The Unlikely Companions

[Akasha]

Akasha watched as the three hunters retreated and warily padded to the oak tree, where she retrieved her sword from the trunk and inspected the blade for damage. As she rammed it home into her Alik'r scabbard, she noticed the Redguard's blood still glistening on her claws. She stared at them, suddenly transfixed with the urge to lick them clean, and that gnawing hunger she felt during lunch redoubled.

It was Rolf's voice that brought her back to Nirn, and she wiped her claws furiously on the sash she wore beneath her belt. "Yes, this one is fine," she said.

She looked up then and saw the hunted look that crossed the Nord's face. "Rolf," she said, insistent, "this one is fine. She thanks you both for helping to defend her. Let's get to Whiterun now. Please?"

[Ursula Beirne]

"Well," Ursula said, nodding to Rolf while she sheathed her sword and with a wave of her hand banished the atronach. Her pale face was flushed, and streaks of dirt were drawn across her forehead as she wiped the sweat off with one dirty hand. "We'd best get going then shouldn't we?"

If she was put off by the revelation that Akasha was a vampire, she didn't show it.

"Nasty creatures, vampires," she'd said on more than one occasion, always adding, "but it's not always their choice, is it? Can't blame someone for going mad from hunger when they didn't know they were sick with in the first place. Those draining spells make it very satisfying to put them down though, don't you think?"

"We should make it to Whiterun by nightfall, I think," Ursula said, shielding her eyes with one hand covering the sun while she looked at the sky. "If we don't have any more interruptions, that is."

[Akasha]

Their passage through Whiterun Hold was quiet, but for Akasha it was torture. Every time the sun crept out from behind the rolling clouds, it felt as if the full weight of Magrus's fury were falling upon her, and her steps were heavy and slow, and her fur seethed as though it were on fire. When it mercifully hid itself again and they could walk in the shade, the hunger returned, deep and watchful, clutching at her stomach and roiling in her mouth, which watered whenever her tongue brushed against the canines that bulged too large against her swollen gums. She knew what she hungered for, and it horrified her, but she felt she could master it, as she had often mastered her snarling stomach while she and Ashira hunted for the day's meat in the wilderness.

What she didn't know was how long she could control it, or, even more terrifying, whether she'd know when the moment had passed, or if she would simply fall on her companions like a wolf among sheep, and either be slain by them or escape into the wild to become a fell thing of the night.

Even worse, she wondered if Ashira had escaped her fate, or if her older sister was languishing alone somewhere on the road from Shriekwind Bastion, not even knowing the nightmare in store for her. Akasha squeezed the tears from her eyes and filled her head with the scriptures her mother had read to her since she was a mewling kitten:

"Alkosh, we give you Time, for what is as fast or as slow as a cat? Khenarthi, to you we give the sky, for what can fly higher than the wind? Magrus, to you we give the sun, for what is brighter than the eye of a cat? Mara, you are love, for what is more loving than a mother? S'rendarr, we give you mercy, for how does a runt survive, except by mercy?"

She murmured the blessisngs of Ahnurr and Fadomai, the First Littermates, as the sky darkened and the shadows grew long, and she hardly noticed when the road twisted and began to climb past a wooden guardhouse and toward the front gates of Whiterun. She squinted feverishly into the flickering torchlight as a soldier bearing a shield with a crest in the shape of a horse's head stepped out to challenge them.

"Ho there, travelers. What business do you have in Whiterun?"

"Hold on there," his partner said. "The Khajiit is not allowed inside the city gates. She can stay with the caravan outside."