#lorana having a not so good terrible awful night

[captain-of-silvenar]

WIP WEDNESDAY

got tagged by @yansurnummu !

tagging @sigma-el @scalecallerpeak and whoever else wants to join!

I have so many pieces of WIPs laying around here or there, but one I'm closer to finishing is probably another chapter of my Telvanni Master series featuring Lorana Alithar.

Enjoy this snippet!

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"Lorana? It's Ulith," he called out.

There was silence for a moment before he heard the click of a lock turn. The door opened to reveal a sliver of a face, red eyes with bags under them and a mess of hair.

"The assassin has been taken care of?" Lorana asked.

“Dead on the edges of the Tower grounds. Cut down by our guards as he was escaping,” he answered. “There was a Writ on him. We’ve taken it for evidence and are researching who might’ve called for it.”

“Throw a fireball into the Council room and whoever catches fire first probably was the one who ordered it,” Lorana grumbled. She opened the door wider and gestured him inside. He quickly stepped in and heard the door close shut behind him. Lorana stalked away and toward her bed, sitting down heavily on the edge.

“... They got too close,” she told him. “Was he alone? Were there any signs of an accomplice?”

“It’s too soon to know that information,” he told her. “We’re going to examine what supplies he has and see if it ties back to anyone we know. I will update you as soon as we have something solid to throw against your would-be adversary.”

Lorana sighed and rested her head in her hands. Her hair was a mess, her robes were haphazardly tied together. There was a tension around her shoulders that belayed the stress she was under when she discovered an assassin mere feet from her door.

It wasn’t the first, and it wasn’t going to be the last of these. Dunmeri culture was almost built on the backbone of murder and subterfuge. Telvanni culture was even more cutthroat than the other Great Houses. There would be several more decades of this, and Ulith could see the toll it was taking on his charge.

He slowly walked towards her and sat down on the bed beside her. He didn’t reach out immediately, Lorana hated unrequited touches. What was more effective was amiable silence until she reached out to him. It was here he sat for several minutes, watching and waiting.

Always waiting, always watching. It was his job after all, for a significant part of his life.

Back when he was but a small time guard for her parents, and then sequentially rising up in ranks until he was where he was now. And then he made his choice when the betrayal happened.

Her parents, or these children he had seen from birth to adulthood and all the struggles that were forced upon them.

The choice was easy enough to make.

And this is what allowed Lorana to eventually reach a hand out to touch Ulith’s armored shoulder. To feel her fingers tighten against the ridges. A small support against the onslaught she faces everyday.