls did not make for a good hunting ground. The Imperial City did not have many trees and bushes to hide behind. Though, that deer was around here somewhere. Fendros had picked up its scent on the wind. It would be a good kill to sate his beast spirit. If only he could see past this damn purple tinge over his eyes. He didn't question it immediately, it just seemed part of reality. For now, he just kept tracking.
His claws made a series of tick sounds as he stalked along the main street of the market district in the middle of the night. He could not detect a single soul. Where was that deer? Fendros rounded a corner and immediately a doe perked its head up in his direction. For some reason, it was glowing. Fendros didn't even have time to register this before it bolted away through the streets. A chase!
Energy surged through Fendros as he chased the creature down, not quite letting it get to the gate of the tower district before leaping upon its hindquarters and dragging it to the ground. The deer made a sound in protest that didn't sound like any deer Fendros knew of, but it was soon cut off as Fendros bit down on its throat until it finally stopped twitching.
Fendros lifted his head away from his kill, slavering to eat, but the deer was no longer a deer. It was now Fendros' mother, her face lifeless and marked with the shock of sudden death. The previous glow was not a few feet away in the form of a fallen torch that she had been carrying. So long had it been since Fendros had killed his mother in his dreams that he staggered back in shock. When he staggered, however, he noticed that his feet were different. He could no longer see his snout. He was in Dunmer form, almost as if he had been the whole time. The gates to the tower district opened and a column of imperial legionnaires poured forth, surrounding him in seconds. Fendros panicked, and tried to call upon his beast spirit, but it did not respond.
One legionnaire stepped forth and read from a scroll while all the others levelled spears at Fendros' neck. "You are a monster, irredeemable in the eyes of the law. For killing your own family, we sentence you to death." The officer's face appeared at first to be Imperial, but it shifted and changed as he spoke. For a fleeting moment, it appeared to be the Argonian torturer, Sabine, Ahnasha, even Rhazii's face made an appearance in turn. "You will be summarily executed before any more may die," the sense of the charge the officer was reading steadily descended until it was utterly foreign, but Fendros wasn't paying attention to it. The officer's face continued to change into various fresh cuts of meat and slick organs rolling around in his helmet like the intake of a large mincer. Occasionally, it would cycle back to the faces, or a dagger, or a chain. It had no pattern that Fendros knew of.
Fendros was slightly disturbed by the sight, but more confusion ran through his mind than revulsion. It was as if some other image was trying to get through, some other memory. Out of the corner of his eyes, he noticed that every soldier around him was cycling the same strange images instead of their faces. Soon, Fendros' mother's face started cycling into meat, metal and faces, then even the cobblestones. The images slowly began to spread until the sky was churning blood and organs...and the walls...and the buildings. Soon, everything was replaced by strange churning images of faces and flesh except the spears, which slowly closed in on Fendros. He tried to avoid them, but was paralysed for some reason.
He closed his eyes. He felt the cool metal pierce his neck. He couldn't breath.
Fendros took an uneasy breath in before he realised that his tongue was still preventing him breathing through his mouth. He moved his tongue and took a deeper breath in, opening his eyes to dim moonlight over the back of Ahnasha's ears. His heart was pounding and his body was covered in cool sweat, so that was obviously a nightmare, but what exactly was going on? Did the medicine not work? Why were there such strange images? Slowly, Fendros started to piece it all together. That nightmare was not unlike ones he had before the torture, right up until that strange ending. Maybe that purple sheen over everything was having an effect. Fendros decided not to bother himself too much and try to sleep some more. He wasn't nearly as tense and panicked as he was after a dream that revisited his traumatic memories.
That last thought crossed his mind with a elated feeling before Fendros went to sleep. The memories never came up, so perhaps the medicine was working after all.
The morning came with no more incidents during the night on Fendros' part, save for Rhazii waking up once. Fendros actually woke up with a satisfied puffiness in his eyes that indicated a long, relaxed, and relatively uninterrupted sleep. He couldn't wait for Ahnasha to awake and see if she had any nightmares. The medicine wasn't perfect, but it appeared to be working in some capacity. With how conventional Fendros' was, he wouldn't be surprised if Ahnasha experienced no dreams at all.
Sabine appeared to be the first awake, and was tearing pieces of meat from a hackwing leg to feed Leaps. She was cross-legged in front of the fire, but her hunched demeanour and tense frown told of some anxiety building, probably from anticipating another farewell from Ariel.
Janius seemed to still be asleep, even with the orange light of the dawn creeping up, but he would eventually awaken with the camp activity.
