A/N: This is a stand-alone story to my Elder Scrolls series—very little that goes on in this story will have any significance to past or future events.
I'm also planning on experimenting with a genre or two here; I've long felt that I've never been able to write emotion particularly well, which has led me to shy away from trying out anything approaching romance or tragedy, or indeed, anything close to it. I hope this is something I can improve on in this story.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is © 2011 by Bethesda Softworks; all original characters and content are mine.
Hope you enjoy! - K
It is a time of uncertainty in Skyrim. Though the civil war that ravaged the province for years has finally come to an end, the victorious Stormcloak fighters have suffered the cruelest blow of all: Varulf Blackmane, Harbinger of the Companions, has been crowned High King after betraying and slaying the popular Jarl Ulfric of Windhelm.
Though Varulf has pledged to "bring back the old days", when High Kings led from the front line of war over the throne of a keep, few have confidence in him. The once-powerful Stormcloak movement has all but dissipated; disheartened fighters left in droves to return to their families, and the peaceful lives they once led.
And finally, the Last Dragonborn of legend, who slew Alduin the World-Eater three years ago, has not been seen since the Worm Cult incident of last year. The College of Winterhold, who has had the most contact with the mysterious hero, has refused to disclose the Dragonborn's whereabouts to even Varulf and his emissaries …
"Suddenly, it was everywhere … We seemed to be witnessing the Death of Cats on Nirn … "
- Quote attrib. to Lord Gharesh-ri, Speaker for the Mane
PROLOGUE
Dawnstar
20th of Rain's Hand, 4E 204
Rustleif yawned as he tightened his blacksmith's apron around him.
It was not for lack of sleep, but rather for too much of it. For some time—weeks, months, or years: even now, he could not be sure—the entire town had been plagued by nightmares. No one could offer an explanation, and old Frida at the apothecary could do little to stem the assault.
Within days, the madness had spread to the entire population. Poor Seren had been inconsolable with fear the entire time, always seeing one horrible thing after another happening to her daughter, even as she held little Makela in her arms. And Makela herself had been shrieking without pause well into the night; Rustleif felt shivers at the memory of seeing his precious' face contorted in such anguish. Idly, he wondered what kind of nightmares a two-year-old girl could manifest in her head—but he quickly forced the thought out of his mind; that was over now.
A priest of Mara had arrived at Windpeak Inn one night, and assured them all would be well in due time. But for a week there was nothing. Dawnstar continued to suffer, Seren continued to sob, and Makela continued to scream.
Then, a woman had arrived in the town, and encountered the priest. She had never given her name, nor her intentions for being here. But almost immediately, the two had left Dawnstar, and that was the last anyone saw of her. When the priest came back the next morning, he was alone—and strangely quiet about the whole thing. By sundown, he himself had left the town due west, with a strange, evil-looking staff slung over his back.
Ordinarily, Rustleif would have been concerned about this—but whatever that priest and his one-time companion had done, it had worked. The nightmares had passed.
For the first time in a long time, he could sleep soundly.
That had been a month ago, and everyone, from Beitild and her miners to the Jarl himself, had been sleeping in since then. But as Rustleif was beginning to find out, too much sleep could interfere with one's daily routine. And considering the hazards that came with being the town blacksmith, Rustleif had to be very mindful of where he was, and what he was doing.
What he was doing at the moment lay in the slack tub next to his forge, cooling in the water with a loud hiss. Steam billowed from the surface in clouds that looked much like the fog that was rolling in from the Sea of Ghosts just to the north.
In a few days' time, this five-foot length of Nord steel would be Jarl Skald's new greatsword. Rustleif had to chuckle at the thought of the old codger still being hale and hearty enough to lift a blade such as this. He himself had never taken a stance during the war against the Empire, and Rustleif knew as well as anyone what Skald thought of the Empire. It had surprised him, therefore, when the Jarl had been happy to hear that he was content enough to forge weapons and armor for the Stormcloaks, so long as he could do it for the rest of Dawnstar as well.
While the hot metal cooled, Rustleif busied himself with adding some more fuel to the fire. He added the last of the coals to the hearth, and tugged at the bellows—once, twice, and thrice—to stoke the flames further. When he judged the heat from the furnace appropriate, he took the bloom of metal and lowered it into the forge.
Rustleif frowned as he stared at the empty coal sack; he'd have to send Seren out to get more. Come to think of it, he thought, Seren should have been up and about by now, helping him out with the forge. Where was she?
"Seren!" he called out.
No response.
"Seren?"
But again there was no reply. Rustleif's frown deepened as he made his way inside—just for a few moments, he assured himself; a bloom for a sword this large would take time to heat up.
He wondered if something might be the matter with Makela; she'd been lacking her usual brightness of late. Frida had written it off as shock from all the nightmares she'd been having. Seren had thought she might be sick.
Then he stepped inside, and found the toddler trundling around the table, thrusting and waving a honey nut treat like a sword in every direction, shouting in baby talk at invisible bandits.
Rustleif had to chuckle at the display of fantasy and daring—especially since he recalled that he'd had to lock all the sweets out of her reach ever since she'd learned to walk. Unfortunately, Makela had seen him laughing just now, and the guilty look that spread over her face only became more evident when the sweet treat slipped from her tiny hands, falling to the floor with a soft plop.
"I sowwy," she said softly, her face falling.
Rustleif could never say no to a face like that. He laughed long and hard, and swept the dark-skinned child up in a hug. "Who's my little warrior?" he growled playfully at her, pinching her cheeks and making her giggle.
"Me me!" squealed Makela—no matter what mood she was in, she loved this game.
"Haharr! You, you!" Rustleif bellowed as gruffly as he could, sounding almost like a bear. For reasons known only to children, that just made Makela laugh even louder—and louder still when she noticed Rustleif holding a pair of carrots in his hands. He tossed one to the toddler, seeing her round black eyes sparkle at the thought of more swordplay.
But before the epic battle of good-against-slightly-less-good could take place, Seren finally emerged from the bedroom, and Rustleif only had a second to feel foolish about holding a carrot like a dagger before he remembered why he'd come inside.
"Are you ready for work, dearest?" he asked his—noticing her own blacksmith's apron wasn't even on; indeed, Seren was still in her nightclothes, despite the fact that the sun was already up. "Jarl Skald's sword is in the forge right now, and we're fresh out of coal for the fires—"
"I can't work today," Seren said flatly.
So final was the tone in her voice that Rustleif stopped in his tracks. "S-sorry?" he stammered.
"I can't leave the house at all today," Seren said again. She looked a little irritated. "Don't you know what today is, Rustleif?"
The blacksmith shook his head, confused.
"It's the twentieth day of Rain's Hand," said his wife. "It's a very important day over in Hammerfell—the Day of Shame."
Rustleif balked at this—was it the twentieth already? The days had all seemed to meld together after Jarl Skald had announced his commission for the greatsword in his forge. The days of endless nightmares had taken their toll on everyone here as well, Rustleif included.
He supposed he ought to be kicking himself for forgetting what today was. Normally, he wouldn't have even given it a second thought. But Seren was a Redguard to the bone—more to the point, she'd been the only Redguard in Dawnstar up until she'd given birth. And she had every intent on raising Makela as one herself—Rustleif's Nord blood be damned; for him and his daughter, this meant having to observe the special cultures and festivities of not one, but two cultures as well.
The Day of Shame, as Seren had told him once, had started almost a thousand years ago with a devastating disease that ravaged the whole of Tamriel for over forty years. Entire cities, even provinces, were laid low from the onslaught—some were even completely eradicated.
The most prominent incident stemming from the sickness, Seren had said, involved a lone ship, packed to bursting with the sick and suffering. They had sailed from port one day, desperate to find shelter in Hammerfell—but they were turned back at every port out of fear. Neither the ship nor its crew was ever seen again after that.
But the people of Hammerfell later came to regret their actions—and so it was that the Day of Shame was created, a day when no Redguard was to leave their house or dwelling place, out of remembrance for the suffering they had been indirectly responsible for—but partly out of vigilance as well. For it was said that one year, on this Day of Shame, that exact same ship would return to make landfall on Tamriel.
When he had first heard the story, Rustleif had scoffed. Tales of a haunted ship filled with sickness, indeed, he'd thought. Even the most wasting of diseases could never last for a thousand years. But he had seen the resolute look in Seren's eye, and knew that he could not deny her this.
Especially since the steely gaze she had now looked no different than back then.
"All right," he sighed. "I'll go talk to someone at the mines. Maybe Leigelf or Beitild can spare a hand. You do what you have to, dearest," he told her, giving a little kiss on her cheek.
"I don't suppose Jarl Skald would allow you to take today off, either?" Seren said wryly.
Rustleif chuckled darkly. "Crusty old fool would just as soon set foot down the Black Door then wait another day for his sword," he grumbled.
Seren covered Makela's ears. "Don't talk about that foul thing in front of her!" she said sharply. "You'll scare the poor girl!"
Rustleif snorted. For the past year, there had been some shady types standing around the mysterious door that lay north of Dawnstar. Where it led to, no one knew—and neither did anyone care to find out. But there had been rumors, and plenty of them. Dawnstar, it seemed, was no stranger to darkness and blood.
"What do you think, Makela?" he grinned, kneeling down at her. "You scared of a bunch of mean old assassins?"
His answer came in the form of a babbled war cry in baby talk, followed by the tip of the carrot—still held in his daughter's stubby hand—rapping him smartly on the bridge of his nose.
"Oof!" he yelped, rubbing his nose while Makela giggled at him. Even Seren started laughing.
"Well, there you have it," Rustleif chuckled as he stood up. "I should get back to the forge. I'll speak to a miner about supplies for the day. I'll come back in for lunch in a few hours."
Seren waved at him—and so, Rustleif was pleased to see, did Makela—as he exited the house and made for his forge.
As he walked over, his eyes strayed towards the inlet that led to the sea.
The fog was growing thicker.
Some distance away, inside that growing bank of fog, Guthrum sighed and shifted uneasily in his boat.
The aging Nord was a sailor born, and had forgotten more about the sea than his greenhorn of a captain yet knew. He knew all the tricks, and all the trades … and all the superstitions with it. And those superstitions were part of the reason why he had objected to fishing out here in this rickety little boat, amidst this mess of fog.
It wasn't natural fog, Guthrum had told Captain Wayfinder—he'd stake his life on it. But the captain had insisted they taken on supplies before the Sea Squall cast off for the College of Winterhold with their regular cargo of fine-cut void salts. Supplies meant provisions, and in this gods-forsaken spit of a town that called itself a port, provisions usually meant fish. So Wayfinder had given him a boat, a net—even a little pole and some bait.
None of it was helping him this morning.
And somehow, Guthrum could feel the reason why, thrumming in his bones. It was all because of this damned fog—and the White Widow.
"The White Widow?" his shipmate Ravam Verethi had said to him that morning, after Wayfinder had given him his net. "Who in the name of Mephala is she?"
Guthrum lowered his voice to a whisper. "Just to the east," he'd said, "there's a spit of land where this young couple set up camp. Madly in love with one another, married in a whirlwind romance, still in their wedding clothes. After their night of passion, the groom gets up to do his business with nature—and gets set upon by a snow bear."
He'd pounded his fist on the barrel where he'd set his meager breakfast here, to illustrate the quickness and brutality associated with those ferocious creatures. "Happens in a second, dead before he's hit the ground. The bride wakes up, sees the body, and is wrecked with grief. She dies not long after, so they say—but there are some who say her spirit still haunts this place, still wearing the same white dress as she did her wedding. They say she mourns her husband even in death. Others even say she wants revenge."
Ravam had looked skeptical. "You Nords and your tall tales," he'd grumbled. "Bad enough I'm sailing with a whelp what calls himself a captain. Worse I'm sailing with a s'wit what can't tell fact from fiction."
The Dunmer then heaved on a rope, and lowered the Sea Squall's lone dinghy into the water. "Now get to fishing, fetcher," he said. "Sooner we have a full load of food in the hold, sooner we can cast off from this miserable place."
The insults had stung Guthrum, even hours later. Ravam had always been bitter since Wayfinder had named himself captain after the passing of his mother, but never towards anyone else besides the boy.
But all the curses in the world could never change what Guthrum knew to be true. Fish were supposed to bite well in fog like this—and yet he'd not seen so much as a minnow in the tide pools. And the sound—there was nary a sound to be heard: not the water against the boat, not the north winds against his face—
Wait.
There was a noise.
It sounded almost like … singing?
Guthrum turned around the boat in a complete circle, slowly looking for any possible source of the strange sounds. But there was nothing to be seen, save for the fog and the ruined fortress in whose shadow Dawnstar was nestled.
The sailor was getting on in years, but his eyes were still as sharp as ever—sharp enough to see some of the details of the half-collapsed tower. Guthrum had heard tales about this fort, of how it had been sacked by a party of Orcs, years in the past—but those Orcs had never been seen again. The fort was haunted, in one way or the other, and Guthrum would never set either foot or oar within the shadow of that—
His stomach turned over when he saw it.
To anyone else's eyes, it might have been a squirming speck of white against the grayish-black stone of the tower. But to Guthrum, that squirming speck of white had a definite shape and size. Tall and slender; five, six feet, he surmised, maybe more—the size of a man.
The song was growing louder.
Or a woman.
The whiteness of the speck seemed to squirm even more, as if it was undulating in the wind … even fluttering.
A woman in a white dress.
All of a sudden, Guthrum had forgotten about the fish, the voyage—even the fog. Without a word, he dropped his nets, grabbed his oars, and started paddling as fast and close to south as he possibly could, desperate to make for land—for Dawnstar.
But for an instant, just before the fog retreated behind him, the aging Nord saw his third odd sight of the day—by far the largest, and the most unbelievable—before it was lost to sight among the giant icebergs and the silver-gray clouds in the distance. It had only been for a moment, but Guthrum's eyes had not yet failed him—he knew what he had seen out there.
It was the bow of a ship.