Shortly after Sofia had left the dining hall, Serana had followed suit, choosing to retire to the privacy and solitude of her ‘quarters’ rather than spend any more time with others. She enjoyed her somewhat limited freedoms wandering the fortress or reading in the dining hall, and even occasionally spending time walking the rampants and staring off into the wide horizons, but, it was still deeply disturbing to her. The wide open spaces were locations filled with danger and threat and even in a fortress, especially this fortress, it was a comfort when the reinforced door to her cell closed her off from the wider world. For most it would have felt strange, and while the memories of entombment were fresh in her mind, being locked away like she was a fragile trinket was strangely soothing.
Serana knew that she was supposed to feel bitter, or betrayed, or simply rail against the fact that the Dawnguard, a group of vampire hunters, were providing her with greater freedoms than what her own family had for literal centuries. She especially knew that she was supposed to feel bitter about the fact that her fate appeared to be forever locked away from the world, reading and dreaming, and imagining what it was like outside the stone walls where she merely… existed...
After literal centuries though, she no longer needed to dream or imagine what it was like. She had experienced it. For the first true time in her life she had felt the soft caress of freedom. It was a tainted caress, much like the caress that was involved in her rebirth as a Daughter of Coldharbour, and was corrupted with the sense of danger after months on the run. Lurking in the shadows, hiding in the wilds of Skyrim, blindly travelling south east with little more than the sun and the moons to guide her path had done little to slake her wanderlust, mostly due to the terror that had gnawed at her every moment she spent seeking out the Dawnguard. Entering towns and villages were horrifically dangerous and had left her quaking with fear from the mere thought, and the few times that she had mustered up the courage to enter them in the hopes of finding the Dawnguard had been added to a long list of nightmares.
At Rorikstead as she stopped for directions she had managed to escape only minutes before vampiric scouts entered the town. The screams of terror had echoed in her mind long after they had stopped on the breeze as she ran until exhaustion took her, and this was just merely one event in dozens as she spent six months on the run. She had been expecting from the moment that she decided to flee Castle Volkihar that her father would send someone to bring her back, but never expected them to be so determined and in such numbers.
In many ways though, she wasn’t surprised. Her escape would have been a grievous insult to her father and threatened his control over the clan. Afterall, what kind of vampire king would be so weak to let his only daughter walk out of the castle, stealing one of the most priceless artefacts in existence on her way out? Of course, she had been helped by the fact that the other vampires of the Volkihar had never considered that she would want to leave in the first place, let alone make an attempt. Not even her father would’ve expected it, and even after three thousand years the thought of his ‘darling daughter’ simply walking out of the castle during the day had never crossed his mind.
It might have taken two months to finally build up the courage to take that first step, but her decision had been made the moment Kaius and her had entered the castle. She had been terrified from the moment they had discovered the castle wasn’t a crumbling ruin, but was in fact occupied, and facing her father again had been especially unpleasant. Even before her entombment he was powerful, but now the aura of his corruption had been strengthened beyond imagining in the thousands of years since.
Yet, while she tried not to cringe and cower before him, Kaius had been utterly unaffected. It had stuck with her in the weeks after his forced ‘banishment’ and departure after refusing to submit to Harkon. Her father had even revealed his true nature, his ‘vampire lord’ form that had cowed and terrified hundreds of lesser vampires and entire kingdoms throughout history, and Kaius hadn’t even flinched. That, Serana had realised, was the moment where she had decided she wasn’t going to stay. The moment where her father had stood before Kaius in his terrible, winged vampiric form and offered the other vampire his blood and a measure of his power. The moment that Kaius had stared, his expression blank besides the hint of an amused smirk until he laughed and simply said no.
Kaius had been ejected from the castle after that of course, and Serana had been whisked away to her original room without her father even bothering to check up on her. For weeks she was locked away, the passage of time marked only by the appearance of a thrall who would enter, obediently offer their scarred throat to her, and leave after she gave in to the thirst. It was… boring, but unfortunately all too familiar of an experience. It was also a far cry from the excitement and wonder she had felt travelling alongside Kaius, Sofia and Lydia on the journey to Castle Volkihar. She yearned for the outside world, yearned for experiences that she had been given glimpses of, but also knew that even after three millennia her father’s plans and intentions were still the same. And so, in the early hours of the morning while the other, lesser vampires retired to sleep through the day, she left her room, acquired the Elder Scroll, and walked out the main gate like she was taking a stroll.
The journey though had not been easy. Leaving the castle during the day had bought her some time, but it had been less than forty-eight hours before she realised she was being hunted. She could only have imagined the blood and horrors that awaited those who Harkon decided was responsible for her escape and punished them accordingly, but for months she eluded the party sent to reclaim her. With others of her kind on her trail she was forced to skirt the edges of civilization, sating her hunger and thirst on what skeevers, mice and birds she managed to catch, sleeping in caves, rocky alcoves, or treestumps, and avoiding towns and villages except under the direst of needs. Those few times she encountered others on the road had been especially fraught with danger, and the nightmares of what occurred when she was waylaid by bandits would haunt her sleep for a while to come.
She had made it though, survived the journey and the winter and the dangers of Skyrim’s wilds through luck, perseverance and her vampiric nature and somehow, despite her expectations, had even managed to survive the Dawnguard. When she arrived she was quite certain that she would likely be killed on the spot, her warnings unheeded but instead they had ‘captured’ her, taken her in, interrogated her, and set her aside in a very special prison cell. All of this certainly contributed to how it felt as though nothing made any sense anymore. The outside world, and the people in it, were unusual and not because of the changes in cultures and languages in the thousands of years she had been dead in a sarcophagus.
For those short weeks travelling from Dimhollow to her ancestral home, and while they may have not been the nicest, or subtlest of travelling companions, Kaius, Sofia, and Lydia had treated her almost like an equal. They were cautious of course, uneasy in her presence and there had been the looming threat of Kaius killing her at a moment’s notice, but they had treated her fairly. The same could be said about the Dawnguard. She was their prisoner, and while she knew that her ‘strolling’ privileges was some kind of test of Isran’s in the hope she gave them an excuse to do something nasty, they were still nicer than her father and the Volkihar clan.
Comparatively to the seclusion and isolation of castle Volkihar, if she chose to remain in her cell, every few hours a pair of the Dawnguard would politely knock on the door to check on her, enter with one covering her with a crossbow and would provide books and other items for personal use. Once or twice a day they would even provide a waterskin filled with the lukewarm blood of the day’s latest hunt to satiate her thirst for blood, along with freshly cooked meals to satiate her hunger for real food. Between this and the fact that she was able to practically walk about whenever and almost wherever she liked, it was… confusing, to say the least.
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At the moment, what was truly the most confusing was the sudden sounds of scuffling and thumping outside of her door that drew her attention away from her failed attempts to read. The guards, as they always had these previous weeks had simply let her shut the door behind herself and didn’t even bother with the motions of locking it. On the surface it might have appeared sloppy and ill-disciplined, but Serana knew that this too was on purpose. Isran wasn’t the sort to let his hunters do something as foolish as leaving vampires roam around freely. An unlocked cell door was yet another test with serious potential repercussions, that as yet she hadn’t given him the satisfaction of.
Scuffling, a few light thuds and suddenly the door shook as something struck it heavily from the outside, startling her and making Serana jump to her feet before she realised she had moved. Something strange was happening and instinctively her inner darkness was growing despite her best attempts to stifle it. Was it a test from the hunters? Some new means of determining her intentions and abilities that Isran seemed so fond of developing? The rattling of keys and the muffled cursing of someone realising they had just locked an unlocked door was certainly strange and left her mouth tingling as her fangs slid out of her gums.
Creaking open, the blessed silver chains hung freely over runes of containment on the outside of the door and Serana’s concern reached new heights as a pair of figures slid into her cell. They were certainly not her escorts and guards, and their true natures were a full display of fangs, pallid flesh and glowing eyes as they beheld her. Blood still stained their lips and mouths, their tunics similarly bearing fresh bloodstains, and judging by the weak heartbeats of the two hunters laying motionless on the floor it was obvious who they had both fed upon.
“Salonia. Stalf. I would say that it’s nice to see you both, but I would be lying.”
Like Isran’s unconscious hunters, Salonia and Stalf had recently been her pair of minders, vampires of considerable power and each several centuries old, tasked with caring for the daughter of their lord. Her stay at her ancestral home had been relatively brief, and provided very few opportunities to learn the dozens of vampires who had joined or been ‘transformed’ in the thousands of years since her entombment. The months since her escape had not been kind to the two vampire ancients, and judging by the fresh scars on their faces neither had her father in punishing their failure to guard her.
“Princess. Your father has missed your presence.” Sometime in the Third Era, Salonia Caelia had been a beautiful woman, but the years of vampiric pollution in her veins had corrupted her flesh to match the darkness of her soul. Her eyes burned with fire, and like many of the later generations of the Volkihar clan her face had been twisted, nose flaring out and becoming ridged like a bat, her lips and face taut across shifting bones.
“Lord Harkon was greatly displeased that you left his care and protection.” Her companion grinned with his full predatory nature. Stalf had once been a minor thane of one of the northern holds, but like Salonia, any nobility of his birth had been drowned in his vampiric curse. “Again...”
“I’m not going anywhere, and I’m certainly not going back to the castle.”
“Well, suit yourself.” Salonia’s voice was sibilant and mocking as she moved closer to Serana. “It's not like you were alive for us to return and disrupt the court even more with your presence anyway. It was such a tragedy, you know? The little accident you had here, but what do you expect when a weak, lone vampire is found by hunters?”
“Yeah, too bad.” Just as mocking, Stalf’s tone was lowering itself to a crawling whisper and the grins they both shared were terrible to behold. “Lord Harkon’s daughter… dead… And so soon after finally returning to the family.”
As soon as she had recognised the two vampires, Serana knew that they weren’t the type to take her back to her ‘home.’ Her father’s court had many factions vying for control or positions under their lord as it always had, and her presence was an obvious threat to those seeking to be heirs to an undead kingdom. She knew Stalf and Salonia were among the minions of the two largest faction leaders and had been intending on killing her even before she left castle Volkihar.
“Where is the Scroll, Serana? Tell us, and we’ll ensure that your death is quick at least.”
“Do you really think that I would know where the Dawnguard have hidden it?” Her shoulderblades, arms and hands were tingling now, heralding the horrific changes her vampirism enacted upon her body to deal with threats. Neither of the lesser vampires though seemed to notice the way her fingers were lengthening, or her flesh turning waxy as it prepared to change. “I have been a prisoner here.”
To the two of them, Serana knew that she looked terrified, frightened to the point of shaking but neither of them understood enough to know that it was not a fear of them, or of death that was leaving her body trembling. She was desperately struggling to reign in the growing darkness of her soul from consuming her flesh with its own in response to the threat she faced. It had happened a couple of times over the past months, when terror or exhaustion had claimed her, and now memories of the bandit gang that had happened upon her in the Valtheim Pass were almost as close to the surface as her own ‘vampire lord’ form now. Those foolish mortals, having come across a young woman, alone on the roads had waylaid her with a lust beyond simple coin, only to discover that who they sought to defile was something else entirely. Salonia and Stalf were certainly not those thoroughly dead and eviscerated outlaws, and instead vampire ancients, but they were also fatally foolish if they thought that they could contend with a Child of Coldharbour after backing her into a corner.
“Oh well. Finding the Scroll won’t be so difficult after we’re finished here. We’ll pull this place apart, and when we’re done I’ll give it to Vingalmo so he can ensure our lord gets it back."
In a heartbeat the energy in the room changed, as Stalf stopped in mid step, and turning and staring at Salonia with a horrific expression of surprise twisting his features.
“What? That’s not what we agreed... We were going to take it back together.”
“Idiot.” It was impossible for Salonia to place any more hatred and loathing into the single word as she spat it in Stalf’s face. “You didn’t really think I’d let you return to the castle either? Vingalmo wants you both dead.”
“Well that’s just fine with me.” Surprisingly Stalf seemed to enjoy this confession, and he dragged his sword from where it was at his side. “Orthjolf told me to deal with you once we had found her.”
The clumsy lunge with his sword was not directed at Serana, but at Salonia instead, with the full intent of skewering the other vampiress where she stood. In the space of a heartbeat the battle between the two of them had erupted in all the fury and violence that the vampire race could afford, and Serana found herself little more than a spectator to their undying hatred. A sword and dagger clashed together, clothes ripped under bestial talons, and fangs bit and snapped fruitlessly trying to sink into pale flesh, knocking over her table and its collection of books in the process.
Skirting around the brawling vampires as they attempted to stab, cut, bite or strangle each other to death, Serana moved as quickly as her own dark abilities allowed herself to, trying desperately to ignore the way that her body coiled and tingled with the promise of dark power. There was no time to react or think, and instead she dashed through the still open cell door, ignoring the way her hands burned as she gripped and flung it closed.
Fighting tooth and nail, sword and dagger clashing with unnatural speed, Salonia and Stalf were brought to a sudden, and almost comical stop, as the thick, oak and steel door slammed shut in their bestial faces. Neither could do anything but stare in shock as the heavy dwemer locks snapped closed, trapping them both inside the reinforced, enchanted and thoroughly secured cell. It had been the first, original prison cell within the fortress when it had originally been a prison, and in the recent months had been hardened, and reinforced with the walls, floor, ceiling and door being imbued with some of the most powerful enchantments available to contain the undead. Afterall, Isran had taken it upon himself after his first meeting with Kaius to create a prison capable of containing someone far, far stronger and more powerful than the two lesser vampire ancients who had just been trapped inside. Kaius, even with the power of his Thu’um would have been stuck inside for hours, perhaps even a day or two, before being able to escape, and so there was no chance for the two half-breed vampires now contained within.
Not wasting any time, Serana rushed over to the warning bell mounted on the wall, stepping over the unconscious, exsanguinated forms of her two guards in the process of ringing it as hard, and as loudly as she could manage. Judging by what she could hear with her mortal, let alone immortal senses, her alarm was almost not needed at all as the fortress was already echoing with the sounds of screams, roars, and the clashing of metal on metal.
