Blackbeak Bluff It’s a hit and run

Alduin rasps a dark tongue over whiskered lips. The appendage scraping over the scar he’d gotten so long ago from his father’s jealous mistress. Sometimes it still hurts when he thinks about it too hard. Right now though, he’s focused on Nyra. His father’s right hand in war and leading. He remembers the way he used to light up around her when they trained and played. He’s no longer such a frivolous, innocent boy. Perhaps Nyra would see that. 

He clears his throat and watches her with those dead, ruby eyes of his. Humming in response to her words. That’s good. She’s not dead. His father would be delighted to hear that.

“Father, has sent Tulok and I back.” He pauses, allowing spotted auds to shift and eyes to roam the landscape for a moment. “To finish what he started. Seems he’s retired…for now.” Alduin doesn’t count going out and killing others as retirement, but his father has a funny definition of the word.

Only, Alduin still seems on edge. Head level with his shoulders and eyes hard. He’s excited to see her, but many emotions he would’ve felt back then have become muted. Training has been hard for him. Life has been hard on him.

And that entity. The one always perched near his shoulder. He follows Alduin. Makes him do wretched things. He shouldn’t have visited that place. He shouldn’t have stayed. Those ghostly fingers that trail over his coat, they touch him now. Slithering through his guard hairs and tugging.

Alduin, I see you’ve found an old friend. He purrs back to him with that gravelly voice inside his head. Will you accidentally kill her? And if you tried, would you succeed? The voice is mocking and the young wolf clears his throat again, lips wrinkling slightly in distaste at his precarious words.

He shakes out his body, willing the tug on his nape away successfully before looking back to Nyra. “He would be glad to know you’re well.” Is all he manages to get out.