They eyed Hasir with confusion as beads of sweat cascaded down the Argonian's face. He cast them a worried glance.
"What?" He demanded. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
Inigo put down his fish he'd cooked for him and the orphans and walked over to sit beside his scaley friend.
"Y-you...erm, you look like you've seen a ghost, my friend."
He listened intently as Hasir filled him in on the dream he'd had last night. Inigo looked frozen with shock.
"The necromancers were... What!?" He gasped, "Impossible. For two reasons: the first being Mr. Dragonfly is dead and no amount of magic... even if he were able to, he'd be forever gone. Two, and perhaps most important, me kill you? Literally unthinkable, my friend, never in a daedra's age would I think of such a thing. The part with undead werewolves treating you like their chew toy sounds like complete lunacy, I'm sorry." He said, struggling not to laugh. No, my friend, put this out of your mind straightaway. We have bigger fish to fry, er... figuratively speaking."
Hasir eyed Inigo with a glance as though all enthusiasm had left him, leaving him like moss hanging from a tree.
"Thanks alot." He snarled. He turned to Inigo, still wearing the snarl. "Inigo, I thought you were with me not against me."
Inigo raised his arms in protest. Hasir was a bee ready for the final sting after multitude of small attacks. He wanted best to avoid that deadly assault.
"Where is this sudden explosion coming from?" My friend, I was only making an observation that's all."
Hasir's gaze bore into him so fiercely that he could've seard the khajiit's fur.
"Well, your 'observation' wasn't warranted, so do me a favor and shut up, for Oblivion's sake!"
Inigo's glance slid from the livid Argonian's eyes to his hand where angry red blisters started to populate.
"My friend, have you been into something you are allergic to?" He said, eyeing his friend curiously. "It looks serious. You might want to see a healer."
Hasir gave this the briefest of considerations before continue to lay in the blue khajiit.
"No I haven't, I..." Hasir paused, trying to regain control of his train of thought amidst the ever encrouching cloud of anger. "I'm fine, you blasted cat! You won't distract me while I'm roasting you on a spit over the fire."
Inigo cowered at this rather terse remark as if Hasir had fired an arrow straight through his emotional sensitivity.
"My friend, I am only trying to help, to understand. Before you go all "dragonfire' on me, think back, is there a certain incident that made those red bumps appear?"
Hearing that, the raging Argonian calmed for a bit and thought. He hadn't contracted anything, at least, that he knew of. Out of the sea of conflicting options, a far more likely option swam to the forefront of his mind.
"I can't recall ingesting anything or brushing against anything, unpleasant but, I do remember what Hircine had said to me the time I visted his realm. He told me that not letting the wolf spirit out is similar to having a dog with no bark." Inigo's eyes narrowed in confused concentration. "What I mean by that is, erm... picture a dog that holds his urge to bark inside for a long time. He will begin to recieve unpleasant side effects if he doesn't let out that bark that's been building inside of him, leaving him volatile and apt to poke the volcano thus leading to his death."
Inigo, initially fumbling like a dunmer child with the aspect of death, finally understood.
"So you're saying that Hircine told you that, despite that confusing analogy, that every time you don't let your wolf out to play and keep him chained up, symptoms will begin to show on your body? That you start to blow up because of the 'lava' building inside of you?"
Hasir nodded. He was thoroughly amazed that someone who went blind in one eye did not go blind in the brain.
"Exactly my point." Hasir said, grasping Inigo's shoulder. "The more I let my wolf prowl around inside of me, the worse the symptoms will become." He responded, flatly.
Inigo had to save his friend by any means nessecary, though he did not know how. He had to do something before the next bout of 'lava' spews out of the mountain prematurely. He conjured a portal and disappeared inside it.
When he emerged, he found himself in Valerica's study in castle Volkihar. He looked through the multitude of books, literally ripped them off shelves in his attempt to find the cure for what Hasir had, though, he knew not the name. He saw a beautiful nord with shoulder-length black hair and ruby-red eyes, he became hopeful.
The blue khajiit crossed the room, tail swaying behind him and saw the nord eying a soulgem fragment she had just picked up.
"Hello, my name is Inigo. I couldn't help but gaze in awe... at your... erm, library."
The woman almost upended the soulgem bowl in her frantic state. She quickly turned around, afraid there would be some dawnguard killer behind her.
"What? This? No, this is my mother, Velarica's study, I just take care of it for her." She said smiling. "Where are my manners? My name's Serana." She said proffering a hand, which the khajiit politely shook. "This castle had been laid waste by my father, a high vampire named Harkon. He ruled this castle, ya know. He... was not a kind man." Inigo furrowed his eyebrow in wonder. "Well," Serana began, "He wanted all vampires to never fear the sun again, my mother told him it was a fool's errand, but he pursued it... was driven mad by it actually. See these fragments?" She said, gesturing toward the bowl, "They were used to trap mortal souls in order to help create a bow so powerful it could, quite literally, block out the sun. The duration was, and still is uncertain, but my father thought that time eternal. He was an evil, cruel man who locked away my mother and I in his neverending pursuit of the prophecy."
Inigo stared at her. He refused to believe someone so beautiful could be the daughter of a madman.
"Your father, is he...?"
Serana shot him a knowing glance and smiled as if all this was some funny joke to her.
"Still alive?" She finished. "Thankfully not. Some years ago, a brave soul came here and ended my father's reign of tyranny. Then," Her shoulders fell, "A high elf came in here disguised as a native of Blackmarsh and killed my mother along with some other people."
Inigo felt saddened by this but quickly shooed the thought away as if it were a troublesome fly.
"I'm sorry for your loss." Serana thanked him. "The reason I came her was to, er... you wouldn't happen to have a book about breaking a wolf out of a fleshy prison would you?"
Serana shook her head.
"No, but, my mother has tons of books about werewolf afflictions. She, unlike my father trusted lycanthropes and, to that end, kept books chronicling everything about them in here. Do you know what you friend has? What the affliction is called?"
Inigo scratched his chin in an effort to remember, but came upon an empty stream devoid of fish.
"I've no idea. You could come with me and see firsthand. The portal is over there." He pointed over to the closed portal to the Soul Cairn where a blue portal shimmered. Together, they stepped through it to the campsite.
Hassir gaped at Serana, hardly believing his eyes. He'd seen her die at the hands of Adrian.
"Serana? I... I thought you had died. I saw you die at my mo... I mean at Adrian's hand. How are you still with us?"
Serana recanted the story that she already told Inigo.
"You switched places with Valerica? How? Why?"
She told him that while she was in Dimhallow Crypt, she sent her soul to the Soul Cairn to transfer her soul into Valerica's body and vice-versa. It was a risky process with the potentiality of ripping her soul into a million pieces. Through sheer will alone, the process worked and Velarica's soul rested in Serana's body and, when Adrian seeming killed Serana, it was actually Velarica he'd killed, thus leaving her free to spy on her father.
Hasir glanced at Inigo who was just as lost as he was.
"That make sense, I guess." He same, rather lamely. "I do have one question though, how exactly did you become a vampire? Were you always a vampire? What was you life like before Molag Bal turned you?"
Serana stared at him; eyes glazed over as if remembering a life long past.
"My family was just like any other, I suppose." She said, shrugging. "I mean, my family was richer than most, this is true, but my parents obtained the wealth through their piracy." Hasir cocked his head, struggling to believe in vampires pirates. "I, erm... only mean that my mother and father lived their lives as pirates, raiding ports all over the sea of ghosts. One day, while out priating, they came upon a cave full of vampires and unwittingly passed their ill-gotten curse to me. Over the years, I grew to resent my parents as their lust of treasure grew to desire for control over the sun."
Hasir listened and gasped as Serana told her origin story. One thing, however, escaped his mind's grasp.
"So aside from, ya know, the vampire pirates, did you have an otherwise normal childhood?"
Serana turned away from him and stared into the fire, believing she could see snippets of a time long past.
"I guess... you could say that." She said, uncertainly. "I played hide and seek in the castle with my brothers. I laughed and played in the castle bulwarks, I ran along the ramparts with my brothers. So yes, I guess you could say I had a normal childhood." She said, nodding.
Hasir and Inigo exchanged raised eyebrows complete with concerned expressions.
"So... the other vampires in the castle... they were your kin?" He asked her, confused.
She screwed her face up in comprehension and laughed loudly.
"Wha? No, that would be insane." She said, clutching her gut. "The fellow vampires were comprised of the vampires that sired my mother and father along with the sires' kinsman. "
Hasir glanced downard, tail thrashing madly as he cursed himself for his foolishness. Serrana put her hand under his chin and gave him a reassuring smile.
"Hey, It's ok. You didn't know. Sometimes, it's better to ask than to assume things." She kissed him on the cheek. He blushed and considered spilling the beans about his mate. "Now, let's look at your arm." He offered it to her to examine. Hasir's eyes widened as his arm was bathed in a warm, yellowish glow.
Serana's face fell as the spell fizzled out, hardly performing the way she wanted. She screwed her face up in concentration and thought about if her mother told her anything about healing unhealable wounds. Her eyes snapped open. She saw a pool of with a purple aurora borealis emanating from it, siphoned some off of it and spread it over Hasir's wound. The purple flame beat back the angry red bumps for the time being; sizzling like draugr flesh in the hot sun.
Serana smiled as Hasir look at his bumpless arm and grinned.
"Thanks Serana, I owe you one." He said, sighing with relief.
A dark cloud appeared in Serana's sun-filled skies.
"I wouldn't celebrate just yet. The purple flame.... that which creates life can only delay the inevitable." She said, gloomily. "I'm sorry, but this is a temporary fix until you get back through the mirror. You'll need to see a healer that can find a better solution to the problem; a potion or spell. I apologize but chaotic creatia can only halt the flow of the red sea rather than halt the frogpoison altogether. Now, I suggest we get going before the veil pulls back and reveals your foul mood again."
Hasir agreed and was about to motion the group onward toward the temple when he looked to the horizon and saw a ship black as night moving at speed, floating aloft on a river of purple aurora toward them, silhoutted in the night like a loaming reaper of death. Through the thickening mist the ship brought with it, the Argonian could see three men standing close to the bow wearing silver plate metal interwoven with intricate designs.
The ship slowed to a stop, the men disembarked, drew their swords and advanced on the camp.
"Halt! Don't move werewolf, Surrender now or die."
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