Raldana Star-Gazer: A Personal Journal (III. Friends)

• Posted by Chris J. February 11, 2015 - 466 views

  III. Friends

  Ralof's sister Gerdur, it turned out, ran the local sawmill in Riverwood.  She and her husband Hod could barely believe our story, but they quickly ushered us into the safety of their home.  The conversation flowed with unfamiliar places and names: the Imperial ambush outside Darkwater Crossing where we were captured; the Jarl of Whiterun, Balgruuf, a man they judged as in over his head concerning which side to take in the civil war; the city of Windhelm, Ulfric Stormcloak's stronghold; and on and on.  It was too much to take in.  My naiveté was probably for the best.

  Eventually, the attention turned to me.  What would I do now?  Where would I go?  Ralof--rightly or wrongly--had declared that I was more than a little responsible for his successful escape from Helgen; Gerdur generously offered me a share of their food stores and whatever else I thought I might need for the days ahead.  I was grateful for their kindnesses, but feeling utterly directionless. Ralof seemed eager to cut me loose and return to his duties at Ulfric's side.  Someone at the table suggested I go to Whiterun to tell Jarl Balgruuf about the dragon and ask for protection for Riverwood.  Perhaps.  Surely such news did not need me to speed it across the land. 

  Or I could go join up with the Stormcloaks, Gerdur's young son said, with a look of eager envy at such a thought.  But like this Balgruuf, I was in over my head about the war I had stumbled into.  Did I really want to make this fight mine?  I knew next to nothing about the two sides.  My gut reaction was certainly deep revulsion for an empire that would so unceremoniously execute me and others on the basis of hasty assumptions.  And the Stormcloak Nords did seem to have good on their side in fighting to reclaim their right to rule in their homeland. But I despise war.  I hate the waste of young, idealistic lives in behalf of a cause they have usually been sold by glib slogans and tribal puffery.  I don't deny that sometimes war is unavoidable, but all too often, it serves the powerful at the expense of the innocent, and little else. 

  Very early the next morning, I said my goodbyes.  I had not even left Riverwood before I saw death on the road.  A Bosmer archer lay crumpled in the street near the blacksmith's forge.  No one was around, and I could see nothing to account for his death.  There had been no fighting when Ralof and I arrived in town, and we had heard no alarms through the night.  What had killed the elf, I wondered?  Bears are always a danger, but there were no claw marks on his body.  As I stood over him, I felt nearly overcome with the deep sense of regret that I had lost a good friend.  Of course, I did not know him, and now I never would, but something about his gentle, open expression, even in death, has stayed with me long after that day.