User:Starshard/The Book of the Dragonborn

Author's Note: This work does not completely conform to established Skyrim canon. Timelines of some events have been altered from canon. Later portions of this work may contain mature, NSFW subject matter; this will be noted per chapter where applicable.

This work can also be read on Archive of Our Own here.

Prologue: Morndas, 13th Sun's Dusk, 4E 171

Summary: The Greybeards' student is becoming increasingly restless.

Ulfric had been absent for his evening Dovahzul lessons with Einarth, and so it is that Arngeir wanders the monastery in search of him.

It isn’t like Ulfric to miss lessons. The Greybeards had taken a calculated risk, accepting him as a student so young. He’d arrived on the steps of High Hrothgar bloodied, windblown, snow-bedraggled, and at first they’d ushered him inside simply on principle, to get him out of the weather. Arngeir remembers the day well. The blizzard had been a fierce one, wind whipping about them like Kyne herself intended to take them off the mountain. They’d scarcely gone into the courtyard for fear of being blown over. But Ulfric, son of Hoag, no more than a boy of eight, had shaken the melting snow off himself like a dog, and his blue eyes had blazed with life even as his body had wracked itself with shivers. In one hand was a wolf skull, still smeared with gore, and in the other was an axe.

“I want to learn how to use the Voice. Like the old heroes used to do.”

There had been violence in him from the beginning, yes. The skull and axe had been proof enough of that. He’d been too eager to hear of Shouts that inspired valor in battle, that weakened one’s enemies, that ripped weapons from their hands. The philosophy of the Way of the Voice had bored him. His progress was slow. The Greybeards had almost given up, but Ulfric was the tenacious sort.

They discovered, on a clear, windless day in the courtyard, that he’d learned the word fo almost by accident.

If he was proud of himself for this massive achievement, he never showed it. Instead that pride was fuel for his internal fire. Arngeir sometimes doubts that even Ulfric knows why that fire burns.

It isn’t like Ulfric, son of Hoag, to skip lessons, and Arngeir wonders if he has left them at last, with no warning, but he finds him in the western hall, staring out a window, elbow on the heavy sill and chin in his hand. Arngeir stops at a respectful distance - clearly Ulfric is troubled, deep in thought - and a long moment of silence passes between them.

Ulfric has never been completely comfortable with the silence.

“Did you hear the news from Cyrodiil?” he asks, and Arngeir shakes his head.

“I have not.”

He can just make out Ulfric’s expression reflected in the thick windowpane. Thoughtful, almost tired, and yet his eyes blaze. Arngeir has never seen them dulled.

“The Thalmor have seized Leyawiin.” The statement settles on his shoulders like a heavy mantle. “Bravil will surely be next. It’s only a matter of time.”

“I see,” Arngeir says.

Ulfric glances over his shoulder then, and says, “Do you?”

Arngeir says nothing.

“You don’t,” Ulfric says, a little coldly. He smiles, but it’s without mirth, and doesn’t reach his eyes. He turns to look back out the window. “They mean to spit on the Empire and everything it stands for. They mean to put boots on necks and have us relinquish Talos and admit their ways are better. And they mean to slaughter anyone who doesn’t bend.”

Arngeir still says nothing. Ulfric is angry about this, very angry indeed, and it is not wise to prod Ulfric when he’s angry.

“I suppose you can’t imagine such a thing happening.”

Arngeir begins to see where this might be going.

“Surely you don’t intend - “

“Of course I do,” Ulfric says, cutting Arngeir off sharply, turning full to face him and leaning against the windowsill, arms folded. The look on his face is defiant. By Arngeir’s estimation, Ulfric is not yet eighteen, just shy of it, and he is not built for battle, but Arngeir slowly decides that yes, he might make a good soldier, if he puts his mind to it. The endurance is there, the determination. “If there’s anything I can do to help prevent the Thalmor running roughshod over my homeland, I intend to do it.” His eyes meet Arngeir’s, chest rising and falling more heavily with emotion.

“I would hope,” Arngeir says carefully, “that you don’t intend to put your lessons to use on the battlefield.”

The sentence is hardly out of his mouth when he realizes he already knows the answer. It’s in the fire that blazes hard in Ulfric’s eyes. It’s in the ghost of a snarl on his lips when he speaks of Altmer that loath men. It’s in the way his fingers curl tight around his own fledgling bicep, as if aching to hold the hilt of a sword instead.

Neither man speaks, the tense silence thick and heavy in the air. “At least stay until Loredas,” Arngeir says, breaking it, “so we can finish your preliminary lesson on lok.”

“Okay,” Ulfric says, some of the anger and tension leaving him, and follows Arngeir out of the hall to take supper.

Chapter 1: Sundas, 17th Last Seed, 4E 201

(back to top)

A cool morning breeze rustles through the birches and aspens of the Rift as the Imperial caravan trundles over the bridge. The prisoners it carries know nothing of its destination, and the soldiers that drive it aren't about to tell. They'd passed through a little settlement and are leaving it one prisoner richer; the small guard force stationed there had hauled a common horse thief into the final wagon, where he joined two blond, well-muscled men. One of them was gagged and wore a heavy fur cloak, the other a thick leather and chainmail cuirass draped with rich blue fabric. None of the three men had said a word to each other. They didn't have to.

Ralof watches the town disappear behind them, the ancestral barrow slipping away behind the topography and out of sight. It's been difficult for him - for any of them, he thinks - to keep track of time and place since the ambush, and what a whirlwind of an ambush it had been, but that town has to be Ivarstead. The Throat of the World looms large to the right of the wagons. He guesses that's west. So the wagons are heading down the south road.

For what definitely won't be the final time, he wonders where they're going.

Ahead of them, the south road comes to an end, meeting another traveling roughly west to east. At the front of the caravan, the captain raises one hand high, and the wagons slowly draw to a halt. Around them, the breeze dies, golden foliage stilling, birdsong quieting, the forest itself holding its breath in solidarity with the captured Stormcloaks. There is absolutely nothing of interest here. Something's amiss.

"Did you hear that?" the horse thief from Ivarstead asks suddenly, spoiling the moment. He'd seemed a little on edge from the moment the Imperials shoved him in the wagon.

"Are you going soft, thief?" Ralof asks in return. It's a bit harsher of a thing than he meant to say, but being cooped up in the caravan for gods know how long has put him on edge.

The other man shushes him quite violently. As if on cue, from up ahead in the woods comes the whinny of a horse.

"It's just someone's horse," Ralof says tiredly. "It's nothing."

At least, he wants to believe it's nothing. From the way Jarl Ulfric is sitting up stiff, staring intently in the direction of the sound, he has a feeling it's something. If Ulfric could speak freely, Ralof knows for certain he would be saying something informative. Of course, the Imperials had gagged him. The cowards.

Ulfric's jaw works, just a little, just enough to mutter something. His eyes flash. Ralof leans back against the side of the wagon, waiting for things to get on with happening.

Imperials, Ulfric had said. THis ought to be interesting. Ralof can't see any new faces from this far away, but between the trees are flashes of color - fluid swirl of ink-black, biting gleam of silver. Two people, one significantly shorter than the other.

Something quivers cold in his gut.

The two people approach the prisoner caravan through the woods, and as they draw nearer Ralof notices just how much of that gleaming silver there is. Imperial steel, worn by none other than the stupid filthy godsdamned mer that fancies himself a Legate. "When did the Imperials start taking kids prisoner?" the horse thief murmurs, shocked. Ralof sets his jaw and shrugs. He doesn't think she's a child, but she is young. Too young to be caught up in shit like this. The cloak she's wearing, the way it billows - it makes her look small, innocent, frail. Did she try to fight back? Could she fight back, if she had to? He doesn't know, and doesn't feel confident guessing.

The mer Legate and his prisoner stop at the head of the caravan to talk to the captain. Their discussion is short. Nods are exchanged. The Legate shifts his grip on the girl's upper arm and walks her towards the back of the caravan, and angry Stormcloak eyes in dirty, bloodied faces follow him.

Fuck the elves. Fuck the Empire.

"All right, in you go," says the Legate, and attempts to push her into the final wagon, with Ralof and the horse thief and the Jarl. It's the only space remaining. The girl digs her heels into the soft ground, trying to get leverage to pull herself out of the Legate's grip. She looks panicked. Her voice is soft, and full of fear.

"No - please - "

"Had it just been the horse, you might have convinced me. But they're baying for your blood over the border."

"You're mistaken, I didn't do anything - let go!"

They struggle a little, unevenly matched, and the Legate lifts her off the ground, her feet lashing back and forth, trying desperately to kick him in his well-armored shins. Jarl Ulfric is staring, Ralof is staring, he's pretty sure everyone is staring. The standoff feels important, somehow. Momentous. As if it belongs to not just them, but larger forces working through them.

"I am here to keep order," the Legate says, strained, as if through gritted teeth, "as are all the soldiers of the Legion." The air fills with jeers and boos and insults at his expense, and the shouting of their Imperial captors to be silent. "If that means sending you off with these sods at someone else's behest, then so be it."

The three men watch with varying degrees of dismay and disgust as the mer Legate tosses the girl into the wagon. She slides along its floor, hands outstretched as if to hold onto something, anything, to stop herself, and then the top of her head hits the far wall with a horrible solid thud. Splayed out at Ralof's feet, he watches her eyes roll back in her head before they settle closed and she goes still, out cold.

Somewhere in the woods, a bird screams. The breeze rises; the forest wakes from its slumber. The Legate gives the captain a perfunctory nod and takes his leave as the wagons begin to move again. Everything is the same as it was.

Everything is different.

Chapter 2: Sundas, 17th Last Seed, 4E 201

(back to top)

Ralof begins to worry the girl won't wake.

He's seen a few head wounds in his time, of course, but he doesn't know what to do for them. That kind of thing is best left to Kyne's healers, or apothecaries with their strange liquids and poultices, or even - gods forbid - those scattered mages that chant and wave their hands and act like the warm golden light that results is all it takes to banish aches and pains. But every child of Skyrim knows the basics: how to dress wounds, suck venom out of bites, splint broken bones... how much head trauma one can take before they don't wake up. It's important to stay awake with head trauma. He thinks. The one small comfort is that she's still breathing.

"What do we do?" the horse thief asks. He's a little panicked. Maybe the man has never seen a comrade die in front of him. Ralof sighs deeply; Jarl Ulfric gently prods her side with the toe of his steel-tipped boot. Nothing happens.

"There's nothing we can do. If the gods decide to smile on us, she'll wake up."

"Does she look Breton to you?" the horse thief asks, after pause for thought, and Ralof nods. It's the round face, the pin-straight hair, the plush bottom lip chapped from cold or thirst or both. He'd mistaken all of it for her simply being young. Now he doesn't have a clue how old she could be. "He said they were baying for blood... what in Oblivion did she do?"

"Maybe we'll never know."

Down the road a piece is a little hovel, an abandoned shack with roof falling in and garden growing wild. As the wagon passes by, one corner dips, wheel splashing through a pot-hole - and the girl in the bottom of the wagon wakes with soft complaining sounds, stirring and stretching at the legs. They couldn't have picked a better time, Ralof thinks, with no small measure of relief. The road is beginning to twist up into the mountains, tough grass collecting more and more snow. If she hadn't woken, she may have died from exposure before the head wounds. "Thank Kyne you're awake," he says, and the girl groans. Her eyes scrunch closed tighter, before opening slowly, at a squint. In the dappled shade of the conifers, they're a muddy sort of greenish-brown. She makes an attempt to sit up, and Ralof extends his shin towards her for support. "Here. Go easy. That was a nasty knock on the head you took." If they all get out of this alive, he thinks, he'll take her to Gerdur's, put her on bedrest and stew until she gets some color in her face again.

"You don't look so good," the horse thief adds, unhelpfully. "How long have you been out here?" The girl stares blankly at him. She struggles up to a sitting position against the back wall of the wagon, holding Ralof's shin with both hands; her wrists are bound together.

"You came through Pale Pass, right?" Ralof asks, more gently. The girl doesn't respond. It looks like she might be on the verge of panic. She stares at each of them in turn, gaze lingering on the Jarl a little longer. He stares back. "THey picked you up after they ambushed us. You and this horse thief." He tips his chin to indicate the other man, who frowns a little.

"I have a name, you know. It's Lokir. You weren't listening when they picked me up?" Ralof hadn't been, but he's not about to say that. "Damn you Stormcloaks. I could have been halfway to Hammerfell with that horse. The Empire never paid this much attention to Skyrim before you came along."

"The Stormcloaks have always been here," Ralof replies, with more patience than he thought he could muster. "All we needed was a leader."

The horse thief - Lokir, Ralof reminds himself - turns to the girl, wild-eyed. "You! You and me, we shouldn't be here. The Empire just wants the Stormcloaks. We have nothing to do with it, right? This is just a mistake. A horrible, horrible mistake..."

Ralof pities him, he thinks. Their crimes are disproportionate. (Well, perceived crimes.) He'd wager Lokir might have been able to convince the girl if not for her continual wide, blank stare. It's the stare of new, hapless recruits from little farm towns when Galmar pushes weapons into their hands and sends them straight back out to their new post. Ralof sighs. "Well, we're all brothers and sisters in binds now. Go easy on her. She doesn't understand."

"You've never been to Skyrim before?" Lokir asks, and the girl shakes her head. Wincing, she reaches for a spot at the crown with both hands, prodding gently. "What, you mute or something?" and Ralof promptly kicks him in the shin. "Ow. Bastard. Something's wrong with her, you can't see that?"

The two of them bicker halfway down the road, breath visible in the cold mountain air, while the girl and Jarl Ulfric appraise each other. Ulfric is a good judge of character. He'd be interested to hear some opinions later. Provided there is a later. Finally Ralof gives up, and sighs. "What village are you from, horse thief?"

"Why do you care?"

"Because in times like these, a Nord's thoughts should be of home."

The horse thief visibly swallows, irritation falling away from his face to show exhaustion underneath. "Rorikstead. I'm... I'm from Rorikstead."

Up ahead, the wagons approach a town gate. There's shouting about a headsman from the lookout post, he hears General Tullius' name being called. In this moment, they all know what's going on. There will be no temporary incarceration. The road ahead only holds summary execution. The girl stares at the road they've left behind, hollow-eyed with detached acceptance. The sky is clear and blue, the conifers a deep, lively green. It would be a perfect view to think of while waiting, breathless, for the axe.

They pass through the gate, into a village flying Imperial banners. General Tullius is here, some distance away, talking to a tall, contemptuous, golden-haired woman in black."Look," Ralof says, pointing with his chin. "Thalmor. I bet they had something to do with this." Other Stormcloak prisoners are noticing, turning, alerting their fellows to turn. Soon enough there's another chorus of Stormcloak voices filling the air, slinging insults like mud. Later, Ralof will swear up and down that the Thalmor woman's eyes met Jarl Ulfric's for a moment before she turned away.

"Silence!" a woman in Imperial officer's armor shouts. The wagons have stopped, drawn up around a clearing at the base of a tower. Theirs is quiet enough, save for Lokir's insistence that he's not with them and this is all a mistake. Ralof's fellows in some of the others are shouting at their captors, or struggling to get out of their bonds, or threatening what they'll do when they're free, and have to be subdued by more Imperial foot-soldiers. "Step out of your wagon and towards the block when we call your name! One at a time! Anyone who continues their disorderly conduct will be shot! Do I make myself clear?"

The clearing goes silent.

They start calling names.

No one is swinging any axes yet. It's just a roll call. They call Ulfric first, with a murderous snarl in his eyes, and then those of his lieutenants who are present. Johanna, their woman in Whiterun. Thorygg, their man in the Falkreath forest. Then his own name is called, and there's nothing left to do but approach the childhood friend that holds the list, the man whose memory Ralof had tried to drown at the bottom of uncountable bottles.

He can't meet Hadvar's eyes.

Lokir tries to run. The officer means business. It only takes one word for him to be shot through - once, twice, thrice - and crumple to the cobbled street. No one tries to put up a defiant front after that. "Iris Montrose," Hadvar says, and then, "I'm sorry," when it looks like she might fall apart and cry on the spot. "We'll have your remains returned to your family in High Rock." Ralof can tell Hadvar really does feel sorry for her. She's hard not to feel sorry for, with those big doe eyes, that scrawny build. She looks like she could plausibly get out of any sticky situation just by flashing those big eyes and saying please, sir, there must be some mistake, I didn't see anything, I wasn't there, please, please, let me go, I'm innocent.

Ralof doesn't think that will help her now.

The Stormcloaks clump together at the edge of the clearing like hens while General Tullius gloats, as expected. A few of them draw the Montrose girl into the center of their group, trying to hide her. They're about a head taller than her, almost to a man, and it does sort of work.

"For the love of Talos, shut up and let's get this over with," Sorald says, pushing his way to the front, "I haven't got all morning."

The Montrose girl covers her ears, turning away from the block.

There's a sound like a heavy gourd being chopped in two.

Except it's not a gourd.

Sorald's body and head have been parted for barely ten seconds before the officer is pushing his body over and away from the block, with an expression like she's scraping something off the bottom of her gleaming boot. "Montrose! Step up to the block!"

Sniffling, wet-eyed, the Montrose girl slips out from between the Stormcloaks and starts walking up to the block.

Then everything starts going pear-shaped.

As the Montrose girl kneels, slowly, reluctantly, eyes closed, Sorald's blood still coating the headsman's axe, a sound rolls down from the mountains like a massive unknown predator calling to its prey. Then again, closer, clearer. It's the roar of some creature that wants domination and knows it will win. Axe raised, even the headsman looks up, searching for the source.

From behind a hill on the horizon comes a great black winged beast, all spikes and talons and teeth and burning red eyes (gods, Ralof will have nightmares about those eyes), landing on the roof of a tower with an earth-shaking thud. The headsman stumbles and falls, people are screaming, the beast opens its mouth and shrieks and clouds coalesce behind it, sky the ashy grey of a dying campfire, and lumps of rock come out of that sky to crumble the village to bits.

General Tullius is shouting, Imperial arrows are flying, fires are flaring up in the bushes, a building that could be the inn is slowly being crushed from the onslaught of flying stones. It's chaos. Johanna and Thorygg cut their bonds on the blade of the headsman's axe and jump into action, pointing out places that could be safe shelters for other Stormcloaks. Ralof follows their lead, freeing Jarl Ulfric, whose commanding voice makes itself heard to give more orders.

There's too much going on to keep track of the Montrose girl. He and Ulfric duck through the open door of an undamaged tower where a few other Stormcloaks are huddled, nursing wounds or burns or both. "My lord, what in Oblivion is that thing? Aren't monsters like that just a legend?"

"Legends can't burn down villages," Ulfric says, and Ralof feels the little hairs on the back of his neck prickle with primal fear.

There's the sound of crumbling rock from above, the roaring fwoosh of a jet of flame, a cut-off scream. Ulfric and Ralof both look up, but there's no further cave-in. "Go!" Ulfric shouts.

Ralof goes.

Somehow he makes it to the keep. Gunjar is already dead, but Johanna is there too, carrying his axe and a metaphorical torch. "Come on! We need to get out of here before the keep falls in."

They're forced to fight their way out. It never seems to end. First it's a foot-soldier and the female officer, then two more officers in a storeroom, then an Imperial torturer and his assistant. "Think you can pick that lock?" Ralof asks Johanna while he pays respects to a couple of their dead fellows. She shakes her head.

"I was never much good at that."

"Surely you don't work for thieves without picking up some skills."

"I've never worked for them. Officially."

"Right. Officially."

Johanna rolls her eyes.

The keep breaks through into a cave. They pick their way over slippery river-rocks, fight Imperial foot-soldiers and archers on crumbling stone platforms and over bridges. Johanna bashes a few spiders' heads in with a mace, they slip past a cave bear - and then they're out. "I knew we'd make it," Ralof pants, crouching behind a rock in the sunshine. The great black beast is aloft in the distance, riding the air currents in wider and wider circles before he flaps his wings and leans on them to fly behind the mountains and out of sight.

"Do you think Jarl Ulfric made it?" Johanna gasps, from next to him.

"It's Jarl Ulfric. He can find a way out of anything. As for us - " Ralof stands, with some effort. "We should try and find the road."

Chapter 3: Out Of The Frying Pan

(back to top)

It's quiet and still in Helgen Keep. Beyond the entryway alcove is a large round room, taxidermied heads of wildlife mounted high on the wall, next to a heavy banner bearing the Imperial seal. Another man in blue lies slumped on the ground, limbs askew and body limp. "We'll meet again in Sovngarde, brother," Ralof says, solemn. Then he turns to Iris, a little ways behind him. "I think we're the only ones who made it. We should count ourselves lucky."

He beckons, and Iris shuffles forward (closer to the dead man, whom she does not look at) so Ralof can cut her wrists free. His hands are big and rough, deft with the dagger that bites through the rope. There's red marks left behind underneath; she wonders how long her own hands have been bound. The heels of her hands are stinging, scraped up raw. "You could have stuck with Hadvar," he says, non-judgemental. "Why didn't you?"

"You were nice to me. I wasn't supposed to be here. He still sent me to die." Ralof nods.

"That's the Imperial army for you." He sighs, and looks down at the dead man in blue. "You might as well take his gear. No doubt we'll need to fight our way out of here."

Iris' fingers tremble as she works the clasps on the dead man's cuirass. It's too large for her, but it will have to do in a pinch. She secures it over her own clothing as best she can, pulls her cloak back on over the whole affair. There's a belt-loop for a weapon handle; she winces as she takes the hatches out of his stiffening hand.

There's gated doorways on either side of the round room. One is metal, and locked, while the other is little better than a wooden portcullis. Beyond is a long, empty hallway, still air carrying the distant sound of voices and booted footsteps. Iris' hand closes around a strap on Ralof's cuirass, tugs him around the side of the doorway and out of sight as the stern captain and an Imperial soldier appear at the end of that hallway.

Ralof was right - they do have to fight their way out. Rather, Ralof fights their way out, taking on both the captain and the soldier with his own pair of hatchets. Iris makes an attempt to help him, but her failing nerves handicap her. The hatchet feels incredibly wrong in her hand. She has no feel for its heft or how to swing it.

"Not much of a fighter, are you?" Ralof asks, a little out of breath, once the two Imperials are taken care of. Iris can only shake her head and shrug, voice locked up tight in her throat. "It's alright. I've got your back." He rifles through the Imperial captain's pockets, and comes up with a key. "I bet this opens that other gate. Come on, let's get out of here before the dragon brings the whole tower down on our heads."

They head down through the keep, surrounded by cold stone and the rich smell of dirt, down spiral staircases and tightly turning passages. Ralof holds off a couple more soldiers in a storeroom while Iris lets her fingers do the walking, scavenging shelves and barrels for potion bottles and food. (Much to her disappointment, there's no forgotten septims hiding in the cupboard.) Farther along, he passes her a little bundle of metal sticks. "I'm no good at picking locks. Do you think you can get that cage open? It would be good to have the septims later."

Maybe she was a thief by trade, before she ended up in Helgen, because the lock is no chore to open. It might almost be called comically easy. Her fingers move with a mind of their own, twirling one of the picks in the guts of the lock to find its sweet spot and levering the mechanism against itself with a letter opener. Only three pins, she thinks. There's septims and a spellbook on the ground, more coins spilling out of a dead man's pocket. She scoops up the lot, swipes another book with a black cover on an end table and stuffs everything she's carrying into an abandoned knapsack while she catches up to Ralof. "Sticky fingers, eh?" he remarks.

Iris just smiles.

Distant roars and bangs sound from far above as they pass through more rooms and hallways lined with cells and cages. A hole in the wall breaks through into rough-hewn underground tunnels, the elevated braziers at regular intervals belying the continuation of the keep. There's more Imperial soldiers, in a room where stone bridges and platforms cross an underground stream. Iris draws a looted sword (she can't say it feels better to wield than the hatchet; the shield Ralof gave her makes her feel a lot safer) but what she's really interested in are the archers. They take potshots at Ralof from across the room. She wants those arrows.

She can keep them off his back. She can do that much.

They have swords, too.

The force of their blows bash against her shield and she screams, but she figures out she can push back and kick them in the legs and then it gets easier. She gets one of them good in the face with the edge of the shield, slashes through the leather at his sword arm. He can't draw the bow now, forced to swing at her with his off hand, clumsy. Good. She takes the bow and quiver off him once Ralof puts him on the floor.

The dank mineral smell of groundwater fills the cool air around Iris and Ralof as they follow another swift stream through the tunnels, picking their way over slimy, slippery rocks. Where the stream dead-ends, a dry side passage leads into another cavern. Ahead of her, Ralof gasps as something hits him with a wet splat. Iris draws her new longbow as spiders as big as a man descend from the ceiling and scuttle across the floor. The flexible wood and the smooth arrow shafts feel good in her hands as she picks off one spider from the doorway, then a second.

"I hate those things," Ralof says, by way of thanks. "Too many eyes." He watches from a distance as Iris kneels near one, presses gingerly on its fangs to drip venom into a vial she'd found in the pocket of her armor. "Be careful with that stuff." Her fingertips tingle with a feeling like being frostbitten; she rubs them in the dirt before catching up. (Leaving traces on her clothes is no good. She'd be running the risk of Divines-only-know-what contacting it later.)

"You're a good shot," Ralof adds, almost proud, as they make their way down a slope, loose rocks tumbling with each cautious step. "We might make a Stormcloak out of you yet."

"Thanks." She wonders how she hadn't made the connection that the prisoners in blue were the Stormcloaks. She has so many questions. Now isn't the time to ask them.

The caverns under Helgen Keep stretch on. The little rushing stream they'd had to wet their feet in makes a reappearance, cascading down through what had previously looked to be a solid wall. There's plenty of dry ground here. The stream runs under and past their feet in a ditch which Ralof crosses in a single long stride and Iris has to make a little leaping hop over. Wooden detritus litters the cave floor to their right, shards of crate slats scattered like divining tools. Ahead of the scraps are large bones. Ralof squats down to examine one. It hasn't been picked completely clean. "Came from some animal," he says. Iris holds out a hand to shush him, eyes up and ahead. Over the hollow sound of the wind and the bubbling of the stream comes a snorting, snuffling noise. It's the sighing of some beast at rest. It doesn't sound big enough to be the black dragon, or angry enough to be a troll. Ralof stands as quietly as he can, and together they creep past the snoring cave bear some distance away.

Stealth seems to come to Iris a good deal better than Ralof. He winces when a step crunches a bit too loud in the dirt, has to focus to make each one light and slow. He watches Iris stop to judge where best to place her feet amidst a cluster of large stones, and follows in her footsteps. It's not much longer before they're around the bend and out of sight. At the end of a twisting, sloping tunnel is daylight, pouring in through a gap in the stones, and cool relief washes over both of them as they scramble through it and into the sunshine.

After the dimness of the caverns, the noontime sun reflecting off the snow is almost blinding. They must be high up in the foothills.

Pine needles shower the ground and the two of them with snow as Ralof motions Iris down behind an outcropping of rock. The great black dragon is circling wider and wider overhead. They watch as he rides the air currents, flaps his wings and leans on them to fly over the mountains and out of sight. "Looks like he's gone for good," Ralof says. "We'd better keep moving. The Imperials are going to catch our trail soon enough."

For the first time since she awoke, Iris feels directionless. Events out of her control have ceased. She can go wherever and do whatever she wants, and she doesn't know a thing about Skyrim. She'd be hopelessly lost in no time. "Where do we go?" she manages to ask.

"Riverwood should be just up the road. My sister runs the mill. I'm sure she wouldn't mind having a few unexpected visitors."

Chapter 4: The Lumber Mill

(back to top)

The day is warm and full of opportunity as Iris heads down the road towards Riverwood with Ralof. She's glad to be rid of the tension and regret that had settled into her bones. Instead she feels only curious appreciation. "Is all of Skyrim like this?" she asks.

"Like what?"

"Pine trees. Hills. Snow." She spreads her hands out, attempting to contain the majesty of the landscape with a gesture.

"Not all of it. But to her people, it's all beautiful." Ralof smiles down at her - and it is truly down. He's about the same height as his Stormcloak comrades, as Jarl Ulfric, as even most of the Imperial soldiers. The top of her head barely reaches his shoulder. She hadn't noticed before, in the hectic rush of escape.

"What else is there?"

And so it is that Iris first becomes acquainted with the vast diverse geography of Skyrim. Ralof tells her about each of its holds as they walk a twisting dirt path that joins up with the cobbled road - the stinking swamps of Hjaalmarch, the wide-open plains of Whiterun, the autumnal birch forests of the Rift. He explains the concept of jarls, names and describes each one, save for Ulfric of Windhelm. "You should visit the palace, once you've got your feet under you. If anyone will know what that dragon showing up means, it's Ulfric Stormcloak."

"What's - what's the voice?"

Ralof's expression darkens somewhat with anger. He's not mad at her. The context in which she heard the term is quite enough to be mad at. "When Kynareth created the Nords at the Throat of the World, she left a little bit of wind-magic in all of us." It's an oversimplification one might tell a child, or a foreigner. "If you channel that magic just right, you can speak in the old language of the dragons and do very powerful things. It takes a lot of training. Almost any Nord can use that magic if they want, but it takes someone very special to learn more than the basics. Jarl Ulfric studied the Way of the Voice for almost a decade."

"What's the Throat of the World?" Ralof's stride is long; Iris is struggling a little to keep up, although he's making an effort to match her pace. The longbow and shield feel good on her back, feel like safety. The Imperial sword in its scabbard and her quiver of arrows wobble against her thighs with every step. She's happy to let Ralof do the brunt of the talking. Not only is her face still throbbing, it feels most natural to stay reserved.

"It's the tallest mountain in all of Tamriel. The Greybeards live in a monastery right below the summit. If someone wants to learn the Way of the Voice, that's where they go."

"Do you think they'd teach me, if I wanted to learn?"

They walk on, with the landscape spread out to their left, all sunshine and hills covered with conifers, and Ralof says, "I don't know. You're Breton, aren't you?"

Iris thinks about this for a while, whether she feels Breton or not. She's still thinking about it when Ralof stops on the road, pointing out a row of triangular arches high up on a hill. "See that, up there? That's Bleak Falls Barrow. It's the ruins of an old, old Nord tomb. There's dozens of others like it all over Skyrim. I never understood why our family decided to live in the shadow of a place like that." He stares at the barrow for a moment longer, thoughts far away.

Iris stares, too. The view of the barrow from between the trees is foreboding. The mountain peak it juts out from is dark, coated in snow, even in such nice weather as this. (Perhaps too nice to wear a black cloak, but in this wide new world, it's the only familiar thing she can cling to.) "Coming?" Ralof calls, from down the path, and she runs to catch up.

The barrow isn't much to look at, but what it represents is far more important - freedom, knowledge, and best of all, opportunity, a goal. Iris understands that she is - or at least, is perceived to be - fragile, has little skill with bladed weapons, probably needs protection like a child. She still wants to go up to the barrow in the dead of night and explore its passages. Maybe there's some hidden treasure, a nugget of gold to reward her diligence. The immorality of raiding what is, by all accounts, an ancient family tomb is lost on her.

Down the hill, three conical stones sit on a platform overlooking a sparkling lake, and Ralof stops again to wait for her. "There's thirteen stones like this all around Skyrim," he says. "They have some kind of connection to Aetherius. These three are the Guardian Stones."

The Guardians - Warrior, Thief, and Mage - the major constellations of Tamriel. A stone somewhere in Skyrim for each Guardian's charge. "Go on," Ralof says softly, "Have a look," and he nudges her shoulder with his elbow, watches her walk up to the Guardian Stones.

The stone platform is laced with tree roots, and Iris has to watch her step as she approaches the three stones. They're taller than even Ralof. Two wide rings of metal encircle them at about the top third of their height, above and below a wide bore clear through which itself has a decorative metal ring encircling it. Both metal and stone are covered in swirling, meandering etched patterns. All three are the same, save for the constellation carved into the front. A warrior with armor and axe and shield, a bearded magician with a staff surrounded by swirling magical currents, a cloaked and running thief clutching a coinpurse.

The Thief is calling to her, beckoning to her with its figure in motion and its purse full of septims. She reaches towards it, cautious, and pauses.

"Do they... do something. If you touch them?"

"I hear they can give you powers," Ralof says. "Help you get better at fighting, let you turn invisible. Things like that."

So instead of the Thief, Iris lays her hand on the Mage stone.

She gasps as something sizzles through her muscles, something hot and powerful bursting under her skin. It trickles down her arms like rivulets of water, pools and heats in her fingertips, and she snatches her hand away like she's touched hot coals. Slowly, the etchings in the stone begin to glow, a bright bluish-white that traces the Mage constellation over top of the wizard. The swirled etchings at the top of the cone are glowing, too. A sphere of that bright energy collects in the stone's bore, shooting a narrow beam of light into the blue sky. She watches the light twinkle and shimmer for a minute or two until it dies away. Something is pleased with her choice, beyond.

"Mage, eh? Well, to each their own." Ralof's voice is quiet behind her, even a little dismissive. "Come on. We're almost to Riverwood."

The road ahead snakes down the hill on hairpin turns. A river flows downhill alongside them, cascading and splashing over too-large stones that attempt to stand in its way. A pack of wolves howl from up the hill to their right, barely audible over the rushing current. They're too far away to pose any great harm.

"Was that supposed to be an insult?"

"Ah - well, Nords are suspicious of magic at best." Ralof looks at her sidelong, as if to confirm his own opinion is thrown in with the majority. "Healers are all well and good, but don't go around raising the dead or you'll be losing some trust. Especially with the Stormcloaks."

(Does she even know magic? Aside from picking locks, she has no idea where her own talents lie.)

A mossy stone wall with a covered walkway atop it denotes the border of a town, nestled alongside the banks of the rushing river and surrounded by pines. There's a sign for a blacksmith up ahead, its unseen proprietor bending hot metal to their whims; an old woman attempts to tell her son about a dragon. "It was as big as the mountain, and as black as night! It flew right over the barrow!"

"Mother, dragons haven't been seen for hundreds of years."

A water wheel churns away, powering the blade of a lumber mill that splits logs with a series of deafening cracks. In the adjoining side yard, a blonde woman in a green dress is chopping firewood with easy efficiency. "Gerdur!" Ralof says, and the blonde woman nearly drops her hatchet in surprise.

"Ralof! Mara's mercy, it's good to see you."

Iris hangs back near a towering pile of firewood as the two of them embrace in a relieved hug. Gerdur is thinner than her brother, hair the deep gold of fresh-minted septims. Over the noise of the lumber mill, Iris can't hear the conversation. The way Gerdur is looking over her brother as if he might be hurt, she can guess it has something to do with their escape.

"Who's this?" Gerdur asks, looking around Ralof. "She's a little... young for a Stormcloak, isn't she?"

Iris averts her gaze, kicks at the ground with the toe of her boot. "She's no Stormcloak," Ralof answers for her. "Maybe some day down the road. Is there somewhere quieter we can talk?"

The side yard continues past one end of the mill, where the massive split logs pile themselves haphazardly on the ground. There's several huge tree stumps here, and Ralof collapses down onto one in a way that suggests immense weariness on his feet. Iris sits much more tentatively, drawing the cloak around herself as if she could disappear into it.

"Uncle Ralof!" A little blond boy, dog at his heels, runs up to them with childish eagerness. Ralof smiles, ruffles the boy's hair, trying not to let his exhaustion show. "Can I see your axe? How many Imperials have you killed? Do you really know Ulfric Stormcloak?"

(Is it normal for children in Skyrim to be so blunt about murder?)

"I'll tell you later, Frodnar," Ralof says, still trying to take the child in stride. "Right now your mother and I need to talk."

"Hey! Girl!" Frodnar says, all enthusiasm with nothing to temper it. "Are you a Stormcloak, too? Are you one of Uncle Ralof's friends? Why's your face all bloody?"

"Hush. Not right now," Gerdur cuts in. "Can you come find us if you see any Imperial soldiers coming up the south road?"

"Aw, but I wanna stay and talk with Uncle Ralof."

"It wouldn't be any fun if the soldiers sneak up on him, right?" Iris offers, and the child brightens up with determination.

"Oh, right! Don't worry, Uncle Ralof, I'll make sure they don't get you!" and he runs off, dog barking the whole way.

"What's going on?" A man joins them from the mill, which has fallen silent, hair pulled back in a horsetail. "You two look pretty done in."

"I can't remember when I last slept," Ralof says, weariness returning to him all at once. "Where do I even start?"

His sister and the man who could be their husband listen with disbelief as Ralof spins the tale of an ambush two days prior in Darkwater Crossing, the stop in Helgen for execution, the appearance of the black dragon.

"You don't mean a real, live..."

"I can hardly believe it myself, and I was there. We'd be dead if not for him."

"And what about her?" Gerdur turns to Iris, who's hardly been listening. The river forks here, one side running past the mill and under the water wheel, while the other separates the four of them from a sheer rocky hill. A waterfall flows down it, sparkling in the light. She could watch it for hours.

"What about me?"

"Ralof said you're not a Stormcloak. How did you get tangled up in this, wearing Stormcloak armor?"

"I - I don't know."

The silence is deafening. Iris wants to shrivel up on the spot, the way she's being stared at. "I woke up in a wagon. I don't - " She struggles to articulate the complete depth of empty memory with words, the vast chasm where something should be. "I remember - a gate? And a road, and snow."

"She wasn't part of the ambush," Ralof supplies gently. "We picked her up later, at the Imperial camp in the Rift. Her nose had been broken already." He pauses here for a second, voice softening even farther, addressing Iris directly. "You tried to fight back. One of the Imperials threw you in the wagon and knocked you out."

"The bastards," Gerdur spits.

So that's why it's been a little hard to focus. She's surprised her head doesn't hurt fit to burst by now.

"I'd hate to put Hod and Frodnar in danger, but... maybe we can lay up here for a while, wait for this to blow over."

"The two of you are welcome to stay here as long as you need. Let me worry about the Imperials. Any friend of Ralof's is a friend of mine," she tells Iris, with a reassuring smile.

Late in the afternoon finds Iris sitting by the hearth in Gerdur and Hod's little home, letting Gerdur patiently comb the tangles out of her hair. She'd bathed in the invigorating chill of the river, scrubbed the dried blood off her face while Gerdur took a horsehair brush to her muddy clothes.

"You know, you really do look Breton, but your hair is so thick, like a Nord's." Gerdur frowns as the teeth of the comb catch in a knot, picking at it until it comes loose. "Nice and red, too. Like autumn."

"Is it?"

"When's the last time you had a look at yourself?" Gerdur asks, her manner indicating curious concern. "Do you remember anything else, besides the gate to Pale Pass?" she prods, when there's no answer. "Anything about where you came from, or where you were going?"

Iris shakes her head, slowly, thoughtfully, drops of water trickling down the headrest of her chair. "Um... no." Whatever destination she'd had in mind when she crossed the border is similarly lost in the vast chasm of missing memory. "East, somewhere?" That feels right. She tries to focus on that in hopes of attaching it to something more definitive. The comb pulls again in her hair and she winces, disturbing whatever might have been like ripples on a clear pond.

"Mama, do other Bretons have a lot of freckles, too?" Frodnar reaches up to poke her cheek. His finger is cold and clammy, like it's been in fish guts, or mud.

"I don't know. Delphine doesn't have any. Neither does Belethor. But you can't assume anything from two people."

"Who are they?" Iris asks.

"Delphine's the innkeeper at the Sleeping Giant down the road - Frodnar, stop that - and Belethor has a shop in Whiterun."

There's a strange, comfortable sort of intimacy having her hair combed in front of the fire. Like family. Ralof and Hod are murmuring in the background about the trade route to Riften being cut off and the possible effect on supply lines, Gerdur is taking a scissors to her hair and tutting about how "someone did an awful job cutting this, such a shame", and Frodnar is trying to get her to talk about the dragon. She wonders if her own family was like this.

She wonders if they're going to miss her, wherever they are.

"Something wrong, love?"

Gerdur folds her arms over herself under her bosom. The sun's starting to go down over the hills, and the breeze blowing over the river's surface is a cold one. She draws closer to her husband as he shakes out a match, takes a slow puff off his olivewood pipe. The tobacco is imported; whether this batch came from High Rock or Cyrodiil hardly matters. What matters is that Hod's pipe is packed with the last of it, and there's no knowing when Lucan will come by more, or if Hod will have the coin when it does. Gerdur reaches for the pipe and takes a puff of the pale, fragrant smoke for herself.

"It's that girl Ralof brought with him. Iris."

"Aye? What about her?"

"It's not just that she doesn't remember how she got to Skyrim. The poor thing doesn't know why she's here." Gerdur leans into her husband's side, head against his shoulder as he puts an arm around her.

"Did she tell you where she's from?"

Gerdur shakes her head, solemn. "It sounds like everything is gone."

"Everything?" Hod becomes solemn, too. The two of them stand there in silence, leaning against the wall of her home, sharing a pipe, until Hod speaks up again.

"What about her age? Even Ralof thinks she could hardly be older than sixteen."

"Eighteen at the youngest," Gerdur counters. "About as old as Camilla, I'd say."

"There's no taking her in, then."

"No. She's the wandering type."

"Do you think she'd be willing to go up to Whiterun for us? There's not near enough guards here, with a dragon about."

"Maybe. I'll see what she thinks in the morning."

Ralof has already gone to bed when Gerdur and Hod come back inside. Stump looks up at them from under the table, wagging tail smacking against a chair leg. The fire is still going in the hearth, the redheaded Breton girl still in her chair in front of it. There's a book with a black cover on the floor by her feet, as if it had slipped out of her lap. The sight is so poignant it makes Gerdur stop still, hand at her aching heart.

"I think she's asleep," Frodnar whispers from the dining room table. It's an exaggeration of a whisper, a little too loud to be surreptitious to anyone except sleepers. "Don't worry, I made sure she ate something first, cause you always tell me not to go to bed without eating." He smiles with pride.

"That a boy," Hod whispers back, ruffling his son's hair. "Why don't you go play outside with Stump and Dorthe?"

Frodnar leaves to find his friend, and asleep by the hearth, Iris dreams of fire, hazy shifting dreams of power and greed and destruction. The wheel of time turns upon the Last Dragonborn - and so too does it turn upon two men in the east, each very different from the other, both hoping their luck will begin to change.

Chapter 5: The Journal

(back to top)

Author's Note: This chapter contains excerpts from The Book of the Dragonborn and Line and Lure.

It's the small hours of the morning when Iris wakes in an unfamiliar place for the second time.

For a moment, panic grips her heart, before she realizes she's safe. She's in someone's house this time. There's furs over her lap to keep her war. The house around her is rustic, a longhouse made of stones and heavy wooden beams. Layers upon layers of thatch make up the ceiling. A massive fish with a hooked jaw is prominently displayed on a plaque over the hearth. Chunks of firewood are stacked in an iron kettle; bunches of herbs hang from the eaves over a table piled with produce and bread and cheese and some extinguished candles. She'd fallen asleep in a chair, in the indistinct pool of light cast by the hearth, unfed and burnt down to cinders. Between her own feet and the foot of the hearth is a hardback book, sprawled open like it had fallen. Was she reading this last night?

- evidence that Reman Cyrodiil was descended from Alessia, although there are many legends that would make it so, most of them dating from the time of Reman and likely attempts to legitimize his rule. We know that the Blades, usually thought of as the Emperor's bodyguards, originated in Akaviri crusaders who -

Maybe this will be more interesting when she's more awake.

The sun isn't up yet outside. Nothing stirs except thin branches swaying in the barest breeze, and Iris wandering down the road through Riverwood.

Tucked away next to Gerdur and Hod's is the Bosmer's house. She'd seen him carrying a pile of firewood off to the blacksmith yesterday, bow still strapped to his back, quiver crammed with steel-tipped arrows. And here is the blacksmith's itself, occupying the side porch of his house. The fuel in the forge is still red-hot. Ingots are stacked neatly under a bench, ripe for the taking if she chose to, with no one around.

The knapsack she'd taken from the keep is full of all kinds of useful things. She hadn't looked through it properly before. A dagger, another handful of lockpicks, extra potion bottles, a roll of leather, and best of all two parcels of food wrapped in brown paper. The base is starting to wear a touch thin, but there's plenty of life - and space - in it yet.

Across the way is the Riverwood Trader. They probably aren't open. She could break in, and no one would be the wiser. She's running light on septims. They might not have a strongbox, way out in the woods like this.

Much to her dismay and surprise, the door is unlocked.

"Well, one of us has to do something!"

A dark-haired woman in a brown dress is lighting candles stuffed into goat horns around the room, arguing with a man behind the counter. Neither of them have noticed her. Their accents are familiar, more even-toned. Imperials, Iris decides.

"I said no! No adventures, no theatrics, no thief-chasing!"

"What are you going to do about it, then, huh?"

"We are done talking about this." The woman glares at the man as she shakes out her last match, sits sulking at the table by the fireplace. The door hinge squeaks at the last second, and the man turns to Iris, grasping the knob behind her back. "Oh, a customer. Sorry you had to hear that."

Iris walks up to the counter, lets him tell her the story of the shop's ransacking by thieves and the stealing of the Valerius siblings' prized golden dragon claw, and promptly decides she'll come back later.

On the riverbank next to the bridge out of town is a bait box, and a fishing rod. It is customary in Skyrim, a journal propped up against the box says, to leave fishing supplies by waters where the fish are plentiful. Might as well save her coin and keep this fishing rod, then. The rest of it expounds on technique, location, the time of day when certain fish might be caught. None of it holds her interest. She puts it to one side, scoops out a bait fish from the box to skewer on the hook.

Either she's not good at fishing, or the fish aren't biting this morning. She spends about an hour on the bank, watching the sun rise over the hill and trying (and failing) to remember anything she can. All she catches are a young salmon and a sickly purple fish that's far too small to eat. She wraps them both up in more brown paper from the bait box and stands, shuffles down the bank.

Her reflection in the water's surface, broken and reassembled and broken again, seems too young and yet too world-weary. How old is she? Where might features like hers fit in? She has the rich hair and high cheekbones of all the Nords around her, but her eyes are too big, her face too round. It might be wholly unremarkable without the freckles. Not an inch of skin is devoid of them. Her eyes are greenish-brown, nearly gold at the right angle, the kind of eyes a naive young farm boy might think are exotic. Gerdur's efforts on her hair hadn't been for nothing; deep red locks have been neatly trimmed into one thick layer brushing her shoulders. How long had they been, before her capture? Down to her bosom? Her elbows? Had someone taken a knife to a fastidious braid, tossed her handiwork into the mud? She tucks an errant section behind her ear, and wonders. There are innumerable things to wonder, but one thing she does know for certain. There was somewhere she meant to go, before Helgen, and she intends to remember it.

Lastly, we come to the question of the true meaning of being Dragonborn. The connection with dragons is so obvious that it has almost been forgotten - in these days when dragons are a distant memory, we forget that in the early days being Dragonborn meant having 'the dragon blood'. Some scholars believe that was meant quite literally, although the exact significance is not know. The Nords tell tales of Dragonborn heroes who were great dragonslayers, able to steal the power of the dragons they killed. Indeed, it is well known that the Akaviri sought out and killed many dragons during their invasion, and there is some evidence that this continued after they became Reman Cyrodiil's Dragonguard (again, the connection to dragons) - the direct predecessor to the Blades of today.

"Hey. You okay?"

Iris flinches hard when someone touches her knee. The other woman doesn't so much as recoil. She's middle-aged, with the same rounded face, blonde flyaway hairs backlit by the inn's fire pit. Her eyes are piercing, intensely bluish-grey, the color of the sky before a storm blows in. When she does take her hand away, the sensation of the touch remains like a ghost.

"Y - yeah. Why?"

"You looked awfully lonely, that's all." The woman stands from a crouch, picks up the broom leaning against the table. "We don't get many visitors. Ends up being my business to keep track of 'em." She starts taking the broom to the flagstones near Iris' feet with a harsh dry whisking sound. "I've got a room free, if you're staying the night. Wouldn't want you sleeping out in the woods or something."

Iris shakes her head. This must be Delphine, the Breton innkeeper. "I have somewhere."

"Suit yourself." She gives Iris a shrewd look. "You eaten breakfast yet?" The way she asks, it really feels like she already knows the answer. Iris shakes her head again and Delphine puts down her broom, leaves and returns with a warm chunk of bread and a cold bottle of ale. "On the house, okay?" she says with a smile.

"Oh. Thanks."

"No problem. You're still getting your feet under you, and supplies don't come cheap these days. I'm not here to swindle the naive."

Iris wants to ask how she knew such a thing, but Delphine is already walking away.

The blacksmith's starting his day when she re-emerges, and is kind enough to give her some coin for a spare longbow, although he won't take the sword. "Keep it. You can't always rely on a bow out there. What you really need is a camp, and maybe a new backpack." He stops briefly to write her up a materials list - mostly firewood and leather - and sends her on her way. "I'm a mite busy right now - " and sparks fly off the grinding-wheel as he speaks, axe-blade held fast against it. "I can help you put all that together if you come back later."

Her next stop is the Riverwood Trader, where the prices on the catalog make her wince. "It's the war," Lucan complains, "Makes everything harder to come by. Especially good quality weapons. We're lucky we have our own blacksmith." There's only four backpacks in stock, all of which make the coin in her pocket seem paltry by comparison.

"Alvor said he could help me make one," Iris says, tapping the entry for one with her forefinger, and Lucan nods.

"Sure, sure. Except you need corundum, for the buckles and whatnot, and that doesn't come cheap. If he doesn't have any, you're out of luck."

Alvor hadn't had any, so Iris heads back to Gerdur's house, yawning. Hod isn't home. In the expansive side yard, Gerdur is supervising her son milking the family cow, streams of milk spurting rhythmically against the side of a metal bucket. "There you are! Wait here a moment, okay? I have something for you."

Food and shelter are one thing. Iris is very grateful for that, in a province and a culture she's still familiarizing herself with. The leather-bound journal Gerdur gives her goes beyond those basics. Its cover is embossed with a mighty eagle, wings spread, feet reaching for its prey. The pages are crisp and stiff when she fans through them. At the top of each one is a date: '7th Sun's Dawn', '18th Midyear', '12th Heartfire'. "I bought this from the traveling Khajiit merchants a long time ago, but it's just sat in the drawer ever since. I thought it might help your memory."

"Oh," Iris says, "Thank you." She holds the journal in both hands, and is touched. It's the first new thing she's come to own that's fully hers. She sits down in the grass, in the warm morning sun, to reflect on her new acquisition.

Owning things is nice. It's a reminder that she can belong here. Anyone can belong here, if they want to. She could wander to her heart's content across the landscape, learn magic, fight crime, or settle down anywhere she pleases. The world is her oyster. She still wants to know what came before, to remember what she's forgotten, but that doesn't mean any of it will have any bearing on her choices to come. She can choose to do whatever she wants. Owning things is nice, and seeing the world is nice, and people's kindnesses are nice.

Iris suspects owning things she didn't come by honestly will be nicer still.

TO DO

Speak to High Priestess Danica at the temple of Kynareth in Whiterun

Speak to Jarl Balgruuf the Greater on behalf of Riverwood

"What's Jarl Balgruuf like?"

Iris' new hawk-feather quill works furiously over the page for the 18th of Last Seed in the beam of light shining over Gerdur and Hod's dining-table.

"He's a good warrior, and devoted to Whiterun Hold. I hear he and Jarl Ulfric have been rivals since they were children." The corners of Gerdur's mouth pinch together with apprehension. "He's not known for his patience, and neither is his housecarl. The more direct you are, the better." She fiddles with the band of her wedding ring for a few moments, twirling it back and forth on her finger. "I don't mean to be disrespectful - he's ruled the hold well for years - but he seems in over his head, with the war. He's been trying to stay neutral, but it can't last. I'm afraid someone will force his hand, and he'll make the wrong choice."

Iris says nothing. They both understand what a Stormcloak loyalist means when they speak of the wrong choice. The quill scribbles some more, keeping up well with Gerdur as she speaks - impatient, Ulfric's rival, neutral on the war. (After a moment's contemplation, she crosses out the word war and writes rebellion instead.)

"Even so, it's hard to believe he would choose Elisif over Ulfric."

"Elisif, the Jarl of Haafingar?"

"Aye. She married High King Torygg just before Ulfric killed him. I don't have anything against her. It's not her fault Torygg was paid for by the Empire, and she seems like a sweet woman. But she's only a puppet. The Empire supports her claim to be High Queen of Skyrim." There's no hate or even dislike in Gerdur's tone. It's perfectly level, totally neutral. "The Moot won't meet to choose another High King - or Queen - until the war is over. Ulfric is the rightful High King, and he'll make sure a Jarl is all Elisif will ever be." Iris' big eyes take in every word she says with the utmost seriousness. Professional, even.

"What's the way to Whiterun from here?"

"Ah, right, I almost forgot." Gerdur crosses the room to a chest of drawers and returns with a long roll of parchment, a bit tattered around the edges. "You'd do well to have a map, if you intend to do much traveling." She unfurls it on the table with a quick flick. Thick red lines mark out the approximate boundaries of each hold, their capitals indicated by crests - a triskel for Morthal, the head of a bear for Windhelm, crossed daggers for Riften. 'Province of Skyrim', the map declares in the bottom left corner, '4E 182, Nataly Dravarol, cartographer'.

(And here's a curiosity. Gerdur had bought the journal from wandering merchants, presumably ones that only cross Skyrim. The embossed eagle on its cover matches none of the crests on this map.)

Iris' gaze wanders to Riften's crest. Ralof had said she'd been picked up in the Rift. Did she mean to go to Riften? What could she have wanted to go there for? Pale Pass straddles Cyrodiil's border with Falkreath Hold. The map gives little to no sense of scale. She could have been on the road from Cyrodiil for hours, or days. "Pass the Sleeping Giant and cross the bridge out of town," Gerdur is saying, finger tracing the road out of Riverwood on the map, and Iris snaps her attention back. "The north road follows the river to Whiterun. You'll see Dragonsreach on its hill as you reach the falls."

"Alvor said he could help me make camp supplies." Iris' quill works again - north road from Riverwood.

"Did he now? That would be a good thing to have. You won't need it for this. Even if you leave in the afternoon, you'll reach Whiterun before dark." Gerdur pauses a moment, releases the map, which spools itself shut. "You don't need to go right away, you know."

"Mm-hm." Iris nods.

They both know she will.

Chapter 6: Message to Whiterun

(back to top)

Over at the lumber mill, Faendal watches Iris split firewood. The task comes to the millworkers a fair bit easier; Iris' motions are slower, jerkier. He stops her now and then to gently adjust her stance or her grip on the axe until those motions become fluid. "See, you don't need help. If you can draw a bow, you can swing a hatchet."

"Now, these things aren't very durable," Alvor warns her, while they wait for solid animal fat and precious beeswax to liquefy in a pot over the forge. "You can only really set them up once, so save it for when you're way out in the wilderness. Understood?" He looks over at her trying to saw the firewood into planks. She's too short to do it properly. "No, let me - don't hurt yourself. Here, you deal with the leather."

"Heading out already?" Hod asks, while Gerdur dusts her hands clean on her apron, opens and closes drawers and folds things up in brown paper. The box of camp supplies on its rudimentary sledge sits by the front door, extra firewood piled inside. Stump leans up against Iris' legs, asking for headpats; Ralof writes a letter to give to the next courier to pass through town, addressed to Jarl Ulfric of Windhelm. "You be safe out there. See if you can't get that cuirass nipped in a little at Warmaiden's."

"Warmaiden's?"

"The blacksmith in Whiterun," Gerdur responds. "Adrianne works the forge, and her husband Ulfberth runs the shop. If you ask me, she's biased to the Empire - "

"How could she not be? Isn't she Imperial?" Hod interjects. Gerdur ignores him.

" - but she does good work, and she'll usually do leather alterations for free. Here."

Iris eyes the offered parcel. "You don't have to - ..."

"It's not much. Some herbs from the pantry, that dress you borrowed. I couldn't let you go off to hold court with a Jarl underdressed for the occasion."

"Speaking of Jarls," Ralof says, "Gave any thought to whether you'll see Ulfric?"

"Not yet," Iris says.

"You should. He and Galmar are true Nords, tough and hard-headed. They'll take anyone as fierce as they are." He looks up from his writing and smiles at her. "I think you've got what it takes."

Iris strongly hesitates to agree.

It's a bit past four in the afternoon when she waves goodbye to Gerdur and Hod and Ralof, Alvor the blacksmith and even Delphine, sweeping the porch of the Sleeping Giant, and leaves the sleepy village behind for the big city.

Iris takes a moment coming down the hill from Riverwood to absorb the sounds of the woods - tranquil birdsong, distant howling of wolves, occasional rustling of foliage in a summer breeze. Over a bank ahead is a hill jutting up from the plains, perfectly framed between the pines. There's something odd about it. She tries to make out any details through the slight afternoon haze, and realizes it's a building. One single, massive building. Funny spur-like things jut out from the tiered roof.

There's another howl, closer, from up the hill to her left. It's a lone wolf, separated from its pack. It hasn't seen her. Her mouth is dry from nerves as she nocks an arrow, desperately trying to keep it that way. Something causes it to turn - a shift in the wind, maybe - and she's silently praying it still hasn't seen her up until the moment it begins to snarl and she knows it has.

She doesn't want to hurt it.

The arrow is already loose. It sticks in the wolf's flank and it makes a piteous whine, and limps away.

It would have tried to eat her, she rationalizes, trembling. She didn't want to hurt it but it would have tried to eat her. Alvor had told her wolves are savage things in Skyrim, unafraid to chase down any traveler, no matter how well-armored. Wolves are okay to not give mercy to.

This line of thought does little to calm her nerves.

Dappled, lengthening shadows of the forest give way to the open, hilly plains, grass crisping and browning among the wild heather. To her right, the falls rush down and down and down, before mellowing out and passing under a bridge on their way to the far-off sea. It's not especially hot out, what with the setting sun painting the sky in pastel pink and orange, but the air is sticky like treacle. By the time she reaches the pair of buildings on the outskirts of Whiterun, she's broken into a light sweat.

Iris can't believe her luck when the establishment turns out to be a meadery. It's cool and dark, a welcome respite from the heat. There's no one in the taproom. She takes the opportunity to peruse the contents of a shelf by the door where books are stacked haphazardly atop each other, copies of The Firsthold Revolt and The Real Barenziah - Book the Fourth, Gods and Worship and Vernaccus and Bourlor and The Great War. She might do well to brush up on history. A concise account of the Great War between the Empire and the Aldmeri Dominion, the front flyleaf proclaims, by Legate Justianus Quintius - an incredibly Imperial name if ever she's heard one. A door at the other end of the room clicks open as she finishes fitting the book into her knapsack, and she affects her best innocent just-passing-through expression as she walks up to the bar.

The proprietor - a middle-aged man, balding and slightly unpleasant - introduces himself as Sabjorn. He has the kindness (or perhaps it's only business sense) to offer her a taster of mead in a little wooden cup. "Honningbrew Meadery uses only the finest honey," he says with what might be pride, "not that sludge you'll find at Goldenglow Estate." The mead tastes vaguely of lavender. It's fine. She's not paying much attention to quality and is frankly too thirsty to care. "My goodness, dear, you look exhausted," Sabjorn says, trying to affect concern but landing closer to condescension. "Please, take all the time you need to catch your breath." (And to drink his mead, she assumes. She has more important things to do, and better places to slake her thirst.) "Are you headed to Whiterun?" She nods, a little weakly. "Don't worry. The Bannered Mare always seems to have a room available for travelers."

She thinks there's an insult in there somewhere. She hopes that doesn't mean The Bannered Mare is subpar. Maybe Sabjorn just has higher standards. This late in the day she's taking whatever she can get.

The road to Whiterun passes by several farms, some with men and women out working the fields to make use of the last shreds of daylight. As Iris passes one, an object goes flying end-over-end over the fence, almost tumbling into the road. It's a massive crude club, no better than a large rock affixed to the end of a tree branch. A trio of people are visible through the fence, well-armored, weapons in hand, standing over a huge figure in the middle of the field. Its collapse has crushed some crops; it seems like they're talking about how best to get it out without doing more damage. Iris doesn't stop to watch. She doesn't know who these people are, but she doesn't need or want to. All three seem more than capable of cutting her entire body in half, and she's not sticking around to find out if they would care to try.

At the heavy stone gate to the city, a pair of blazing braziers illuminate two massive banners in white and goldenrod-yellow, bearing the goats-head crest of Whiterun. Rasping Khajiiti voices rise from a camp outside the walls, just as a column of pale smoke rises from their cookpot. The fortifications don't stop at one gate. The road twists and turns up the contours of a small hill, flanked by multiple guard towers and their torch-carrying patrols. By the time she crosses a lowered drawbridge, Iris is beginning to feel very small, and very watched.

"Halt!" A guard shouts, from a closed and barred pair of gates ahead.

Iris halts.

The guard approaches her with his torch. A helm covers his face; there's a scabbard at his hip. The long length of fabric draped over his cuirass is the same shade of goldenrod yellow as the city's banner. (It's incredibly similar to the uniform worn by the prisoners at Helgen, save for the color.) "Do you have official business in Whiterun? Gates are closed to tourists, with a dragon about?"

The guard isn't especially intimidating - he certainly seems capable, if she tries anything out of line - but Iris feels intimidated anyway. "I - " she stammers. The guard is waiting patiently for a reply. She did have an answer, right? "I - I came from Riverwood."

"Yes? What about Riverwood?"

"It's - they need help, from the Jarl."

"And you were sent to audience with him?" She nods. "Jarl Balgruuf stops holding court at sundown. You'd better go in and get a room for the night. The Bannered Mare's at the end of the road."

"Thank you, sir," Iris says. To her own ears, it sounds incredibly shy. She really thought she had more confidence than this.

The guard escorts her up to the gate, lifts the huge bar with ease and watches her put what feels like her entire body weight against it until it opens enough for her to slip through. "Good luck," he says, just before the gate closes with a wobbling bang.

There's a flock of crows in front of the Bannered Mare. Quite a large flock, in fact. Some of them perch on the edge of the well, a few are sitting brazenly on the counter of a market stall, a few more on the signpost (one even bends to peck at it, sending it swinging), and several sitting on the front steps. There are so many on the steps they're blocking the way. Iris flaps her hands at them, as one does with birds. "Shoo." Nothing happens. One of the crows ruffles up a little bit, settling. She thinks it's indignant. When she tries to walk up the steps anyway, one of them pecks at her ankle. "Ow! Go away."

One of the crows on the market stall squawks, and several of its fellows begin to raucously join in as the birds on the steps push their bodies against Iris' legs. "What? What do you want?" Stupid crows. They're shoving her towards the stall, making an immense ruffling-feathers sound, and she has no choice but to go where they want or get tripped.

The counter of the market stall is covered in glass-topped display cases, each full of different bits of jewelry - necklaces, lockets, rings. As Iris approaches the stall, one of the crows looks up. She feels a little ripple of unease when its beady eye meets hers, and it extends something clasped in its beak, something shiny and silver. Tentatively, she holds out a hand. The crow drops this something into it -

And there's a cacophony of wingbeats as all the crows take flight out of the market at once.

They just wanted to give her something?

She looks down at what was dropped into her palm, mystified. It's a small silver ring, with a droplet of raw garnet set into it. It fits perfectly on her forefinger.

It's a strange encounter, to say the least. As she walks up the steps to the Bannered Mare, she can't help feeling like the crows chose her for something, some future purpose. Aren't crows an omen? Or maybe that's ravens.

The Bannered Mare is to the Sleeping Giant a few miles away what ravens are to crows. To the untrained or unscrupulous eye, their purposes in life are indistinguishable. To the discerning eye, it's clear which one is in higher societal esteem. Where the Sleeping Giant was rustic and peaceful, the Bannered Mare is fantastically full of energy and noise and light. The taproom smells spicy and savory and sweet, bubbling stew and roasting meat and hot sugar. The sound of a lute rises over the ambient chatter of people crowded around the firepit, commoners and a pair of barmaids and two older men in armor having an animated discussion.

"...could do with more of your wife's steel, instead of those pathetic excuses for swords."

"She's got her hands full as it is. She told me Idolaf stopped by for an order this afternoon, wouldn't take no for an answer."

Thirty-one precious septims later and Iris is holed up in a narrow loft bedroom, doing her best to tune out the (blessedly muffled) sounds of the tavern below. After the quiet of the nighttime streets and the wilderness, the sensory stimuli of civilization had been nearly overwhelming. The crush of sounds had become more disorienting and exhausting the longer she stood there and spoke to the woman behind the bar. The simple tasks of asking for a room for the night and something to eat had turned difficult; she'd had to be prompted to speak and then to repeat herself as her voice had been thin and shy. Being in this room feels like hiding. Nine cities in Skyrim - she'll probably spend most of her time in at least one - and she can't handle a tavern at night. She closes her eyes and curls into herself, slumped up against the wall at the head of the bed. She was hoping to get some reading in, but that's an impossibility when she doesn't even know how she'll manage to eat anything.

Maybe closing her eyes for a little while will help.

19th Last Seed, 4E 201

Iris wakes some amount of time later, shivering from a cold sweat, strands of hair stuck to her damp cheek. Her dreams had been something sent from Oblivion. The black dragon from Helgen had been in them, speaking to her in a tongue she could and yet could not understand, as if she were hearing the harsh syllables and their Tamrielic equivalents simultaneously. She doesn't remember what he'd said, thank the gods, only that there'd been hateful recognition in those red eyes while he towered over her as a wolf observing an ant. Even his head had been as tall as her twice over.

She sighs and stirs, uncurling her stiff, protesting limbs. Everything is quiet, but she still feels uneasy, as if anticipating a threat she rationally knows won't come. There's tension coiled along her shoulders and ribs; her neck crackles when she rolls it from one side to the other. She winces at the twinge in her back when she leans forward, away from the wall. The motion shifts the cuirass around her body and she winces again. Falling asleep in it has really made her notice how poorly it fits. It's not light out, the little window set into the angled wall over the bed tells her that much, so she'll have to remember to deal with it later. Adrianne will do it for free, if I'm nice.

She can't see herself threatening violence to a blacksmith. Whether she has to pay for the alterations or not, she needs more septims. A lot more septims. Half the coin in her pocket had gone to this room and a little food (which she hadn't eaten). Nice big city like Whiterun at night, there's bound to be plenty of places where she can find those septims.

There's a small looking-glass in a wooden frame on the bedside table. She divests herself of the armor and leaves it aside on the floor, kneels in front of the mirror and tries to do something with her hair. Thanks to Gerdur's efforts the other day and having slept sitting up, it's no longer a rat's nest, but it is a little wild and damp. Plaits feel most natural. Maybe she did have one that got cut off. It's too short to do a long one now - she'll have to wait a long time for that to grow back - so she settles for two small ones over the crown of her head and lashes them together in the back with a lockpick that was really no better than a thick bit of wire. It won't do to have hair drifting into her face while she's breaking and entering.

She deliberates over her backpack while she devours a cylindrical little pastry, dense and lightly sweet, and downs a third of a bottle of ale in one go. (She's still terribly thirsty from yesterday; her mouth is dry and her throat clicks when she swallows.) There's only so much she can fit in her pockets. On the other hand, taking anything other than septims could be a problem. She'd need someone to fence it -

Wait, how does she know that?

She has the instincts of a thief but no memory of actually being one. First it was the locked cage in Helgen Keep, then the hypothetical strongbox at the Riverwood Trader, now it's the potential obstacle of not having a fence.

Coin only, Iris decides, unless I find something I can't leave without.

It's time to test out those instincts.

Chapter 7: Caught Red-Handed

(back to top)

She starts by casing houses.

The market stalls might be easy pickings if there wasn't a guard patrol watching, and the shops no doubt have locks she doesn't have patience for right now, if they have back doors at all. Behind the two shops on the left are a pair of small houses that look too impoverished to bother with. Beyond them is the blacksmith. She's not stupid enough to try robbing a blacksmith - at least she doesn't think she is - and nothing here looks affluent enough for her taste. It looks like this whole road is just lined with merchants. The only other house here that could be worth a try is not only next to the blacksmith, but has a single door on the main road; it would be far too obvious if she tried to break in.

Well, that's not helpful at all.

She could try going up. There's another level of streets above this one. She hadn't thought about it, back when she was more concerned about having a bed than how much of a dent it would put in her pocket to get one. That was... last night? She can't be sure how long she slept.

For fuck's sake, all the houses up here look the same.

On the other hand, she's positive these ones have back doors. They come from money for sure. Just at the head of the stairs, a path runs behind them off to the right, close to the wall, and she decides to stick to that. (There's at least a better chance the guards don't patrol back here.) It curves around past a nice big house with a small side yard and a cow, door cast in heavy shadow and flanked by carved dragons-head totems. That'll be perfect to come back to later - provided that shadow holds.

The path meets another up a head in a four-way cross. A ring of stones encloses a little flower garden in the center: tall stalks covered in periwinkle or bright red or purple blooms, a small shrub with red berries nestled among its leaves, a low dense coat of tiny yellow flowers. "This garden made possible through the patronage of House Battle-Born", a little plaque set into one of the stones reads. Made possible by House Battle-Born, huh? If they can pay for a flower garden in the middle of the road, they can spare some septims to line her pocket.

Her gaze moves up to the house with the audacity to have a patio and a side yard on its plot. Does she think House Battle-Born is vain enough to put the garden they paid for within a stone's throw of where they sleep at night?

...Yeah, probably.

One would think a pillar of the community like House Battle-Born would have a nice, sturdy lock on their front door.

They don't.

The main room isn't much bigger than the taproom at the Bannered Mare, but it feels larger than that, high ceiling exposing all the rafters. Four wooden pillars with bands of carved and painted knotwork box the firepit in; the chairs across from it and the cooking spit closer to the door are empty. There's a door at the far end of the room, another on either side, and she thinks there's a fourth on a loft landing. She'll have to be careful.

The fire's pretty dead. That works in her favor. There's enough light left for someone with keen eyes to spot a thief by, but the corners are the most shadowy. She can find coin by touch well enough if she has to. Every muscle simmers with adrenaline at the prospect of robbing the Battle-Borns right under their noses. Her footsteps are slow as she passes up the shelves in the corner (just gleaming cups and piles of books), her touch light as she eases open a drawer and probes the back corners. On the other side of the firepit is a dining-table, swept clean of all but the candelabra. The firelight is even weaker over here. The sideboard is full of almost exclusively tableware, again. For Talos' sake, do these people have any stray coin? Her fingers brush along the spines of more books and she can't resist, slipping one off the shelf and into the waistband of her pants. The shirt is large enough to cover it without a conspicuous outline. (The shirt is too large, but the pants fit fine. She wonders in the back of her mind how that happened.)

Next to the door is a long low chest, and she breathes a sigh of relief as she opens it, slowly, so the hinges don't squeak. Finally. There's a smattering of coins and a gemstone, a nice one. She could get a good chunk of money for that, once she finds the right buyer, make back what she's spent so far and more. It all goes in her pocket and she's out the door, breathing fresh air that smells like ferns and morning dew.

Good. That felt good. Keep it basic, routine, easy. She leans against the house, contemplates her options while she chews on a sticky-sweet lump of soft dough on a stick she'd plucked out of a bowl. Good enough for breakfast.

The building next door doesn't look like a house, with four wrought-iron braziers framing a descending staircase and smoking up into the grey sky. The one next to that doesn't either. It's too wide and squat, with rows of small arched openings and wooden lattices over the windows in place of glass. There's copious amounts of lavender and cotton planted around it. Is this the temple to Kynareth? She can pay a visit to them later, once her daily quota of thievery's been sorted.

The world is starting to wake up, and she'll have to make a more concerted effort to appear inconspicuous. A woman with short blond hair leaves House Battle-Born, bound for the city gate; a Redguard mercenary type passes her in the street. Instead of heading for the house with the dragons-head totems, she goes back to the Bannered Mare, purposefully taking her time about it. Once she's safely closed in her room, she pulls that book out of her clothes. Ancestors and the Dunmer, the title proclaims. tHat could be an interesting read.

Instead of reading it, she sits on the floor for a little while, just holding it and drinking more ale. Each building in Whiterun has a plot that's a little too big, a little too exposed, a little too much possibility of being seen. House Battle-Born was easy enough in the thin barely-morning light, but what about when full morning comes? And it's going to come soon. She doesn't have enough coin to hang around Whiterun for days on end, robbing one house at a time.

She could sell that sword to the blacksmith. She didn't want to keep it anyway. She's been collecting bits of plants here and there; maybe the apothecary shop would take them, or some of her extra firewood. No, all that feels like a waste of skill and time.

What she wants, deep down, is to belong somewhere. Anyone can belong here. She just has to find her niche, right?

So she should go back to that other house she cased this morning. Right? That's what she'd rather be doing with her day. Damn the risk. She'll make it work. No risk, no reward.

Tiled roofs gleam goldenrod-yellow in the bright sun, marketplace starting to wake up with the rest of the city. Shoppers drift in and out while vendors advertise silver jewelry and produce and skillful weavework. (She's briefly relieved she left the garnet ring in her backpack; the crows probably took it from that very jeweler.) Iris ignores them all, walks past the apothecary and the general store and heads straight for the blacksmith. At her forge, Adrianne has Iris put on her cuirass to observe the fit, tightens straps and draws marks with tailor's chalk until she's satisfied. "I can have it done by this evening, if that works for you," she offers, swiping at the back of her sweaty forehead with her sleeve.

"Mm-hm."

"Perfect. I'll leave it with my husband in the shop."

"Um... how - how much?"

Adrianne waves her off. "Don't be silly. I'm not going to charge you for a job this simple."

"O - okay. Thank you."

It felt like being shy helped that time. She's still feeling out her own personality, how she sounds around other people. So far, she's quiet, reserved, not the taking-charge type, letting the other person do all the talking. Maybe she's manipulative, and she used to use it to get away with all kinds of things. Maybe there's no deep meaning to it, and she's just shy. Either way, she's back in her element as she crouches in the shadow behind the house with the dragons-head totems and the cow. Eyes on the lock, ears on the street, she's just about to twist the lock open with all the confidence of a seasoned cat burglar when -

"And what on Nirn do you think you're doing?"

Oh, shit.

Rune shifts a little, trying to relieve some of the pins and needles settling into his foot. It's not like it's comfortable up here. At least he's got a good view. Today's his twentieth birthday, and he's spending it sitting up in an old aspen tree, working. Brynjolf had promised him drinks when he gets back to the Guild - whenever that will be - and not mead, either, some of the good stuff. (He has to guess this job to do with Goldenglow Estate is pretty important, has multiple stages or something, if he's getting drinks and not coin straight away.) Thrynn and Sapphire had nabbed a caravan coming up from Cheydinhal last week, fleeced the driver for all the coin he had and then let him go, but not before making off with a crate of fancy bottles. Vekel had gotten to them first, took a few with a gleam in his eye before letting Tonilia and Vex have at the rest.

"What are these?"

"These - " Vekel had told him, stacking the bottles behind the bar and nudging Rune away when he tried to sneakily take a bottle of ale, " - are flin. Very, very good find."

"What's flin?"

"Cyrodiilic whiskey. Expensive Cyrodiilic whiskey. Special occasions only. So don't ask for any," Vekel had added, sternly. "I'm not wasting it on a lightweight."

Rune had had to consider his lightweight status in that moment. He considers it again now, while the tree bark scratches up the back of his leathers and his foot is doing its absolute best to go numb. He'd never seen his da or his da's friends get plastered drunk. Brynjolf and Delvin seem to have an incredible tolerance - or at least, he's never seen them drunk either, even on the nights when they sit out on the deck, muttering to each other, table piled with empty bottles, so he has to assume they do. Meanwhile one bottle of Black-Briar Reserve and a stiff breeze, and he's done for. His da had told him a long time ago that alcohol tolerance depended partly on how your body decided to fill itself out, so yeah, it's no wonder he's a lightweight. Rune's somewhat scrawny still, and quick on his feet (he can shoot okay, but he prefers swords). Compared to him, Brynjolf and Delvin are built like brick shithouses.

Anyway, Brynjolf had promised him drinks, no matter how it went, just for being such a good sport about it, and if by offering the good stuff he meant the flin that's bad news because Rune will probably be down for the count after a single glass. Doesn't matter. It's his birthday. He deserves it. For this shit, he deserves it.

He reaches for the bag wedged tight between the branches, takes a long swig out of the bottle of ale, and pulls out the battered spyglass.

Not for the first time since arriving in Skyrim, Iris is stumbling along behind someone as they drag her by the wrist. If she remembered the first time, it might have given her deja vu.

"Where - "

"Jorrvaskr," the redheaded woman who'd caught her says, and then doesn't elaborate. She yanks Iris' wrist to speed up, almost tipping her off-balance and straight onto her face.

Even at such an early hour, the woman looks fearsome. Three streaks of blue paint run down her face like claw marks. Her outfit with its skintight leather and massive, fur-trimmed pauldrons and hip plates could only generously be called armor. A bow and quiver of arrows are slung over one shoulder like she just came back from a hunting trip, and her grip is tight as wrist irons. What had really been freaky was the thread of yellow in her pale eyes, something animalistic and fierce and old. After seeing that, Iris had been fine with letting herself get dragged away.

They walk past the pretentious little flower barden, around the side of the temple, and down into a park ringed by wooden latticework pillars. A huge dead tree appears to be the centerpiece, with benches and braziers and flowers arrayed around its foot; a decorative moat of sorts surrounds the park, its source-water making its way down beside a long, polished stone staircase. Iris has to crane her head to see the top, and catches a glance of the massive building at the peak of the hill before she's whisked away. It could only be the Jarl's palace.

But that's not where she's being taken.

"Come on," the redheaded warrior woman says, "You'll get time to gawk later. Provided Vignar doeesn't throw you in the dungeons, that is," she mutters.

Over a bridge spanning the moat and up a flight of stairs is a building that could scarcely be called a building in the traditional sense. It looks more like an overturned boat. The wear on the wood and the stonework foundation indicates it's been here for a very, very long time, possibly too long a span of time for minds to fathom. Decorative knotwork covers the stakes holding it to the ground. Above those stakes, a long, long row of shields cover the side of the structure over the door (whether port or starboard is impossible to say - artistic renditions of dragons rising from both ends make it hard to discern which end was bow and which was stern). At the top of the stairs, two more dragons-head totems flank a wooden lintel arch. Their carving-work is a bit cruder, lending them more ferocity, like inanimate guard dogs.

Things go from bad to worse when they pass under the arch, close enough to the right-hand pillar that Iris spots something carved into it. It's a crude little symbol, designed by someone to be carved quickly, perhaps in under a minute - an upside-down triangle, a line straight down through the center, a circle around the bottom point.

A wave of anxiety creeps up from Iris' gut, settles a lump in her throat she can't dislodge. She knows that symbol. She doesn't know how she knows it, of course, but she knows what it means.

That simple little carving is a signal for danger.