28th of Hearth Fire, 4E201
Alva sat in the darkest corner of Moorside Inn feeling rather piqued. Lurbuk, the tone-deaf bard, was scraping his lute nearby as a few guards were finishing their meals before returning to their rounds. The first, was no bother. The big Orc was dense and oblivious and occasionally acted as a convenient distraction. The second, would be a missed opportunity. On any other night, she would have begun a courtship with them and ultimately lure one or even both into some dark, lonely part of town all for her master. Once all the guards were enthralled, Morthal would be theirs. Not working on such an important task was certainly annoying but that wasn't it either. No, on this night, there were two entirely different problems on Alva's mind.
The first, was a crypted letter she had received just this afternoon. A courier had delivered a missive from Estiredain, an ex-scholar of the College whom she had once admired. Alva had briefly joined that group of mages in the late spring only to leave it once she discovered boredom inside. The Altmer Restorationist and her experiments were the only exciting thing about the place and once she left, there was little reason to stay. Fellglow had been next and that was certainly amusing but the real fun only came after she was assigned back to her dreary home. It was the grandest of ironies. The Nord had left Morthal hoping to find a life worth living; but it was in returning to it and finding the undead beneath that she found the answer to her deepest desires. Master Movarth was a revelation.
The letter from Estiredain then, was a needless distraction that requested she perform an absolutely tedious task. If not for her masters insistence, Alva would have completely ignored the missive and any pretense of having close ties with that Altmer.
The second problem was more pressing however. Not more than ten paces from the shadow in which Alva stood, sat a strange vampire eating a human meal. She had come in alone out of the chilling fog, wearing a fur cloak made slick by the night air. Speaking briefly to Jonna behind the bar, she turned around and stood by the firepit to warm up as she waited for her meal. The young woman was very pretty. Her features were refined but her face was a bit too squared off by her chin to be considered delicate, a Breton. Removing her cloak, she exposed a habit worn by Adepts at the Mage's College. Sadly, this implied that the Breton was too dangerous to safely hunt. Of course, none of this had mattered to Alva until the mage had sat down to eat. The tragectory of the wooden spoon she held as it swept an arc back and forth from bowl to lips was a portrait in... diligence. There was no hunger in how she ate. The hunger, lay elsewhere.
A newborn... how precious.
An inn was an excellent place to begin a hunt and this vampire would surely be aware of such a thing. The Nord could sense the urge in this one and her eventual activities would only attract undesirable attention. She could not be allowed to stay; but how to go about it...
Alva slid out of the darkness, allowing the shadow to caress her until forced to let go. Moving around the lazy heat from the firepit, she eased herself onto the bench next to the stranger. Catching the Breton's eyes, the Nord woman smiled, a fox gazing upon a kit.
"Well, aren't you the pretty one. I bet all the men chase after you."
Nephili looked up from her meal and melancholy at this sudden stranger. She saw the curled lips and recognized her tone. Back in Cropsford, some of the other girls spoke to her in a very similar way whenever they saw a favored young male gaze too longingly as she walked by. Regardless of what was said, the words were always a pretext and trouble usually followed. This glamorous woman was after something but at the moment, the Breton didn't much care. Nephili responded to the Nord with a weak smile and turned back to her meal.
Alva crinkled her eyes. The self-assured ones are so...
She leaned in with shoulder and chin and spoke into her ear. "Fine then. Let me be more direct. I know you for what you are. This town's blood is ours. The hunger I see in your eyes tell me you haven't fed in over a day. If you hunt here, you will only find trouble, understand?"
The spoon paused in mid-stroke before slowly settling back down into its bowl. Eyes turned wide but stayed hidden in shadow. Though the mage gave a measured response, the voice that spoke betrayed hestitation and uncertainty. "...how, do you claim to know such things?"
Alva noted every reaction and smiled on the inside, her feelings now a match for the one on her face.
"We know. You're just too... stupid to realize it. Leave here."
The Nord woman rose from her seat and made her way back to her corner, certain now that the lone vampire would leave her town alone. As she walked around the fire, the front door creaked opened to reveal another traveler coming out of the darkness. Looking askance, she saw that it was a Nord female, wearing steel armor and also wearing a fur cloak. The warrior approached the Breton and stood before her to speak. After listening intently, the Breton mage slowly nodded at the standing figure, the fear from earlier and something else now written on her face. Their conversation done, the warrior woman sided up to the bar to order something.
Alva saw the two women together and slowly lost her smile as realization dawned in her mind. Her eyes grew wide as her precious blood drained from her face.
...oh no...
She quickly left the inn.
* * * *
The dead inside Folgunthur had deserved better. Their bodies had been turned into draugr; their tomb desecrated by the living. Offering pots were opened or destroyed and at least one amulet was stolen. Folgunthur was meant to be a final resting place and the ancient Nords lying inside had rested for thousands of years; then the graverobbers had arrived, her Thane as well. Staying behind to offer prayers and sacraments to the dead was the least that Lydia could do.
Though her feelings and her prayers were genuine, the Nord warrior had also stayed behind to be alone as she wanted to reflect on her final decision apart from her Thane. After praying to Talos and Arkay, she had wondered if her adoptive sister Irileth had ever experienced a crisis of conscience in her own capacity as housecarl. Then again, Jarl Balgruuf might have been the one to contemplate doubt after appointing a Dunmer. The elder sister that Lydia knew was too practical to be a true Nord. She had never truly believed in any of the old stories. Yet, she had taken her Nord vows with the utmost seriousness and showed proper respect for Skyrim's traditions.
Having completed her prayers, Lydia followed after her Thane and returned to the inn. Standing before the Breton mage, the warrior said, I do not know why you travel oblivion's path and I am... unsure of your destination. But, you are still my Thane and I, your appointed housecarl. I will travel this road with you.
Her Thane had taken a moment to absorb her words and finally nodded, probably understanding that to do otherwise would bring dishonor to a Jarl and shame to the warrior. The Breton however, would not understand. Housecarl was an old term with story and history but it was also a corruption of an even older word. When Ysgramor still walked among the living, the word used then was Valkyrja. Its literal translation was,
A one that decides who wins and dies in battle.
Read closely, the word was not about service at all. It was an edict. Being Valkyrja meant you held a sword in your hand not to ensure that your Thane lived, but to decide if your Thane should live. Short of death, this was a duty that was never abandoned, a harsh rule for a harsh era.
The Nord warrior had never had to question her instincts of other people. She had always been right and her instincts told her that her Thane, despite her actions, was a just person. What drove her, Lydia did not know, but she would do all in her power to understand.
After speaking to her Thane, the warrior had ordered supper and asked for a second room so that she might lie in her own thoughts. Her decision had been made but she had not yet settled her feelings and she wanted to be alone, at least until tomorrow.
It was sometime after midnight. The housecarl had nearly settled into a restless sleep when she felt movement in the great room outside her door. Peaking out from under her eyelids, the warrior spied a figure quickly passing by. Even in the darkness, she could tell it was her Thane, and she walked with a certain determination. Hearing the quiet scratch of a door and the clink of a latch, Lydia rolled out of bed allowing only the soft part of her boot to first land before shifting her weight onto her feet. Pulling her sword out from under her pillow and the bow off the table, she quietly followed the shadowy figure into the quiet streets of Morthal.
The red crescent of Masser had risen high while the waning Secunda shyly hovered beyond the trees and mountains. Veils of icy fog obscured their presence as the dim light they provided barely managed to tease out the edges of things. The housecarl stood under the dark eve and waited for the veils to shift and a shadow to move. A guard passed by, his eyes adjusted to the torchlight that he carried, unaware of the others around him. Moments later, the darkness shifted as a something moved down the main road with an almost eerie silence. Lydia crept off the porch, gingerly testing each plank until she stood on firm ground. Followed after, the shadow swerved onto a dock and towards a nondescript home along the waterfront. Watching from across the icy water and behind a tree, Lydia could see the figure crouch before the entrance before stealing herself inside.
Lydia waited as Secunda slowly overcame her shyness to address the town. The shadow under the eave shifted and resolved itself into a mortal. Searching out the roving guards, the figure waited for the right moment and crept back onto the main road. Bypassing the inn, it headed towards the bridge and mill at the end of town. The housecarl wondered at the strangeness of it all and cautiously followed after. The shadow ahead crept across the stone arch and moved past the lasts bit of civilization before pausing atop a small rise. Judging itself beyond the reach of prying eyes, it stood up and began to hurry away between the clawed branches and the tall grasses, finding a dirt path where none should have existed. The second shadow kept pace as close as it dared, for the first showed good eyes at night in recent days.
Crouching behind a moss covered cairn, Lydia watched her Thane stop before a cave entrance, a gaping mouth quietly moaning its litany, unconcerned by the lone figure choosing to slither down its throat. The housecarl hesitated only for an instant before she too crept into its depths, into a darkness that could swallow the night.
* * * *
"We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness."
Comments