User blog:Emperor Maximus/Souls of Tamriel - The Last Vampire

The air was cold. It was harsh, biting, and left no respite.

There were two people here on this island. It was an insignificent shard of rock and ice that poked up from the waters of the Sea of Ghosts; nobody could ever consider living here under normal circumstances. But these were not normal circumstances.

One of them was a man, dressed in black plate armour. It was an ornate suit, with a great many engravings, and it was lined with fur. His face was deathly pale, his hair an ashen grey. Upon his head there wasa crown of sorts, with jagged contours spiking up and down around it. His expression was one of sadness and longing, his face weary from the weight of time.

Lying on the ground in front of him was a second figure. She was a woman, unconscious on the ground. Contrary to the weather, she was wearing very little clothing - only a thin sheet covered her modesty. Her hair looked like thinly-spun copper, and her skin was smooth and flawless. Flowers were tucked into the strands of hair, and they lay all about her supple form.

The man knelt in the snow, unmoving, just looking at her. He had been watching over her now for countless years, but she had never woken up.

''Have to keep thinking... If I think, maybe the time will pass quicker. Ah, what does it matter? Time is irrelevant here, for me at least. No! Don't think like that! Eventually, it will all be over, and I can... I can... I can actually talk to her. Properly.''

''Now, try to think of something. Where should I start? What is my name? Hah! As if I could forget my own name! It's... it's... well, that's simple... Molag Bal! Of course, of course, my name is Molag Bal! How could I have forgotten that? So, so stupid of me.''

He laughed bitterly at that. 'Wasn't that silly, my love? Wasn't it silly?'

She did not respond.

'Of course it was silly. I've been distracted lately, you see, over what I should do. I mean, what am I supposed to do while I wait? An eternity is a long time, and I feel that I may become bored while serving out my period of attonement. I can leave whenever I like, after all, but... I don't.'

Tears appeared in Bal's eyes, and he tenderly stroked the cheek of the woman. 'I do this for you. For you. That is why I don't leave, so that you can live. And someday, maybe, when all of this is over...' He could not hold back his emotions any longer, and salty tears filled his vision and rolled down his face. '...When this is all over, maybe we can be together.'

Molag Bal closed his eyes, and wept. His shoulders heaved, and his hands shook, as he sobbed in anguish.

For a moment, he remembered some of the things that had happened. How he was thrown into this situation. Sounds, images, tastes, sensations... he experienced all of these as they flashed in his mind.

There was the Divine War, when Aedra, Daedra, and Mortals clashed in an epic conflict. He was defeated, and his fate sealed. But he was not killed. Ice and snow and salt were his only friends now, as he watched over the innocent young woman who lay before him.

By now, he had calmed down enough that he had stopped crying. He looked once more at her soft features, her perfect appearance.

''It was not by coincidence that she looks so much like Lamae, was it? A bitter reminder of everything that I have done. An eternity of watching over everything I am not. I wonder if they knew, at the time, what would happen?''

That I would grow to love her.

''Every day, my dear, I stay here, keeping you safe. Who knows what would happen if I left you alone? I shudder to even think about it. But one day we can be together, I promise. Until then, you are mine...''

Forever and Never...