Fire On The Mountain (A Skyrim Quest)

Hrothgar Dreaming

The sand is soft, warm. The oasis glistens like blue sapphires in the noonday sun, and around it, a village. Small, with date palms and goats. Most houses are traditional, square sandstone buildings, shaded by the trees, with small fenced areas behind them where they keep thin red cattle. In other parts, their milk would go for Eidar Cheese, but in a village like this, the milk will spoil if not drunk within the week.

Do'azda imagines children playing in the street, weddings with the dawning sun, and dances in the moonlight. This is home, this fragile, beautiful place.

At the centre, right by the Oasis, a house stands out. Two floors where most are only one, clad in white marble quarried in Valenwood, a sloped slate roof and high, vaulted window arches, in the Summerset style.

Do'azda recognizes an Aldmeri Union Garrison House when she sees one. A half dozen guards stand outside, in the burnished gold armour of the Aldmeri Union. Their spears impossibly long, the points curving towards her, like the outstretched talons of a diving eagle.

The commander of the garrison stands on a great stage, high above the cats of the oasis, gathered suddenly and always before and below the Altmer of the Union. The commander's robes are so thick and heavy, nothing can be seen of their features, cast in shadow beneath the hood. An embroider, the Eagle of Thalmor, over their heart.

"Investment comes," The commander is saying, "To Elsweyr. This oasis is well positioned for a crafting palace, similar to those of the Drowned Coast."

There is some murmuring, and Do'azda walks through the crowd, sees the cats. They are cats from Elsweyr and cats from Whiterun. An Al'fiq slinks between legs, eyes bright.

"A Mer of Summerset has purchased the Oasis," The commander says, "All Elsweyr is ours."

Outrage rises around her so thick and so fast that Do'azda can taste it in her throat. Hot and acid, it burns to hold it back, but she knows it will hurt more to let it loose.

"You cannot!"

"Elsweyr is Khajiit!"

"Unite and Die!"

The crowd roils, but no longer is Do'azda in it. She stands behind the commander, on the stage. A pouch hangs thick and heavy on their belt, filled with silver.

Do'azda sees the pouch slide across a table, from an Altmer to the commander. It smears the table, sap and blood from the trees and people of Valenwood. The huge crafting palaces of the Drowned Coast, the lumberyards of the interior, where hardfaced Bosmer commit unspeakable apostasy for the selfsame silver.

She sees the pouch thrown. A nord now, on an ice-swept dock, tossing it to an Altmer ship's captain. The pouch leaves blood on his gloves, and ash. Argonians unload boxes from the ship. One, weak with hunger, slips, the crate falls, cracks. Swords, axes, arrows, all scatter everywhere.

Do'azda is back at the Oasis. The commander raises a hand, clenches their fist. Their guards move as one, and cats flee, scatter into the darkness.

The pouch is dampening, soaking. Blood runs down the Commander's back, drips from the hem of their robe. Silvery blood flows like a river from the stage, and suddenly this is all the guards are. All they ever were.

Do'azda can see too much, now. Veins curl like a garotte about Elsweyr's neck, bloom across Valenwood like sepsis. In Hammerfell capillaries twist and weave through the streets and desert, and where they start and end, none can say, whilst Cyrodiil and the Summerset Isles wrap the arteries around themselves, flick them out like whips, like daggers. They cut each other a little, leave deep scars in the onlooker.

Her eyes follow the blood back, as the cats from the Oasis scatter. The Al'fiq runs, blood like a great ocean behind her, but she runs in blood already, stained in it, silver dripping from wounds in her back, her paws. Runs to the pulsing heart of this great system, this system that Do'azda knows, suddenly, somehow, is merely one amongst dozens, but is no less monstrous for it.

The heart sits in the mountains, atop a clockwork demon ticking gently, letting long held tension out of springs. Night falls, and the heart yet pumps.

A cat runs across the darkness, though it is not darkness to her as she watches it, and follows behind it. The cat is running from the tide of silvery blood behind it, but it keeps on running faster and faster. It twists and turns through what seems to be a mine, but a nearly empty one, littered with dust, like a hollowed-out corpse, like a woman who has borne too many children and has nothing left to give.

She cannot even quite understand why she thinks that comparison, but once she thinks it the edges of the mine, the tunnels, suddenly seem like a bloated, dying body. She follows the movement of the cat as they go down and down and down beneath the earth, until the air is the thickness of smoke, and there she sees someone she doesn't recognize.

At first.

A strong body, worn as thin as a lord's patience, gripping onto a pickaxe as this strong figure, this woman, slams it one more time into the wall.

Enough, she mouths.

Do'azda realizes at once who this is. Aodhsil. But those eyes, as the tide of death and blood is left behind by the tabby, filling all of the holes and bleeding out into nothing against this total exhaustion.

Aodhsil stands up to her full height, swaying a little and whispering again and again and again and again: You cannot kill what is already gone.

Enough.

She speaks it out loud, and it echos in the darkness. A bit of blood drips out from her lips, but it is silvery, it is toxic, it is the blood of someone long sick. And then she doubles over, coughing and coughing and coughing.

She knows those kinds of coughs. She's seen them, and done her best--not enough--to heal them. These are the lungs of someone who has mined for years and years and years. And now that she thinks this, she can see lines on Aodhsil's face, knows that this is Aodhsil a decade later, that she is suffering like this, but this is the end of it, the fate of it, the--

Slowly, others appear. First one, then dozens, and soon the cat is winding between hundreds and hundreds of bodies, and then a thousand, and then… it stops.

Daedra, anyone who is listening, they say that rarity is the only true definition of value Aodhsil said. Then take us, take our sacrifice, take the last living Reachfolk, the last Witchfolk, and tell us only that when the candle is snuffed out and night comes that we will not.

Others begin to cry and repeat it, louder and louder, repeating her words and adding their own discordant, screaming prayers for anything but salvation. The witch lights began to form, the power grew and grew as they began to dance and chant, blood flowing silver from their veins.

It was not something that could be stopped, in the dark of the night, a confused cat looking at people and wondering: will any of these people feed me, I am hungry, I hunger but not for this and not for them.

That we will not die alone.

Aodhsil listens, as if she can hear something, and then she smiles as she did to Do'azda that night all these years ago. I accept. Oh I accept. Which offer? Every offer. We who are hungry offer our bodies. We who are thirsty offer our blood. We who are dying offer our lives, we who are living offer our deaths. We who are broken offer memories of what was once whole and can never again be made as it was.

We offer our dreams. We offer our nightmares. Find one for the other. Drag both into nothing. Into Rot, into Oblivion, into the Endless Dark.

And the chanting grew louder and louder as from the walls came silvery beings, made of what was left of this place, made of the remnants of this dying mine. The dying wealth of The Reach, at last bled out to its end.

Drag it to anything you want. Drag it, and drag us.

A hand of silver reached out, and then the strange monsters began to gather. Aodhsil laughs, she laughs with mad joy as she dances forward towards one of the creatures and says. Yes. Yes.

She embraces the being, and its spines, its fingers, they go straight through her and tear her to pieces and she laughs and laughs, joyful as can be.

The Last Reachfolk, an entire people, they die within minutes full of greater joy than they'd felt in decades.

Markarth dies that night.

The Reach that Month.

And Skyrim, Skyrim…

"Skyrim is Forsworn," Do'azda says in Ta'agra, waking up all at once with nothing between that sensation, those dreams, and sudden awareness of the ceiling above her. She is cold, and exhausted, and hungry, and there isd nothing about her that does not in this moment suffer.

Then she hears someone clearing their throat. She looks around, finally taking in the scenery. The air is thin, and smells just a little bit smoky as she notes a young man sitting on a chair in front of a door.

He is older than Do'azda, but not that much older, with blond hair and dark eyes, and the beginning of a pure flaxen beard, broad-shouldered but with a sallow face. He stares.

"Good morning, Dragonborn," he says, his voice a whisper.

"This one is Do'azda, though she is also the Dragonborn, yes," Do'azda croaks.

"I am here to show you around. If you can stand… we wish to begin your classes as soon as you are able."

Do'azda groans, "Where is Bathes-In-Steel?"

"Whom?" he asks, frowning.

"My companion. We talked up the eleven-thousand… and seventy-seven steps."

"The… seven thousand steps, you mean?" He shakes his head. "No, nevermind, Do'azda. Your guard has been placed elsewhere for now while she recovers. You can of course visit her, and in a week or two she shall return down the mountain."

Do'azda opens her mouth to object, but decides to wait until she's standing. "What day is it?"

"The sixth of Hearthfire, it's the morning… we have food for you, and classes will soon begin." He seems to be unable to do anything but whisper.

"Classes?"

"We do not know how fast you will learn, but we thought it would be better to let you sit in on different classes, to pick up all you can. You have already learned the summer lessons that the gifted learn, if you can Shout at all. So we will be teaching you the Fall Lessons, over this next month, and perhaps if you will agree, the Winter Lessons by the true coming of the years' end."

Do'azda nods, though she does not expect to stay nearly this long. "She will talk to someone on this later." She groans and manages to climb out of bed, though she is not very stable at all. She is starving, thirsty, and has apparently spent an entire day sleeping. "What classes can she learn?"

"There is a class on history, another on religion, and of course… on the philosophy and nature of the Voice. There's also survival training, and we train all in the next level of Unrelenting Force, Fus Ro. Some haven't learned it by this point, but all who do begin to take classes to learn it, ideally, by the end of the year… and learn how to use it, and when. And there's Whirlwind Sprint, you can't miss that."

There's something almost gleeful about how he whispers the last one.

Do'azda is dressed in bedclothes more than anything, and so she expects the first thing she'll need is clothing, and the second food, but, classes?

Hmm.


You have three slots for classes today, the 6th, and one for sociability, label the classes 'First' 'Second' and 'Third' in your plan!

[] [Classes] Theology - this is likely to either endear Do'azda to them or make the Greybeards hate her even more, but it is a particular area of interest for her at least in theory.
[] [Classes] History - As a newcomer to Skyrim, history would be very welcome, though what they'll tell her is uncertain, and will likely also include history of the Greybeards… and information about the conflict she'll face.
[] [Classes] Philosophy - The Greybeards have a very specific philosophy both regarding the use of the Voice and the nature of it, and such philosophy could be of interest to Do'azda, if she is to be the "dragonborn".
[] [Classes] Unrelenting Force - The first shout taught. By happenstance, Do'azda knows the first word, and now can learn the second.
[] [Classes] Whirlwind Sprint - Another shout taught early, and one about which there is a little mystery. And a little strange amusement.
[] [Classes] The Dragontongue - To learn shouts, one must learn the language they are spoken in, the language they are written in.
[] [Classes] Survival - A class by necessity, if one is to live on High Hrothgar, but perhaps a class with more to offer than it appears?

Social! (Choose 1)

[] [Social] The Greybeards talk not much at all, out loud, but they train the apprentices and can be found. Speak to them… whether of destiny or simply the weather.
[] [Social] Your fellow apprentices come in two types. The first is those that are traditionally Greybeards, earnest young men who are working hard to grow old, and who have cause to resent you… but might yet be made allies.
[] [Social] Your fellow apprentices come in two types. The second is those who have fled to this place to avoid the wear, to avoid all that comes… and this includes essentially all of the non-Nords and women, not traditionally welcomed. Perhaps there is affinity there, or perhaps not.
[] [Social] Bathes-In Steel has stood by you up the steps, so perhaps Do'azda should visit her and spend some hours socializing, though it is true that neither of them will be up for much, on this first day.
[] [Social] High Hrothgar is a large castle, ripe for exploration, and Do'azda is just the one to do it. Who knows, maybe you'll meet someone unexpected?

VM AN: Remember, these are only the first lessons, so don't expect too much.

TL AN: Weren't those very nice dreams? I'm glad Do'azda dreams only of happy things.