Torin woke with a groan, his body protesting the hard ground. He blinked up at the sky, where Masser and Secunda hung like twin specters, bathing the world in a pale, silvery light.
Countless stars speckled the void between them.
"Goddamn Aela and that deer," he muttered under his breath, pushing himself up. Every muscle ached. He scratched his lower back, his gaze drifting to where the huntress slept soundly on the far side of the dying embers of their fire.
With a grunt of annoyance, he turned and stumbled toward the nearest thicket to relieve himself.
He definitely should have been back in Jorrvaskr, asleep in his own bed. But no. A damned deer had chosen to cross their path just as they were about to head back. And Aela, true to her nature, had insisted on hunting it.
The pursuit, the kill, and the subsequent skinning had cost them the last of the daylight, making the trek back to Whiterun too dangerous in the dark. The only consolation was a full belly—Aela was, if nothing else, an expert at surviving comfortably in the wild, having swiftly built a shelter and cooked the venison.
He yawned widely, his eyes drifting to the foot of a large pine tree where they had carefully laid out the bear and deer hides to dry. He shook his head at the sight, a reminder of the day's messy work, and turned to trudge back to his bedroll.
He stopped mid-step.
His sleep-addled brain took a second to process what he was seeing. He rubbed his eyes vigorously and looked again. Nothing changed.
The massive, dark shape of the bear hide was gone. Only the smaller deer pelt remained.
Confused, he frowned, his eyes scanning the shadowy ground around the tree. There, leading away from the camp and into the deeper darkness of the woods, was a trail of disturbed earth and footprints. Someone, or something, had been here.
Too drowsy to know any better, Torin followed the trail. It led to a dense, shadowy bush about twenty paces from the fire's glow. A small voice inside Torin told him to wake Aela, but a stubborn, curious part of him pushed forward.
He reached a hand out to part the leaves.
The movement was a blur. A blade, thin and sharp, shot out from within the foliage, its point halting a hair's breadth from his throat. Torin froze, his breath catching in his chest.
All sleepiness evaporated in an instant, replaced by a cold, primal fear that sent Torin's heart hammering against his ribs. A man emerged from the bush, his form gaunt and desperate.
He was clad in patched-up hides and mangy furs, a thick, unkempt beard covering the lower half of his face, his scalp balding and sun-spotted. He held the knife steady, his eyes gleaming with a feral light.
"You shouldn't have done that, boy," the man sneered, his voice a low rasp. "I just wanted to take the hides and be gone before whoever killed that bear returned. A man's got to eat." His expression darkened into something ugly and threatening. "But you just had to poke your nose where it didn't belong..."
Torin didn't hear the words. He stared, wide-eyed, his raised hands beginning to tremble uncontrollably. The grimy face of the bandit blurred, replaced in his mind's eye by the golden helm of a Thalmor soldier, and the leering grin of the weasel-faced man from the forest.
He saw Camilla's terrified eyes, felt the helplessness of being a soul trapped in an infant's body, utterly powerless as death closed in. He was physically present, but his mind was trapped in a memory of pure terror.
The bandit frowned, unnerved by the lack of response. "Hey! You listening, boy?! Are you going to wet yourself or something?!"
Again, no reply came. Torin just stared through him, his body trembling as if seized by a sudden chill. The vacant horror in the boy's eyes only served to aggravate the bandit's own frayed nerves.
"What are you playing at?!" the man snarled, his voice rising with panic and anger. "Answer me!"
Receiving only silence, the bandit snapped. His wrist flicked forward, the blade slicing a thin, stinging line across Torin's cheek.
The sudden, sharp pain was a lightning strike to his system.
Torin flinched, his hand slowly rising to his face. His fingers came away wet and warm with his own blood. He stared at the crimson smear on his fingertips, the world snapping back into brutal, hyper-focused clarity. The ghosts of the past receded, replaced by the very real, very present threat before him.
He lowered his hand and turned his gaze back to the bandit. The vacant terror was gone, burned away by the fire of the wound. His expression twisted into something hideous—a mask of cold, focused rage that's been suppressed far too long.
'That's right...' a voice, calm and deadly, whispered in the back of his mind. 'I can move now. It's different now.'
The bandit's sneer faltered. He saw the change in the boy's eyes—the vacant terror replaced by a cold, murderous clarity. Every instinct he'd honed through a life of petty crime screamed at him to run.
However, the memory of Torin trembling before him was too fresh, too potent. He was a bandit, and he would not be cowed by a child.
"What do you—"
That was all he managed before Torin moved.
A faint green aura—the Haste spell—flashed around him. In the blink of an eye, Torin was a blur of motion. He lunged forward, leading with his shoulder, and slammed into the bandit's chest with the force of a battering ram. The air exploded from the man's lungs. The knife flew from his grasp, spinning away into the darkness.
Before the bandit could even register the impact, Torin's fist, fueled by a lifetime of repressed fury and fresh, raw power, connected with his face.
A sickening crunch echoed in the clearing. Blood and fragments of teeth sprayed from the bandit's mouth. He staggered, his legs buckling, and fell hard onto his back.
The rage on Torin's face did not subside; it intensified, twisting his features into something primal and terrifying. He was on the bandit in an instant, straddling his chest. With a raw, visceral roar that held all the helplessness of his past, he brought his fist down again. And again.
THUD. CRUNCH. THUD.
The bandit could only whimper, his arms flailing weakly, his world reduced to a storm of pain. Through a haze of blood and swelling flesh, his desperate eyes caught a new figure standing just behind the enraged boy.
Aela.
She stood with her arms crossed over her chest, her face an impassive mask, her hunter's eyes observing the scene with detached interest. The bandit reached a trembling, bloodied hand toward her, a silent, pleading gasp escaping his broken mouth.
His hope shattered as she made no move to intervene. She merely watched, a silent sentinel, as Torin continued his brutal, cathartic assault. With each blow that landed, the last vestiges of the terrified infant were pummeled away, replaced by the grim, unyielding reality of the warrior he was becoming.
By the time the red haze of fury finally receded, Torin's hands were slick and crimson, his face spattered with gore. The bandit beneath him was no longer a man, but a motionless, bloody ruin of pulped flesh and shattered bone.
The sight hit him like a physical blow. He flinched, scrambling backward in revulsion until his back collided with Aela's legs.
He looked up, his breath coming in ragged gasps. She stared down at him, her expression unreadable in the moonlight. A slow, sharp-edged smile touched her lips.
"Well?" she asked, her voice deceptively light. "Will you need an hour or two to shed a few tears for this one, too?"
Torin winced, the sarcasm washing over him. He shook his head, his voice a raw scrape. "No. I have no tears for this filth."
Intrigued, Aela stepped around him, her boot nudging the corpse as she assessed the damage. "So you'd weep for a beast, but not for a man?"
A bitter, hollow smile twisted Torin's bloodied lips. "I didn't weep," he corrected, though the distinction felt thin. "But yes. A beast acts on hunger, on instinct. It doesn't know any better." He gestured weakly toward the dead bandit. "He did. He chose to become a bandit. And apparently… I can't stand the sight of bandits."
Aela's head tilted. "How come? This should be your first time facing one."
Torin shook his head, the motion weary. "It's not the first time. Bandits… they killed someone dear to me, back before Kodlak found me."
Aela gave him a long, strange look, her hunter's calm giving way to genuine confusion. "You must have been months old by then. My own mother was killed by a vampire when I was an infant. And yet, I didn't react as you did when Kodlak and my father took me to hunt my first vampire just last year."
"It's because you don't remember it," Torin said, his voice dropping to a near-whisper.
Aela's confusion deepened, her brow furrowing. "And you do?"
Torin met her gaze, his own eyes haunted and ancient in his young face. He gave a single, solemn nod. "I remember it like it happened yesterday. Every detail. I even remember the day I was born. My mother, Helga. The storm outside… and the golden-armored elves slaughtering everyone as Camilla fled with me in her arms..."
"That's..." Aela began, then quickly closed her mouth, the words failing her. After a long, silent moment where she simply studied him, she let out a slow sigh. "You always were too clever for your own good. But this... this is strange, even for you, Torin."
Torin offered a weary shrug, the movement stirring the coppery scent of blood around him. "Maybe. But do me a favor and keep it between us." His grin, when it came, was a ghost of its usual self, but it held a sharp, knowing edge. "Even if you tried to tell someone, they'd just think you were the one who'd gone crazy."
Aela rolled her eyes, the familiar gesture a small anchor in the surreal conversation. "Oh, shut up." Her gaze then swept over the clearing, taking in the blood-soaked ground and the mangled corpse.
She sighed again, this time with pure practicality. "We can't stay here anymore. Not unless we fancy waking up to a wolf pack feasting on our innards. And it's too late to find and secure another campsite. Let's just grit our teeth and go home."
Torin didn't answer immediately. His eyes, now calm and calculating, turned back to the bandit's corpse.
After a long, considering moment, he shook his head. "No. If there's one bandit skulking around, there are more. Let's track them down and put them all down before we head back to Whiterun. It'll save someone else the trouble later."
Aela stared at him, momentarily speechless. The boy who had just been lost in a blind rage was now coldly proposing a preemptive purge. She sighed, recognizing the stubbornness in his tone and deciding it was pointless to argue.
Instead, she gestured with her chin toward the pulverized body. "Maybe you should have thought of that before you turned our only lead into meat paste. He could have told us exactly where his friends are hiding."
Torin gave a dismissive wave of his bloodied hand. "I wasn't exactly in a state for strategic thinking. Besides..." He looked up at her, his grin turning deliberately fawning. "...you're a great hunter. The best tracker in Jorrvaskr. I'm sure you can find their den in no time without some bandit's help."
Aela let out a short, sharp chuckle. "Flattery will get you nowhere, whelp," she said, though a flicker of pride shone in her eyes. "But feel free to praise me some more. It's the least you can do." She stood and offered him a hand. "Come on. Let's go kill some bandits."
Torin took her offered hand with his own crimson-stained one, the grip firm and resolute.
...
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