Chapter 4
"Tired?"
"
WASn't. Sleeping."
I wasn't
now, anyway.
Geh. I'd almost nodded off into my stew. My hand came up to slap limply against my face and drag down over my scraggly beard. A snort and a shake of the head followed.
A tall blonde Nord woman (Did Nords come in any flavor other than tall and blonde? Dumb question, of course they did.) was leaning against the wooden beam next to my table, an amused smirk on her face. She was rather attractive, if definitely middle aged, with those stress lines around her eyes.
"You could say that," I yawned. "Sorry. Long day."
"So I've heard." She hummed. "You're one of those strangers that just rolled into town. Imperials and Stormcloaks, exhausted, covered in soot, and
not killing each other on sight. Bet there's an interesting story behind that."
The conversation was beginning to rouse me back to wakefulness, if only for a time.
"You better believe there is, miss…?"
"Call me Delphine."
A slight nod and a smile with my eyes closed marked my only reaction to the name. I'd already suspected it was her, with her familiar voice and appearance, but I never had been the best at faces beyond the vaguest of details, so it was good to confirm. And here I didn't have handy-dandy subtitles appropriately labeling everyone I talked to.
Ralof and Hadvar were with their families for the night. I'd met with both of them. Nice people. Truly, they were. Might take up Alvor on his offer to learn how to do blacksmithy things, once everything's settled down. Unfortunately, it wouldn't happen any time soon. My pack was laden with supplies gifted to me after I'd promised to let Jarl Balgruuf know that Gondor Riverrun calls for aid. I'd set out tomorrow. No horses available, for some reason, so I had a week's worth of hiking ahead of me.
Hjoing and Froda were already fast asleep in their rooms. I was only still awake so I could get some hot food in me. Skyrim was a
mite colder than I was comfortable with.
I leaned back and exhaled, laying out my story in my mind.
"You'd have to ask the others for their stories, but me? I woke up on a wagon bound for Helgen. Don't quite know how I wound up there, though; took a shield to the head beforehand, and I seem to be missing some memories." I shrugged helplessly. "I hope they'll come back, but I ain't counting on it. Me not knowing why I was even on that cart, tied up next to Ulfric Stormcloak himself, didn't save me from a date with the headsman's axe. No, the dragon did that…"
Bit by bit, I wove the tale of our daring escape from the flaming jaws of death, of sworn enemies setting aside their petty hatreds in the face of a much greater threat, all the while carefully masking any sign I knew she was anything but a curious rumor-mongering innkeeper, watching her expression
sharpen once I uttered the d-word.
Hah, get it? It sharpened cuz she's a Blade.
This nice, pretty lady was supposed to the subordinate of the Dragonborn--
my subordinate. My subordinate who would at some point make a rather impolite demand of me (that demand being vengeance and calling it justice), and then refuse to have anything to do with me when I failed to meet it.
I was a pretty big fan of Paarthurnax. Best wise old dragon sensei. Needless to say, I wasn't going to murder him for crimes that had happened thousands of years ago to people I didn't know anything about or care anything for. Not after he'd spent untold centuries as the leader of a monastery of pacifistic monks. And certainly not for
this petty bitch.
Her use as a talented warrior and spy was potentially salvageable.
Potentially. If she failed to fall in line, well, I'd feel no regret just letting her dangle in the wind. Start up my own Blades if I had to. With blackjack and hookers.
(I didn't actually know how to play Blackjack. Might put a crimp in that. Maybe Spades instead? Spades and hookers.)
In any case, I didn't like her, so I was still gonna fuck with her a little. And I had the beginnings of a plan to do it.
A capricious little devil inside me gleefully rubbed its palms together.
'I am so gonna enjoy imagining your frustrated outrage, you massive cunt.'
Soon enough, my tale was told and came to a close, so I bid a brooding Delphine a good night, thanked the bartender for the meal and got a grunt in return, and fell into my bed and the
fuck asleep.
-.-.-
After waking and taking care of some business, the next morning came with its own diversions. Among them, young love.
(Might even be old love too, not sure if the bosmer's youthful looks were a lie or not. Tricksy elves.)
"...You both say you love this girl, but then you both go and pull some petty shite like
this," I scolded, shaking a pair of letters in a clenched fist, "Demeaning her intelligence and status as a free woman capable of making her own decisions. You made the mistake of focusing on making the other guy look bad, instead of demonstrating that
you, yourselves are actually
worthy of her affections. And that,
boys, is pathetic."
Before me were two rather surly and shame-faced young men who would rather be anywhere but here listening to me lecture them. Unfortunately for them, they were going nowhere. I had my leverage in hand, and a threat to have
Camilla be the one to chew them both out if they didn't agree to have this little chat.
Had to occupy myself somehow before I met the soldiers for one last goodbye. Relationship counseling was pretty fun! Especially now that I could take the third option I'd always wanted to in the game.
Ah. Speaking of them, there they were now. Three Stormcloaks and one Imperial (walking on opposite sides of the street, naturally) making their way towards our agreed upon meeting spot. Best wrap this up.
I shook the papers in my hand. "You want me to burn these letters? Then man the fuck up, go have an actual conversation with this girl, and
talk about these complicated
feelings collectively called young love. Now
get.
Shoo!"
Suitably chastised, Sven and Faendal scurried off to the Riverwood Trader. The worst thing about doing the wrong thing was being
caught doing the wrong thing. How embarrassing.
Privately, I was rooting for the elf. Many memories of him being my first companion, accompanying me through much of the early game. When he didn't die, he ended up a fairly rich elf. Go forth and conquer Camilla's heart, young mer!
Quickly, before
I tried my hand at badly flirting with her. Seriously, the girl was
gorgeous! And she smelled nice, too. Alas, I was too busy for romance.
Ralof and Hadvar approached me, Froda and Hjoing standing a bit to the side. They were all rested up, the soot had been wiped off, and their packs were filled with supplies gifted by their families, much like mine was.
"This is it, huh?" I mused. "Time to head our separate ways?"
"Aye," agreed Ralof. "It is high time we return to our people. You said you had words for us to pass on?"
"I did."
From my pack, I withdrew a pair of rolled up scrolls I'd purchased from Lucan, the local shopkeeper. They'd wiped out the last of my scavenged coins, and I'd promised to get his precious golden claw back, but they were worth it. I'd had all morning to prepare my messages.
I passed one to both men. Checking to make sure they were the right ones with the right info, of course.
"It concerns goings-on in your respective sides' capitals. All details are inside. Feel free to read them if you'd like, so you can remember their contents if they get damaged or lost."
I looked to Ralof. "There is a serial killer loose in Windhelm. He's murdering young women, harvesting their body parts for a necromantic ritual. Wants to resurrect his dead sister. His name is Calixto, and he owns a shop called Calixto's Curios. If you want proof, he should have journals in a locked box in his store detailing his madness. If you search Hjerim, the home of one of his victims, you'll find a hidden room where he's been stashing the body parts. Tell Jarl Ulfric and his Court Wizard, get some men together, and go kill that fucker."
The blond Nord gave a sharp nod, his eyes hard. "I'll see to it that justice is done. Damned necromancers."
To be frank, now that Skyrim was home to a significantly higher population than roughly one thousand and eighty named people with seventy voice actors between them all, there probably were far more murderers in Windhelm alone than just this guy. Least I could do something about this one.
"There's more. A young boy named Aventus Aretino escaped Honorhall orphanage in Riften, and came back home to Windhelm. The matron in charge of the children there is an evil, cruel woman, and enjoys hurting them. So the boy is, or will soon try to summon the Dark Brotherhood to kill her."
A little conflicted over this. Murder was pretty bad, and assassins were pretty bad, so a little boy trying to hire an assassin was extra bad, yeah?
But for fuck's sake, Grelod the 'Kind' was a budget Granny Goodness, and there would be no tears shed at her passing--unless they were tears of joy. I saw the manacles in her closet.
My face fell. "I… don't know how to resolve that, but at least try to save the boy from himself. I plan to visit Riften at some point in the near future; if the Brotherhood hasn't gotten to her yet, I'll see to it that Grelod loses her job, at the very least. I don't take kindly to the brutalizing of children."
I received another grim nod. Hoped Aventus wouldn't get in too much trouble, but invoking the services of a death cult didn't have good optics.
"Good. Speaking of damned necromancers..." I turned to an already weary-looking Hadvar. "In Wolfskull Cave, somewhere west of Solitude, a cabal of necromancers is, or will soon be working to call up the spirit of Queen Potema--" Immediately, there was a widening of eyes and muttered cursing among the Nords. They knew, and
feared, her legend more than I did.--"and bind her into their service. I'm not expecting Tullius or Elisif to send an entire legion into that cave, but you're definitely gonna need more than one man for it."
Unless you happened to have a Dragonborn on call, that is.
"Expect draugr, necromancers, and possibly vampires. I'd recommend having a priest sanctify her bones and inter them in a more secure location--possibly in several different pieces and places. If you disrupt the binding ritual but fail to stop her from being summoned, she will attempt to raise an undead army in the catacombs under Solitude. I don't think it bares mentioning, but letting that happen would be bad."
"Indeed." The soldier gave a weak smile. "I do have General Tullius' ear on occasion. I'll see what I can do."
I bowed my head in gratitude. "That's all I ask. The last thing Skyrim needs right now is an undead army wreaking havoc. We're gonna be busy enough as it is."
I'd listed Jaree-Ra's plot to sabotage the lighthouse for his pirate buddies in the scroll. Not worth mentioning aloud here. Other than that, nothing really seemed to come to mind that was noteworthy in Solitude this early in the timeline.
I tightened the straps on my pack, checked the steel mace I'd swapped my sword for. Didn't take
too much skill to whack someone with a heavy metal stick, and there was less risk of me stabbing myself. I was all ready to go.
"And what about you?" asked Ralof. "Where will the road take you, seer?"
I cracked my neck, craning my head to peer up at the ruins visible up the nearby mountain. "To start, Bleak Falls Barrow, to find something that'll help in the upcoming conflict with the dragons. After that, Whiterun, to warn Jarl Balgruuf. The next dragon attack will happen there. It won't be Alduin, it'll be a smaller, weaker one, so they have a pretty good chance of killing it. And I intend to help them do it. Beyond that…"
My expression grew wistful. "All of Skyrim, eventually. There's a lot of good I can do with my knowledge, all over the province. And… I'm…
restless. I can feel it in my bones. For the first time in my life, I'm doing something that
matters. Something
worthy. I don't know how it'll all turn out… but this is the most alive I've felt in years."
I felt, at once, peaceful, yet energized. A pure, bright,
happy smile stretched across my face, and I meant every iota of it. For once, not a bit of it fake.
Looking around one last time at my erstwhile companions, I made sure to clasp forearms with all of them, all manly-man-like.
"Safe travels, all of you," I said warmly. "Talos be with you."
I wasn't a man who put much stock in religion. But that had been in the old world. This new one had no end of gods and afterlives to dedicate oneself to. Talos was a pretty okay dude in my book.
"And may he be with you, too," intoned Hadvar as we went our separate ways.
Time to hit the road. Lots of time to myself. Plenty of ways to while it away. Still had that primer on how to cast Sparks. Could also try figuring out how to enhance my stamina with healing magic…
As Riverwood and civilization fell behind me, a well-sung traveling song began to bubble up out of me.
"
When I wake up, well I know I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be the man who wakes up next to you…"
