Forenote: I'm working from the assumption that the world is bigger in "real life" than it's portrayed in-game. My scale is based on Ralof's statement that the Stormcloaks were captured at Darkwater Crossing two days before the day of the attack in Helgen, the average speed of a person or a slow, steady horse in rough country, linear map distances, in-game travel times, and a lot of guesswork.
Skyrim was beautiful.
Ethne Duval thought so for the first time, and far from the last, having just escaped from the destruction of Helgen. It sneaked up on her unexpectedly.
After the darkness of the cave tunnel, she and Ralof the Stormcloak stood on the mountainside, blinking in the bright morning sunlight. Before they could even see properly, they had to duck beneath the shelter of a boulder when the monstrous black dragon roared overhead one last time before winging away to the north. And then the danger was finally past. They were at the head of a path overlooking the forested sides of the mountains to the northwest, and every tree looked dipped in gold, brilliant against the hazy blue summer sky. The smell of smoke and death was behind them, and the smell of pines beckoned. They were alive, and Skyrim was beautiful.
Ethne shocked poor Ralof by planting a sloppy kiss on his face then and there, filthy and blood-spattered as he was—as they both were. But hot-blooded young soldier though he was, he also was a good man, and he knew better than to read more into it than a simple outpouring of survivor's joy. Smiling, he blushed, grunted, and suggested they get a move on before anyone came after them.
He led her down the mountain at a hard pace, and she struggled to keep up in the hot, ill-fitting armor she had taken from one of his fallen compatriots. It was better than nothing, though, and she bore her fatigue in silence. She couldn't complain to the man who'd cut her bonds and was still helping her, a perfect stranger and a foreigner, to boot.
The only thing they had in common was being dumped onto the same cart for transport to the executioner's block in Helgen. For him, though, that was enough. Anyone the Imperials wanted dead was more likely to be sympathetic to the cause of the Stormcloaks. He suggested that she consider joining, and she told him she would think about it.
In truth, she was ambivalent about the civil war. She certainly resented the Imperial army at the moment, but she had little sympathy for the rebellion of a people she did not know. Ethne was a Breton from a little port town in Alcaire, and she had lived in Cyrodiil for several years until her latest employer, an old healer by the name of Gaius Mellitus, had died, setting her adrift. She had come north in search of work, having heard a rumor that there might be an opening for someone with her skills at the White Phial in Windhelm, only to be held at the border and arrested on suspicion of being a spy for Ulfric Stormcloak, Jarl of Windhelm. No one listened to her protests that she was an innocent civilian. They stripped her of her possessions, left her in a damp, chilly cell at Fort Neugrad for days, and loaded her up one night with a convoy of rebels taken in ambush somewhere called Darkwater Crossing. She later learned this would have been on her way to Windhelm; perhaps the Imperials had feared she would tip off the rebels to their plan, with or without meaning to.
In any case, she was grateful to Ralof, and then to his sister, Gerdur, for helping her and giving her a safe place to rest after her ordeal. She was happy to be able to repay their kindness by carrying the news of Helgen's destruction and Riverwood's danger to Whiterun.
Gerdur set her up with decent clothes and food for the journey, plus enough gold for a meal and a bed in the city. For defense, Ethne had a rusty iron axe she'd taken in the flight from Helgen. She gave the Stormcloak armor to Ralof to take back to his friends, though, having no wish to be mistaken for a rebel again.
On the morning of her second day out from Riverwood, Ethne climbed up on a shelf of rock between the road and the White River to get her bearings, and she got her first look at the plains of Whiterun Hold: expansive fields of hardy green grass dotted with outcrops of granite and colorful flowers of all descriptions; the river flowing away in a shining ribbon to the northeast; stark, craggy mountains rising up all around; and directly north, a towering structure that had to be Dragonsreach, the palace of the jarl perched on its high hill. The scene was almost overwhelming in its grandeur. She had to stop and admire it. Everyone always spoke of Skyrim as a harsh land, frozen and unforgiving. Why did no one ever mention how lovely it was, too?
She couldn't stop for long, though. She hoped to reach the jarl before nightfall, and she would have to move quickly in order to make that goal.
By midday, she reached the crossroads where Gerdur had told her she must turn west rather than continue north across a tributary to the river. The road followed the tributary and led her past the Honingbrew Meadery. The richly sweet smell of fermenting honey filled the air. Honingbrew was famous even outside of Skyrim, and had Ethne been on an errand less urgent, she might have stopped by to visit, but that would have to wait for another day.
The shadows were beginning to grow long when she came to the walled border of a field full of maturing leeks and cabbages. Her eyes were on the road, avoiding the afternoon sun ahead of her, but her head jerked up at the sound of a deep, guttural roar and a crunch and snap of splintering wood.
There was a giant. A giant, right in the middle of a cultivated field. Ethne stood stock-still, staring, her mouth gaping open. The towering creature bellowed again and swung its enormous bone club, throwing up a cloud of earth and destroying half a row of innocent vegetables.
Movement drew Ethne's eye, and she realized there were two people fighting the giant. One darted in and swung at it, his greatsword glinting in the sun, while the other drew back, keeping an eye on that deadly club.
Suddenly the giant flinched as though stung and turned to bellow at a third fighter: an archer, standing atop a wall behind the others, whose red hair shone like a halo of fire. The distraction provided by her shot gave the two fighters an opportunity to move in for twin hits. The man with the greatsword thrust high at the giant's belly while the smaller of the two, whom Ethne realized was a woman, hacked at its shin with her one-handed blade. They both scored it, but that only seemed to make it angrier. It bellowed in rage and lifted one great foot to stomp on the ground. Ethne felt the shock from yards away, and the two fighters stumbled.
Before she knew what she was doing, Ethne leaped over a low place in the field's stone wall and went running to help. With a wordless cry, she hewed at the back of the giant's leg with her war axe held in both hands. It was like striking a hardwood tree, and her arms went nearly numb; but she had at least nicked a tendon, and the giant staggered under the weight of its club, raised to strike. The two fighters scrambled out of range, and Ethne too dodged back.
Another arrow took the giant in the eye. It fell to its knees with a roar of agony, clutching its face. Ethne and the two warriors fell on it together, Ethne chopping at the back of its neck and the others stabbing for its heart. Finally, after several agonizing and bloody seconds, it fell still and moved no more.
The three of them stood panting, looking at each other curiously, but too winded to speak for the moment. The woman was young, twenty at the most, with short brown hair and light brown eyes. The lines of red paint at the corners of her eyes and below her mouth made her look fierce, but she seemed as surprised as she was elated by her shared victory. The man with the greatsword was something of a giant himself, tall and very broad of chest and shoulder, made even broader by the fur-lined spauldrons of his dark steel armor. His hair was long and dark, matted with sweat, and he had ragged circles of black warpaint around his eyes. These were a bright, icy blue, and he had a broad grin that Ethne found mildly unsettling.
The red-haired archer joined them and looked over the fallen giant with a satisfied air. "Well, that's taken care of." She had a pleasantly low voice, and she, too, wore warpaint: three streaks of dark blue woad across her face, as though something had clawed her. "Nice work, Ria," she said to the brunette; then she turned to Ethne. "You handled yourself well, too, stranger. You could make for a decent shield-sister."
"Thanks!" Ethne said, though she wasn't quite sure what the redhead meant. "I couldn't just stand there when he knocked your friends down."
"Certainly not," the woman said approvingly. "Any true warrior would relish the opportunity to take on a giant. That's why I'm here with my shield-siblings. The big oaf is Farkas. This is Ria. I'm Aela."
Aela held out her arm, and Ethne clasped it.
"Ethne Duval." She shook with the other two in turn. Farkas had a grip like a steel trap that numbed her hand all over again. She tried not to show it. "So . . . what does it mean, 'shield-sister'?"
"An outsider, eh? Never heard of the Companions?"
Ethne shook her head.
"An order of warriors. We are brothers and sisters in honor. And we show up to solve problems if the coin is good enough." Aela put her foot on the giant's back.
"You should come back to Jorrvaskr with us," Farkas said suddenly, making Ethne jump with his deep, gruff voice. "We'll be celebrating Ria's first giant tonight." He slapped the younger woman affectionately on the back, staggering her. "You helped, so you should be there, too. It'll be a lot of fun, and you can talk to Kodlak about joining up. You look strong. I'm sure he'll take you."
"Oh," Ethne said, a little taken aback by the offer. "I would love to . . . but I can't. I have to see the jarl. It's urgent—I've stopped here too long already."
"Ease up there, icebrain; you'll scare her off before she even gets to know us," Aela said, grinning. "Don't mind him," she told Ethne. "But you should come with us anyway. We're going the same direction, and we'll make sure the guards let you into the city. There's a crazy rumor about a dragon torching the countryside, and they've locked the gates to visitors. Personally, I think it's just an excuse to keep out the Imperials and the Stormcloaks without offending anyone."
"It's not just a rumor. It's true," Ethne said bleakly. "I was at Helgen two days ago. An enormous black dragon attacked, and destroyed the town. It breathed fire, just like in the stories, and it called burning rocks down from the sky." The deadly heat of the flames, the thick, choking smoke, the explosions and the screams came back to her. The hairs of her body stood on end. She shuddered hard and wrapped her arms around herself. "Mara's mercy, its voice . . . it was like thunder." More than that, it had resonated inside her in a way she didn't understand. It felt almost like something on the edge of memory, just out of reach; something she yearned for even though it frightened her half out of her wits.
The Companions looked at her with new eyes after hearing her account.
"Gods, you're not making it up," said Aela. She looked troubled.
"You really saw a dragon?" The young woman, Ria, spoke for the first time. "Did you fight it?"
Ethne goggled at her. "What? No! I barely escaped it! One man and I made it to Riverwood. They wanted me to come and ask Jarl Balgruuf for protection for them."
"Then we won't waste any more time," Aela said. "Come on."
She took Ethne's forearm and tugged her into motion. The others fell in behind.
As they hurried up the road, now striding, now jogging, Aela turned to her with a question. "Tell me . . . in Helgen, did you happen to see a red-haired man, about the size of Farkas? He might have had a boy with him, or a narrow-faced woman."
Ethne shook her head, frowning. "I don't know, it all happened so fast. But . . . " Flashes of memory returned. She had noticed a boy as the carts rolled toward the town square. His father had sent him inside. Had he had red hair? Maybe. Then, later, as she was fleeing through fire and tumult, a boy again; his father, burned and dying, telling him to run. Imperial soldiers had escorted him away, hopefully to safety. She told Aela, "If I did see the man you're thinking of, he's dead. I'm sorry. Was he someone close to you?"
Aela scowled. "Not close, not for many years . . . but he was my brother. Torolf. He worked the lumber mill in Helgen with his wife, and they had a son, Haming. He'd be ten or eleven now, I think. Is he . . . ?"
"No—that is, I don't know for certain, but the man I saw, his son may have escaped. Some Imperial soldiers were protecting him last I saw."
"I see." She was silent for a moment, eyes cast down on the road ahead of her. "Thank you for telling me. If Haming's alive, I know where he'd go."
She didn't sound thrilled about it, but it wasn't Ethne's business, so she didn't inquire as to why.
They reached the winding approach to the gates of Whiterun. It was clearly designed with warfare in mind, exposing a potential enemy to attack on all sides, but the walls were old and crumbling, the rickety wooden towers hardly fit for birds to nest in. Ethne wasn't sure how much good these defenses would do against a determined army, let alone a living siege engine on the wing.
The gates to the city were painted in faded powder-blue and gold. Horse-head banners in the same colors hung to either side.
One of two guards in matching livery stepped forward and called out to Aela and the others as they approached. "Hail, Companions! Who's this with you? A new recruit?" He sounded suspicious, but it was hard to tell through the faceplate.
"A friend," said Aela, "with important news for the Jarl. Open up, Arne. I vouch for her." She clapped Ethne on the shoulder, not warmly, but confidently enough to sell the image.
"All right, Aela," said Arne, then addressed Ethne. "But don't go causing any trouble, outsider. We've got more than enough as it is."
He turned and unlocked the gates with an outsized iron key. It took both guards to force one of the leaves open—the wood had to be six inches thick. Ethne, Farkas, and Ria followed Aela inside, and the lock clanked shut behind them.
The Companions went on without pause, but Ethne fell behind, looking around at the city. The first sight that greeted her was the smithy on the south side of the street, with its facade as red as the coals of the forge in the light of sunset. A little farther along, to the north and above the street, was a tavern whose shingle depicted a frothy mug of ale over a hop flower and two ears of wheat.
Farkas noticed that she was no longer with them and dropped back beside her. "First time to Whiterun?" he inquired. When Ethne said it was, he went on. "That's the Drunken Huntsman. Don't stay there. It's all right if you're fancy, but the Bannered Mare is better. Come on. It's a long climb to the palace."
She did her best to stop gawking and keep up, but Whiterun was full of fascinating sights and sounds. They came to an open plaza surrounded by shops with a well in the center, clearly the heart of the city. The marketplace was lively with people closing shop and heading either home to their families or off to their watering hole of choice.
"See, that's the Mare up there," Farkas said, pointing to a large two-story building that lorded over the plaza from a higher place on the hillside. "When you're done talking to the Jarl, you can get a good, hot meal and a bed there. Tell Hulda the Companions sent you, and she'll treat you extra-nice."
"Thanks," Ethne said. It was heartfelt. She'd always heard that the Nords were a people as rough as their country, brutish and unfriendly to outsiders, but even this big, dangerous-looking warrior was proving that wrong.
Aela and Ria had gotten ahead again, and Aela turned to shout at them from a stairway leading to the next level of the city.
"Come on, Farkas! She's not here to see the sights!"
"Sorry!" he said, though he didn't seem quite sure whether he was saying it to Aela or Ethne.
"It's all right," Ethne said. "I'll be grateful if I have to find my way back here after dark."
They hurried to catch up again. The stair was ingeniously flanked with streams of running water, chuckling merrily over the rocks of their beds.
"This is the Wind District," Farkas told her when they reached the top. "Back there was the Plains District. It's mostly shops down there, and it's mostly houses up here. That's the Temple of Kynareth." He pointed northwest of a huge tree in the middle of the courtyard. The streams of water drew a circle around it. "Jorrvaskr's there." He pointed east, to an enormous hall with a roof that looked like an overturned boat, hung with shields all along its length. Warm light shone from within. "That's where we live. Us and the rest of the Companions."
"This is where we leave you," Aela said. "Just follow the stairs up to the palace; you can't miss it. Tell the guards what you told us, and you won't have any trouble. When you get inside, talk to Irileth, the housecarl. A Dark Elf; you can't miss her, either. Jarl Balgruuf can be a bit prickly, but he's an honorable man and he cares about his people. He'll be sure to hear you out."
"Thank you—all of you," Ethne said, and clasped their arms again. "I hope we meet again."
"You can always come by Jorrvaskr if you're interested in joining up," Aela said. "The life's not for everyone, but if you survived a dragon, you must have some strength in you. There's no better way to win honor and glory while earning a living, too. Think about it."
"I will."
Ethne watched them make their way up to their hall and for a moment really wished she were going with them. But no. She would deliver her message, spend the night at the inn, and in the morning she would start asking around for work that didn't come with such a high risk of death.
As Farkas had said, it was a long climb to the palace of Dragonsreach, and the stone steps were slippery with spray from twin waterfalls that spilled from fissures in the hillside into a deep pool below. Here, then, was the source of the streams below. Clever.
She kept on doggedly. At the top, she paused to slow her breathing and compose herself, then approached the palace guards.
"Halt!" cried one, a woman. "Who are you, and what business do you have here?"
"Ethne Duval of High Rock," she answered smartly. "I come bearing news from Helgen and a request for aid from Riverwood."
"Helgen? You were at Helgen?"
"I was. I saw what happened with my own eyes."
"Go, then. The Jarl will want to hear this."
The guard opened the door and ushered Ethne inside.
The long hall was dark in the fading light of dusk, and the central fire threw long, eerie shadows against the supporting pillars and the walls. The place felt even bigger on the inside than it had looked from below.
Ethne could hear the sounds of a conversation echoing from the far end of the hall as she climbed yet more stairs to the main level.
"My lord. Please. You have to listen. I only counsel caution. We cannot afford to act rashly in times like these. If the news from Helgen is true . . . well, there's no telling what it means."
The speaker was an anxious, mostly bald man with a Cyrodiilic accent. He stood beside the throne, in which lounged an imposing figure of a Nord with his yellow hair braided back from his face and his beard immaculately styled into a blunt cone. His rich clothes and the gold circlet on his brow, set with large gems, marked him as a lord, though his demeanor and manner of speech would have been enough without them.
"What would you have me do, then? Nothing?"
"My lord. Please. This is no time for rash action. I just think we need more information before we act. I just—"
"Who's this, then?" The Jarl fixed his gaze on Ethne.
She had crept as close as she dared to the dais and come up beside the head of the fire pit, in front of a hard-faced Dunmer woman who must be the Irileth of whom Aela had spoken. Ethne was no longer certain whom she should address, but Irileth solved the dilemma by marching toward her.
"You! Why do you interrupt a meeting between the Jarl and his steward?" Her voice was deep and melodious, like many Dunmer women, but there was nothing soothing about her. She fixed her ruby-red eyes on Ethne and glared such that Ethne was sure she would get a sword in the gut if she said the wrong thing.
"I . . ." Her voice broke. She swallowed and started again. "I beg your pardon, my lady, my lords. I have just come from Riverwood, bearing urgent news for the Jarl of Whiterun. Riverwood is in danger and calls for the Jarl's aid. Despite the late hour, I must humbly request an audience."
The housecarl looked as though she were about to say no, but the Jarl intervened.
"It's all right, Irileth. I want to hear what this woman has to say."
Irileth's mouth pressed into a thin line. "Very well. You may approach the Jarl. But carefully."
Ethne gave her a stiff bow and edged between her and the fire to stand before the throne.
Jarl Balgruuf leaned forward to peer at her more closely. "What's this about Riverwood being in danger?"
Ethne gulped again, though her mouth was dry. "My lord, I was at Helgen when the dragon attacked. When I last saw it, it was flying north. Gerdur is afraid that Riverwood might be next, and she asked me to bring you this news and her request for protection."
"Gerdur? Owns the lumber mill, if I'm not mistaken. Pillar of the community. Not prone to flights of fancy. . . . And you're sure Helgen was destroyed by a dragon? This wasn't some Stormcloak raid gone wrong?"
"No, my lord. Neither Men nor Mer could do what this thing did. It leveled the town—there's nothing left but rubble and ash." Again the horror of that day overtook her. She fought down the urge to vomit and held her balled hands stiffly at her sides lest she seem feeble before the Jarl.
However, he had turned to address his steward. "What do you say now, Proventus? Shall we continue to trust in the strength of our walls? Against a dragon?"
Irileth spoke up from his left. "My lord, we should send troops to Riverwood at once. It's in the most immediate danger, if that dragon is lurking in the mountains."
The steward, Proventus, argued back. "The Jarl of Falkreath will view that as a provocation! He'll assume we're preparing to join Ulfric's side and attack him."
Jarl Balgruuf raised a hand, cutting them off. "Enough! Irileth, send a detachment to Riverwood at once."
"Yes, my Jarl." She snapped off a precise bow and turned on her heel to go and give the orders.
"We should not . . ." muttered Proventus.
Balgruuf rounded on him angrily: "I'll not stand idly by while a dragon burns my hold and slaughters my people!"
"Y-yes, my Jarl," stammered Proventus. "If you'll excuse me, I'll return to my duties."
"That would be best," Balgruuf said stiffly. When the steward had gone, he turned to Ethne, who had stood like a statue throughout the exchange. "You there. Well done. You sought me out, on your own initiative. You've done Whiterun a service, and I won't forget it. Tell me your name."
She told him.
He nodded. "Ethne Duval, I will make you known to my household, and you will be allowed to select a reward from my armory. A small token of my esteem."
"You are generous." She hesitated. The Jarl was giving her a speculative look that she couldn't interpret. "Will that be all, my lord?"
It seemed not. "There is another thing you could do for me. Suitable for someone of your particular talents, perhaps. Come, let's go find Farengar, my court wizard. He's been looking into a matter related to these dragons and . . . rumors of dragons.
"Yes, my lord." She tried not to let her frustration tell in her voice. She was tired, thirsty, and heartsick, and wanted nothing more than to find her way back to the Bannered Mare and shut out the world for the night. And just what did this jarl think her "particular talents" were? The fact that she had seen a dragon and escaped with most of the skin on her back didn't make her some kind of expert.
However, one did not argue with royalty, so she held her tongue and followed him to a laboratory off the east side of the greathall.
"I'll introduce you to Farengar," Jarl Balgruuf said softly. "He can be a bit . . . difficult. Mages, you know."
She did know, having spent more than enough time around them as a youth. Every child in High Rock was routinely tested for magical ability and trained accordingly—at least as far as their parents could afford, and Ethne's mercantile father could afford quite a bit. Unfortunately, she had never had the slightest aptitude, despite the claims of numerous teachers that she had a great untapped potential. True or not, her simplest spells always fizzled in seconds, no matter how she concentrated, and they had finally allowed her to give up and pursue other interests.
Farengar's room was the typical cluttered mess Ethne associated with serious wizards: a table covered in books, papers, a map, and a scattering of small soul gems and other materials; an alchemy array; an enchanting table; shelves and shelves of more books, potions, reagents, and Divines knew what else. The man himself, a hatchet-faced Nord in blue robes, stood at the table, poring over one of his books, and didn't look up until the Jarl said his name.
"Farengar, I think I've found someone who can help you with your project. Go ahead and fill her in on all the details."
"Hmm? What? Project?" Farengar had apparently been lost in his research and took a moment to come back to Nirn. He blinked owlishly at Ethne. "Oh, yes, the Jarl must be referring to my research into dragons. Yes, I could use someone to fetch something for me. Well, when I say fetch, I really mean delve into a dangerous ruin in search of an ancient artifact that may or may not actually be there."
Ethne's heart sank. She was in no way prepared for a treasure-hunting expedition to gods-knew-where, and she had sworn she was done with this sort of thing when she settled down to keep shop for old Gaius. She tried to think of a polite way to say no, she wasn't the woman they wanted, but she couldn't. This was work, a voice in the back of her mind told her. Better, it would put her in a jarl's good graces, and that could only be a good thing in the long run.
And, if she were honest with herself, she had to admit she was curious. "All right, tell me more. What does this have to do with dragons?"
Farengar seemed pleased with her response. "Ah, no mere brute mercenary, but a thinker—perhaps even a scholar?" He didn't give her a chance to respond; his passion carried him on, pacing back and forth behind his table. "You see, when the stories of dragons began to circulate, many dismissed them as mere fantasies, rumors. Impossibilities. One sure mark of a fool is to dismiss anything that falls outside his experience as being impossible. But I began to search for information about dragons—where had they gone all those years ago? And where were they coming from?"
Ethne wanted to know that herself. "And you found something? This artifact?"
"Yes. I, ah, learned of a certain stone tablet said to be housed in Bleak Falls Barrow: a 'Dragonstone', said to contain a map of dragon burial sites. Your task is to go to Bleak Falls Barrow, find this tablet—no doubt interred in the main chamber—and bring it to me. Simplicity itself."
"Right." If that was a joke, the wizard had a rotten sense of humor. The way he avoided her eyes when he said "learned" was not particularly heartening, either. "And how do I get to—wait. Bleak Falls? I know that place." Ralof had pointed it out to her during their flight to Riverwood; said it gave him the chills.
She turned to the Jarl, who had stood quietly observing the exchange. "My lord, I will fetch this Dragonstone, but, though I hate to beg favors, I lost everything I owned in Helgen." Not quite the truth, but close enough to avoid questions that would make everyone uncomfortable. "If I am to do this, I will need proper gear, food, supplies . . . "
Balgruuf gave her a hard, measuring look, and then the barest nod. "If you succeed in this, Whiterun will be in your debt. I will see that you have gold enough for what you need. Consider it a down payment on your reward, and do not fail."
He didn't need to say what would happen if she did: she'd be a dead woman, one way or another.
"I won't," said Ethne. "Thank you, my lord."
"Good. Now, it is late, and you have come a long way. Go, rest, and come back in the morning. My steward, Proventus, will see to your needs."
"Yes, my lord. Thank you. Goodnight." She bowed to him and, less deeply, to Farengar, then hurried out.
The Jarl's voice followed her into the hall: "This is a priority now, Farengar. Anything we can use to fight this dragon, or dragons. We need it, quickly. Before it's too late."
Farengar replied: "Of course, Jarl Balgruuf. You seem to have found me an able assistant. I'm sure she will prove most useful."
She had better, Ethne thought, smiling grimly to herself.
It was challenging to get around Whiterun in the dark with all its stairs and levels, and seeing Jorrvaskr again, its windows glowing brightly and smoke rising from the cookfires within, almost made her reverse her decision to decline Farkas' invitation. A drink and a song or two would be just the way to get fired up before a dangerous quest. But she really had no business there, and she needed to rest, not stay up carousing.
Thanks to the tour she'd received earlier, she made it to the Bannered Mare without getting lost or breaking her neck. As soon as she stepped through the door, she wondered whether she were really any better off here than up at the mead hall. The common room was full of people, mostly locals by the sameness of them: on benches around the central fire, at the bar, at tables in the corners. Over the hum of conversation, a bard played a lilting melody on a horn flute.
The locals were curious about her, but she kept her conversation brief and polite, and they soon got bored and left her alone. The innkeeper, an officious middle-aged woman named Hulda, noticed her quickly enough and set her up with a frothy ale and a bowl of rich venison stew. Ethne hadn't realized how hungry she was until she smelled it, and then she could think of nothing else. She tucked in gratefully and was not disappointed. The meat was tender and not too gamy, the large chunks of potato dissolved creamily on her tongue, and the gravy was well seasoned with pepper and some other spices that reminded her of Hammerfell.
She went to bed happy and roused when the sun, slanting through narrow slats in the roof, fell on her face. Hulda fed her a complimentary breakfast of new bread and honey with a small pot of heather tea, and so she got a better start to the day than she had ever hoped for.
She made her way back up to the palace with a spring in her step, thinking that this adventure wasn't such a bad idea after all. She was alive; she'd landed on her feet after a harrowing near-death experience, and she had a patron in an important lord who, if she pleased him this time, might have further use for her in the future.
And she liked his city. Whiterun was impressive and a little daunting in twilight. In the fresh light of morning, its true character shone through. It was an ancient settlement, and it showed in the worn cobblestones underfoot and the darkened wood of the buildings, but it was also a well-kept one. The water channeled so cleverly from its source below the palace looked fresh and pure where it flowed in its sparkling courses above-ground, but Ethne suspected that there were below-ground sewers, too, which would account for the cleanliness of the streets. The doors of shops and houses were painted in cheerful hues, and there wasn't a moldy bit of thatch or missing shingle to be seen. Grasses and flowers grew wherever they could find purchase on the rocky bones of the hill, giving lively color to the whole place. Maybe it wasn't as grand as the stone capitals of High Rock and Cyrodiil, but it was by no means unsophisticated, and she found it comfortable, like a favorite old chair that had shaped itself to the contours of its owner.
Balgruuf's household was just finishing breakfast when she arrived in the greathall. He himself had already taken his place on the throne and was engaged in conversation with Irileth, Proventus, and a man in Imperial armor whom she didn't recognize: fairly mundane talk of agendas, stores, soldiers, and gold. The watchful housecarl spotted her first and pinned her where she was with a sharp look, then bent to the Jarl's ear.
Balgruuf nodded and shifted in his seat to face Ethne more directly. "You are prompt. Good. I trust you remember my steward, Proventus Avenicci." He gestured to the balding Imperial. "He will escort you first to the armory. You may take any spare piece of armor that suits you and whatever gear you think will be of use in your quest. If there is anything you require that Dragonsreach cannot provide, Proventus will purchase it for you, within reason."
Ethne noticed the pinched look on the steward's face and guessed that he wasn't too happy about this order. She couldn't blame him. A steward's job was to take greater care with his master's money than the master himself. If he was any good, spending always went against the grain.
"I understand, my lord," she said.
Proventus beckoned her impatiently and led her through the halls of the palace. "Come on, let's get this over with. I have more important things to do than take the Jarl's new pet for a walk."
Behind him, Ethne rolled her eyes. "Yes, my lord steward."
He looked at her sharply over his shoulder. She looked up curiously, as though wondering what he wanted, and he hurried on with a huff.
Fortunately, the palace stores held most of what she needed: a decent if battered steel cuirass and gauntlets from the armory; stained boots with good, thick soles; a warm blanket, only slightly moth-eaten; a patched change of clothes; a spare flint and steel striker; a small iron pot; a sturdy rope and sheet of canvas; a pair of minor healing potions for emergencies; a stout leather backpack to carry it all in.
Dragonsreach did not have travelers' food on hand, though. For that and a few other odds and ends she had learned never to travel without, they went out into the city.
Proventus cheered up markedly in the sunlight; perhaps he didn't get out much. Ethne made a simple passing remark about how nice the waterfalls were, and he was off to the races, telling her everything he knew about the history of Whiterun. Parts were quite fascinating, and she wished he would slow down a bit. As it was, she felt sure she wouldn't remember half of it.
He appreciated a receptive audience, though, and they managed to end the excursion on friendly terms with each other. He wished her well on her endeavor and even pressed a few extra coins into her palm, for whatever came up. "The Jarl has many cares," he said. "If this Dragonstone eases his mind, you'll have my gratitude. Good luck."
She thanked him for everything and, having no preparations left to make, set off back to Riverwood.