Prologue:

Capture

It really wasn't supposed to end the way it had. The information was good. She'd told the Thalmor agents in the area where to expect Ulfric. They had found a way to let that new General, Tullius, know. The plan had been simple enough on the outset. Catch Jarl Ulfric Stormcloak and bring him to Cyrodiil for justice. She was meant to watch and report back on how that went down, if it was successful, or if it failed, and the reasons therein. That was her job among the Thalmor; to spy.

She was not meant to wake on the floor of a wagon, propped up against the headboard with wrists bound, and injuries acquired.

Awareness returned slowly, but it did return. It was accompanied by pain, though she was accustomed to clamping down on that sort of reaction. She kept herself limp, feigning unconsciousness as her other senses faded in, one by one. The motion of the cart made her want to grimace; she wasn't supposed to be in a cart. The last thing she remembered was being shot out of her perch, and then the ground rushing up to meet her.

Well, being shot certainly explained why her left shoulder hurt like hell. It had been a risk to not wear armor when watching that ambush go down, but she had hoped the dull brown clothing and hat would keep her from being too noticeable in the ensuing fight. Apparently her luck had been not only bad, but bad. It also explained the various bruises she could feel, and probably the nasty knot she would have somewhere on her head.

She heard voices. Males were talking. Nords by the sound of them; they had very distinct accents at times. She did her best to ignore them, trying to understand just what had happened. She wasn't supposed to be caught in the ambush, and she had been subtle in her magic.

….hell, it was probably the subtle that had caught the attention of the Thalmor with the group.

There was a sudden, almost abrupt shift, followed by some swearing; she gave in to the urge to open her eyes and take stock of the situation. They were in the mountains, there was no doubt about that. The air had a particular bite to it that this northernmost country claimed as its own, but the mountains were a sharper cold entirely. The cart contained three others; two Stormcloaks—the Jarl being one of them—and another Nord that she didn't recognize. Mentally she started cursing, in every language she knew. This was beyond bad... somehow she was going to have to signal another Thalmor agent and get this corrected.

"So, you're finally awake."

She flicked her gaze to the Nord nearest to her, a large, blonde haired man in the blue Stormcloak uniform. He acted friendly enough, but that was probably because they were all in binds now; most Nords had issues with an Altmer, even one who looked as she did.

She was shorter on average than most of her Aldmeri kin, just barely clearing 5'7" in her bare feet. Her eyes were another thing that set her apart, being an untraditional bright blue as opposed to the typical green or gold. Her hair, when not hidden under a hat, was a fiery red that she wore long, hanging to her waist. Like most of her kin, her skin was a fine, pale gold color, and she was rather vain about it. Her mother, having seen her coloration, named her for the dragon god. Akatosh, in the human tongue. Auriel in her own.

Auriel Talmanari grimaced a little and shrugged her good shoulder. The cold was making old injuries ache, and she felt every bit her three hundred some years as adventurer and spy, if not a little more due to the new injuries.

"I am," she said coolly.

"You were trying to cross the border, huh?" he asked.

"No."

"...you got caught up in the ambush, same as the rest of us," he said after a minute. "If you weren't trying to cross the border..."

"My business is not yours," she said shortly. "Though it seems I may share your fate."

He seemed surprised at her abruptness, but Auriel hadn't lived this long by trusting newly-met strangers. Even strangers in common bond as they were. She had been that naive once, but those day were long behind her.

She shifted, looking up as they passed through the archway into a fort, and the man across from her snorted a little, glancing over his shoulder.

"Damn Thalmor," he spat a little, over the side of the wagon as the fourth member of the cart—a horse thief—prayed to the Divines for rescue. "No doubting it was them and that bastard Tullius who sold us out. Damned Empire."

Auriel simply watched and listened. The Thalmor watched the cart go by, and she gave a subtle signal that should have made them sit up and take note of her. Instead they continued to watch her go past with cold, uncaring eyes. She signaled again, less subtly, but the only reaction was a raised eyebrow, and the slightest of mouth movements.

'Save yourself.'

She gritted her teeth a little at the arrogance of the remark; if she outed herself as a Thalmor here, they'd denounce her. She was no fool. Had they abandoned her then? Or had she been set up to die? For what reasons?

The wagon came to a halt, and she stiffly climbed to her feet with the others, mind working furiously. She could attempt to make a break for it, she mused as they climbed down from the wagon and stood in a ragged group. Her arms might've been bound, but she was no slouch at illusion or alteration.

She was just sinking into that idea when the legate interrupted her thoughts. Her concentration was fairly shot as it was, and the idea that she might not get out of this was a nerve wracking one. It didn't help that she wanted to know why she hadn't yet been pulled out of the line, when she so clearly didn't belong there.

"As your names are called, move over there," the harsh woman ordered, pointing to where the headsman waited.

Another Nord, this one in Imperial armor, stepped forward with a board and some papers in his hand.

"Ulfric Stormclaok, Jarl of Windhelm," he said briskly.

The bound and gagged Jarl moved stiffly, but obediently, in the direction of the execution block. Auriel snorted a little to herself; his reputation may have been deserved, but it was also exaggerated. Like so many others.

"It has been an honor, Jarl Ulfric," the talkative Nord murmured.

"Ralof of Riverwood."

Her talkative, curious Nord went next.

"Lokiir of Rorikstead."

The horse thief this time. Auriel wondered if her name was on their lists. Perhaps that was a chance to get a break.

"No, I'm not a rebel!" the horse-thief protested. And then bolted. "You can't catch me!"

"Archers!" the legate bellowed.

The thief didn't make it very far. Auriel shook her head a little; poor fool had no way of escaping like that. Maybe he wad preferred that death to the headman's axe...

"Anyone else feel like running?!" the legate demanded.

As other names were called, Auriel was left standing, and shifted a little, wondering if she ought to cast invisibility on herself or just wait and see if providence would deliver her. Or her fellow Thalmor.

"You there. Step forward."

She hissed a little; her time to think had passed and she had lost her chance to be invisible or vanish in the crowd. Reluctantly she moved forward, closer to the brown-haired Nord.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"Auriel Talmanari," she said shortly.

"You're not with the Thalmor embassy, are you High Elf?" he asked, looking back down at his papers. "No, that can't be right... Captain, she's not on the list. What should we do?"

Auriel kept her expression neutral. Maybe she could catch a break, maybe she couldn't. Her window was narrowing on possibilities though, and if she didn't act soon...

"Forget the list," the legate snapped. "She goes to the block."

"By your orders, Captain," he sighed a little, then turned and gave Auriel was seemed to be an apologetic look. "I'm sorry. We'll see your remains are returned to the Summerset Isle. Follow the captain, please."

Internally she hissed a few curses; she was running out of time and chances, and thought furiously as she moved to join the crowd. Only peripherally did she take note of what was happening, mind flicking through spell options in a last-ditch effort to escape. A sound echoing through the mountains made her head snap up to the cloudy blue sky, and she was not the only one to turn their gaze.

A chill crept down her spine, one that reminded her intimately of when she had been locked in the Imperial Prison all those centuries ago. There was a feeling in the air, an anticipatory one, thought it came not from Stormcloaks or Imperial soldiers. The last time she had felt this way, she had been just shy of her sixth decade, and the old Emperor himself had marched straight through her cell into the hands of death, starting the Oblivion Crisis.

She hoped that whatever was going to happen did so before her head lay on the ground.

The sound came again, after the beheading of the first Stormcloak, and Auriel tuned out the world briefly, until the Imperial soldier broke into her thoughts.

"To the block prisoner. Nice and easy."

Auriel grimaced a little, twisting her bound wrists futilely. She should have been more focused on her escape. Slowly she approached the block, kneeling before the legate could kick and shove her down. The blood from the Stormcloak's body was warm, wet, and foul on her neck, and she allowed herself a grimace of distaste.

"What in Oblivion is that?!" came the demand from Tullius, halting everyone in their tracks.

Auriel's eyes tracked the black form, wondering the exact same thing. It was huge, winged, and roared before flinging itself upwards into the clouds. But dragons were only myths...

"Sentries, what do you see?"

"It's in the clouds!" one protested.

"DRAGON!" came the yell from a female Nord as the black creature landed on the tower directly above the execution spot. It shook the ground as it landed, and the headsman was knocked from his feet.

Auriel rolled away from the block as the dragon—black as night, with fiery red eyes—did something, and a feeling slammed into and through her before she could really even pause. It knocked her down, blurring the world around her briefly. It felt almost like magic, but more; a fire was racing through her blood and bones, and it wasn't terribly pleasant. She thought she cried out, and hoped she hadn't; she couldn't afford to be thought of as weak right now.

He hearing faded in after a few minutes, as a rough hand grabbed her and yanked her upright.

"Come on, get up!" Ralof exclaimed. "We've got to get out of here!"

She staggered to her feet and hissed a quiet Aldmeri curse as she allowed him to pull her over to a nearby tower. As the door was slammed shut behind them, her vision began to clear, and she took in her surroundings; more Stormcloaks. Grand. All of them untied, and most of them giving her suspicious looks. Well, that was to be expected really, if she'd been bundled into the cart with the lot of them, despite not being a Stormcloak herself.

"Jarl Ulfric, what is that?" Ralof asked, making her glance over to see the unbound Jarl. "Could the legends be true?"

"Legends don't burn down buildings," the Jarl said quietly.

Auriel kept both sardonic snort and expression to herself. This Nord had no idea what legends could do. What she could do. She borrowed a dagger briefly from a table and cut through her bindings, then shook her wrists lightly to regain feeling in them before she started up the stairs. Another Stormcloak was near the middle of the tower, trying to clear some fallen stone out of the way.

"If we can just clear these rocks-" he began.

He never got to finish. The black dragon slammed his head through the stone wall, making Auri stagger back down half a flight, only to be caught by Ralof who had been following her up. She was willing to swear she'd heard words in the dragon's roar, words she could almost taste, could almost speak. There was nothing but ash left of the Stormcloak after the dragon winged away, and Ralof pushed her back up the stairs after a moment.

"Look, there's a way out," he pointed towards the roof of the inn next to the tower. "Jump over. We'll catch up!"

She shrugged a little and climbed out the newly made opening, launching herself easily over the gap and the flames that were trying to take the house. She didn't need the help in escaping, and almost wished she could see her Thalmor compatriots now. What they might say... still, their insistance that she save herself was disquieting, and needed further thought. When she got room for it, at least. Which was not while meteors fell from the sky and smoke choked the air.

She dropped down through the broken floor and moved back out into the daylight, just as the black dragon landed again, nearly scorching a child in the process. The Imperial soldier who had expressed genuine regret over her impending death looked at her in surprise.

"Still alive then? Keep close to me if you want to stay that way!"

Auriel didn't bother suppressing the eye roll this time. Why they thought she needed their help was beyond her. She left him behind almost immediately, tucking herself close to the wall as the dragon landed on it. He was, she decided as she watched him burn a soldier who had been firing arrows at him, impressive. And useful in this moment. As long as she made it out alive she would be pretty okay with this particular fort being turned into a pile of rubble and ruin.

The gate, she discovered, was closed, and a mass of rock and flames; there was no escape that way. She glanced around, wondering if she could make a break for one of the gaps in the wall. The soldiers were too preoccupied with the dragon to really care about one fleeing Aldmeri woman.

"Hadvar! Into the Keep soldier, we're leaving!" Tullius bellowed at the soldier behind her.

Auriel's lips quirked slightly, eyes narrowing in satisfaction. So there was a way out through the Keep itself. Well, she was certainly going to take advantage of that! Everything else could wait for later, escape was currently paramount.

She dodged around rubble, ignored the spat the two Nords had, and shoved her way into the Keep through the nearest useful-looking door.

Auriel wound up in the barracks, and leaned up against the wall with a sigh of relief. That was one hurdle managed. The Keep was likely to be harder to bring down than the rest of the fort; it was made to withstand things like this. She shook her head a little and yanked off the hat confining her hair, using it to wiped as much of the blood off of her as she could. Hadvar staggered in a few minutes later, as she started going through chests looking for something useful to wear.

"Was that really a dragon?" he muttered, staring rather blindly ahead. "The bringer's of the end times? Now?"

"Whether it was or was not, you should consider things in the moment," she said shortly. "Save the 'what if' for after safety has been achieved."

It was easy to give the advice; harder to take it. She herself wanted to sit and chew on this new issue with the Thalmor and her. Maybe if she made it to her next dead drop there would be information for her. An explanation, even, though those were rare.

"...yeah, you're right. You'd better find some gear. I'm going to see if there's some burn salve around."

Auriel just nodded and kept poking through chests. She found a small measure of gold, and a helmet she ignored—it was Imperial made and at best would simply be uncomfortable—before she found anything of use. She wasn't slow about shedding her clothes either, and Hadvar's stutter of surprise when he saw her in her underthings made her smirk slightly, even as she donned the armor itself.

"You're... not taking the sword?" he asked after a minute.

"...My greatest skill lies in the school of destruction," she replied after a moment of thought. "I will not be in more danger than you. Now come. You know the keep better than I."

He seemed to be taken aback by her brisk manner, but after a minute obligingly went to the nearby hanging chain and opened the gate. The hall was short, and she heard the Stormcloaks before he did.

"Come on, we've got to keep going," a male voice urged.

"Hold on... I'm out of breath. I won't be much use if we keep rushing around," a female replied.

"Hear that?" Hadvar murmured quietly. "Stormcloaks. Let's see if we can reason with them."

Privately Auriel thought he was being optimistic; the enmity between the two groups ran deep. He pulled the chain and the gate dropped, setting both Stormcloaks to their feet, weapons drawn. He carefully stepped out, holding up empty hands.

"Hold on now," he said carefully. "We just want out, same as you."

They started moving in, as Auriel stepped quietly up behind him, and froze as her hands flickered with fire. Her expression dared them to try it; she was in as foul a mood as she would allow herself, and if they set her off, she had no qualms with taking their lives. Wisely, the both lowered their blades, and Auriel dismissed the magic.

"Only until we're out," the blonde woman snapped. "Once we go our separate ways-"

Auriel simply pushed past her, taking out the key that had been with the armor and unlocked the gate. The three Nords just stared at her in surprise.

"Save your vendetta for a time when we are not all in danger of dying," she said coolly, stepping through. "Even a keep will not last forever under the assault of the dragon, which is ongoing. Move."

She started down the stairs without seeing if they would follow; truthfully she didn't much care. She just wanted out of the keep before it came down on her head. She heard them shuffle down behind her and permitted herself a sharp smile; they might have not been fond of her race, but she had a way of pitching her voice that suggested command. It had been a hard-won skill and she was not above abusing it if it meant getting the hell out before everything came down around them.

Hadvar was the closest to her when the ceiling started coming down. He yanked her back as the stonework collapsed, sending dust and rocks flying everywhere. The pebbles were no harm to any of them, it was the dust that was pervasive, and they all spent the next few minutes remembering how to breathe.

"Damn," Hadvar managed when he caught his breath. "That dragon doesn't give up easy. Come on, through the storeroom."

Auriel was quick to push the door open, and quicker still to grab things that would come in handy down the road. She didn't have access to an alchemy table now, but she would soon enough, and the more ingredients she had, the more poisons and potions she could make that would be of use in the future.

The other end of the door lead to stairs going down. A prison, and, from what she could hear, a torture room. Three Stormcloaks fought with the two Imperial torturers, and it was there that the two cautious allies became enemies as well. Auriel had no patience for it, and lit them both on fire. They died screaming, and she blocked it out of her mind as Hadvar helped his fellow soldiers.

"You two came along right on time," the head torturer said. He had an oily voice that Auriel took an immediate dislike to. "Seems this lot was a bit unhappy about the way we've been treating their fellows."

Again Auriel tuned out the talking, instead going through things that might be useful to her. A handful of lockpicks and a book joined the two potions and ingredients she'd picked up, and she wasn't slow in opening a nearby cell that held a dead mage. She had long since gotten over her squeamishness at picking over dead bodies for things like coin and equipment. And even if she couldn't use much, she could definitely sell it. The hood she tied on, relishing the faint warmth and slight muffling of voices it caused.

It was tempting to leave all three Imperial soldiers behind, but in the interest of staying alive she followed them instead, heading down the hallway past the cells. An opening in the wall belied the parting words of the torturer, that there was no way out in their direction, and she climbed through carefully; a keep was one thing, but she wasn't a big fan of anything with ceilings that hung low.

And of course, they weren't out of the woods yet. A small band of Stormcloaks had made it this far as well, and there was no negotiating with these ones. The fight was quick, bloody, and annoying as the ones on the far side of the cavern had bows and arrows. Auriel snatched one up, and both quivers as well as she walked past, and pulled a lever that lowered a bridge leading further into the caverns.

The assistant torturer stayed behind, but Hadvar followed her quickly enough.

"I never knew this was attached to the Keep," he muttered, looking around cautiously. "I hope there's a way out through here..."

Auriel was inclined to agree; wandering lost in a dark cavern was hardly her idea of fun. Especially with only a few food supplies. Behind them rock rumbled threateningly, and she covered her ears reflexively as it crashed down, destroying the bridge. Hadvar jumped a foot, and spun.

"...I guess we're lucky that didn't come down on top of us," he said once the dust had cleared. "The others will have to find another way out."

Auriel stepped up to the edge and glanced down.

"It is only a five foot drop, and there is a connecting tunnel," she pointed out. "Your fellows will be fine, assuming they make it this far."

"Ah... yeah. Right."

She shook her head a little as she bound up her long hair in a tight braid, and tucked it under the hood she'd lifted from the dead mage.

"Let's go. The sooner we are out, the better."

He nodded, and they set off through the cavern.