#half unedited

Really? She wasn’t in the mood for this. Between the patches of burns on her skin and the larger spot on her side and the fact that she’d killed three innocent mortal men in the last ten minutes, she really didn’t want to put up with this from him.

Was she about to say that? Absolutely not.

Exhaling slowly, be it to calm herself or out of pain, she explained, “I was just attacked by a Daedra sent by Azura to, and I quote, free my soul from you. You know anything about this?”

His tail twitched again. “Okay, you’ve piqued my interest. Explain.”

Sighing, Navalli sat down on the ground. “I was at an inn when a Daedra came up to me and started talking about how I either had to follow her or let everyone in the inn die. I laughed and... well, some illusion magic happened and... I killed two people, thinking they were her.” She frowned. “The Daedra was winning - Bal, I’ve never faced anything like her, and I’ve faced a lot of things - and then something happened. My memories of it are fuzzy, but I killed the Daedra and her Dremora. Otherwise, all I can really recall is torturing the information out of her. She said she was in service to Azura and that she wants vampires dead.”

She rubbed the back of her neck. “I bit her and tore out her throat after that and left her in the hearth to burn.”

Molag Bal went quiet for a moment before reaching down to pick her up, sigils on his hand already glowing. Knowing what he was intending to do, Navalli allowed him to lift her from the ground and heal her.

Her relief was immediate as the pain stopped. “Thank you.”

He inclined his massive head to her and continued to lift her onto his shoulder. “You should have brought the Daedra here and let me question her.”

Navalli grabbed onto a ridge of his body to keep herself situated as he began to walk. “I told you, Bal, something happened. I’m not really sure what. I just remember... being able to feel everything that was going to happen. It was strange.” She shook her head. “You know anything about it?”

“No.”

“Bal!” She flicked his shoulder.

Amused, he continued, “You were an experiment for me, Navalli. A vampire like no other. Your abilities are as unknown to me as they are to you. However... I am curious to see exactly what they entail. We’ll have to put them to the test.”

The hairs on the back of her neck rose at that. Whatever he intended to do to test her abilities was not going to be any fun.

“Until then,” he stopped on the edge of the cave that was a direct entrance back to Nirn and raised his hand to lower her back to the ground, “Find another one of these Daedra and bring them to me. I would like to hear this information for myself.”

She gave him a sarcastic salute. “You got it.” She turned to leave.

“And Navalli?”

Pausing, she slowly turned to look back at him, only to see him smile with a shit-eating grin she hated. “Do come back and see Daddy soon.”

She was already making her way through the portal, the end of his sentence tapering to the empty air the portal left behind as it closed.

It took her months to track down another one of Azura’s daedra. They were still few and far between, no doubt since Azura likely lacked the resources to create so many at once. It was a blessing and a curse - she didn’t want to face another one of the bitches again, but she had been given a task and being unable to fulfill it for so long left her antsy. She only found one when she did because it had hunted down a small, unorganized clan and killed all the vampires within. Rumors spread fast and many assumed it was a team of skilled Dawnguard members that had done the dirty work, but the speed at which they had all been taken out was far too fast for the Dawnguard.

While the Dawnguard were vampire hunters, they were still mortal. They couldn’t outrun a vampire nor were they stronger, and silver weapons only did so much extra damage. Three of them were equal to one vampire, two if they’re extremely skilled and lucky.

There was no possible way the Dawnguard had done what the rumors described if there was any truth to them. Even a fraction of the brutality the stories told couldn’t be caused by a bunch of mortals. No, it had to be done by a being that feasted on blood and gore and had no other drive in life but to kill.

As Navalli approached the cavern entrance, she was trampled by the strong stench of vampiric blood. Sure enough, as she got closer, she could see the blood of the vampires staining the archway, purposefully lining it in an intimidating way that would no doubt scare off a rational being.

Thank the gods she lacked such rationality.

Just inside the entrance, she removed her cloak and tucked it into an outcropping of rocks, away from public eye. Then, she turned to her senses, trying to detect if her suspicions were correct. These daedra were hard to pick up, undoubtedly to prevent vampires from sensing them before they could get the drop. But every being, living, dead, or daedric, had some kind of signature, and Navalli wanted to train herself to find it before they could find her.

It was there, after several focused minutes. Subtle changes in the air, like someone flashing a candlelight at her from miles away. It was similar to the gut feeling she had experienced during her first fight, the one she had dismissed so easily.

Undoubtedly, though, the daedra already knew she was here. They were designed to hunt her. And she was going to run straight to the mouth of the predator with the intent of stabbing it through the tongue.

Keeping that in mind, she entered the cave at a crawling pace, staying light on the balls of her feet, eyes closely watching every shadow and every crevice. So much honing on her senses was making that thing come back - that beast under her skin that demanded to be freed, the beast she couldn’t name.

She kept it at bay. For now, at least.

“Well, well, well, what have we here?”

Navalli paused in the entrance of a large room. It was an open gathering room where bodies of slain vampires lay piled in the center on a large table. This must have been where the previous clan shared meals of mortals they had hunted down and collected for the sake of being cattle.

Thoughts for another time, though, as they were clearly no longer a problem.

Although Navalli couldn’t see where the voice was coming from, she could sense the daedra here.

Since she knew a fight was inevitable now, she withdrew her dagger from its sheathe at her side. “I’m not sure,” she answered, “looks like a pile of vampire bodies to me, but I could be wrong. What are you seeing?”

In front of the table, the air warped and turned, blurring the area as a female daedra not unlike the one she had fought before appeared. In fact, they looked almost identical, save for different hair styles. “I see a suicidal vampire.” The daedra folded her arms. “You must have no mind. I doubt any sane vampire would walk into this cave with the number of warnings I left behind. Unless, of course, you were looking to die.”

Navalli shrugged her shoulders. “I was actually looking for this really attractive girl I saw a few months ago. Come to think of it, she looked a lot like you. At least, she did before I tore open her throat and left her in a hearth to burn.” She cocked her head a bit. “You wouldn’t happen to know a slutty daedra by the name of Xiamara, would you?”

The daedra’s face changed, warped into unadulterated rage, as two spells began to glow in her hands - one green, an illusion spell of some kind, and a spectral dagger. “You’re the bitch who killed Xiamara?!”

Navalli tilted her dagger towards the daedra. “The one and only.”

Lips parted to give a feral hiss, the daedra moved in to attack. Just as she got within range, Navalli opened a portal to Coldharbour. The portal served as enough of a distraction to the daedra that she was able to grapple the daedra through by the waist without too much trouble.

After they finished toppling over each other through the portal, Navalli sprang to her feet and shouted, “Bal! I’ve brought you a new toy! Consider it a gift!”

While the daedra worked her way to her feet as she tried to grasp her surroundings, the air around them whirled in a storm-like fashion until the Prince appeared with cyan eyes of curiosity.

He eyed Navalli, then eyed the daedra, and an amused and hopeful glint entered his gaze. “You finally bring me one. I was beginning to wonder if you were ever going to succeed in your task.”

Navalli bowed dramatically. “Ever your procrastinator, your royal prickliness.”

Ignoring her playful jab, he took a seat on a rather large set of boulders. “Well, get on with it then.”

“Get on with what?”

The daedra tried to open a portal to flee, but it quickly closed with a wave of Molag Bal’s hand. “The fight,” he said nonchalantly, as the daedra once again tried to open the portal.

When it closed again, the daedra clearly began to consider more realistic options.

“You can’t be serious,” Navalli responded, mouth agape. The daedra held her spectral dagger up to her throat, and Navalli hardly blinked twice about it.

Molag Bal, on the other hand, was paying close attention. Although bored, he held up his sigiled hand and held it in front of the daedra, who quickly succumbed to its enchantment. The spectral dagger disappeared and her spells lowered, although there was some resistance that suggested it was not by choice.

“I want to see just how skilled this daedra is. Otherwise, I won’t be able to properly judge how much torture it can handle, and I should know what my vampires and Children are going to be up against.” He nodded to Navalli. “You will fight, and I will watch. No pressure.”

Navalli flipped him off. “Fine. Release the bitch and I’ll try not to kill her.”

Without another word, he released the daedra.

She immediately tried to summon another dagger to kill herself, averting her eyes from Molag Bal this time around. However, before she could rightfully push it into her torso, Navalli was there with a hand gripped on her wrist.

“Look,” Navalli said through gritted teeth as her hand shook trying to prevent the daedra from suicide, “I almost feel bad for handing you over. No doubt whatever’s coming to you is going to be horrible. But if you make it easy and give us the answers we want, I’ll kill you before he has the chance to torture you.”

Molag Bal arched a brow at her, but said nothing.

The daedra shouted angrily at her and reached up to grab Navalli’s hair and yank her head aside.

Navalli hissed in response as she was tossed to the side. “That’s a cheap shot!”

As the daedra turned with the motion to try and stab Navalli, Navalli rotated and kicked the back of the daedra’s knees, sending her lurching forward to keep her balance.

The two continued to fight on even grounds for some time, and as the fight progressed and each took their own blows, Navalli could feel that beast crawling back to her. As the urge to release it grew, she swore she could hear Bal’s voice in her mind.

Let it out, Navalli. Show me what you can do.

When Navalli came back to, her arms were being held high above her head by her wrists and Bal was standing before her in his mortal form, jaw ticked in clear frustration.

“Are you quite finished?”

She blinked a few times before she nodded, and he finally released her wrists. Her dagger slipped from her hand immediately and she lowered her hands to see them covered in blood.

Her eyes moved from them to the daedra she’d been fighting, who was now lying on the ground, either dead or unconscious, and covered in raw, bleeding wounds.

Molag Bal, too, had a large gash on his arm that was quickly healing.

Navalli cursed. “Shit, Bal, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to-”

“Don’t worry, Navalli. Your lack of control during that time comes as no surprise. The ability is new to you. You will understand it with time, though we will work on that later. For now...” he crouched next to the fallen daedra and rested a hand over her. After a moment, her wounds began to glow blue and healed, and she woke up with a startled gasp.

Before she could get far, Molag Bal summoned chained cuffs and pressed them to the daedra’s wrists and ankles. Then, he returned to his Prince form and picked her up unceremoniously. “You won’t want to be around for this.”

And with that, he disappeared to another corner of Coldharbour, no doubt to torture information out of the daedra.

She truly did feel bad for handing the daedra over to Bal for torture and inevitably death, but she, too, wanted to know what she was up against and why, and there was no way she was going to get the information herself. Torture wasn’t her thing, and it seemed to be the only way to get these daedra to talk.

Bal would get it one way or another.

Knowing it would be some time before the daedra caved, Navalli went to go find a cold river to wash up in.

It was several Oblivion hours before Molag Bal made himself known again.

“Navalli? A word.”

Navalli looked down at his mortal form from where she’d taken up residence in a tree. “Apples.”

He rolled his eyes at her and held out his hand towards the base of her tree. It cracked and hissed and Navalli could feel its gravity shift under her. Cursing, she had no choice but to quickly jump from branch to branch to get down before the tree began to fall.

She had just made it to the ground when the tree began to officially collapse.

“I hate your landscaping.”

He chuckled. “How will I ever get better if I don’t practice at it?”

Navalli didn’t respond as she brushed herself off. “So? What’s the verdict?”

His eyes flashed, but in a blink it was gone. “Azura is apparently unhappy with the outcome of our last meeting, and is even further displeased with my decision to destroy my doorway to her realm. As a result, she’s created her own soul-sucking daedra.”

“But they just want vampire souls,” Navalli inserted.

Bal nodded. “When a mortal offers their soul to more than one Prince, the soul will go to whoever agreed to such a price first. However, the daedra override that rule, allowing the souls that rightfully belong to me be destroyed completely.”

She processed this information slowly. “So she’s enacting revenge by taking the souls of your vampires.”

He inclined his head. “That’s correct.”

“Shit.” Navalli ran her hands back through her hair. “So what does that mean for us?”