Aubeanic Reign: The Other III - Heartache

Jaryl was waiting for Isis outside of the ruin, he stood alone, arms folded, deep in thought as he waited for his wife to catch up, the memories of her torture still fresh in his mind, no matter how much he tried to push them out.

As Isis left the ruin, a voice began to tingle inside her head; the Imperial needed no prompting to figure out that it was Aasi, already making contact with her.

"You handled that rather well; I think I'm a little impressed."

"Thanks." Isis murmured, quietly, before she picked up on the trail once more and followed it towards the next thing...

"Y'know... I watched you for a while, you, Jaryl and the little ones... I couldn't  help but notice how much of a resemblance there was between you and the  dark haired child."

"Well, they are my kids..." Isis muttered, sarcastically.

"True, though it's not so much her looks as it is the way that she acts..." Aasi explained, rather condescendingly.

"Picking up every worm that she can find and caring for them all, she's so much like her mother..."

"Yeah, because she's a great person." Isis snapped, struggling to remain quiet. "And, anyways, at least she's not like you, right?"

"So, you'd want your daughter bringing home a drug addict? You'd want her running off and stabbing him in the back the first chance she gets? What an excellent destiny awaits her..." The Redguard chuckled as Isis approached a familiar looking inn... or the remains of it.

"Speaking of which..."

"Hey, Isis!" Jaryl called, gesturing over to her as he stood in front of the hole in the opening, trying to see inside.

"It's that inn! The... Crowfoot, Craselhoff..." He paused, dismissing it as unimportant as he continued to peer inside.

"Crovenhoft." Isis replied, shaking the conversation with Aasi out of her head.

"Yeah, that shit hole..." Jaryl agreed, peering inside and having a look around. However, without any warning, he hopped inside as if he had seen something and had gone to investigate it.

Isis frowned, hiking up her skirt and heading right in after Jaryl.

"Hey! Be careful!"

As Isis entered the inn, she immediately saw Jaryl stood before her, watching a shade of their past selves, having a 'good time' on the floor, rolling around in their passionate youthful love, blocking out everything else but each other as they explored each other’s bodies.

However, Jaryl did not look too fond to be seeing it, in fact, he looked horrified...

He instantly looked up to Isis, going a little pale before walking away, raising his arm and pressing it against the wall, hanging his head and shaking it thoroughly.

"Do I really look that bad during... this?" Isis asked, with a distasteful expression, before she glanced at Jaryl.

"You ok, honey?"

"F-Fuck... It's so... Wrong..." He shuddered, glancing back as he saw himself, rolling around with Julie of all people, his Brother's wife! When did this happen? He doesn't look drunk, neither did she and he could swear on his life that he'd never looked at her that way before. He struggled to understand what was happening before his eyes, was this a memory? If it was, was it real or a false one, planted by Aasi?

Isis frowned, looking at the image. A faint memory stirred in her mind, something like this she had seen before.

"This... isn't... right..."

"Y-You're tellin' me..." Jaryl said, swallowing back a mouth full of vomit.

"Is this...

Did this ever happen?

It's like...

I remember it but..." The Bosmer paused, slowly looking around to the sight as difficult as it was.

He remembered now...

"Y-yeah, it's... something that happened... a while ago..." Isis whispered, rubbing her arms as if cold.

"Heh... Well, I'll be..." Jaryl uttered, slowly wandering over to the tavern's counter as he tried to ignore the moans of his past self and a woman who he considered to be his sister.

"You were right..."

"What do you mean?" Isis asked, trying to tear her eyes from the horrid scene but being unable to.

Jaryl sighed a little as he took a bottle from the tavern, breaking it open and knocking some of it back before turning to her, kicking a stool to his left.

"When you said... About Julie, about us two..." He uttered, placing the bottle back on the counter.

"I dunno, part of me just didn't believe that you really saw it that way...

Guess I didn't want to believe it."

"Y-yeah... It was... hard for me, to say the least..." Isis sighed, before slipping her hand into Jaryl's. "But... It's over, so we should leave it in the past."

"I know..." Jaryl uttered, glancing up to the wine rack above, sighing heavily in the process.

"It's just... I dunno, I still felt like I did betray you, y'know? Like, I should've seen it but I guess I only had one thing on my mind."

"Jaryl, it's not your fault..." Isis whispered.

"You thought it was me. If someone had pretended to be you and seduced me, I would've fallen for it, too..."

"I know..." Jaryl sighed, glancing over to her.

"It's just, seems to happen a lot to me...

Well, to both of us really, Aasi, this... the other thing with Aratius... I wasn't exactly reliable."

"You've learned that some things have to be let go..." Isis whispered, carefully. "I love you despite your failings, and I hope you love me despite mine."

"I... Can't really think of any." Jarly whispered, giving Isis a small smile as he turned to face her, eyes shimmering a little.

"Look... I know you want to forget and... I know it's over but... There's somethin' I wanna know..."

"Yes? What is it?"

"Did you..." Jaryl began, pausing to take a deep breath.

"Did you ever... blame me?"

"To be honest... At one point, I did. When I actually thought it was Julie and you, I blamed you both." Isis sighed, squeezing his hand.

"So, it's sort of my fault, for not trusting you."

"Heh... You did trust me, which is why you felt betrayed. I guess it works both ways really, given that it was different depending on who was looking at it." The Bosmer muttered, looking over his shoulder as he saw the mist creature fade away.

"I just... Always felt like I could've done more but I guess I couldn't..."

"Which is what I love about you, Jaryl." Isis whispered, kissing him on the cheek.

"You recognize your failings, and try to be better. Which is something many men can't admit to...

Not even Cyrus."

Jaryl couldn't help but smile, gently raising his hand to her cheek as he held her radiant face in the palm of his hand.

"And you always find it in your heart to forgive when whenever I do..." He whispered, leaning forward and pressing his lips against hers, deeply kissing her for several moments.

"I love you..." Isis whispered, after she pulled back, before she embraced him for a few more moments, revelling in his warmth.

"D-Damn right you do..." Jaryl whispered, with a pained chuckle as a tear rolled down his cheek. He pulled her closer towards him and tightened his embrace.

"C'mon... Let's finish this shit and leave..."

Jaryl grinned, lightly slapping his wife's arm.

"Spoken like a true Oakvale." The Bosmer said, hopping off of his stool and politely taking Isis' hand as he helped her off of it, causing Isis to grin.

"So polite, just like a Harin." She teased, before squeezing his hand and leading them out of the dreaded inn.

As Isis and Jaryl stepped out of the inn, the Imperial felt the Redguard's presense in her mind again, a small echo in the back of her head.

"It's quite curious, the relationship that you have with Jaryl." She observed, sounding genuinely interested.

"All of the things that have happened and you've never taken to blaming one another?"

"We have a better relationship than anyone else." Isis mumbled, so Jaryl couldn't hear.

"Better than any other I've known, at least..."

''"I... See that, he is very attentive, he was to me, when he thought that I was you." ''Aasi replied, pausing for a second as she thought on it.

"You're lucky to have someone in your life who understands and cares."

"Yeah..." Isis agreed.

"Thanks for trying to ruin that, by the way."

"I  believe that I vaccinated it, poisoned it to make it stronger? That and I needed something to do, whilst waiting for you to arrive..." The Redguard replied, with a light chuckle.

"Yeah, well, I'm sure you can find someone else to do, next time..." Isis grumbled.

"Oh, trust me; I have little difficulty as far as that goes." The Redguard replied as a small shack came into view.

"Well,  two more trials and Jaryl won't be lusting after me anymore, it's a shame really, I did enjoy his company. He was so energetic, loving and easy to manipulate." 

"Shut up." Isis growled, stepping towards the small shack.

"What is this?" She asked, aloud, to Jaryl.

"It's..." Jaryl paused as it began to come back to him, he turned around and placing his hands on her shoulders.

"N-Nothin', it's probably just... decoration or some shit, we should just ignore it."

"No, if we want to get out of here, we have to investigate it." Isis pointed out, stepping forward to enter it.

"Nah, it's just..." Jaryl sighed, really not wanting Isis to enter it. As Isis got closer to the front door, it began to look a little more familiar to her, though she couldn't place it just yet.

"I... Can we... Not go in there?"

"Why not?" Isis asked, growing suspicious as she examined the building and listened to Jaryl.

"I Just... Don't think that there's anythin' worth seein' in there..." The Bosmer uttered, swallowing hard as he began to grow pale. Hearing about this place would be bad enough but for her to see it would have been...

It wasn't natural; it was in the past, why did Aasi inflict it on his wife?

"I... I don't want you to see..." He admitted as his voice broke up and his eyes began to well up again.

Isis frowned.

"I think I have to, Jaryl..." She whispered, slowly pushing open the door.

As Isis pushed the door open she was hit by the intoxicating smell of mixed chemicals, urine and vomit, greeting her to the unknown residence, where all she could hear were people talking and laughing in the distance.

Isis frowned, heading further into the shack as she searched for the source of these smells and sounds...

As Isis got deeper into the hallway, she found that two Khajiit, who looked like they'd just crawled out of Oblivion walked through her, talking among themselves as they left a room, the room's door swiftly opened and stayed open for a brief moment, revealing the large crowd that had gathered inside, stood over something.

Isis glanced back at Jaryl, once, before she headed on inside to see what in Oblivion's name was going on.

"Jaryl, wake up!" A gravelly voice could be heard, echoing throughout the hallway. As Isis peered around the corner, she could see a group of poorly dressed men, looking down on a couch, where a heavily drugged man lay half dead. The large man, presumably a Nord, gently shook the boot of the Bosmeri man, who wasn't seemingly responding. His eyes were rolling into the back of his head and a number of vile fluids, rejected from his body, now clung to his chin.

On the floor lay another figure a skinnier figure, who didn't even have her eyes open. She simply lay on the floor, by the leg of the couch, her heavily bruised arms stretched out across the floor.

"Fuck's sake Jaryl, what the hell did you two take!?" The man growled again, smacking the Bosmer across the face.

"Get up!"

"Oh... My... Divines..." Isis whispered, worriedly, stepping further into the room. "What... Is... This? Was this... The Skooma Den?"

As Isis entered the room, the Nord tried kicking Jaryl's couch, causing the Bosmer to shake a little before his head lulled to the side. He was barely aware of his surroundings, like he had been lobotomized.

"Fuck him, what about Cary?" The Nord growled, kneeling down and feeling for the girl's pulse, quickly shaking her.

"I... I'm not getting anything Hein, I think she's..."

"Sh-Shit... What the hell was in those bottles!?"

Isis' hands flew to her mouth as she looked on, staring at the two figures who appeared... gone. Just out of it, hopefully, but that poor girl...

"I... Hold on, she's got somethin' in her mouth, Hein just..." As he pried her lips apart, he immediately smelled what she was holding inside her mouth and quickly identified her cause of death.

"Shit!" He gasped, stumbling back as he flicked a fowl smelling fluid up into the air, gently brushing it off on Jaryl's pants.

"It's... She's fuckin' choked on her own sick!"

Isis frowned, stepping back out of the room, still unable to tear her eyes from the horrific scene. "Jaryl!" She called, turning around to find her real husband.

Jaryl stepped in behind her, gently placing his hands on her hips and wrapping his arms around her waist.

"I'm sorry..." He whispered, pressing his head against her back.

"W-what... What was that?" Isis choked out, quietly.

Jaryl stared at her, pulling her in as he closed the door, blocking the scene out as he had done for so many years.

"That's what you saved me from..." He whispered, gently rocking her from side to side, resting his cheek on her forehead.

"W-what... Happened in there?" Isis asked, again, still a little shaken up from what she had seen her husband be involved in.

"Please... T-tell me..."

Jaryl glanced over and gently pushed her away, walking back towards the exit with his arm around her shoulders.

"She... She was my girl... girlfriend, though we were more friends, who got high and... did other things with eachother. One night, we got some cheap skooma... everythin's blurry after that but all I know is that I woke up  and she didn't."

"J-Jaryl..." Isis whispered, hugging him as they walked.

"I'm... I'm so sorry..."

"Don't be..." Jaryl whispered as he opened the door for her, letting her back out into the Wilderness of the barren wasteland inside his head.

"You took me away from it... Gave me a quest, love... A home, kids... A chance..." He paused, stopping to turn her to face him as he lowered his hands, pulling her a little closer.

"Like I said... Y'saved me..."

"Let's... G-go..." Isis whispered, glancing back once at the shack as they walked out.

"I... I love you, Jaryl..."

"Love you to hun..." He uttered, gently guiding her out of the old Skooma den, stopping to look back over his shoulder, furrowing his brow as he took one last look at it. It felt like he was leaving a person behind, leaving this place behind.

Not that these were good times but there were some fond memories, the many nights he spent with Cary and the others, necking their weight in Skooma.

Of course, he wouldn't give anything that he had now for it... Life was perfect and he had absolutely no intentions of looking back.

Leaving this part of his life behind him, Jaryl gently closed the door, leaving Cary and the others in the past, where they belonged...

As Jaryl and Isis re-emerged from the skooma den, Isis felt a slight shimmer inside her head as Aasi rejoined her.

''"So... Finally seeing the benefit of telepathy?" ''she asked, like she was oblivious to the pain that it had caused.

"Shut up." Isis grumbled, quietly.

"When will you let us go?"

"I seem to have over estimated your attention span, I did tell you that you'd be free to go after four encounters in Jaryl's head and I believe that you have so far encountered three." The Redguard Mocked.

"Ugh." Isis sighed, letting the Redguard direct her towards their next target.

"Fine..."

"Don't worry; I'm going to enjoy this one a lot more." Aasi assured her, quickly fading away again.

Isis sighed, her feet beginning to hurt after all the trekking they had been doing.

"When will we get to the next one...?" She muttered to herself, looking around the area for any visible signs of one of Jaryl's memories.

As she looked ahead, she saw a small stone box, clearly a cut out room from the outside, a door could be seen facing them but other than that, there was nothing of note about the building.

"Huh..." Jaryl uttered, looking back over his shoulder to his wife.

"Yeah, this ain't from my past..."

"That's... odd..." Isis mused, examining the box.

"Well... One more thing that we have to go through before we can finally get out of this shit hole." Jaryl sighed, scratching the back of his head.

"Shall we?" He asked her, giving her a smile as he took her hand.

"Course." Isis laughed, squeezing his hand, comfortingly, and heading into the door...

As the group entered, they immediately found themselves facing the backs of their heads, along with that of Set, Julie, Maria and the rest of the companionship as they gathered around Isis.

"We're going to a party..." The Imperial said, her tone changing entirely, as if she seemed to have been possessed, if only that was the case.

Set stepped forward, looking incredibly confused by this announcement...

"What's the occasion? Telemachus finally get it up?" He asked, giving her a smirk.

Isis shook her head and began to conjure up a spell above her head, quickly molding the environment around them, turning the grey bricks into an open ball, full of music, merriment, laughter and formal dancing with Aratius sat on a throne at the far side of the room.

Jaryl's heart felt like it stopped again, he remembered this, all too well... He let Isis hold his hand a little tighter, knowing that she wouldn't like this.

Isis almost hissed, seeing her Grandfather 'alive' again. Then, her eyes widened as she realized what she was seeing...

Isis watched her younger self as she moved away from Jaryl, quickly rushing into another man's arms as they slowly swayed from side to side, leaving Jaryl at the center of the ballroom. It didn't take long for the younger Jaryl to get unhinged and immediately approach his Imperial girlfriend, grabbing her arm and forcing her to look at him.

"Y'know..." The Jaryl right beside her said, glancing over to her.

"It's weird seein' this again... It's like... I dunno, it didn't happen..."

"Sadly, it did..." Isis sighed, looking away from the scene.

"Worst memory of my short life..."

Jaryl smirked a little, looking over to her face as he too tried to block the scene out.

"Worse than that time Mona threw up down your V neck?" The Bosmer asked, with a faint smile.

"That was the grossest…" Isis pointed out, with a laugh.

Jaryl began to chuckle, looking back over his shoulder...

"Y'know... We never did get to dance..." He pointed out, gently holding her hand.

"How would you like to make up for lost time?"

"Might as well." Isis laughed, taking his hand and gently swaying to the music that was playing.

"Heh..." Jaryl uttered, pulling out before stepping forward again, continuing to sway from side to side.

"Y'know... This isn't bad, when you focus more on the party..."

"And ignore the fact that we were here..." Isis agreed.

"Yeah... We could just... Close our eyes and pretend it's our wedding..." The Bosmer uttered, giving Isis a smile as he did so, relaxing in her arms.

"Or anywhere else really..."

"Oh... I could arange that..." Aasi said, cutting in as the background began to shimmer around them.

"Is she taking us out?" Isis whispered to Jarly, looking around as everything began to become fuzzy.

Jaryl pulled her closer as they began to feel a number of rain spots fall on them, prompting them to open their eyes and back away from eachother, looking around for any signs which would tell them as to where they were.

"Well, any final words before you go swingin'?" asked a familiar and rather overconfident voice, followed up by the laughter of the voice's crew, though it was most likely to land themselves in his  good graces.

Jaryl turned back looking across to see a shaved headed Bosmer, standing on a makeshift gallows, a noose tightly wrapped around his neck.

Isis whipped around, turning to see the scene. "What... is this?"

Jaryl stepped forward, glancing up to the loosely hanging Bosmer before him before looking over to Isis, holding her hand.

"Remember when Aratius killed you?"

"Fuck... You." The Bosmer choked, barely getting a reaction out of the Dunmer who barely Gave him a slight shrug.

"S-Seriously..." Isis whispered, becoming very, very creeped out.

"What...?"

"When Aratius stabbed you, I left... Got into a fight... It ended pretty badly..." Jaryl whispered, tempted to pull Isis away as he knew what was coming next.

"I've heard better." The Dunmer finally said, kicking the box beneath Jaryl's feet.

Jaryl was let go and began to swing from side to side, like a  hypnotist's watch, choking as the rope dug deep into his throat and  crushed his windpipe. He gasped and gagged, as he felt himself go dizzy,  the faces   blurred as he spun around, his throat was in agony as his  body was   urging him to somehow pull his bound hands up and snatch the  rope away   from his neck. He noticed that he was slowing down but he also noticed  that he was losing consciousness, he had to breath but he couldn't, it was unbearable!

He desperately kicked his legs as he felt the rope tighten around  his neck, crushing his throat as his face went redder and redder. The Bosmer felt his brain failing him, prompting his heard to slump forward   as he continued to twitch for some time as his body went limp and the   swinging came to a stop.

His   time with Isis flashed before his eyes, their meeting in that    shithole, the only good thing that ever happened to him there, their    first 'date' at Crovenhoft, the times where he thought that he'd lost    her, when she took Aratius' side, went crazy, flew away, was    kidnapped...

The time that he did lose her...

The images all faded away, leaving one fixed image in his mind,  he was stood, infront of Jack, holding Isis' hand. His own hand began to tingle in recognition as he closed his fingers, closing his hand around   hers and looking back to her with a small smile.

"Isis..." He whispered, hoarsely as his feet stopped squirming and fell limp...

Jaryl slowly turned back to Isis, taking hold of her hand as he watched his own feet involuntarily twitch as they swung from side to side.

"I'm sorry..." He whispered, he didn't wish for Isis to ever know about this, especially not in this detail.

"J-Jaryl..." Isis whispered, practically frozen as her wide eyes took in the scene, over and over and over again.

"W-why?"

"I dunno..." Jaryl uttered, scratching his head with a heavy sigh, looking at his somewhat older past self.

"I didn't get much say in it..."

"I..." Isis sighed, and looked back at her husband. "I... I forgive you, if there is really anything to forgive..."

"Thanks..." Jaryl uttered, with a smirk, unable to stop himself from laughing and shaking his head.

"And I'm... Sorry for gettin' hung against my will, hon..." He whispered, gently leaning in and kissing her on the cheek before stepping back with a sigh.

"TO be honest... At that point, part of me wanted it, thinkin' that you were dead... Just seemed like an escape, y'know. The one that wasn't in a bottle..."

"I understand..." Isis whispered, giving him a large hug.

"I'm glad you didn't die..."

"Me too hon..." Jaryl uttered, it seemed like the obvious out loud but inside it made a little more sense, if he had died from that point, there would be no Mona, no Diana and no Rin...

"C'mon... We should probably go before Silvie and the others get here..."

"Yeah, let's ditch." Isis agreed, taking him by the hand.

As Isis and Jaryl held hands, they quickly began to feel the whole world mould around them, quickly transforming back to its previous state, the empty forrest with barren ground beneath their feet and dead trees all around.

All feeling was lost in their bodies as the dream began to shut itself down and they began to feel themselves being held by slender/muscular arms and warm bed sheets, awakening in eachother's embrace...

-

Jaryl's eyes slowly opened, quickly falling on Isis as he saw her lay beside him, he gave her a lazy smile as he saw her awaken, still managing to show his relief, through his exhaustion.

"Mornin' hon..."

"Morning..." Isis grinned, resisting the urge to gasp in relief.

"And a good morning to you..." Aasi interrupted them, smiling down on them from across the room as she folded her arms, leant against the wall.

"I was going to make you both breakfast but... I didn't know what time you'd be up."

"Breakfast would've been nice..." Isis whispered, springing up into a sitting position.

"I don't know... Jaryl's the cook around here, it's one of his two talents... three if you count swearing." The Redguard chuckled, slowly pulling herself upright as Jaryl sat up beside his wife.

"So... Can we go now?" Isis asked, getting really tired of Aasi's pretty face.

"Not just yet..." The Redguard replied, sweetly, seemingly admiring her nails.

" I'm not done with you..."

Jaryl quickly tossed his legs to one side and marched over other, standing dangerously close to her, so that their faces were mere inches apart.

"Yeah? Well we're fuckin' done with you! You're lucky that we didn't kill you, you fuckin' snooty whore. We're fuckin' leavin' whether you're done with us or no-" Aasi didn’t' even let him finish as she quickly touched the Bosmer's chest, charging up a spell in the palm of her hand that pulsated throughout his body, sending him keeling backwards and landing on the floor with a thud.

Jaryl lay at her feet, stiffening and occasionally spasming, gasping as if he was trying to get his breath. Aasi simply smiled and crouched down beside him, slowly lowering herself down to his level and placing her hand on his chest.

"Y'know... I liked you more when you were brain washed..." She told him, now fully resting her hand on his aching chest.

"I told you, I'm not done with you yet... Now, be a good boy and don't fight the spell, it's going to kill you anyway darling, putting up a fight will just make it a matter of 'when.'"

"Stop!" Isis demanded, leaping over and grabbing Aasi's wrist.

"Oh I can't stop now..." The Redguard replied, whipping her wrist away and pacing around the room.

"Sorry 'hon' but this is just the way it'll have to be..."

"No!" Isis growled.

"Reverse your spell!"

"I see no reason to do that... What would be gained?" The Redguard asked as Jaryl grasped at his wife's hand, squeezing it a little as he pressed it against his chest.

His heart was racing, skipping beats every now and then. He was going into cardiac arrest.

Isis began a healing spell, praying that it would save her husband from the clutches of death.

"Ise..." Jaryl gasped, realising that the spell wasn't working, he knew that he had little time left before dying, realising this, he snatched her healing hands, wrapping his own around them.

"I...L-Lov..." The Bosmer only managed to stutter that much before gasping once more as his heart completely stopped, his mouth fell open a little as his head lulled to the side, eyes closing as he went completely limp in her arms, breathing his last breath onto her as he finally departed.