A moment of quiet, interrupted.

[Atmosk]

Hey everybody.
This is a little short I wrote as an RP sample for something else, but I'm rather fond of it. So, I figured after tweaking and polishing it up I'd post it up here for every ones amusement.
It's a little Skyrim piece about one of my favorite characters. His name is also Atmosk.
Hope you all enjoy it!

A crackling campfire; it seems so small and futile in the vast cold around it. It still burns with life and fights for it, despite that. His two eyes, one red and one white, were focused intently on the little fire. He thought on the lesson it had to teach, and yet more on the things that the flames reminded him of.

The flickering light danced on his features, drawing shadows under his brow, beneath his high, broad cheek bones. They crafted a sharp and masculine vision of a predator. His nose was squashed from some past injury and the nostrils of it were wide and perpetually flared. Above it and between his brows rested a bright red tattoo against his dark grey skin. It was a red right hand, a streak of color falling from the bottom of it and down the bridge of his nose.

He stirred after a long time, hands encased in glossy ebony plate reaching for the flames as he leaned forward where he sat. With the same intense glare he worked slowly and deliberately, shifting the small logs to and fro in the fire. Propping them up against one another, he shaped them slowly into the shape of a cone or a wigwam, and never once flinched away from the heat. He sat back, finished, and watched the bright flames of the inner fire tasting the logs and jetting up from the top.

Eyes on the crown of the little bonfire, he murmured for his own amusement in a baritone. “There… A little image of home…” The bitterness in his voice was like a well acquainted friend.

The peace in that cozy hideaway was broken by a cry, not more than a mile off. A long, trembling roar that even from there jostled the snow perched in the branches of the pines about him. He knew what it meant, and what would come in a half-score of minutes. Slowly, he breathed, running a gauntlet still hot over the silver hair laying messily about his head.

And he had thought right, from the trees a Nordic man warily approached, a crest on his tabard of some Hold that the Dunmer could not place, nor cared to.
“Dovahkin... It is here. We need you now.” The anxiety in the guard’s voice was stifled, but not hidden.

“Yes. You do.” The reply from his dark, scarred lips was flat, but the snide was all in the subtext.

With a nod, the Dunmer rose, lifting a heavy casing of dark, crafted metal. In no rush, he pressed half of the assembly onto the back of his head, and lifted the other piece to his face. With a click the two pieces locked, and his hood came up next. The flames danced their light over the mask, its ancient alloy gleaming dully.

The Nord took a small step back, more wary than ever as he gazed at the stern face of a dragon priest’s mask. Its visage as though taken from some great monolith; the shadowed, rectangular eye slits seemed prepared to watch eternity go by.

The Hold guard took another step away as the menacing elf came towards him, and passed by. The elf was burly for one of his kind, and with the ensemble of black armor trimmed with silver, the ancient relic covering his face and hood overcasting it he struck an intimidating figure. There was no shame in the guard’s skittish actions.

The town below was on alert; soldiers and guardsmen rushing to positions with their bows and blades. Above them came another roar from the night skies, the silhouette of something enormous and winged blotting out the stars where it soared.

He had no weapons with him as he descended down the slope coolly, his stride focused, straight and regal. They would come to him when he had need of them. His concern was on the village. The scurrying men below had no chance against what was coming for them. They seemed so small and futile against the vast power flying around them, but still they burned with life; ready to fight for it, despite that.

He admired them.