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"Happy Old Life festival, sir!" the guards said to Aleksei Virchow, an officer of the Daggerfall City Guard, as he passed them by. He was walking from Captain Aresin's office towards the part of the castle where his own residence was; earlier in the morning, he had been helping the Captain with some paperwork that needed to be finished. He greeted the guards back formally but politely - he wondered how in Oblivion it had occurred to someone to wish him happy Old Life festival, considering the nature of that festivity, since that day was all about remembering the loved ones that had passed away. He missed Linnea so much that it still hurt every single day. Last spring, she had left him behind and gone to Camlorn to join the Lion Guard's mission there. He had stayed in Daggerfall and waited for her to come back to him - but on one day of spring, his father, General Virchow, who had led his troops there, had returned to Daggerfall and brought the bad news about her fate to him. She had killed Faolchu the Werewolf and slain Angof the Gravesinger, thus becoming the saviour of the whole Glenumbra - but it had apparently cost her her own life. His father had never revealed to him what had happened to her - saying that it was her will that the events that took place at Camlorn and Cath Bedraud, the site of the last battle, would remain untold - but he had convinced him that there was no hope of finding her alive anymore, or that she could be rescued from Oblivion. He came to the part of the castle where the officers lived with their families; he entered his spacious and tidy room, and closed the door behind him. He took off his uniform and put it to wait for his next working day. It took him a while to find clean civilian clothes to dress into; he stared at the pile of dirty laundry, knowing that he could not postpone doing the washing much longer, no matter how greatly he hated that chore. The decreasing reserve of clean clothes was too easy to forget, when he was on duty, since he always wore his uniform then - he had had very few free days recently, mostly because he had often volunteered to take more work for himself from other officers. However, he would need something else than his uniform to wear on his days off. Nevertheless, doing the laundry would not be a task to do in the day of the Old Life festival; he would meet his friends, who also served in the City Guard, at the Cathedral of Daggerfall. They would go to there to lit candles for Linnea, to respect her memory and to pray for her soul, since that was what people that had lost their loved one, did in that day of the year. Aleksei noticed that his friends were standing outside the building, waiting for him, already. They did not say much to each other as they entered the cathedral; Anton had promised to bring candles for all of them, and he gave them to his friends as they stepped in. They all sat silently at the wooden benches in the sacred building, listening to the priest of Arkay speaking. There were many other people attending the ceremony but the cathedral was not crowded. When it was time, they stood up and walked towards the long table that was near the altar, under the large, beautifully decorated windows, to wait for their turn to lit up their candles and pray. William lit his candle first; he struggled a bit to cast the simple sparkle spell he knew but eventually he got the candle burning. "Thank you for what you did - I think you saved us all from peril by slaying Angof and his minions," he thought as he placed the candle on the pedestal that was there for that purpose, and continued talking to her in his mind: "If I hadn't known you, I would never believe that you did it - I'd think that the news of your deeds are just glorified rumours and inspiring war stories that have nothing to do with reality... and, I remember the first time when we met...when Alex invited you to sit at our table at the Rosy Lion. You had helped him to lit up the campfire last night, and he had claimed to us that you had destroyed a whole Dark Anchor all alone! When I saw you, I thought that it couldn't be true; surely one woman couldn't have done that alone, besides you didn't even look very tough to me. I thought you were trying to fool Alex and us with that silly story - but when I noticed that you yourself for some reason started to try to get us convinced that you hadn't done it and it was just a tall story - that's when I actually started to think that you had really destroyed that Dolmen!" Anton lit his candle with the flame of the one that William had lit, and thought: "When Alex told me that you had gone to Camlorn and what was happening there, I hoped that you'd come back to us from there eventually - but I think I already anticipated that you wouldn't...that things would eventually end badly for you there. You see, you were always so reckless and kind of...unstable, maybe? When I got severely wounded at that Dark Anchor in Deleyn's Mill, when you saved me there - I'm forever grateful for that, thank you - and rushed to fight at the Anchor all alone, I was certain that you'd get yourself killed there and felt so guilty...but you made it out alive and destroyed that monstrous thing! I found out about your lost soul - maybe you accidentally told it to me, not intending to do so in the first place. I swear I'll take your secret to the grave with me! Alex and me, we're the only ones who know about it, right? Maybe the lack of your soul was what made you so fragile and powerful at the same time." William and Anton got up and walked away so that Olivier and Aleksei could come to their places and lit their candles; they both took the fire from the one that William had lit. Olivier did not want to take a look at Aleksei; it felt difficult for him to see his best friend grieving, and he thought he might not bear to see him silently crying. "I know you had stuff to do in Camlorn - but still, I think I can't quite understand how you could leave Alex like that," Olivier thought, and, got scared by his next thought but could not prevent it from rushing into his mind: "I - I hate you so much because you hurt my friend so badly - because you've caused so much pain to Alex! I try to but I'm not sure if I can forgive you what you did to him...sorry." He quickly stood up and walked out of the cathedral with haste, frightened by what he had thought about her, even if he did not think she could hear his thoughts. When Aleksei had set his candle next to the other candles his friend had lit for her, he did not stay praying; he quickly left with Olivier. "I - I think I need to be alone now," he said to his friends as they stood outside the Cathedral; he pulled his winter cloak tighter around him to better protect himself from the chilly North wind that lifted up the loose snow from the ground and whirled it around them. "Alright but promise us to come to the Rosy Lion with us tonight - we're still alive and here with you," William asked him; he would see to it that he would not neglect to take care of himself, even though the day was hard for him to cope with. Aleksei left the city and walked along the road leading away from it; then he turned left and continued towards the forest near the city. His breath steamed in the cold air, and the snow on the ground glistered in the pale light of the short day of winter. It was calm and silent there; the nature rested under the frost and snow, waiting for the spring to come, even if it seemed to be an eternity until it would arrive again and bring new life with it. He stopped at the place where a small river streamed across the woods; the flow of the water mostly kept it from freezing. He took the roses he had bought from the florist at the marketplace and put them to the water that carried them towards the sea where the river ended; then he lit up the elegantly decorated lantern he had carried with him and put it hanging onto a branch of an old tree. "You loved this place so much -" he thought; " - I've always liked this place, too...we used to play here with my sisters and friends when we were children." Then he turned to look deeper into the forest. He had heard sounds coming from there - as if someone was shooting with a bow, there. He listened more carefully and became convinced that the sounds really came from the flying arrows hitting their target. "An archer?" he wondered; he doubted that someone would be stupid enough to poach so close to the city but he decided to go to inspect what was going on, nevertheless. He instinctively checked that he could draw his sword quickly, if necessary. As he carefully approached the site where the voices came from, he saw the archer - she was Maxine, a lass from his troops. For a moment, he observed from distance as she shot at the target she had obviously made for herself to practise with; he knew that she was not a naturally talented fighter, and it had been difficult for her to first learn the essentials about fighting with weapons but with hard work, she had eventually achieved the skills required for working in the City Guard. When he saw that she had released the arrow she had aimed towards the target, he walked closer to her, and asked her: "You're practising voluntarily on your free day?" "A -aye!" she said, startled by his sudden appearance, and added: "Good day, sir!" She put the bow down, and explained: "I think I still need so much practise with this thing!" "But it seems that you're doing pretty well," he replied and pointed at the target; all of her arrows seemed to have hit it, even though none of them had pierced the small red area she had painted there. "Maybe when the target stays still, this goes pretty okay but if I had to shoot towards a moving target..." she said, and then added: "But thank you, sir, I think I might eventually have gotten the hang of this..." Aleksei was about to say to her that she would not have to address to him formally, when he was off duty, like he had usually told to people serving in his troops when he had met them in his free time - but then he changed his mind about that, since, for some reason, it felt important to him at the moment that he could retain his distance to her. "Let me show you some useful things that I've learnt myself," he said instead. She agreed on his suggestion, and he taught her how to become a better archer. "Wait, sir, what was that - did you see that, too?" Maxine suddenly asked from him and pointed at the woods in their right side. He turned to look there; he saw the three little creatures roaming in there and quietly replied to her: "Yes - they're scamps, little daedric creatures that can throw nasty fire balls!" "Give me the bow!" he asked, and took the weapon and the arrows from her. He quickly assessed the situation and shot towards the daedra; with only two shots, he executed two of the creatures. He was just aiming to the last of them, when they saw the unnatural thunder clouds above that place - and the two tall Dremora and the zombies that spawned from them. The daedra and the undead had noticed them, and they started to come to them. Aleksei released the arrow that killed the last of the scamps, and then quickly drew his sword. He commanded her: "We're too badly outnumbered! Fall back! Run for your life!" and started to run towards the enemy to get their attention away from her. Instead of obeying him, she also drew her sword, and replied: "I'm sorry, sir, but I won't!" The zombies were slow and it would take them a considerable amount of time to reach them; however the Daedra were faster, and he ended up in a sword duel with one of them that seemed to be a Dremora fighter. He noticed that Maxine had disobeyed him, and she ran towards the site of the fight; somehow she had gained the attention of the other Dremora that appeared to be a Daedric spellweaver, and it started to throw dreadful spells at her. Paying attention to her had distracted him greatly. He had succeeded in dealing some serious damage onto his enemy - but he partially failed to dodge an attack, thus his enemy threw him onto the ground. The collision hit the air out of his lungs; he could not breathe. As he lay there terrified, desperately trying to gasp for air, his life flashed before his eyes. He noticed that the Dremora had now for some reason focused on Maxine instead of him - he thought he heard her shouting something strange like "Protect him" - and he thought sorrowfully: "I wish at least she had survived." Then he thought he would finally be facing his end, as he saw the giant clannfear coming towards him; the horrible monster seemed to have first slaughtered the zombies and soon it would probably sink its teeth to his throat. Instead of killing him the creature just crouched upon him and - sniffed his neck! He could smell the sulphur in its breath. He was able to breathe again but he lay still, frozen from shock - the next thing the clannfear did, was that it started to lick his face with its giant tongue. He heard sounds of explosion coming from the battle between Maxine and the Dremoras and then the noise finally stopped, thus he expected her to be dead - but instead, he heard her shouting to someone: "Oh, Gods...come here, boy! Let mister Virchow get up!" As the monster went away, he slowly stood up and caught his breath. She came to him and asked: "Are you injured, sir?" She herself seemed perfectly unharmed to him. He palpated his ribcage, and replied: "No, I don't think so...my ribs don't appear to be broken, I think I only got some bruises but nothing serious, really." Then he noticed that the giant clannfear circled around her, seeming friendly, and asked her astonished: "Is that...thing...your pet?""Yes...I think I could say so. I can summon it from Oblivion to protect me whenever I need its help...but I think it really likes to spend time on Tamriel, so I sometimes summon it to keep me company," she explained, and added, having seen how it had rushed to happily greet him again: "Oh...I think it really likes you, sir!" However, she noticed how uneasy her pet's affinity to him felt for him, since he appeared to be somewhat frightened of the tall daedric creature, thus she said to it: "Oh, I think it's time for you to return to Oblivion now...thanks for helping us!" and then the beast disappeared into the thin air. "So, you're a sorcerer, then? You hadn't told me that you're a mage," he said to her, thus she replied a bit nervously: "Yes, I can cast some destructive spells, so guess I am... I'm sorry, sir, for not telling that, I didn't think it would be important for you to know that!" "Well, I wouldn't have been so close to a nervous breakdown after having heard that you had taken that night shift outside the city, if I had known that you can defend yourself that well," and then added: "But I don't want you to change shifts with others without asking my permission, is that clear?" "Yes, sir," she replied but wondered a bit offended: "Why do you let your friends to do so, then? Or do you just think that I'm not good enough fighter, is it about that?" "No, I didn't mean it like that," he replied and explained: "You just lack the experience. My friends have been serving for several years here. I would never have put anyone as inexperienced as you are to that post." "So...am I allowed to use my spells in my work, if necessary?" she asked him, as they walked towards the city. "Of course you can defend yourself as best as you can, if it comes to that, why did assume that you couldn't?" he wondered. "Well...I've never heard of my comrades having used theirs, so I kind of didn't think we could, because we're fighters here," she said. "That's probably because most of us aren't magically very talented," he assumed, and asked her: "Why did you join us, by the way? I mean, most of the mages I know wouldn't have. They prefer to focus on mastering their arcane skills and gaining more power and knowledge, so they would think this kind of work as the waste of their skills and lives." "Oh well, I've always admired fighters and the defenders of this city and the King so greatly that I wanted to become one of them myself...one of my cousins is the King's bodyguard. And I think my family has never appreciated the mages so much, so I was never encouraged to study the arcane arts in a greater detail," she replied. "By the way, sir, could I get an extra shift for the New Life festival day? Preferably a long one?" she asked him as they were already close to the city gates. "Yes, I could give you that but why would you want to work in the New Life day?" he wondered astonished. "My family is going to have the traditional dinner, then and...my cousin who's a captain in the Lion Guard is going to come there, too...and I can't stand his annoying presence! He's always so arrogant and dismissive and full of himself - I don't want to see him, if I can avoid it!" "Oh, I see. But aren't you going to the festivities with Anton?" he asked. "No, sir, he's going there with his date...Jenna was her name, if I remember it right," she said and he asked confused: "So, you aren't jealous or anything?" She laughed a bit astonished at his comment and asked: "Nope...why should I be jealous? I mean, if I had so desperately wanted to go to the festivals with a friend of mine, I would have asked them before they would have made other plans for the night." "Oh, right... I thought you two were...never mind," he replied a bit embarrassed at her. Before they parted their ways in the city, they discussed for a while about the battle against the Daedra that they had won, to their great surprise. As they were wishing each other good night, he spontaneously said: "By the way, you don't have to address to me formally, when we're off duty. You can call me just Aleksei - or Alex as my friends call me.""Oh great that you came here finally - I was starting to get a bit worried when you didn't start to show up in here," William greeted Aleksei as he finally came to the Rosy Lion Inn as he had promised to, and ordered dinner for him, too. "Oh by Sheogorath's Madness! Good that you both are safe and unharmed now," Olivier stated shocked when Aleksei had finished telling what had happened to him and Maxine that day. "I think the thing we encountered was something the scholars call 'Electrical disturbance' that is caused by the Planemeld, and it went over as soon as we had gotten rid of the monsters," he assumed but added: "Of course, I'll inform Captain Aresin of this, and I think we should inspect the area with the aid of the Mages Guild tomorrow during the daylight hours to make sure that no daedric activity remained there." "Aye, sounds smart," William said. "I didn't know either that she's a mage," Anton said surprised, referring to Maxine. "Speaking of her, I don't want that you change your shifts with her without asking me first," Aleksei said to his friends. "Why not?" they wondered. "Because last time she got a far too challenging shift from some of you," he said frustrated and asked: "Didn't you understand that she was a way too inexperienced for that post?" "Everything went well then, Alex... and besides, she never gets the chance to learn and gain experience if you won't give her that possibility. I think you're a little bit too protective about her...I just...happen to be her friend, and I think you're not treating her right now," Anton tried to say to him in a friendly way but he got upset and replied to him coldly: "Considering that you're friends, it really amazes me how eagerly you want to get her killed on duty! Just imagine if something had started to go wrong that night! If I had found out that you had changed shifts with her, it would've been your fault - because of your lack of intelligence - if something had happened to her...like you almost got her killed at that Dark Anchor near Deleyn's Mill then..." "Hey, take it easy now, Alex! And you shouldn't worry so much about Maxine anymore, everything went alright and now you know that she's a capable mage and all -" he tried to calm the situation down, not showing that his words had offended him - but he shouted upset: "So was Linnea!" When he understood what he had cried out, he became extremely frightened of his own words, and stared at the table in front of him shocked. "Oh, I see," Anton said to himself, and apologised him: "Hey, I'm so sorry Alex...of course you're right about this. And you're the boss, I'll always do as you say!" and smiled a bit at him. He remained silent for some time and then finally replied: "Oh, and I - I'm sorry, too, I said terrible things to you...I didn't mean them." "It's okay," he replied and asked: "Are we alright now?" "Aye...just one more thing," he replied and asked: "So you're going out with Jenna - my sister - tomorrow?" "Aye...I didn't think that it'd be a problem to you," he answered a bit confused. "It doesn't bother me but just...don't play with her feelings, alright? I don't wanna see her getting her heart broken," he asked awkwardly, thinking about what he knew about his love life. He laughed a bit and replied: "Don't worry! I treat her well - but please, Alex tell her to stop playing with my heart. She's driving me crazy soon," and complained playfully: "She can play these games so cruelly!" He even laughed a bit amused and said to him: "Oh, I think now you know yourself what that feels like! Sorry but I can't tell that to her - she never listens to my advice, and if she does, she does the completely opposite than what I ask her to do!" Soon they got their dinner served to the table; as they began to eat, Aleksei thought about everything that had happened during that day. He looked at his friends and thought how grateful he was for them. He also thought about Linnea; he would never stop missing her but maybe the constant pain would fade when time would pass. Maybe, some day, it would even be possible for him to move on in his life, even if that thought had a short while ago appeared to be as distant as the next spring was from this winter. Today, when he had almost met his own end, he had eventually understood how grateful he was to be alive, himself - and he remembered that she had said in the farewell letter she had written to him, that she wanted him to live his life, instead of getting trapped into the past.