Author's Notes: I am playing Skyrim with my lovely character Myrwen and decided to give her a backstory. Just writing short drabbles for now :) I also have screenshots which are hosted by external sites. You can access them by consulting my profile :)
English is not my first language, I am sure you will notice that.
Disclaimer: The Elder Srolls V: Skyrim, characters and places mentioned here belong to Bethesda. Myrwen belongs to me.
She speaks in a whisper, lest she disturbs his family, who dozed off to sleep. It was just him and her and the quietness.
T'is the darkest of nights, the dawn a distant promise still, but she decides to take her leave nevertheless. Dragons seem to care not about the passing of time as people do, causing restless havoc by dawn and dusk and twilight: thus she needs to reach the capital as soon as possible, to request assistance for these people who have no walls, no weapons, just bravery. And for his family, who took her in for a night as one of their own blood, she will do everything she can. And if she is able to enhance their chances by going to the Hold, she will certainly do so.
She reaches the door. But then he calls out to her in a whisper, saying her name for the first time. She whirls back, her eyes finding his.
He asks her to stay, until daybreak at least, as the roads are not safe during the night. She contests that the roads have never been safe - neither here nor anywhere - and she does not wish to be a further burden. He insists, claiming she never was. She does not know what to say to this.
She merely nods instead. Once. Silence settles in afterwards, words stay unspoken. Logs burn in the fireplace, casting light and warmth upon them both.
Between Helgen and Riverwood, his curiosity about her evolved. Though always polite and never demanding, she felt him building it up in his silence and in the glances he spared at her. However, back then there was little time for such questions as they were entertained with matters far more pertinent, venturing throughout ruins and caves, trying to keep hold of life and breath, trapped between hostile steel and dragon's breath. But now that nothing remains to kill or shield or heal, she expects him to take the absence of such interruptions for granted to quietly resume his questions about who she is. And as reluctant she may be to unveil more than needed, she also agrees he deserves more than a name.
Myrwen. Summerset. Alinor. He knows this, and must know no more for the time being, she vows to herself. She loathes secrets and shadows, so the decision of cloaking her background and purpose from the warrior who saved her life - even if he claims it was the other way around - pains her to an unmeasurable extent. It is not about trust, it was never about trust, as she does so for her homeland and her own people and, possibly, for the people of this distant Skyrim.
Fortunately, he did not put forward further questions either.
But there was one thing she concedes to admit to this man, for it is from the heart and it is certainly true.
"I do hope to see you again as well."
She speaks in a whisper, lest she disturbs his family, who dozed off to sleep. It was just him and her and the quietness.
She holds his gaze in her own, finding in the deep grey a blooming measure of wonder and even something deeper whose meaning she does not dare to grasp. Something that dwells within her own self as well, as she found out later on, stirring and stalking her heart in every single night and dream.