The Tale of Lund and Lokir.
Chapter 1: The Hut on the Hill.
Lund sat by the cairn of stones looking up at the stars sparkling in the indigo sky. It was late but the night was cool and still. He couldn't sleep. He'd not been able to since - his mind did not like to form the words, never mind his mouth utter them. The candle he'd placed on the stones flickered and then steadied it's glow like a tiny teardrop sun. In the distance he heard a wolf howl and the call of an Elk wandering Rorikstead's rocky hills. The hills he come to know so well.
He looked out towards the Sea of Ghosts, seeing the faint shadow of Solitude perched in the darkness, looming over the harbour like it was too good to sit in the plains or marshes or forests of Skyrim. It occupied the arch and high mountain ridge like a nobleman choosing not to mix with the rabble.
He'd promised her they'd leave Rorikstead for a new life in Solitude. He promised her he'd buy her the finest clothes and she'd wear the most beautiful jewels. He'd made so many promises; turned this little hut into a palace and this dry piece of rocky earth into a garden to win her heart. He would have promised her the moons and the sun and the stars. He took another sip of mead, it was bitter on his tongue.
In the first flush of love they had come to this house, his one room childhood home tucked into a hill on a bare patch of land just above the town. Not that he had any memories of that life, or even of his parents who had built this hut. He and his older brother Lokir had grown up wild on the streets of Riften. He recalled merely a string of beds, some hard, some soft and a parade of little remembered faces, some hard, some soft. A life of begging and stealing, whichever left them less hungry and their needs more fulfilled. He was 12 when his brother woke him in the night, having been absent for days, and told him he had to leave Riften for good and Lund had moments to decide if he'd come with him.
It wasn't much of a choice as Lund had been sleeping rough in Beggar's Row, a damp stinking vault underneath Riften and within an ale's breath of the notorious Ratway. So they left the pile of hay and the mossy stones where Lund had laid his head and headed for Solitude. A place where Lokir said the people were so rich, the coin they dropped turned the streets to gold.
Despite the promises, it was not a happy trip. Whenever they managed to find a kind roof for the night, Lund would be woken in the middle of it and Lokir would say they'd have to go. The third time this happened Lund realised his brother was stealing from the people who took them in resulting in the need for the sudden flight.
One night they left Whiterun in the pitch black at such haste they could almost feel the guard's breath on their backs. It was only thanks to the speed of their youthful legs and the night's darkness that their pursuers gave up and eventually they ran on alone. On the cobbled rough road they slowed and walked beside the desolate tundra in silence, fighting to catch their breath in the cold night air.
Lund with no words for his brother, he was tired of all the running, he was tired of his brother's thieving. As dawn came they crested a small hill and he saw the town of Rorikstead snuggly tucked into the valley before him. The morning light burnished the stacks of wheat and thatched roofs and he felt his heart lift and knew this was where he wanted to stay.
"Brother," he said to Lokir, "what is this place? It so beautiful! Are we dead, is it Sovngarde?"
"It's Rorikstead." Lokir answered quietly.
"Truly? Lokir, you said our parents lived here and that we were born here."
"Yes." Lokir frowned and said no more. He did not have happy memories of their life here. A life lived too close to each other in the tiny hut above the town. Lund knew nothing of the reasons Lokir had spirited himself and his baby brother away from this village all those years ago. He'd vowed never to return, and felt he'd have no need as there was no-one left for them to return to. But even he couldn't help but wonder if the little hut and the little stone cairn were still standing, up on the hill above Rorikstead.