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From the corner from their eye, they longingly watched Fennorian from the upper second floor balcony of Ravenwatch castle. The said vampire was sat at the long table, either scribbling notes in a journal or cutting up different alchemical ingredients on a small chopping board.
They turned their head as the sound of footsteps echoed from up the stairs and a red headed Bosmer came into view. Gwendis carried several different fraying leather bound books in her arms.
“Catch.” She said as they fell out from her grasp onto the small table the Vestige was sat at. “Sorry about that.” She said.
“No worries.” The vestige smiled, picking up the few that had missed the table and landed on the floor. Their eyes scanned the cover of one of the more deteriorated books but were still able to make out the title: Blood and Alchemy.
“These are all the ones I thought best to bring back from the ruins,” Gwendis said falling down into the armchair opposite the Vestige, “It’s not easy teleporting all the way back with these things.” She sighed, picking up a volume and blowing a coat of dust from it. “Thanks for waiting, I suppose I better tell you what this is all about then.” She said catching the eye of the person just across the table.
“We’ve been tracking a coven of Vampires in Cyrodiil, who seem to be experimenting with very new and dangerous magic.”
The Vestige held back a sigh, “Do you know what kind of magic?”
Gwendis shook her head, “Not yet, Fennorian seems to think they’re experimenting with vampiric strains, you know how there are different types of vampire’s right?” She asked and the Vestige nodded blankly, for their thoughts had been caught by the Altmer’s name, breaking their attention away from Gwendis. They glanced back briefly down to see he was still there, and of course, he remained sat as focused as ever. “The problem is they’re turning many innocent people only to then experiment on them. The Ayleid ruin we tracked them too was overflowing with corpses and flooded with blood. They need to be stopped; they’re already drawing attention of local imperials.”
“You’ve found them already?”
Gwendis tossed the book she was holding back onto the pile and leaned back into her chair, “Adusa-daro and Janeve went to investigate the ruin, Atatar, and they found a large group of them there. There was a confrontation but there were too many and Adusa and Janeve had to withdraw and wait for me and Fennorian. But by the time we got there the coven had moved on- hastily though, as evident by the things they forgot to take with them.” Gwendis sat up again, and peered over the balcony, giving a chance for the Vestige to do so too, and return to watching Fennorian. They felt a little wrongdoing so, the sensation of knots in their stomach made set them on edge as they could not control the endless thoughts of Fennorian, but also because they were worried Gwendis may just pick up on it. She was no stranger to the sensation of pining after all. The Vestige had easily been able to pick up on her feelings for the Count Verandis, what made them think she’d not notice even so much as an excessive glance towards her younger brother Fennorian?
Gwendis continued, “Adusa told me and Fennorian to come back here and start putting together a plan. I was to make contact with you, and Fennorian was to find Melina.” The mention of the Breton vampire made the knot in the Vestige jerk, causing the sensation of both jealousy and shame. Internally they berated themselves, there was no need to feel such a way about Melina, she was nice, smart and had proven to be another friend. But every mention of her name reminded them of the conversations they’d had in Markarth, which reminded her of the fact that Melina liked Fennorian and had told the Vestige, who had been too unsure of themselves to speak their own feelings. Melina wanted to pursue him, and as far as she knew, the Vestige had only encouraged her feelings. How could they ever have a chance with the Altmer now? Of course, that was assuming Fennorian even felt slightly the same towards them. They longed to be the one for him in the end, but seeds of doubt prickled within, did they really have that right?
“So, Melina has been sent to pick up their trail which I believe is taking her north towards Skyrim. And we are going to go through the books and notes that the coven left behind and see if there is anything that might enlighten us of what they’re doing, while Adusa and Janeve continue investigating Cyrodiil for any more leads. There you go, all caught up.”
The Vestige eyed the books, their job felt a little more relaxed than the usual run and fetch quests they were used too, and it surprised them that they hadn’t been sent to meet Adusa in the field instead.
“What are we looking for then?” They asked as Gwendis had already began looking through a book, a bored expression on her face.
She shrugged, “I don’t know, I’d usually be doing these kinds of tasks with Verandis who’d always be the one to know what to look for, guess I’ll have to take on that role now.” She sighed.
The Vestige nodded, and then a thought struck them, “Wait, what’s Fennorian doing?” They asked shyly, nervous that the said elf would hear them from below.
Gwendis rolled her eyes at the mention of her younger brother’s name, “Well Adusa suggested he go with Melina, but he insisted on coming back with me and helping us with all the books and notes. Of course, it’s not really a three-person job, but he argued with me that I should go, and he should work with you instead, said it would be better for him to figure this stuff out and me to work with Melina.”
“Oh.” The Vestige said as Gwendis glared at the aloof boy below.
“Sure, he may be better when it comes to Alchemy,” She said rolling her eyes again, “enough that he is able to try and re-create some of their formulae,” her head motioned to him, who has currently crumbling a sort of powder into a beaker at the table. “But I’m still older and more experienced, and besides,” She gave a friendly smile the Vestige’s way, “I’ve known you the longest, it should be us working together.” She said proudly. The Vestige laughed quietly in response, nervously watching the dark shape of Fennorian from the corner of her eye in case he might have overheard and showed a reaction. But he kept to himself as always. The longing intensified.
“I supposed we do need to know what we’re up against before we do anything rash. It’s probably best we get as much as we can from the resources they left. I guess we should start then.” The Vestige said and Gwendis nodded. Both picked up a book each and got busy scanning and sorting through, and the room settled into a gentle quiet.
Down below the Altmer vampire kept his attention glued to the mess of blood-stained papers and alchemy ingredients before him, at times giving way to write something theoretical in his journal about what he was learning. But despite his trained resilience he could not help but let his thoughts drift upwards to the person sitting on the balcony above. They had sat, lone, in wait for his sibling to re-appear with the remaining things the coven of vampires had left. The whole time the two of them in the same room and they had not said a word to one another. There was this feeling of a hesitant distance, it felt wrong to him- had they not just saved Skyrim together? And Once Gwendis had come back he had tried to ignore her comments:
“but he argued with me that I should go and he should work with you instead”
He felt a chill, what if the Vestige had picked up on her comments, what if they began to suspect? It had taken everything in him to ignore Gwendis’ taunting but what if that had made things worse? He tried to calm his thoughts down a little, there was no need to be nervous. He was at least their friend, after all they had been through, there was no reason to get like this. Still, as he delicately penned some more notes down, keeping an eye on the potion he had made following the formulae, he couldn’t help but wonder, if perhaps they felt anything for him too.
He should say something at some point, join them, compare notes. Quickly before Gwendis got there first. Because Fennorian longed to be the one for them.