Fire On The Mountain (A Skyrim Quest)

Apologies for the short vote, but I got inspired and started working on the update, so it wouldn't really be reasonable to leave the vote open all that considered. Thanks to all who voted!

The Lay of Whiterun

Do'azda wakes in darkness, stretching out in all directions, inky and pregnant with meaning and power. She is not confused why she is here, because she remembers… she was swimming and then she dove down to try to get to the bottom of the river, because that's where her mother told her the sugar was hidden.

The idea jangles in her head without seeming even the least bit odd, for of course this is a dream.

But she doesn't think that. Instead she smells the strange, loamy scent of the darkness beneath the earth and floats for a long, long moment. Then she sees a figure forming out of the darkness, almost spilling from it inch by inch like so much spoke from a fire. It is Dra'tesh. He is a pale, silver-grey Khajiit Suthay-Raht dressed in his customary long rain cloak with a thick hood, jangling with charms and bangles. He is a legendary Shaman, known to be able to dance through the water drops, a master of weather magic. "Do'azda, we have assembled here, and Dra'tesh has come here, to try you for your crimes as unworthy of being a Shaman."

Do'azda gapes, and says, "Do'azda is a True Cat!"

"A true cat? Five years ago, during Do'azda's training, Do'azda was late to a birth because of a storm. The mother was in great pain because Do'azda was too weak in magic to force her way through the storm and too weak of body and slow of feet to make it in time without magic," Dra'tesh says with cutting precision as Do'azda cringes away from the memory of her failure.

The contractions had already begun when she arrived, and she remembers the pain and the panic of the husband and she winces. But before she can even begin to defend herself, the figure melts away again. It is Ko'sebi that replaces Dra'tesh. Ko'sebi is a woman known to love animals and to have a half-dozen spirit companions, to be surrounded at all times by nature itself, a cat who is always covered in dirt and always has the smell of grass about them.

That smell is overwhelming as she approaches the floating, swimming Do'azda and calls out further harsh words.


"When Do'azda was nine, she found a wounded cub, and tried to nurse it back to health. But she was no cat of healing, and despite her efforts it died: she killed it with her incompetence," Ko'sebi spits, "What use does Elsweyr have for a Shaman who cannot even heal the sick? It is better that you are gone from the world of the True Cats, it is better that you live and die in Skyrim than soil the lands of Elsweyr!"

The figure shifts and becomes yet another, this one dead for years: Var'asla, a Shaman who had fought against the Aldmeri Union during the great war and been underground since then. "What has Do'azda done? Bound a few wounds, dried a few tears. In all her time as an apprentice how many elves has she slain, how many rebellions has she fomented? She is a weak coward, and no True Cat."

Do'azda opens her mouth to protest, but another cat appears, and reaches out and grabs it.

"Joshajirr has your tongue, for you are not much good at Magic, are you, pitiful girl?" Joshajirr is short and frail, but with wide eyes and an air of power and authority. He is a tojay and one of the most respected Shamans there is: powerful in illusions, in Alterations, and more. "Best to send you somewhere far from the light and sun of Elsweyr, where your lacking talents will not hurt anyone."

She is crying by now as the figure shifts again, growing taller and taller until a Senche stands before her, fur as dark as midnight. His gaze is piercing. "A Shaman must be strong in mind, body, and spirit. But Khazahn sees no real strength to Do'azda, does he? Put up a knife and fight!"

She raises a knife suddenly in her hand and slashes out at him. He dodges easily, padding around her, head low. He's playing with her, almost like an instructor with a kit new to the blade. She thrusts the knife out, but he barks out a growling laugh and lunges past her guard. She doesn't know who he is, but his fighting style feels familiar. So does the tug as his claws tear open her guts. It is less painful than she thought it'd be, as she looks down at the claws.

"Khazahn has your spirit in his claws, your very soul. What can Do'azda do to stop Khazahn?" he asks.

She can do nothing but watch as he rips and tears, contemptuous. "No Shaman, no cat at all! Just a worthless, exiled…"

She awakens crying, and the scream is caught in her throat, wedged there as she covers her mouth and tries to swallow it down, rolling out of bed and thrashing as if still in the grip of those claws. She doesn't want to wake anyone. Eventually she'll need to find her own place, once she's done enough that it'd… not be imposing. But for now she needs to avoid waking the children. So she swallows the scream. It is dry and thick in her throat, and she's still crying all the same, ugly tears staining her face.

It is just a dream.

She says that to herself, but she doesn't believe it as she straightens up. It is before dawn, but she knows she's not going to get to sleep again. She might as well get to work. It has not even been a week, she can still prove herself. But she can't do it sleeping around and letting others see her tears. The other day… she should have controlled herself better.

She is not a child, not anymore. She is a Shaman who has to help guide an entire community. There are so many in this "Little Elsweyr" though. Thousands, it seems clear, far more than she'd ever be able to meet. In Elsweyr such a community might have multiple Shamans, but this far out they could go years and years without a Shaman.

She gets up and gets dressed, and goes out to pace and think about what she needs to do. If she helps the merchant with the new shops, this will no doubt also help the other merchants, or at least help her understand their problem. Eventually she's going to need to set up a practice so that those who need healing or her assistance as a midwife can ask, but this early it is not expected. In the weeks to come she will start to spend her time stretched even thinner than this, unless she starts training assistants or can find ways around it. She doesn't think that would be wise even if it were possible, and she doesn't think it is possible.

She does use her morning as best she could, carefully asking both neighboring women what they know about the former Shaman, to see just how far the tales have spread and how total the silence is on this matter.

It is as she expects: while seemingly 'everyone' knows what happened, that everyone only vaguely includes either of the two women. Ka'hasa knows a little more, but Sha'ki responds with confusion as she strokes her dog whilst Do'azda quickly checks up on him. "Sha'ki knows he was not liked, but nothing more than that. He was still a Shaman. Sha'ki does not think too hard about politics. Sha'ki had more then to worry about than the Shaman."

With that, she knows what she needs to know: there's not much more to say, and she'll just have to deal with the secret of the old Shaman. She had been wondering… but now she has an answer and it's interesting. It is not too much of a secret, but it is not known by everyone and finding which cats did the deed will be hard. It will also be easy to interpret her as trying to hunt them down to punish them, in which case she might find herself in danger.

It is best not to push for now.

******

She dresses up in the best cloak she has, and makes sure to wash her face and hide any signs of worry as she goes into Whiterun once more.

The guards are more troubling now - only her size and her age seem to restrain them from searching her, and given the argument even that provoked, this meagre preservation from indignity is temporary at best.

The city is no more or no less hostile than it was the other day, but it feels a lot worse now that she knows far more of the dangers that face a cat in this city. They're not unexpected, Whiterun for all that she has heard is far from the worst city to live near. But what she hears tells a story of near-destruction, of indifference on the part of the Jarl and hostility on the part of the city.

It tells a story that leaves her helpless but to hold back the anger, knowing it will do little good on its own. She makes her way through the city asking questions about new shops to some of the guards.

A few glare at her: one calls her 'little cat' as if it is her fault that he is a tall, broad man who no doubt knows when it is raining before anyone else. But they answer, and soon enough she is poking around a rather substandard shop that sells ingredients for potions.

The owner is an angry looking Nord with bushy eyebrows, a man who wears an apron like battle armor. He introduces himself as Tolfroor Far-Arm, and frowns. "This shop has been here for a month, cat. It does well enough for itself. What is it to you?"

"This nightblossom seed powder, Do'azda thinks it has started to lose its potency," she says, frowning and looking at it. "It should almost stick to Do'azda's fingers if it is to make a camouflage potion."

"What would a cat know about magic," Tolroor said. "I have had no complaints at all. You should leave before I call the guards." She looks over the row and row of highly overpriced potion ingredients. A few of them are rare enough that it might be justified to charge it, but for the rest?

This is a place for lazy potion-makers, of the sort who sell potions and cannot bother and go out to get their own ingredients. It is not even the best such store in Whiterun, but Whiterun is a large city by any standards, and so she is sure that it will not go out of business anytime soon. But it will certainly not see her custom.

She hurries out and moves onto the next store on the list, without so much as a backwards glance. Disappointing.

******

It is at least more welcoming. The butcher cries out as she enters, "Greetings, Khajiit! Good tidings to you this morn. One moment, please!" He is a small Bosmer, short and almost stout except the stoutness seems only to exist to help gather his muscles, for when he slams down his knife against the cutting board he makes a perfect slice of the suckling pig, tearing it apart move by move with all the grace and vicious beauty of a predator.

The whole butcher's shop smells of blood, a smell that causes Do'azda's tail to straighten up in some combination of fear and hunger as she looks around. It is not messy at all, with the cuts of meat displayed here and there on neat little trays or hanging up bloodlessly -divided out by location, or at worst with little signs for what is in back. The Bosmer is humming as he works, and it makes Do'azda wish to sing along to the song because it sounds familiar.

If she is to guess, it is 'The Woods Aren't Far Away' and that is a Bosmer rebel song of the sort sung nowadays only by the very bold down in Elsweyr, including some Bosmer exiles who cannot even stand to live in the forests of their youth. Once a young Bosmer, only fifty-seven or so, had sung the song while crying into his drinks while she was working with her Shaman-trainer Ahzinna to help a very bad bar fighter who had made the common mistake of holding the bottle wrong when he smashed it on the bar.

It is instinct, and a desire to think of something else than all the blood, that drives her to sing, "What is a people without the air/ what is the forest without the hunt?/ What are we without our summer songs?/ The Woods Aren't Far Away--"

"The islands are distant," the Bosmer sang out, looking at her curiously. "You have a good voice. Are you a singer?"

"No, Do'azda is just a cat far from home," she says, stepping closer. He is wearing an apron of course, but beneath it, entirely unstained, he is well dressed truly. He is wearing finer clothes than she would expect, beneath his bloody apron; trying, she imagines, to appear respectable for the nords - Bosmer are only a little more tolerated than Dunmer or Argonians, though admittedly all are trusted more than Khajiit. Only a few things - a button missing from his shirt, gone unrepaired, the slightly faded colours of his breeches and the age of his boots - betray that he is less affluent than he is trying to appear. "That is my name: Do'azda Khrimnin. What is yours?"

"My name is Nirundil Oakgrass, and I provide meat for the whole of the Bosmer section of the city, but I provide to others as well." This butcher shop was right against the wall, of course. It was not the same as some cities, where there were clear dividing lines everywhere about who could live where (except for Khajiit) but there did tend to be neighborhoods like these, for the Bosmer. "I use all the most holy techniques of Bosmer butchery, and the animals are often killed on site to prevent any unnecessary waste and misuse. If Khajiit need meat, I will sell it to you."

This is actually tempting, depending on the prices. The merchant would no doubt have to talk to him, but this is a promising fact, and probably not competition with the local middlecats and others.

"We could always use more meat, though Do'azda is not the one to buy it. There are hunters, as well, if you need meat yourself, though recently all they've caught are skeevers."

"Skeevers? Those are dangerous," Nirundil said.

"Yes. A pig or something fell into the river and was carried downstream from Whiterun," Do'azda says, looking over at a particularly fine cut of meat that no doubt cost far more than she could reasonably afford. "Skeeves swarmed it and caused trouble for the community, but Do'azda and others have dealt with it."

"Ah," Nirundil replied with an eager, bright nod. "That is very proactive of you. I do not buy Skeever meat, but if your hunters are so skilled perhaps they could help. And they would be well compensated of course. I am no cheat, though I work on my own for the moment."

"Do'azda will pass this along," she says with a smile, glad to have found something like a friend within the city itself.

*******

Do'azda's nose twitched in confusion. It smells of books, but her nose is used to old books and tomes, or well-worn books that smell of heavy use. These books seem remarkably new, or perhaps not so remarkable considering that even she has heard that there was a new, faster press that was being spread about the empire over the last few years. There were rumors that the Aldmeri Union was steaming and planning on stealing it, but she had paid all of these rumors very little mind. They hadn't mattered much in Elsweyr, which got on fine with the old presses.

But there are a lot of books here, and all of them are new. They are also bright-backed, surrounding Do'azda on all sides like an army enfolding and trapping an inferior force. Indeed she feels especially trapped by the bright, sunny Imperial girl chattering away at her.

Do'azda thinks 'girl' but she is probably older than Do'azda. She has dark hair and wide, brown eyes and she is dressed in a rather colorful blue and green dress as she chatters away. "So, is it rude that I'm using I? Should… Annabeth use Annabeth when talking?"

"Please, do not," Do'azda protests in a strangled voice.

"Oh, of course, you're so kind to give up Khajiit culture for this conversation for my comfort. So as I was saying, you really should check this one out over there. A dashing Khajiit rebel wins the heart of a swooning Khajiit maiden from the Imperial City. And the scenes in the middle of it, well." She mimes fanning herself. "And of course there's also Under The Moon, and the Nightcaller's Blessing. And those are of course not only the Khajiit romances we have! There are still others," Annabeth says eagerly. "I am glad to see you, it has been very quiet lately. I know there is the Civil War, but it has interfered so much and you would think that the people of Skyrim would just want a little bit of love in a time like this. And a little bit of… spice. Some of these are only suitable for adults such as yourself who…"

Well, this was a waste of time, but she also could not see a way to draw away without offending. She had money, but she certainly wasn't going to spend it on romances when there were so many things she lacked.

*******

When she finally escapes--before she is driven to gnaw off her arm to save the rest of her--she is spat back out into the high-market part of Whiterun with nothing to do for the rest of the morning if she was not quite ready to see the criminals. She wanted to do so, and it was important considering just what had led to the situation.

But the logic seemed sound enough: spend her time wandering the city for two reasons. First, it would hopefully give her an idea of just what there was to find, and it'd make her wanderings look more normal in case there were guards watching her. She had wandered the city in the morning, and she continued to do so in the early afternoon: this made sense as a bit of deception, but it is also just fascinating to see the city.

It is not divided, as she noticed, but there are areas of interest and focus, places where most of the people are one race or another, and there are rows and rows and rows of Nordic neighborhoods where workers go to tanneries or blacksmiths or haul goods to and fro. There is a lot to take over, and the core 'heart' of the city is in many ways its own little city that exists in a different way than the rest. The rows and rows of small houses and slums might as well not exist compared to the central pubs and inns such as the Drunken Huntsman, which was a shop and tavern, and The Bannered Mare, which was perhaps the nicest inn in Whiterun, and The Bed (No Breakfasts) which was probably the meanest though also the cheapest. The signs all advertised Honningbrew Mead, which was made just south of Whiterun and thus was the local favorite against the Blackbriar brew, whatever that is.

(Do'azda feels there is a long and very bitter and likely incredibly boring story of rival merchants behind this, but she cannot be sure. Do'azda does not, in truth, care all that much at the moment, and she shall not care until the instant she is compelled to. By force, if needs be.)

There are sights here and there, like armed Redguards stalking through the city, that leave her curious what they are looking for. But what she notices most of all is how crowded everything else is. People are streaming into Whiterun in ever-greater numbers, and perhaps its 'neutral' reputation will only increase that. There is not room in Whiterun either, though she notices a remarkable number of empty houses here and there while other areas are packed almost to bursting.

She doesn't introduce herself to many people, since she knows that it could go well or could go poorly, but she does at least peek her head into most of the major shops, at least well enough to know what they sell.

What she's learning most of all is how to get around and how to find what she needs when she needs it. She doesn't think she is going to be votive candles anytime soon, for the Khajiit worship only rarely involves candles, at least among Shamans. But if she needs to, she now knows where to find it. It might take months before she knows the whole city, or at least the nicer parts of the whole city… she doesn't venture near the brothels, the casinos, and other areas, at least not at the moment. She can do so later.

It is a good enough workout, to walk the large city on the hill, and at moments she can almost blend into the city despite the lack of Khajiit. But then there are moments where she feels so very alone in a sea of alien faces.

She does notice a few things: there are usually small tasks pinned to a number of message-boards, often paying small sums for deliveries, and there are similarly criers here and there offering bounties for this or that thief. She has many tasks ahead of her, but it is something to consider for others, since as a Shaman she has no direct means of support. She doesn't charge for her services, but that means directing and helping others for their goodwill is important. Small tasks can occupy others, and gratitude is a coin all its own.

As well, she notes the swarming pattern of patrol of the guards, and the swaggering walk of the Companions as they go through the city. The Companions--fit men and women who each look as if they were built for war--at least seem to pay her no mind, which is more than can be said of the guards.

Choose your Late Afternoon Activity (Early Afternoon is locked in by the mindset shown thus far and the fact that you're already in the city)

[] The community is bigger than the cats she's just met so far, perhaps she could check some of them out and find a few more problems for her to solve (Choose 1 per time slot.)
-[] Those without a visible source of income.
-[] Guards and mercenaries…
[] The hunters have helped her quite a lot, so perhaps she should think about a way to deal with the Thanes that have been disturbing their hunting. Thinking of this is… unnerving now, but the necessity also seems more obvious. Talk to them to see what can be done.
[] Having seen and found one holy location in Whiterun, perhaps it might be best to search the whole city for the religious and magical hotspots for… future reference. (Consumes one time slot, if you're already in the city)
[X] The cats of the night, smugglers and skooma dealers need to be put in contact with their opposite numbers in the Dunmer and Argonian populations of Whiterun. (Must be taken Late Morning or Early Afternoon.)
[] The merchants and traders wish to form a collective of some form - for which they need Do'azda's help. Perhaps she should follow up with Lakaabi?
[] Do'azda has found her feet. Perhaps it is time to look for somewhere she could purchase magical tomes, and other such tools to expand her options.
[] The mayor and leadership of "Little Elsweyr" has not talked to Do'azda much, but she could perhaps go to see about them.
[] It may be in Do'azda's interests to talk to the local healers to see what if anything she can help with there, though there is no expectation that she'll get put into rotation until she's at least a little bit more settled, perhaps in a few weeks… but doing it now might help her prove herself.


TL AN: Honestly I just got inspired. Please don't expect every update turnaround to be nearly this fast.

VM AN: So I woke up this morning and Laur had written a whole entire update??? I literally made like… a couple sentences of contribution to this.