Dragon of the East - Arc 1, Chapter 12

  • Reinhardt

    ~ ~ ~

    Blegh. I hate the rain. A shower started pouring as I arrived at the town of Falkreath. I’d hiked there from Angi’s cabin after staying overnight. We parted on… satisfying terms, if you catch my meaning. She even gave me one of her bows as a gift.

    No arrows, of course, just the bow.

    It was early morning. Couldn’t find the sun, but there was enough light behind the clouds to still see where you walked. Water was drizzling down the needles of pine trees like tap from spigots. The whole village was settled in thick woodlands, with some slight clearing near a lumber mill. Everything else was pretty much what you’d expect – mountains, boulders, trees and Nord lodgings. Nothing fancy. Falkreath was ordinary. And damp

    Oh, but wait, did I mention there’s a massive cemetery? No?

    Falkreath is well known for its ancient ties to death and war, or so the locals will tell you – the same people who have nothing better to do than name places in town with puns. Grave Concoctions, Dead Man’s Drink, Corpselight Farm. It’s all a running joke to them. Got to give ‘em credit for trying to lighten up the place. It sure was dreary. Folks went about their daily duties despite the rain, looking downcast and dismal. A few had creepy faraway eyes. Sometimes they’d mumble things.

    As much as I hated Falkreath’s macabre, I thought I oughta’ stop by the graveyard and pay my respects before hitting the tavern. I’d get a bit wet, but the Nords under those tombstones were probably doing backstrokes. Felt bad for them. The last time I visited Falkreath I might have been… what, five? Six? One of those. Back then I was convinced the cemetery’s graves went on forever. They don’t, but even as an adult it was hard count them all.

    Turns out I wasn’t the only person visiting the dead that afternoon. There were three people gathered near a small memorial slab. One of them looked like an old high elf in soaked orange robes. I think he was the town’s priest of Arkay. The other two were a man and woman, Nord and Imperial, both with skin tanned from years of farm work.

    I walked over to them. The priest was praying. “May the spirit of Lavinia and all those who have left this world and its suffering know the beloved serenity of Aetherius… and may we one day rejoin them in eternity.”

    The elderly elf gave his final condolences and left the couple still lingering by the grave site. I stepped up to them, boots sloshing in the mud.

    “Who passed away?” I asked gently, hoping I wouldn’t seem a bother.

    The man gave me a forlorn glance.

    “Our daughter,” he said, doing well to swallow back his sadness. “Our little girl. She hadn’t seen her tenth winter…”

    “My sympathies. How did she die?”

    The grief-stricken look in that man’s eyes made me wish I’d held my tongue.

    “She was… He ripped her apart. Like a sabre cat tears a deer… We barely found enough of her to bury.”

    I caught the pain in those words like a sickness.

    “I’m sorry… That’s a real shame,” I said. “I know the wilds out here can be a dangerous place.”

    I thought to say more, but something the man said suddenly didn’t seem right.

    “Wait, what do you mean he ripped her apart?”

    “It was Sinding,” the farmer answered indignantly. “Came through as a laborer. Seemed like a decent man…”

    “A man did this!?” I exclaimed. “How? What became of him?”

    “He’s stewing in the pit while the guards figure out what to do with him. I just hope they decide on something soon,” the man spoke with bitter resentment. Apparently this Sinding was locked in custody.

    “That so?” I muttered. “Might have to pay a visit, then. See this ‘man’ for myself.”

    ~ooooo~

    Falkreath’s prison was built underground beneath a barracks. The guards didn’t give me any guff when I asked to see Sinding. Must’ve not been the first person. They treated my visit routinely.

    One cell was set apart. It was like the bottom of a giant well. Murky light filtered through a small window up at ground height. Water was pouring in, trickling down the chamber’s brick walls. The cell floor had filled to a shallow pool, where a scrawny man with mangled hair sat. He wore only a pair of ragged trousers, belted with a rope at the waist.

    I tapped the iron bars of his cell door with the steel plate of my gauntlet. Sinding looked up from his resting place. His chest heaved a sigh.

    “Come to gawk at the monster?”

    “I can if it’d make you feel better,” I said.

    The man looked away. He was a pitiful sight, nothing but skin and bones. No strength in his muscles. How did he…?

    “Heard you killed a little girl,” I said, leaning up against the cell’s iron door. “Any truth to that?”

    “Believe me, it wasn’t anything I ever intended to do,” Sinding replied, standing up. His pants were soaking wet.

    “Intent and deed are two different things,” I snorted.

    “You think I don’t know that? I feel terrible about what happened. I just… lost control. I tried to tell them, but none of them will believe me.”

    Go figure. It was all some big misunderstanding. The man was innocent as sunshine.

    “What do you mean you lost control? You’re talking nonsense.”

    Sinding didn’t reply right away. “What do you see when you look at me?” he asked.

    I shrugged. “A man who could use a sandwich, maybe a few pot-roasts. How ‘bout you tell me? What should I see?”

    “I suppose there’s no point in keeping the secret if I’m going to die in here,” he sighed, pausing for a little while. “I’m sure you’ve heard of men who shift to beasts under the influence of the moons.”

    I stopped slouching and arched an eyebrow.

    “I am one of them,” Sinding professed quietly. “A werewolf.”

    “You’re a werewolf?”

    “Yes. It’s my secret. And my shame.

    It was a lot harder not to laugh than you’d think. Werewolves. The stuff of bedside stories and fables. They were real, of course, I knew that much – those tales aren’t told for nothing. But I’d never seen one in person.

    Still, it made sense. His feeble frame didn’t fit the crime he committed. If Sinding spoke truthfully, that meant the body I could see wasn’t the one he used to tear up that girl.

    “You said you lost control? How?” I asked.

    The man reached into his pocket and pulled out something small and silver.

    “It’s all on account of this blasted ring,” he whispered.

    “What ring? Speak up, man!”

    Sinding walked up a set of steps to the door where I stood.    

    “This is the ring of Hircine,” he said, showing it to me. It glistened in his wet filthy palm. “I was told it could let me control my transformations. Perhaps it used to. But I’ll never know…”

    Hircine. The man had the ring of a Daedric Prince. That was bad news. In case you don’t know, Daedric Princes are demigods who rule their own planes of existence. They like to mess with mortals, people like you and I. They’re nothing but trouble. Hircine is known as the ‘Lord of the Hunt.’ He’s the one who fashioned lycanthropy in the first place, the disease that creates werewolves, and unleashed it upon Tamriel.

    “Hircine didn’t care for my taking the ring,” Sinding continued, “so he threw a curse on it. When I put it on, the changes just came to me. I could never guess when. It would be at the worst times!”

    “Like with the little girl?” I murmured.

    The killer fondled the ring in his hands.

    “When I saw her, I was just… I could feel it coming on, I could taste the…”

    Sinding trailed off. He looked at me with deadened eyes.        

    “I needed to hunt.”

    At least the man was conscious of what he’d done. Not that that made things any better.

    “If that ring’s caused you all this trouble,” I said, “why do you still have it?”

    “I thought I could try to appease Hircine,” Sinding replied, “beg his forgiveness and give back the ring. But that’s over now isn’t it?”

    He gave the ring to me through the bars.

    “Take it. You bothered to listen to my story. I don’t want anything to do with this wretched thing anymore.”

    Holding the ring in my hand, I looked at it more closely. A small wolf’s head was shaped on the slick silver band. It wore a vicious snarl.

    “So, what,” I grumbled, “do I go throw this in a lake or something?”

    “If that’s what you want, I won’t be the one to stop you,” Sinding said, returning to his cold puddle. He didn’t feel like talking anymore.

    ~ooooo~

    I walked back out into the rain, wishing it would clear up already. My mood had gone south. Couldn’t wait to get to that tavern. I’d had enough death and depression for one morning.

    I fiddled around with the ring while I walked. It was heavy for its size. Fat chance I’d be able to sell it for any decent coin. Nothing to do but find a place to chuck it and leave.  Rolling the silver band around in my hand, it seemed pretty large. How did that scrawny man wear a ring so big without it falling off all the time? I slid the ring onto my finger to see how it would fit me.

    Of all the dumbest dumb things I’ve done in my life…

    The moment it slipped on, I could feel the band begin to tighten. I tried pulling it off. Wouldn’t budge. I tried pulling harder. It was stuck. I’d have to take the whole finger with the ring.

    I looked around, hoping no one noticed me getting flustered all of a sudden. Sinding said the ring was cursed. I double checked everything about myself – heartbeat, breathing, hair on my skin. Was something supposed to happen? I didn’t feel any different.

    For the life of me I couldn’t remember all that Sinding had said. Something about his transformations coming at the worst times. What else had I forgotten? Then it came to me: the ring only affected when he changed form. The changes themselves didn’t come from the ring, they came from his lycanthropy.

    The curse wouldn’t do anything to me because I wasn’t a werewolf.

    This left a bit of an awkward feeling. The ring was dead weight, but I had no way to remove it. The thing would just be there, on my finger, for Shor knows how long. Shrugging to myself, I let the problem slide to the back of my mind. I’d have to find a way to get it off another other day. Maybe see a wizard or something.

    The tavern was a much needed distraction. The bright glow of a warm charcoal fire greeted me inside. I stood near the heat for a while, drying myself off. Scents of the building’s pine wood mixed with sweet ale. Nords were talking, eating, and drinking happily. There was a group of revelers gathered in a corner, farmers or lumber workers from the look of their clothing. The sounds of their laughter rang through the room.

    “Hail, friends!” I called out to them, a wide grin on my face. “Good to see some people are enjoying themselves this dreary day!”

    The three Nords looked over to me and let out a cheer.

    “Aye, what else are we s’pposed to do?” one of them said back to me gleefully. He wore green and brown cloth with a leather cap on his head. “Come, come! You look drenched as a dish rag!”

    “Feel like one too,” I groaned, stretching my arms.

    I took a seat on the table the group was gathered around, propping my legs on one of the seats.

    “Valga, another round!” the man called to the barkeep.

    “Bah, make it four! One for him and rest for me,” I shouted.

    The woman brought us our drinks. I downed my first mug quickly, wiping the foam from my mouth. “Ysmir’s beard, I needed that,” I muttered, feeling satisfied as the ale warmed my stomach.

    “So what brings you to Falkreath, traveler?” the Nord with the cap asked.

    “Passing through,” I said. “I’ve come from Cyrodiil to see my family.”

    “Fine thing, that. Where’re you headed?”

    “Helgen,” I replied, sipping another mug. “Not far. I’m sure you’ve been there before. We’d always get visitors from Falkreath while I lived there.”

    The man’s face seemed to sober. His expression was troubling. The other two drunks burst into roaring laughter over some joke they’d made.

    “Helgen?” the capped man murmured. “Your family was at Helgen?”

    “Yeah,” I said, trying to play down his change in tone. “Nothing strange about that.”

    “You haven’t heard?”

    “Heard what?” I asked, annoyed and confused.

    The Nord looked to his companions, still taken by their fits of bubbling mirth.

    “Hey you two, knock it off. This guy’s from Helgen. He doesn’t know what happened.”

    I stood from my seat. Something felt wrong about this. One of the man’s friends settled down. The other, completely wasted, kept a blank stare.

    “What don’t I know? What’s happened?” I asked anxiously. “Tell me!”

    The drunken man started cracking up. His laugh ticked me off. I stomped over and grabbed him by the collar. His jollity vanished.

    “Stop laughing!” I barked. People about the inn hushed their conversations. I turned to the other Nords. “Are you going to fill me in or not?”

    “Helgen’s gone, friend,” the capped man said softly. “Destroyed.”

    His words tumbled in my head. The shirt of the drunken man slipped from my fingers.

    “No… That can’t be,” I whispered. “I’d just gotten a letter no more than a week ago.”

    “They say a dragon attacked,” the man said, “burned everything to the ground. There’s nothing left.”

    A dragon? A dragon attacked Helgen?

    “Are you so drunk you can’t get your story straight?” I growled, voice rising. “What kind of fool do you take me for!?”

    “I wouldn’t have believed it myself either, but a bunch of soldiers passed through here… survivors. Even had a general with ‘em! I swear by Arkay it’s true! Dragons have returned to Skyrim. Word is spreading like mage fire about the–”

    I cut him off and stormed away, slamming through the tavern’s door with a beat of my fist, stepping out in the cold rain. Its chill brought goose flesh. I started running down the road. Some part of me believed their story was true, feared it something fierce, but I needed to see for myself.

    What’s wrong with this town!? Werewolves? Dragons!? Is all of this real? Has Skyrim fallen to madness!?

    My boots nearly caught in thick puddles of mud. Water slapped against my face. I knew the path. Didn’t need to think. It was all from memory.

    I ran to see what truly became of my childhood home.

    And what became of my family.

    Table of Contents

    Previous   ~*~   Following

    Leave a 'like' if you've enjoyed reading!

Comments

12 Comments   |   Fallout Night likes this.
  • The Wing
    The Wing   ·  August 31, 2015
    Wow. O-o Never heard that one before. I stand humbly corrected!
  • FishDout
    FishDout   ·  August 31, 2015
    That third excerpt is fine. It's essentially a slightly unconventional way of saying 'he feared it fiercely/a lot.'
  • The Wing
    The Wing   ·  August 31, 2015
    (Oh man I love this chapter. )
    Then it came to me: the ring only affected when he changed from.

    Incomplete sentence or intentional? It took me several reads to understand it.
    I downed my first mug quickly, wiping the foam form my ...  more
  • Idesto
    Idesto   ·  July 23, 2015
    What was he thinking, indeed: putting on as strange cursed ring? Oops!
    I like the drama in this chapter, especially with the revellers & the revelation about Helgen
    Noticed 1 small typo: We barely found enough of her to 'burry'. 
  • Sotek
    Sotek   ·  May 29, 2015
    Ahh the cursed ring of Hircine. Thats always a good sign.
  • Borommakot
    Borommakot   ·  September 16, 2014
    Heheh, must be!
  • Paws
    Paws   ·  September 16, 2014
    It's the cold, Boro. if they dwell on something too long it will freeze their brains solid
  • Borommakot
    Borommakot   ·  March 26, 2014
    Took a while for me to see that this had been updated. It feels much, much more natural now. Just like a Nord, to worry about something for only as long as needed.
  • Okan-Zeeus
    Okan-Zeeus   ·  March 25, 2014
    There. I extended Reinhardt's internal dialogue without actually changing the flow of the scene. It's the best I could come up with for now. Didn't want to alter the fact that he came to the conclusions he did about the ring - it does play into the story ...  more
  • Okan-Zeeus
    Okan-Zeeus   ·  March 25, 2014
    Hmm... Fair point. The pacing of that moment never did feel quite right. I'll look into tweaking it.