"You destroyed my life, Unni, and you couldn't even give me a decent explanation as to why. I can't believe I was so stupid; believing you so blindly, when in fact, I was merely ignorant of the true source of my pain that lay in the same bed as me, and not with Mads," he said with evident disgust.
Unni kept scurrying backwards, her mouth soundlessly wording unintelligible sentences. A dark cloud began to shroud Anders as he continued towards her. "A-Anders, p-please…" Unni began to cry, feeling the weight of her emotions beginning to drown her. "Tears? Really? Did you shed any tears when you sliced off my child's head? Did you?" he shouted the question at her, drawing his sword and aiming it at her.
No one, not a single soul, moved in that moment.
"I thought not," Anders spoke after having allowed a few seconds of expectant silence to pass. "Death is too quick a punishment for you," he said to almost no one but himself as his eyes darted across the ground looking for an answer. "You will be banished forthwith from the country of Hjalfar," he began, finally looking up at her blue, bloodshot eyes.
"What?" Trina asked, surprised at the lack of a more severe punishment, but he held up a single finger to pause whatever she was about to say. "No aid will be given to you within these borders. You will be stripped of your title, clothes, and any rights provided to you being a synner. I will also deny you of your rights for being of Hjalfarian Blodt," he said, receiving a number of gasps from the crowd still within the halls.
"Y-your majesty, isn't that a little too much?" one of the merchant lords asked from the sidelines. Anders glowered at him. "It is not enough to have her simply be stripped of her title," he seethed. "No, I would deny her entrance to the great Blodthall itself, and have her families eternally beg me for mercy in the afterlife," he spat, turning back to face the focus of his anger once more.
Unni was in shock at his words, but just as she began to open her mouth, Trina materialized in front of her, knocking the seax from her hand and sticking the tip of her own in her open mouth. Trina put a single finger up to her own lips, and shook her head at the miserable wretch beneath her.
"Commander Trina Lande," he began. "What is it, your majesty?" she asked, never once turning to look at him. "While I am greatly disturbed at how this information came to light, I have to thank you for doing so. Your unquestionable loyalty to this country has been noted," he said, letting out a heavy sigh. "Thank you, your majesty. I was merely doing my duty, but Sergeant Wien was instrumental in this being revealed," she said, twisting the sword a little, grinding it against Unni's teeth.
"I see. Then, as a token of my gratitude, I will allow you to both mark and brand the traitor. Leave her bereft of any option to hide who she is," Anders said with angered grit in his voice. Trina, gazing into Unni's eyes, smiled with pure malice. "As you command, your majesty, but what of Sergeant Wien's vengeance? His father was killed in the same assault that caused all of this in the first place," she said not forgetting her subordinate's lack of revenge.
Anders, recalling what the Sergeant had said in the beginning of the whole ordeal, rubbed his chin. After a moment's consideration, he finally turned to face the young man. "I am truly sorry about Ulfric's death. He was a great man, and an even better friend. Had I known there were no records of his death, I would have made the appropriate amends immediately," he said with a light bow of his head. "Thank you, your majesty," Wien hardly managed with the lump in his throat.
"I know it's not going to bring your father back, but I would have you be the one to give her a Mark of the Unforgiven of your choosing," Anders said, trying his best to sweeten his words rather than bark them. Wien was speechless, but nodded his head in agreement.
"Commander Lande, pull the sword from her mouth and replace it with a gag," Anders said, receiving a small glance of relief from Unni, but it was short lived, as Wien raised his hand. "Your majesty, if I may," he began, walking towards the trio, halting Trina's movement. "I've made my choice of Mark to give her," he said, his tone was almost light even, like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
"Oh?" Anders asked. "Yes, your majesty, I have," Wien replied, walking up to Unni and kneeling next to her. He gently pulled the sword from her mouth, watching her every movement closely. "W-what do you want? Are you here to gloat? Spit in my face and call me names? Go ahead, I've been through worse than anything a boy like you could conjure," she said, turning her face away from him.
His hand reached out to the far side of her cheek, pulling her close and locking his lips with hers. Her surprise, and everyone else's in the room, was evident, but she wasn't exactly in a position to argue.
Going out as a traitor with a kiss? Sounds like something out of a fairy-tale. Maybe I can use this as a final fuck you to this place and Anders for what he's going to put me through, she thought within the heartbeat that followed.
She leaned in further, opening her mouth just enough for one of his lips to fit between her teeth, gently biting down and pulling him closer. He tilted his head to the side, reaching for her tongue with his as she sucked on what was already in her mouth. The sound of their kiss smacked across the dead-silent hall like an ill-mannered person eating a persimmon while shocked expressions riddled the crowd, especially those nearest to the unlikely lovers.
Wien pulled his saliva-soaked tongue from her mouth and pulled back, giving her just enough room to stick hers into his mouth. She searched for his tongue with hers, but was immediately stopped when she felt his teeth instead of his tongue wrapping around it. He kicked his head to the side and bit down hard, splitting her tongue down the middle in the process.
A muffled screech and a stream of blood came from her mouth, as Wien spat a wad of blood onto the floor. The crowd gasped when they realized what had happened, causing some to introduce their morning meals to the rest of the Great Hall's members.
"There, that takes care of that," he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his gauntlet. Anders was shaken to his core, but did his best to hide it. Trina, on the other hand, didn't bother to hide her own surprise. "What, and I cannot stress this enough, the fuck?" she asked with a disgusted look on her face.
"His majesty she had a forked tongue, but we all know she didn't really have one. I simply made it real," he said with a malicious grin on his face. A look of both surprise and horror rippled across Trina's face, but after listening to the victim's muffled moaning, she shrugged, and sheathed her own blade, as she walked over to one of her soldiers.
He was standing next to a wide-mouthed, glass jar of an unidentifiable chemical that was primarily used for branding cattle. As soon as Trina grabbed the jar, Unni began to unintelligibly scream through gargled blood. She began to hurriedly crawl towards the door, but slipped on the bloodied, stone floor. Trina began to chuckle as she moved towards her. "You really thought you were going to get away without me having a go at you?" she asked, crushing the back of Unni's ankle under her greave, pinning her to the ground.
Unni screeched and halted her movement, turning back to face her aggressor, only to find her dipping a glass rod into the jar. The snake-like shape at the end of it was cupped on the side that faced upward, since most were branded laying down. This allowed the rod to hold a small amount of acid that would drip down through tiny holes not much larger than a needle's head.
Unni began to shake her head, as she watched the fuming rod come towards her, understanding that her fate was all but sealed. "Oh, now you want me to stop? What did Anders' child say when she felt your knife to her throat, eh? What did she say, Forked One?" Trina asked, knowing full well Unni couldn't answer at that moment as that was her intent.
She didn't want to actually hear a verbal answer, but instead watched as Unni's mind tore itself apart with the memory of the last moments of Anders' headless child.
Tears and snot began to stream down, mixing in with the blood around her mouth as she tried to open it, but when no words came, she merely sat there and sobbed. "If you think for even a moment that I will feel remorse for you, know that what I'm doing now is less than a fraction of what I would do if I had my way," Trina began.
"Know this, Fork-Tongue, even the Undergod himself would find it difficult to forgive what I would do to you. Pray to whatever gods will accept you that I do not find you again in life, because if I do, you will welcome death like an old friend by the time I'm done," she said coldly, glaring at the woman beneath her.
With a resigned look in her eyes, Unni looked up at Trina, and spread her arms wide.
The acid bore into her skin, making it blacken and bubble wherever it touched. The chemically burned imprint of a snake was now present on both of her hands, and the entire left side of her face. Strangely enough, she hadn't screamed when pieces of her skin had turned to blackened, misshapen mush, but instead, she merely winced and grunted in silence.
Her clothes were removed shortly after, revealing a toned body and perky breasts to everyone present in the Great Hall. She was then placed inside of a barred cage, being paraded along the streets by an angry mob as she was led outside the walls of Odensby. Anders watched with tears beginning to well in his eyes, as a mix of emotions spurred within him.
"Are you alright?" Trina asked, appearing beside him like a ghost.
Probably best not to ask that right now, she mentally kicked herself as she noticed the tears streaming down his face and into his beard.
"Not really, but I'm sure that with time I will be," he said with a sigh, shaking his head and sniffling lightly. "It's… a lot to process," he said, wiping a pair of tears from his eyes. "She was my confidant for years, and I was hers. I just never would've thought that this is how it would end; that this is how I would find out the true culprit of my family's demise. I loved her, Trina, I did, but now? Now those feelings have curdled like old milk, soured by the condemning actions of her past," he said bitterly.
"I can't begin to imagine what you're feeling, Anders. Truly, I am sorry that things have come about this way," she began after watching his expressions change in rapid succession. "I won't pretend I know what you're going through, or anything like that, but I do know that your only option now is to look forward. Look beyond your anger and sadness toward a future where you can be happy again," she said, putting a hand on his shoulder. He patted her calloused hand gently.
She chuckled through her nose, shaking her head with a hint of a grin shining through. "It won't happen immediately, though. These kinds of things will take time, and everything will happen in the way that it's meant to happen," she said, gripping his shoulder and shaking him somewhat roughly. "Come on, I think I owe you a drink after that shitshow," she said, patting his shoulder twice and walking past him toward the nearest tavern.
Anders chuckled, wiped the remaining tears from his eyes, and began to follow her down the steps.