Standard disclaimer: None of the characters, places, etc. in this story are mine, but are instead the property of Bethesda Game Studios. No copyright infringement is intended by their use in this story.
Author's note: My first Skyrim story. This one follows the "Old Friends" questline from Dragonborn and was a real pain to write, even worse than "The Divide," though it's shorter. Let's just say I don't think I'll be doing any more point-by-point retellings of questlines for the foreseeable future :P.
For those who are interested (*if* anyone's interested?) my other projects still do include my Fallout 3 / Fallout: New Vegas crossover - yes, it *is* still being worked on - but also a second and probably last Skyrim fic. My guess is my second and last Skyrim fic will be done first, but we'll see. Anyway, just glad to get this off my desk and over with.
Thanks to LadyKate1 who betaed!
There was no one like 'im, 'Orse or Foot,
Nor any o' the guns I knew
An' because it was so, why, o' course 'e went an' died
Which is just what the best men do.
So it's knock out your pipes an' follow me,
An' it's finish up your swipes an' follow me,
Oh, 'ark to the big drum callin',
An' follow me - follow me 'ome.
- "Follow Me 'Ome," Rudyard Kipling
"I don't think anything I've ever done is wrong!"
- Homer Simpson, "Natural Born Kissers," The Simpsons
The first thing the Dovahkiin did for him once he had agreed to become her follower, was to make him a set of Elven armor. (Ingrid, Ingrid, Talvas reminded himself; she had told him to call her "Ingrid," but it was hard to remember.) She had a forge in the basement of her mansion in Raven Rock. Actually it wasn't her mansion; it had originally been the mansion of the Severin family; but the Severins had been discovered plotting against First Councilor Lleril Morvayn and had been exiled. It had been the Dovahkiin that had discovered the plot. She had been given the newly vacant mansion as a reward. Which means she came out of the whole thing pretty well, he mused with a trace of cynicism, before becoming slightly abashed at himself; she had done nothing to justify it.
So far, he thought morbidly.
He had been filled with a queasy sense of dread as she had taken his measurements - whenever Mastor Neloth had done something similar, whatever followed would always be uncomfortable at best, outright painful at worst - but he forced himself to stand quietly, waiting for her to finish. She gave him a wink - looking down at him, she was so tall, tall enough to look an Altmer in the eye - and then retreated to the forge in the basement. Greatly daring, he had asked her if he could watch; Neloth would have snapped at him, but Talvas wanted to learn. And she had agreed.
He watched as she melded moonstone, quicksilver and iron, her face intent in the ruddy light from the glowing coals, shaping cuirass, boots and gauntlets with skilful hammer strokes; he watched as she took the just-cooled pieces to the armor bench and tempered them with more moonstone, giving them strength and resilience. He could tell, looking around her mansion, that she practiced many occupations - alchemy, enchanting - but watching the concentration in her face, it was clear that smithing was her major art form. She made him a dagger too, in the elven style, and when she had seen the hunting bow he carried, she crafted him an elven bow and set of arrows, shaping them as well with her cool precision.
She made him no helmet, but selected a circlet instead from the safe where she kept pieces of jewelry. He thought none of them were hers, for she never wore them, but he hadn't quite the courage to ask her where they all had come from. She also selected a plain golden pendant and ring, and then took the whole lot over to the enchanter, a huge affair as elaborate as Master Neloth's own. When she set to work, Talvas understood at once why Neloth had refused to teach her enchantment: he had claimed it was because he did not want her to become better than him, but Talvas knew enough about enchantment to see that she was already better than Neloth, better than any enchanter he had ever seen.
She took seven black soul gems from the barrel where she kept them, and that chilled him a little, for he had no idea where or how she ever could have obtained so many filled black soul gems -
Perhaps she filled them herself, a ghostly voice whispered in the back of his mind.
- and for the eighth piece, the gilded cuirass, she laid out an eight-rayed item he had never seen before, but had heard of in tales.
Azura's Star, he realized in something close to awe. That's Azura's Star...
But he had no time to contemplate the mystery because then she began to enchant and he had to watch her; he couldn't pass up an opportunity to observe a master enchanter at work.
Talvas had grown quite skilled at learning things by watching; it was a necessity, given Master Neloth's ... unstructured ... approach to teaching him anything. The enchantments she laid on the weapons and armor - my weapons and armor, he reminded himself, turning the thought over in his mind, trying to grow accustomed to it - were the strongest he had ever seen. She started by enchanting the boots, gauntlets, ring and necklace first to increase the weight he would be able to carry. Talvas was somewhat disappointed but he had to admit he had expected it; after all, she had made it clear one of his duties would be to serve as a pack mule. But then he stared, for he saw she had a skill of which he had heard but had always thought was a myth: the ability to lay two enchantments on one piece of equipment.
And now they started piling up. Fortify Health. Fortify Conjuration. Fortify Magicka. Fortify Magicka Regen. Resist Magic. Absorb Health. Absorb Stamina. The list went on and on, all done at breakneck rate, until Talvas was overwhelmed; he could barely understand what he was seeing. When she finally straightened from the enchanter, the new equipment a pile of gently glowing items on the floor, and gestured to him, he couldn't help but ask stupidly, "For me?"
"Do you see anyone else around here?" she asked, grinning. "Go ahead, try it on. Show me how it fits."
Talvas carefully gathered the pieces of armor into his hands. They felt light but very strong; they were slightly warm, with the glowing lines of their enchantments shimmering subtly just under the surface. He was almost afraid to touch them. Master Neloth would have shouted at him if he had dared even breathe in the direction of such fine things. Carrying them easily, he retreated to the room she had told him was his own - a whole room, all to himself! Neloth had given him no more than a bedroll on the floor of his laboratory - and arrayed himself in the armor. He struggled a bit with the straps; he had never worn armor before. It fit him like a dream, so light and so well-made he scarcely knew he was wearing it. He could feel the resonance of the enchantments prickling slightly over his skin; then the prickling melded into him, and he could sense their power. A surge of confidence swelled through him. I could take on a Daedra in this armor, he thought.
Or Neloth?
He slid the dagger into place at the sheath on his hip and settled the bow and arrows at his back. When he emerged from the room, he saw Ingrid waiting for him.
"How does it look?" he asked, and then held his breath, not entirely convinced she would not say, What are you doing in that armor? Do you really think I meant anything that fine for you? Take it off, right now, do you hear? This instant!
She studied him, frowning slightly, and then paced around him. "Hold still." She pounded him lightly in different places - shoulders, back, chest, stomach; the armor rang like a fine bell under the blows. She straightened the cuirass with a brisk yank, felt along his upper arms, tightened a few straps, then stepped back. Her face broke into a smile.
"Looks pretty good," she said. "How's it feel?"
"I can barely tell I'm wearing it." He flexed his arms, bent at the knees a few times. "I - I don't think I've ever had anything this fine in my life," he admitted. "It's ... beautiful. Thank you."
In actuality such armor was usually exclusively the province of the Altmer, but Talvas didn't mention that; it tickled him, somehow, to think that he was wearing High Elf armor - and more finely made than any set of High Elf armor he had ever seen before.
The Dovahkiin - no, Ingrid - gave a slightly sad smile. "I made Borgakh a set of Daedric armor, but I thought it might be a little heavy for you," she said. "I'm glad you like this."
Borgakh the Steel-Heart had been Ingrid's previous follower, Talvas learned: an Orsimer maiden, from a stronghold known as Mor Khazgur. Talvas had never seen an Orsimer up close, except for Mogrul in Raven Rock, and knew very little about them except for the usual elven stories. When, taking his courage in his hands, Talvas asked how she had died, Ingrid simply shook her head and looked away.
"I'd rather not talk about it." Her face shadowed.
"Oh." Talvas bit his lip, wishing he'd stayed silent. "I'm sorry," he said, searching for the right words.
Ingrid was silent for a moment, firelight flickering over her features. "She was my shield-sister," she said at last. "We shared everything. Danger, triumphs, hardship, treasure. She saved my life so many times I stopped counting, as I did for her. Without her, it feels like my right arm is gone. I scarcely know what I'm doing. I miss her," she finished. "Every day."
And Talvas flushed, feeling, perhaps irrationally, as if he were being instructed, You have a lot to live up to.
It was a different experience, walking through Raven Rock in his new armor at Ingrid's side. The other citizens of Raven Rock looked at him, treated and spoke to him in a completely different fashion. After a while, he realized what it was: they were not treating him as a miserable lackey, but as someone of stature. There was a new respect in the voices of the town's residents. Captain Veleth greeted him cheerfully, and even Second Councilor Adril Arano nodded to him.
I am no longer Neloth's poor, put-upon whipping boy, but the Dovahkiin's boon companion, he thought to himself, and felt his shoulders straighten. I am important. I have status. I matter now. And at such times, he would glance at Ingrid's tall, compelling form, and know that winning the Dovahkiin's favor was the best thing that had ever happened to him.
The Dovahkiin was a strange one in some ways; Talvas, who had almost as little experience with humans as he had with Orsimer, was at first unsure how much of this strangeness was due to his unfamiliarity with her kind. However, after coming to know her a little better - and starting at the same time to think he would never know her - he reached the conclusion that much of the strangeness was simply her. She could be boisterous: laughing at everything, risking death and danger with a gleam of relish in her eye, drinking and dicing with the various unsavory characters in the Retching Netch and roaring with lively abandon whether she won or lost, joking and flirting with Geldis Sadri as he slid her another flagon of sujamma or flin while Talvas watched with a vague feeling of unease and something that was like but not irritation. Not exactly.
He would never forget the first time he saw her take on a dragon: the flash of sheer joy in her eyes, the wild power of her - her thu'um, she had told him it was called, as she Shouted the creature down from the sky, the vital abandon with which she had leapt on the creature's head and delivered the final, crushing blow with her mace. She was amazing. Talvas hadn't believed such a creature could be killed, not really. When, panting, he made his way up to her, his useless flame atronach trailing behind him - he had been too far away to engage, and she had taken the creature down entirely by herself - she had brushed right past him and run, laughing, to place herself at the creature's head. He had watched, awestruck, as flames rose from the creature's body and surrounded the Dovahkiin, sinking into her skin and lighting her briefly like a star.
"I'd never seen that before," he confessed, unsure how to voice his thoughts.
She shrugged. "Eh. It happens every time." And as he had been about to ask, Every time? she had looked at him. "Were you scared?"
"Ahhhh ... " Talvas was unable to meet her eyes. He glanced away, scuffing the ground with one of his boots, as his atronach did loops beside him. Ingrid laughed.
"Don't be," she told him. "I've killed so many dragons I've lost count. They're basically flying vermin, not hard if you know what you're doing. Nothing to worry about." She clapped him on the shoulder, grinning. Talvas did not reply, but felt a chill down his spine at the blithe, flippant way she spoke of the mightiest, most ancient creatures in all Tamriel.
Yet despite this energy, there was an almost indefinable, ineffable sadness to her sometimes. A strange shadow lurked in her eyes that he could see if he caught her off-guard; a sort of distant grief that had no name.
She was often pensive, especially in the evenings, sitting by the hearth fire in Raven Rock or the campfire if they were alone in the wild. A far-away look came into her eyes and she would simply gaze into the fire, silent. Talvas would be afraid to approach her then; whenever Neloth would look like that, speaking would be sure to bring the wizard's wrath on his head. So he would sit silently across from her, wanting to speak but not knowing how.
Sometimes she would come out of this mood and share stories of her adventures in Skyrim: tales of blood and thunder, gripping tales of adventure and exploration, or wildly hilarious tales of comic misadventure until Talvas was laughing so hard he could barely hold himself upright. He drank her stories in with fascination; he had never been to the mainland, though he had always wanted to go, and everything she said made it sound strange and wonderful.
"I would love to see it," he said wistfully.
"I'll take you there someday," she said, shrugging.
She had a husband back on the mainland, Talvas learned: a fact that struck him with a strange hot dart of jealousy when he heard it. Perhaps not even jealousy so much as threat: winning the Dovahkiin's favor was the best thing that had ever happened to poor, hapless, ill-fated Talvas, and the thought of having to share his magnificent Dovahkiin with anyone else made him feel helpless, as if he were in danger of losing something precious. Nevertheless the way the Dovahkiin spoke of her husband - an Imperial mage from Cyrodiil, named Marcurio - reassured him a little; she mentioned him with a cool detachment that seemed to belie any strong sentiment. She also had two adopted children, for whom she seemed to hold a distant affection. Talvas worked at the whole mess in his mind as he followed her, trying to find a place for himself in the story of her life.
Nevertheless, he doubted her distant family was the source of the strange sadness in her eyes.
He gained some insight into what it was, the first time he was close enough to help her take on a dragon. The creature sighted them outside the ruins of Fort Frostmoth and at once dove toward them, maw opening, spewing flames. Fear surrounded Talvas like a cloak, but he steeled his spine; summoning his flame atronach, he ran toward Ingrid, who was poised in the open, her bow drawn with an arrow to the string.
"Ingrid!" he shouted as his atronach raced behind him; his hands tingled with Ice Storm and Fireball, ready to release. "Ingrid! I'm here!"
The dragon in the sky wheeled, and Ingrid looked toward him. When she saw him, her face blanched white. She swung toward the sky and shouted - no, Shouted; her cry seemed to rend the air itself:
"ODAHVIING!"
The dragon reared back in the air, wheeling in the direction of the mainland; there, Talvas's sharp eyes made out a speck, distant at first, but increasing rapidly. His blood chilled within him as he saw it was another dragon.
"Dovahkiin!" bellowed the other dragon, its voice ringing across the sky. "Zu'u meyz, Briinah!"
The first dragon wheeled, and the two fell to blows, tearing and slashing at each other in the sky, gouts of flame and ice ripping across the air. Dragon blood fell like rain. Talvas was stunned; he could have stared at the sight all day long, except the Dovahkiin was running toward him. Her face was white and drawn, and he realized with a shock she was absolutely furious.
"Talvas!" she raged, and he felt himself flinch back. It was all he could do not to cower. "What the hell are you doing?! Get the hell out of here!"
"I - I - " That icy fear was filling him, tangling his tongue, making him stammer; fear not of the dragons, as terrifying as they were, but of her. "I was coming to help you, Ingrid, I - "
"I told you to stay back! I don't want your help, Talvas!" she shouted at him, furious, her face twisted in rage. "I will fight the dragon myself! I'm the Dovahkiin, it's my job! You don't know what the hell you're doing! You'll just get yourself killed! I already lost Borgakh, do you want to be next?!"
She raged at him, shouting on and on, and suddenly, like a flash, an insight burst on him: the Dovahkiin was not angry. Not with him. She was -
She's afraid. Afraid for me.
The notion rocked him back on his heels; it set the Dovahkiin before him in a new, more human light. The fear vanished and a rush of empathy flowed in to take its place.
"I'm sorry, Ingrid," he said sincerely when she stopped for breath. "I didn't mean to make you worry."
She studied him for a long moment, then at last, nodded. "All right," she said. "Just-remember it for the future, all right?"
In the sky above her the dragons danced; one of the dragons grappled with the other, slashed at it with saber-sharp claws, and the other dragon convulsed in mid-air. It spiraled away from the newcomer, plunged helplessly out of control, and smashed into the ground with an enormous impact, throwing up a huge shower of dust. The stranger dragon dove after it in a controlled movement, settling to the ground in a flurry of wings, hard enough to make Talvas stagger. Ingrid looked back at Talvas. "Well, come on," she said with a grin, her good humor apparently restored. "Don't you want to meet a dragon?"
Talvas was not sure he wanted to meet a dragon, but he couldn't say no to the Dovahkiin; he followed her as she raced to place herself at the head of the slain beast - still marveling at the spectacular display as the soul of the defeated dragon arose from the creature's burning bones to surround and sink into her - and then she gestured Talvas toward the newcomer.
The new dragon had settled some distance away and was watching them, its massive head tilted with one huge bright eye fixed on them. It loomed up against the sky like a mountain; its scales were a dark reddish color, with a row of ferocious spikes bristling down its back. As he drew nearer, the dragon swung its head toward him and snapped its huge jaws sharply; Talvas couldn't help it, he flinched back, then flushed as he heard Ingrid's laughter. A deep rumbling came from the chest of the dragon as well. Is it laughing too? he wondered. Is it laughing ... at me?
"Talvas," Ingrid said, "This is Odahviing. He is my brod zeymah, my clan brother."
The dragon raised its head far above him, and bent its massive neck, so that its huge head hung above his own. Talvas felt more than a little ridiculous. What do I say? He had never been introduced to a dragon before. His heart was still racing, and the creature's stare didn't help. "Uh - hi?" he volunteered.
One huge eye, larger than a dinner plate, blinked. The creature gave a snort, then swung its head away, dismissing him. Talvas supposed it was an insult, but he couldn't help but feel relieved. The dragon swung back to Ingrid.
"Zu'u krif ... I fought. Fah hiin ... For you, Briinah," the dragon said, bending its head down to look at her. Ingrid smiled.
"Thank you, my friend. Zeymah. I had a ... " She thought for a moment. "A mal gein to look after - " here she gestured toward Talvas, who felt himself flush " - and needed your help."
The dragon - Odahviing - chuckled again, a deep rumbling sound that seemed to shake Talvas's bones. The creature's massive head swung back toward him - the head was huge, longer than Talvas was tall - and it fixed him with one unblinking, enormous eye. Talvas wanted to curl away from that scrutiny but forced himself to stand, unresisting. Odahviing chuckled again.
"Mal vul fahliil," he said in that tremendous, deep voice. "Rok hind krif ... You have ahkrin, courage. Listen to your brod monah, your clan mother, and you will do well." That deep rumbling laugh came again, and Talvas shivered. "But where is your grah-briinahzin, your battle-sister, the ogiim?"
Ingrid's face grew dark. "Borgakh is dead," she said shortly. "She died some time ago."
Odahviing bowed his great head for a moment. "Ah. Krosis, brod-briinah. She was faasnu, fearless. I trust she died morokei?"
The shadow on Ingrid's face darkened further. "I would prefer not to talk about it."
"Ah. I see. Lot krosis. Fal Krein liiv voth ek divok."
"It does indeed," Ingrid said quietly. "It does indeed. Thank you once more, for your assistance, old friend."
Odahviing snorted, that deep rumbling once again. "Any time, brod-briinah. As I have said," he declared, and there was a rush of wind as he reared back and spread his huge wings, wide enough to block the sun, "If you ever need assistance, you need only call me, and I will come, if I am able. Farewell, brod-brinaah!" he thundered, and leapt upward, the downdraft from the first sweep of those wings almost knocking Talvas off his feet.
As Odahviing rose into the sky, rapidly dwindling into a tiny speck in the distance, Talvas risked a look at Ingrid. She was staring after him, but she did not seem to see him, and her expression was pensive; thoughtful. He might have spoken, but he could not bring himself to interrupt her reverie.
At last, she glanced at him as if recalling something she had forgotten. "Come on," she said, jerking her head back toward the path they had been following. "We should go."
As he trudged after her, Talvas found himself wondering again: Will I ever know her?
[*]
It was strange, traveling without Borgakh at her side. Ingrid had had the tall, muscular Orc maiden as her follower for less than a year, but the two of them had fit together so well it seemed they had been that way for their whole lives. Ingrid missed Borgakh's solid presence at her shoulder as they trudged through forests filled with knee-deep snow, or forded rushing rivers, or picked their way through rocky slopes. She missed Borgakh's stolid, reassuring silences, broken only by the occasional dour comment: "Cave up ahead. Bears if we're lucky; trolls, if we're not," or "Malacath, witness our deeds." Sometimes the two of them could go hours without a word exchanged between them, and yet the silence had never felt heavy or awkward; it had seemed simply natural, a silence of shared understanding and outlook, which bound them more than words could have.
Most of all, Ingrid missed going into battle with Borgakh at her side, the two of them fighting as a team, their partnership so instinctive it felt as if they were one mind in two bodies. It had been several months since the Orc maiden had died, yet Ingrid still found it difficult to adjust in combat; it felt almost as if a ghost-Borgakh were at her shoulder, shadowing her, matching her movements. Once or twice, such habits had come close to getting her killed; in the midst of combat she had caught herself starting to call directions to Borgakh before she'd remembered.
Borgakh, you were my shield-sister. I never knew what it was to have a true shield-sister, before you.
Someday, Ingrid knew, she would have to return to Borgakh's settlement to tell her chief of her death. He might want blood-price too, she mused dolefully. But not now. Ingrid veered away from the thought. It would be too much like acknowledging her shield-sister was truly dead. It was one reason, she admitted on the rare occasions she was honest with herself, why she remained on Solstheim; it was a convenient excuse to escape that duty.
And besides, well - I never did believe in looking back.
Her new follower, this Talvas Fathryon, was like Borgakh in one way and one way only: his silence. But where Borgakh's silence had been shared, arising jointly from an essential like-ness of mind so deep the two of them had no need to speak, Talvas's silence was entirely his own. Ingrid could tell from the way he looked at her from the corners of those incongruous red eyes, from the way he seemed to fade into the background, from the careful, hesitating way he weighed his words when he did speak, that Talvas was intimidated by her - a fact which both pleased and irritated her.
Borgakh was never intimidated by anyone or anything.
It had been a long time since she had last fought with a mage at her side, and Ingrid had been interested to see how Talvas would perform. In their first battle, occuring when they had stumbled into a duel between a pyromancer and a cryomancer along the Solstheim coast, she had deliberately held back to see what Talvas would do. He was a conjurer, she saw; he summoned a Flame Atronach and sent it toward the duel with only minor hesitation. Ingrid noticed he kept himself well back from the action, preferring to hurl spells at the combatants or reaching for the bow she had made for him, and she nodded in approval. Back from the action. Good. That's just where he should be.
When the battle was over and both pyromancer and cryomancer lay dead, Talvas came up to where she stood, her Dragonbone mace dripping with the blood of her foes. Talvas drew a breath and looked carefully at the bodies of the two: one a charred husk, the other, with her skull caved in. His gray complexion paled a bit, but his voice was only a little thin when he asked, "How'd I do?"
"Not bad." Ingrid raised one eyebrow at him. "You all right?"
Talvas nodded. "Yes." He paused. "This is my first battle. I never - I never k-killed anyone before," he admitted in that same careful voice.
Ingrid laughed and clapped him on the back, enjoying the startled look he gave her. "It won't be the last time," she said, and watched as Talvas swallowed; then he glanced at her, his lips compressed, and gave another nod, resolute. "Now," Ingrid said with relish. "Let's loot!"
That night, across the fire, Talvas sat with his eyes down, refletching some of his arrows. Watching the intense concentration of his sharp, Dunmer features, the sure way his hands moved as he stripped feathers and tied twine, Ingrid let her curiosity get the best of her. "So, what about you, Talvas?" she asked.
He glanced up, startled. "What - what about me?"
"What's your history? Where do you come from? Tell me - how'd you end up here?"
There was a tiny hesitation; then Talvas gave a shrug. "Not much to tell, really," he said a bit too easily. "I was born in Morrowind. My parents were shopkeepers, but my father died before I was born. When my mother passed away, I came here and apprenticed to Master Neloth."
"Ah. Well, that sounds like me," said Ingrid. "My parents had a small farm in Eastmarch; they died when I was young, and I've been on my own ever since. I guess we're the same, you and I," she said, and grinned.
"I guess so," Talvas said noncommittally and offered a careful smile in return. His hesitancy raised some questions in Ingrid's mind, but not enough to pursue. She gave a mental shrug. If there's anything he wants me to know, he'll tell me when he's ready, she thought, and dismissed it.
The two of them had spent the last few days wandering the rocky hills around Tel Mithryn, searching for a heart stone for Master Neloth; the last time she had visited him, when she had taken Talvas with her, Neloth had told Ingrid to bring him one. "He's going to be angry with you for taking so long," Talvas warned her, his ashen Dunmer face drawn.
Ingrid shrugged. "I told him I'd do it when I got around to it." Seeing Talvas's strained expression, Ingrid reached over and clapped him on the shoulder. "He's not my Jarl, Talvas," she chided him.
Talvas bit his lip. He muttered something under his breath that sounded like, "He is mine."
"No he's not," Ingrid said, laughing. "If he has a problem with it he can go and get one himself. Now come on." She tossed the pickaxe down and straightened from the deposit of black stone with red veins, picking up the faceted ashy red crystal she had hewn. "Let's go."
She strode off down the hillside with Talvas trailing behind her, like a dispirited shadow.
They forded the rocky creek that marked the boundaries of Tel Mithryn, Neloth's settlement, to the echoing lorn cries of Revis Sarvani's silt-strider Dusty. A glance to the left showed it looming against the sky, in close connection to the cliff where Revis had made his camp. It wasn't long before they were making their way upward through the mushroom forests around the settlement.
Ingrid brushed a strand of emperor parasol moss aside, where it hung off the gills of one of the mushrooms, and pointed. "There it is. Should be there before too long."
Talvas grunted noncommittally. He followed her as she wound her way toward the looming mushroom tower, flanked by the smaller but still massive towers of the apothecary, the steward's quarters and the kitchens.
Talvas had been sullen and withdrawn all day, and since they had crossed the rocky creek he had been even quieter than usual. As they reached the base of the long ramp up to the main tower, Ingrid glanced over at him and saw that his shoulders were tense, his face pale under the gray ashen color.
It's the first time we've returned to Tel Mithryn since Talvas left, she realized.
"It's going to be all right, Talvas," she chided him gently. "We're only going to see Neloth, not beard a dragon in its den." Talvas said nothing, only bit his lip; his pallor deepened. "How bad can he be?" she asked, raising an eyebrow at him.
"You don't know him," Talvas muttered in reply. He shifted from foot to foot. "He'll be angry at me for leaving, I just know it."
Ingrid sighed. "He's not going to be angry at you, Talvas, and if he is, so what?" Talvas did not look reassured; if anything, his long expression grew even longer. "I won't let him blame you, Talvas," she told him. "If he tries, I'll take care of it. Never fear."
The young Dunmer-young, Ingrid knew, but almost certainly older than she-glanced at her sideways, those baleful red eyes wary. "Are you sure?" he asked faintly.
"Positive. Now, lighten up, Talvas - I swear, you can be such a wet blanket sometimes!"
Talvas said nothing. He gave her a sidelong glance, as if saying to himself, We'll see, and followed her silently up the steps into the mushroom tower.
[*]
Together they stepped into the dark entry chamber; Ingrid tossed Talvas a wink, which he did not return, and murmured to him, "It's going to be all right." He did not reply. Ingrid leapt into the glowing circle of light on the floor, feeling herself wafted upward toward the top of the tower. A few moments later, her feet jarred on the landing, over a hundred feet above the entrance. Talvas touched down a second after her, clinging close to her side as she stepped out into the ring-shaped top floor. Neloth was nowhere to be seen, but his ill-tempered muttering drifted from the direction of the small alcove where he kept his staff enchanter. The gate to the alcove was up.
"Drovas? Drovas! Man is never around when you need him. Drovas!"
Neloth seemed to hear them as they approached, and glanced up briefly from the enchanter. "Drovas, my canis-root tea has gone cold. Bring me another cup immediately, and this time make sure it's strong enough!"
"It's not Drovas," Ingrid called back, somewhat amused.
He turned, startled, and his gaze found them. "Oh, it's you. Well, you bring me a cup of canis-root tea then. And where have you been, anyway? I have an urgent task for you."
"We've been getting this for you, like you asked." Ingrid pulled out the black and red veined heart-stone and handed it to him. Neloth examined it for a moment, then tossed it aside irritably.
"This? I don't care about this anymore." He stopped, his red eyes narrowing suddenly. "Wait. We?" That red gaze fell on Talvas, cowering in Ingrid's shadow.
"Talvas!" Neloth bellowed; Talvs whimpered and pressed closer to her. "So that's where you've been! I was wondering where you were the past few days - " Talvas had actually been following Ingrid for over a month, but Ingrid prudently chose not to correct him. "All this time you've been running around with this mercenary! Where did you ever get the idea you could run off like that?! Well? Answer me this instant!"
"I - I - " Talvas could only stammer uselessly. "I just - "
"You told him he could go with me," Ingrid interposed easily. "Don't you remember?"
Cut off in mid-rant, Neloth stopped, frowning. Talvas looked bewildered. "What? No he - " he began, before Ingrid stepped on his foot, hard. Fortunately, Neloth didn't seem to hear.
"I did?" His frown deepened as he looked between the two of them. "I suppose I did," he murmured at last. "After all," he added with greater confidence, "having you off running errands for me with the Dovahkiin is better than having you around underfoot all the time. At least when you're with her, you're not ruining any of my experiments. Just make sure you return before the solstice; I'll need to drain a small amount of your blood at that time. Just a quart or so; nothing you can't easily spare." Neloth clapped his hands briskly. "Well. Moving on."
Ingrid didn't spare him a glance, but she could almost feel Talvas sagging with relief beside her. She squeezed his shoulder briefly in reassurance as Neloth continued with characteristic irritation.
" ... but you should have reported in before this. I've needed your assistance for quite some time. You see, I've come to believe - " His expression hardened. "That Tel Mithryn is under attack."
Neloth paused, clearly expecting a dramatic reaction. Ingrid simply folded her arms. "Is that so? And what led you to come to this conclusion?"
The Telvanni wizard scowled impatiently; Ingred felt Talvas tremble. "Oh, come now. Must I draw you a diagram? Too many things have gone wrong recently. Part of my tower has withered. Ash spawn keep appearing, testing my defenses - why, an Ash Guardian even appeared at the entrance to the settlement!" Talvas whimpered and shrank against Ingrid's side; Ingrid did her best to keep a straight face. "We've been attacked by dragons, my experiments have all failed - even my supply of canis root tea has been infested with ash hoppers! Oh, and my steward Varona was murdered," he added, as an afterthought. "Once is accident, twice is coincidence, three times is a patter. There has to be someone behind all this misfortune, I tell you!"
"But who would want to attack you?" Ingrid asked, perhaps a bit too innocently; Neloth gave her a hard look.
"You may not believe this, but I have enemies. Too many of them."
I'll just bet you do, Ingrid thought.
"I assumed I had left all my enemies behind me in Morrowind, but it appears that at least one must have followed me here. If I could only figure out who - "
He trailed off, seemingly lost in thought, until Ingrid cleared her throat.
"So what do you want me to do about it?" she asked, raising one brow.
Neloth started as if recalled to himself. "I need you to find the source of the attacks. Here." He handed her a tarnished silver ring with a red stone. "I've enchanted this ring. Wear it as you search for the culprit, and when you come within one hundred yards, whoever or whatever was behind the attacks will appear to glow to your eyes. I would start around Tel Mithryn; I suspect the source of the attacks is nearby. Let me know what you find."
Ingrid slid the ring onto her finger. "Do you want me to kill them?"
"Not yet. If they have cast a curse, I may need them alive to undo it. Just report back to me, and there will be some gold in it for you."
She raised one brow. "Why don't you do this?"
Neloth looked aghast. "Me? Are you mad? I have important research to conduct! I can't go traipsing all over Solstheim, that's what adventurers like you are for! Now go. And don't lose that ring!"