Reinhardt
~ ~ ~
“Don’t touch those,” Falura said, caught up in her reading.
I took my hand away from the stack of books and reclined in my chair with an elbow on the armrest, fist in cheek.
“There a problem? I can read too, can’t I?” I said in a mushed voice.
“I’m cross-referencing sources. I want to keep my books organized where I’ll remember them,” she replied.
Her books were scattered all over her table in a big messy jumble. Pieces of scrap paper stuck out between pages, riddled with notes she’d written in chicken scratch. Some were balled up on the floor. Aren’t organized and orderly supposed to mean the same thing?
“I’ll put it back when I’m done,” I said.
Falura set her book down and opened another one.
“Very well. Let me know which one you’re borrowing, if you would.”
I scooped up a grey hardcover. Its title was printed on the front with shiny gold text.
“A Discourse on ‘Twin Secrets,” I read aloud.
“Oh… that one isn’t about the Greybeards,” she said. “That covers enchantment theory. It’s for a pet project I’m working on.”
“Huh. Alright,” I grunted. I wanted to read it anyway. I opened up to a random page in the middle and silently mouthed along, stopping at a pair of words. “What’s runic concanetation?”
“Concatenation,” Falura corrected. “Reinhardt, that book is too advanced for you. I haven’t the time to explain the Law of Firsts. Go bother one of the college instructors about it if you’re curious.”
I wasn’t that curious. I set the book back on the table. Probably for the best – I couldn’t remember the last time I actually read a book. Must’ve been years ago while I still living with Julia in the Imperial City. I lounged in my chair again and gave my eyes the leave to wander where they wanted. Felt a wee bit out of place sitting in the College of Winterhold’s Arcanaeum. The hushed indoors and bad weather outdoors were a perfect recipe for cabin fever.
Falura said we had to go here, though. She needed to gather more information to plan our next move. If it meant finding dragons to fight, that’s all I cared about.
Besides, I was her bodyguard. I stayed where she stayed. I knew what I signed on for.
~ooooo~
Let me backtrack a bit. The dragon had just been defeated. I’d struck the killing blow to the winged white beast and climbed on top of its head to cut off one of its horn – a trophy for the grandkids someday. I was so swept up in the exhilaration of the moment that I overlooked the Companions and their, uh… transformations.
“Did you see that!?” I shouted to Falura.
She grinned, walking up to me through the snow.
“I certainly did see it. You are welcome, by the way.”
“Eh? Welcome for…” Oh, that’s right. My sword caught on fire. That must’ve been her doing. I trailed away and turned to the Companions gathering at the dragon’s tail end. The two werewolves that fought alongside us changed into humans. Farkas and Aela. They were back to their normal selves, fully clothed and armored. I rubbed my eyes hoping they might’ve been blurry from the wind. When I discovered they weren’t, I quit disbelieving them and admitted what I saw.
The Companions were werewolves.
“Now that was a battle!” Vilkas hooted.
“Happy?” Aela replied. “You can say you’ve killed one of every creature in Skyrim again.”
“Aye. I’ll have to make that trip to Morrowind after all…”
“No you won’t. You’d be bored to tears,” Farkas mocked. “Nothing there could be bigger than this.”
I jumped down from the dragon, boots landing in slush. The clothes under my armor were soaked with sweat. Wind kept blowing in my face, but I couldn’t tell hot from cold anymore. As I joined the trio of warriors, they welcomed the sight of me heartily.
“Reinhardt. You fought well, new blood,” Vilkas said, his steel gauntlet clanking on my shoulder. “You’ve earned your keep in Jorrvaskr!”
It was supposed to be a joyful moment, but the praise felt empty. I hadn’t carried much weight in the fight. Didn’t sink a single arrow into that monster’s hide. I might’ve finished it off, but only after the others had weakened it. That was the only blow I really dealt. You could say I was a tagalong and you wouldn’t be wrong. My ‘new blood’ sure showed.
I shunned these thoughts. Only milk drinkers wallow in their victories.
“Didn’t I promise we’d have a story when this was done?”Aela chimed in with a smirk.
“I wasn’t expecting a story with werewolves,” I said.
Aela’s smile faded. “And here I thought I hadn’t been subtle enough. You’re as thick as they come.”
Falura arrived to partake in the talk, walking with her staff.
“Why didn’t you mention you were lycanthropes?” she asked gently. “We could have planned this hunt better.”
“It’s not common knowledge,” Vilkas retorted, “and we’d rather keep it that way.”
“Some cowards in this land can’t stand the sight of glory,” Aela added.
“Your secret would have remained safe with me,” Falura insisted. “We of the Telvanni do not shun lycanthropy or sanguinare vampiris, as so many others do.”
Aela shook her head. “Still not worth chancing. Our blood has been a well-guarded secret for generations.”
Ysmir’s beard… The Companions have always been werewolves…?
So much for my childhood fantasies.
“What does it matter?” Vilkas said. “We fought the beast and won. It gave us an honorable battle, one worth singing about!” His tone sounded reverent. He acknowledged the might of our fallen opponent.
Falura looked at the dragon’s corpse with longing. “Such a waste. If only we could have studied it alive… Oh, but I won’t diminish what we’ve accomplished here.” She paused and bowed to the Companions. “You have done all that I asked and wanted. I believe your reward is due.”
She handed Vilkas a signed missive to send to her estate. He took it with a nod and unfolded it, glossing over the words all business-like.
Vilkas suddenly frowned. “You offered eight thousand,” he said.
“I changed it,” Falura replied.
Aela looked over the man’s shoulder. “Changed it to what?”
Falura stuffed a hand in her robe coat. “Ten thousand,” she said. “A marginal increase, but you risked much coming here with me. I oughtn’t let that go without recompense.”
“That’s generous of you,” Farkas remarked.
“Or brave,” Falura chuckled. “I will have to justify this profligacy to my steward when I return home. Easier to soothe a pack of hungry nix-hounds with flute and lyre.”
Vilkas stuffed the letter into his chest plate. The elf woman looked at me with pity. I could tell what was on her mind.
“You need not remain a volunteer if you–”
“Forget it, lady.” I waved her off. “Like I said, this wasn’t about the money. I got what I came for.” Not that it wasn’t tempting to take her offer.
Falura gave a curt nod. “Very well. Excuse me, all of you. I need to perform some tests on the dragon while it’s still warm.”
She drew near the dragon’s corpse and set her bag down in the snow, pulling out a bunch of little glass instruments and metal looking things. Red blood poured from the beast’s wounds as if it were still living. Gave me a picture of the beast waking up all of the sudden, whooshing away into to the sky.
Ysmir’s beard, that dragon… Nothing else I’d ever fought could match. I can’t even put it into words. You have fight one for yourself to know what it’s like. I’d close my eyes and still feel the battle raging on like an afterimage, muscles tensing and twitching.
But the werewolves had been an even bigger shock. Aela and Farkas gave that dragon a damn hard beating! I never dreamed that Hircine’s disease could grant such power. The Companions were an impressive guild of warriors, but the beast blood let them surpass the limits of their bodies. They could fight toe-to-toe with dragons bare fisted. You can’t say that kind of strength doesn’t have its allure.
Speaking of allure, Aela was studying me with curiosity.
“Something the matter? You’re awfully quiet all of a sudden,” she said.
“Shor’s bones, I just found out the Companions of Ysgramor are werewolves,” I grumbled. “Can’t give me a minute to let that settle in? Next thing I know you’re gonna turn me into one too!”
Aela laughed. “Not all Companions are werewolves. Only members of the Circle. If it bothers you that much, perhaps we shouldn’t have let you come here.”
“Woah there, you didn’t let me come here,” I snorted. “That’s not how we’re spinning this yarn.”
“It was something we discussed,” Vilkas admitted, glancing at the others. “We knew there was a chance we would have to use the blood to win.”
I stared blankly.
“Hahaha! Ah, funny…!” My voice lowered. “Very funny. That’s a good one. You’d actually think to leave me back in Jorrvaskr after I convinced you all to come here…”
“You’re still a pup to this pack,” Vilkas said. “We look after our new bloods whether they like it or not.”
I stretched my smile. “Ohhhh, so I’m a little cub, am I? Does that mean you’re my nan? Here to care for the wee babe?”
The man sneered. “You would be so lucky.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Well then start doing your job, eh? You got a tit to suckle? Food to eat? Hope it’s nice and soft, ‘cause I’m too young to chew.” I tauntingly slapped the side of my pants. “Hey, better yet? How about you come over here! I think I got some soiled draws you can change.”
“Ysgramor, it was a joke…”
“Oh, it’s a joke? Is someone joking? Who’s joking? Not me!” I stomped up to him and cracked my neck. “What’re you waiting for you milk drinker? This shit won’t clean itself!”
Vilkas pushed me with a growl. “Is that a challenge?”
I pushed back. “It ain’t an invitation to dance! Come on, you snot nosed blowhard!”
And the snowball rolled down the hill.
First the insults, then the yelling, then the blows. All in good nature, of course! It was just like training but less for the sake of learning and more for the sake of stroking egos. Aela laughed hysterically. We were a couple of grizzled warriors scrapping like children on a cool summer day. So much for feeling old.
Farkas eventually wedged in and broke us up. Vilkas and I were already exhausted from the dragon fight. Our brawl spent all the stamina we had left.
“Are you done man?” Vilkas spat. “Got that out of your system?”
I wiped my mouth, panting. “Yeah… Yeah, I’m done…”
Falura must have been watching. She was over by the dragon’s head, inspecting its teeth. I glanced at her and she turned away, shaking her head.
“You can’t say he’s not fitting in,” Aela said. “Let’s try to keep our heat focused on the hunt instead of each other, eh? We need to get back to Jorrvaskr.”
Vilkas lingered, peering over at the dragon’s dead body.
“I'm going to stay a while. Rest among these scales and bones,” Vilkas said. “This creature honored us with its life. I want to honor it with my respect.”
Farkas would stay too, if only for his brother. Aela nodded. “Go ahead, then. I’ll see you back in Whiterun.” She gave me a look that told me to follow. What luck! If those other two were staying, that meant she and I would get to travel alone together! Couldn’t have dreamt a better way to write off the day! I grinned to myself, thinking libidinous thoughts.
Something bothered me, though. I saw Falura taking notes on the dragon. It was thanks to her that I got the chance to fight it in the first place. But there were still plenty more dragons out there, including the one that destroyed Helgen. What was I going to do about it?
I starred at the elf and thought of something Eorlund had said to me back at Jorrvaskr.
Nobody rules anybody in the Companions. Every man is his own.
You learn to live your own life…
Aela stepped into my line of sight. “Are you staying too?”
“I think so,” I said. “There’s something I gotta do.”
Falura must have heard our talk. She stood up and turned around to greet me. Seemed fidgety too, impatient to get back to her work.
“You wish to speak with me?” she said.
“Aye. Mind hearing me out?”
“Certainly not.”
“You’re studying dragons, yeah? That’s good. Really, it is. We need people like you willing to help take up the fight.” I folded my arms. “The way I see it, though, you’re no good to the rest of us dead. Skyrim’s a harsh place for outsiders.”
Falura made an uncomfortable face. “Agreed. Are you proposing something?”
“I came here for dragon blood and dragon blood I got,” I said. “But I’m thirsty for more. Where you’re going there’s gonna be more. See what I’m getting at?”
“This is… an offer of assistance?”
“Yup. You need a bodyguard. I’m volunteering again.”
The woman was hesitant. “And you want absolutely nothing for your efforts?”
I shrugged. “I’ll need to be fed, but as long as that’s covered… don’t need a whole lot else. I live within my means.”
There was something in the way she smiled after that. It was a look of relief, not just appreciation. I was a port in the storm again.
“Reinhardt, this is a remarkably generous offer,” Falura said. “I would be a fool to refuse it.”
I grinned. “Then it’s a done deal. We work together.”
Boots crunched in the snow. Aela walked over to us.
“This is what you want?” she said in a thoughtful voice.
“I’m not gonna ignore these dragons,” I replied. “I want to go after them. This is a way for me to do that.”
The huntress gave a look of content, lips curled in a smirk. “Then do it. You have every right. Just try to stay in one piece. We still need to figure out how to get that ring off of you.”
Vilkas animated nearby. “Ring? What ring?” he asked, twisting his neck.
Aela rolled her eyes. “I’ll explain later,” she said, turning back to me. “If you’re ever in Whiterun hold again, come to Jorvaskr. I’ll do some digging in the meanwhile and try to have something for you.”
“Thanks.” I smiled coolly. “Be safe on your trip. Talos guard you.”
I stayed with Falura long after Aela was gone. The two brothers left later too. Vilkas took a bag full of scales from the dragon’s hide with him – wanted to see how much coin he could fetch. The Dark Elf woman continued her tests through the day. She plucked and stuffed little bits of the beast in her bag with a cheery air, like a florist picking through her garden. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not judging. If she enjoys that kind of thing, that’s between her and any other critters she’s ever cut up.
It wasn’t till sunset that Falura decided her work was done.
“I think I’ve gathered all that I can,” she said, divorcing her quill from a stack of sketch notes. “Reinhardt? Are you ready to leave?”
I slid my butt off the dragon’s snout and stretched my arms. “As ever. Where to?”
“Winterhold lies northeast of here. The college will have bed and board for us.”
“You mean the mage’s college?” I scratched my beard. “We’re going there?”
“It will be better than camping in the glaciers. More to the point, we will need their resources to plot our next excursion.”
Falura and I left to go back to our horses. They were tethered further down the mountain. We walked and talked.
“You got a plan for what’s next?” I asked.
“Not at the moment, I’m afraid. There was mention of a dragon sighting near the hot springs south of Windhelm…” She shook her head and made a ‘tch’ sound. “Oh, but no… we can’t keep killing each and every dragon. We have to figure out why they’re returning all of a sudden. There must be a reason behind it.”
I’d been chewing over that too, ever since I saw what happened to Helgen. I had my doubts that all these dragons had just been invisible and really really quiet for the past few thousand years. Something or someone was bringing them back. There weren’t any good hints or trails to follow...
Except maybe one thing.
The Argonian.
“Hold there. I have an idea,” I said, grabbing the thought before it flew away.
“You do?” The elf woman sounded more suspicious than interested. “Speak, then.”
“If we’re gonna study dragons, we still have to find them. Best way to do that is to be where the action is.”
Falura set a hand on her chin in a thinking pose.
“What do you mean by ‘action?’”
“You heard the call of the Greybeards, right? That’s the action I’m talking about.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“It’s simple! A man killed a dragon in Whiterun and took its soul. Now he’s been summoned by the Greybeards. That can only mean one thing, and the dragons won’t ignore it. You don’t think it’s funny that this man just happened to show up in Skyrim right when dragons started coming back?”
“It does seem like convenient timing…”
“That’s ‘cause it’s the gods’ timing. There’s a storm brewing, Falura, and if we want to get to the bottom of this dragon business, we need to find that man the Greybeards summoned.”
Falura’s brow rose. “You’re suggesting…?”
I smirked. “We need to find the Dragonborn.”
~ooooo~
As for how we’d do that… well, that was the difficult part. For Falura. I didn’t have a knack for academia, so all I could do was sit around in the college Arcanaeum like a bump on a log. Or get sent on errands. Not the best start to a grand dragon hunting adventure.
Ah, but that would soon change. One day I was sound asleep in my guest room. The mages at Winterhold love their lavish living quarters, with their green silk bedspreads, silver candelabras and the like. A bit overdone for my tastes, but I’d suffer a whole lot worse for those mattresses! Comfiest things I’ve laid on in my life!
Would’ve been the best sleep of my life, too, if I hadn’t been rudely woken up.
“Reinhardt,” Falura said, standing in the doorway. “Get up. I think I’ve found a promising lead. You’ll want to see this.”
Groggy and half-awake, I sat up and wiped the crust from my eyelids.
“Can this… wait until morning?” I yawned.
“It is morning,” she replied. “Come, come, we haven’t got all day.”
Morning? Ah troll’s blood... I can never just take a nap…
I put on a warm set of clothes and shoved into my boots, hoping on one foot. You have to walk out through the college courtyard to reach the Arcanaeum from the living quarters. If you aren’t awake before the icy wind touches your skin, trust me – you will be.
Falura had a map scrawled on a large wood table inside. She pointed to a spot on the map next to an ink pot she’d left as a placeholder.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“I’ve discovered something about the Greybeards that may help us track down the Dragonborn,” she said.
I stroked my beard. “Do tell.”
“As you know, the Greybeards summoned the Dragonborn to their monastery. This is not a new phenomenon. Many Dragonborn throughout history have answered the call of the Greybeards and received their training, including the illustrious Tiber Septim. This knowledge alone would give us a place to start our search. The Dragonborn must pass through the village of Ivarstead to reach High Hrothgar.”
I hammered a fist in my palm. “Then that’s where we’re going!”
Falura shooed away my eagerness. “No, no, we’re not going there... It’s been two weeks already since the summoning. By the time we reach Ivarstead, the Dragonborn will surely be long gone. Think about it. It could take months for us to catch up to him if we follow naught but bread crumbs. We need to be more predictive.”
“Huh… Kinda like a game of Steel Hearts, eh? We got to think more than one step ahead.”
“Precisely. Well said.” She set a pair of open books in front of me. “I’ve referenced two texts that speak of a ritual the Greybeards initiate at the conclusion of the Dragonborn’s training. It is a final rite, a test where the Dragonborn must travel across Skyrim to recover a token artifact.”
“What kind of artifact?”
Falura set her eyes down on the table. “Unfortunately I don’t know. The sources weren’t specific. But I was able to come across a name linked to the artifact – Ustengrav. I followed this vine and discovered that Ustengrav is the burial crypt of a man named Jurgen Windcaller.”
“Who?”
“The founder of the Greybeards. Jurgen Windcaller was the first practitioner of their creed, the Way of the Voice. Not a coincidence.” Falura set a single sheet of paper on top of the books. It was worn and yellowed. “I have now found evidence that suggests Ustengrav is the location of the artifact the Dragonborn is sent to find. If the Greybeards are keeping with tradition, our Dragonborn may already be on his way there. We must go to Ustengrav and look for the artifact to find whether or not it’s been taken.”
I walked a few steps around the table. “Great, but… we don’t know what it is. How will we know if the Dragonborn took it?”
“According to this, the artifact is laid with Jurgen Windcaller’s burial coffin. That shouldn’t be hard to miss.”
A grin rose on my face. “Alright. I’m liking this plan. What do we do if we don’t find the artifact?”
“We travel to the local villages in search of other leads, preferably witnesses.”
“And if the artifact’s still there, we’ll just wait for the Dragonborn to show up! We might beat him to the punch.”
“That would be less ideal, considering we won’t know if he will show up. But it could work.” She stood in her thinking pose again. “We will need to be cautious, for the crypt is full of dangers meant to test the Dragonborn’s abilities.”
“My, my… This sounds like quite a journey,” a new voice spoke up. An old Dark Elf wearing fancy robes stepped into the room. He had a slender head and a long bushy beard.
“Savos. I wasn’t expecting you,” Falura said to him. “We’re merely discussing our travel plans. We have a new lead into the dragon investigation.”
“You’ve been very persistent with this study of yours, haven’t you?” the man mused. “I’m impressed. If only our students were so diligent.”
“Come now, a professor in a lecture hall is no substitute for a pursuit born of passion. Diligence comes from intrinsic motivation.”
The wrinkly elf squinted his eyes at me.
“I don’t recognize this man,” he said. “A local?”
“This is Reinhardt, my companion,” Falura replied. “He was instrumental in killing the frost dragon – oh, that’s the name I’ve given it. Frost dragon. Fitting given its color and preference for frost magic, wouldn’t you say?”
This was a conversation in some realm where I didn’t exist. I didn’t know who that old man was or why I oughta give a care about him.
“Killing?” He sounded nervous. “Falura, what have you done?”
“The white dragon is dead, Savos,” she replied. “I was able to study it extensively. I have a better understanding of dragon physiology and will continue testing the samples in my possession. It is more than I could have hoped for. With luck I shall find a weakness we can exploit against their kind.”
“Goodness, Falura, I never expected you to act so impetuously!”
“Dire times call for dire measures. This college is no safer than any other place in Skyrim. The city of Whiterun was attacked and another village has been destroyed. They’re on the move, Savos. I, for one, refuse to dither.”
“Yeah! How come none of you mage types are helping to stop the dragons?” I chided. “You got all this magic here to keep you safe, but what about the rest of Skyrim? Can’t spare your precious time to help save common folk?”
The old elf didn’t seem angry, but he was ruffled. His lean and wrinkly face wrinkled even more. “I see you have found an assistant of like mind…”
Falura frowned at me. “You needn’t be hostile, Reinhardt. This is the Arch-Mage of the college, Savos Aren. He has explained to me his reasons for not supporting my research.” She gazed firmly at the old elf. “I disagree with his reasons, but he is allowed to have them regardless. We are privileged to be able to conduct our business at his college.”
I crossed my arms. “Hmph. Whatever you say.” The mages in Winterhold were full of themselves, every one of ‘em. Why couldn’t they share their magic with more people? Helgen might have fared better against the dragon if they’d had a few more wizards.
Most Nords don’t like magic. A man murders another man with his fists and he’s a criminal. But a man murders with a spell? Oh, he’s a fiend they’ll say – gave himself over to those vile arts. They’ll tell you magic is for the weak of arm and that it only causes trouble.
You know what, though? I knew a Nord battlemage back in Cyrodiil. We ran together on some bounty hunts and he sure didn’t seem weak to me. He was a fine warrior! I learned from him that a spell kills the same as a sword and that both depend on the skill of the wielder. We don’t blame swords when things go wrong, so why should we blame magic? People use the tools they have.
Bah, but enough of that. Our chat with the Arch-Mage droned on. I was itching to get out of the college.
Ustengrav lay in the swamp deltas of Hjalmarch. We’d have to watch for border disputes along the way, but the coastal roads passing through Dawnstar would give us a swift route to the west. After Savos was gone, we plotted our course on the map and slept on our plans through the night.
The next day me and Falura saddled up and set off to the tomb of Jurgen Windcaller. It was the start of our search for the Dragonborn, Whiterun’s savior. Vilkas spoke well of the man. I looked forward to meeting him. Had a good feeling our search would be easy too. He was no everyman, after all.
A red Argonian with scars on his cheek – how hard could that be to find?
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Reinhardt mentions a game called ‘Steel Hearts.’ This is a legitimate thing in tes lore, at least according to Kodlak and Skjor. They will speak of the game in a randomly triggered conversation, though no more information is given beyond the name. Nonetheless, I’m glad I found an excuse to use this little nugget.
Table of Contents
Previous ~*~ Following
Leave a 'like' if you've enjoyed reading!
Comments