Summary: You obviously don't have the aptitude for the Mage's College in Winterhold. So how about you go to Bleak Falls Barrow for me?
Chapter Two : Pointy Ears
James stood near the front door to the Temple of Kynareth, tying the belt around his waist and his new Whiterun armor. Bones watched from a distance, arms crossed and a decided pinch to his lips. "I don't know if going to Bleak Falls Barrow so soon is a good idea," he muttered as James slid his sword into his belt.
"You said I should have been able to go yesterday," James reminded. "Then changed your mind. How long do you want to keep Farengar waiting?"
"As long as I can," Bones answered, looking around the empty temple, save the other priest and priestess that lived and worked there alongside Bones. "But, if you insist, I can't keep you here. You're a free man. As far as that goes, anyway… I still think something's wrong with your mind."
"It's been two days," James sighed, remembering the Altmer that had appeared, apparently, only to him, and the excuses he'd tried to make up for him afterward. He hadn't heard from him again, and was beginning to wonder if the High Elf had actually been some kind of hallucination. "Besides, nothing happened yesterday and nothing's happened today."
"Right," Bones muttered. "I'll come with you," he added, slinging a satchel over his shoulder and stuffing three vials into it.
"Come with me where?" James scoffed.
"Dragonsreach," Bones answered. "Probably Bleak Falls Barrow, too. Have to make sure you don't kill yourself."
"Aren't you needed here?" James asked.
Bones looked around and laughed. "Yeah, definitely," he agreed, motioning at the four empty beds, one for each side of the shallow pool. "We're just overflowing. Danica can handle whatever comes this way, I'm sure." The priestess didn't even look up from her prayers at the altar.
James sighed and shrugged. "If I can't stop you…"
"Nope," Bones said, and followed James as he went out into the streets of Whiterun.
James felt like it had been near an eternity since he had seen the outside of the windowless temple. It was a bright, sunny day, as it usually was this time of year. The sky held a few wispy white clouds that ran from one side to the other and over the mountains, but rain was not promised in the sky by James's estimation.
The familiar cobbled streets had seemed labyrinthine to James when he first arrived here with his mother from Helgen after its destruction when he was very young. In the prior eighteen years, it had not been rebuilt. Most of the holds were too busy clinging desperately to the cities and villages they still had left with the onslaught of the dragons. If this wasn't the end of the world, as many prophesied, James didn't know what was.
It was a short walk from the Temple of Kynareth in the Wind District to Dragonsreach, though there was a long stair-climb still to go. James didn't admit that his legs were still weak and shaky as they stood under the boughs of the Gildergreen looking at the tall stairs that went all the way up to the bridge that spanned the pool outside of the grand house of their Jarl. It was the tallest building in all of Whiterun, nearly touching the clouds. The second highest point in Whiterun was Skyforge, the forge of the Companions. Though it was only a short walk away, James had never been there.
They went over the little stream that ran through Whiterun and down into the Plains District before finally letting out into the White River outside the walls. James had followed the river a short distance away from Whiterun, as far as his mother would let him go, when he was a child, but had not gone much farther than to allow him to just barely see Valtheim Towers in the mist of the waterfall that the structure loomed over. James heard that bandits had since moved into it.
He was so busy thinking about what awaited him in Dragonsreach that he almost didn't notice the strange looks he was getting from the guards and other townspeople. After a few of them skirted away quickly as he approached, James looked at Bones questioningly.
"Whiterun may be a city, but word travels around just as fast…" Bones commented. "I think every person within a days' ride has heard that you might be the Dragonborn."
"I see…" James said with a nod as they made for Dragonsreach. As usual, he ignored the guards talking, even though he was one, about their adventurous exploits as younger men, as well as Heimskr's droning on and on about the sins of Skyrim and its abandonment of their most precious god.
It wasn't that he had been abandoned, James thought, feeling his own amulet of Talos against his chest under his uniform. He knew Bones had one, too. In fact, many Nords still worshipped Talos even though it was against the law of the Aldmeri Dominion. James didn't know why, but had also never bothered to stop and listen to Heimskr, either.
Bones sighed as he looked up at the spires of Dragonsreach while they climbed the stairs. "What is it?" James asked, before remembering his better judgment.
Bones cast an angry glance at him before fixing his eyes back on the next step as they climbed up to the Cloud District. James hadn't known Bones well for very long, but scattered conversations and tidbits of gossip from around Whiterun had allowed James to piece together bits of information from Bones's and Farengar Secret-Fire's shared past. Farengar had apparently studied for some unspecified amount of time at the College of Winterhold, a place he never failed to mention to a newcomer with ears that worked. James could only assume that Bones had studied there, too, since his knowledge of restoration magic was greater than any in the near-area.
Farengar was ever so slightly younger than Bones, but both were perhaps around twenty years older than James. James always wondered if Bones might have wanted the court wizard position, but Farengar somehow managed to get it first or if was something else… James always wondered if Bones had a certain… "liking" for Irileth, the Jarl's Dunmer housecarl. But, Farengar didn't seem to be interested in anything of the sort, so it was anyone's guess why Bones and Farengar seemed to hate each other so much.
"Then why are you coming with me?" James wondered as they crossed the bridge to Dragonsreach.
Bones just grunted, and James grinned, reaching for the enormous door into the Jarl's residence.
Before he could reach it, though, it swung open quite suddenly and expelled a High Elf—Spock. James staggered back a few steps, almost running into Bones, as he watched the Altmer stride past, locking eyes with him warningly for only a moment before going on by… as though he didn't recognize him at all.
James halted a moment and turned to watch him, realizing that he was not wearing the robes he had seen him wearing two days ago. Instead, he was arrayed in the black and gold hooded robes of the Thalmor, agents of the Aldmeri Dominion. Not to mention that Altmer was younger… much younger. Perhaps it was not the same one, but… the eyes were the exact same. Bones watched the Altmer pass, too, pausing only long enough to mutter under his breath, "Pointy-eared bastards…" and turning back to the door.
When James didn't follow him, he looked over his shoulder at him. "Jim! You coming?"
James snapped back to the heavy wooden door of Dragonsreach and nodded, gulping in a breath of the fresh air outside before going in. "Yeah, I'm coming," he answered, taking one last glance over his shoulder to see Spock—at least, he thought it was him—disappearing out of sight down the stairs toward Whiterun. He might have been bound for the Bannered Mare, James guessed, the only inn in town, if the Jarl wasn't putting him up.
"Well, come on, then," Bones said, framed by the smoky blackness beyond the open door.
James followed Bones inside. As was the norm for houses anywhere in Skyrim, the interior of Dragonsreach was dark, even though Dragonsreach was perpetually lit by dozens of lamps and chandeliers and a long fire on a hearth in the center of the room. It was infinitely more spacious than any other house in Whiterun, rivaled in grandeur only by the Companions' mead hall, Jorrvaskr. The fires that kept it bright enough to see, however, also continually filled the place with smoke that attempted to escape through holes in the ceiling but, generally, the place was just as foggy as a mountaintop in winter.
It took a moment for James's eyes to adjust, but when they did, he saw the Jarl was not sitting upon his throne and was, in fact, nowhere to be seen. As such, neither was Irileth. Only the Jarl's steward, Proventus Avenicci, could be seen sitting at the table flipping through papers before him. He didn't give James or Bones a second look as they headed for the court wizard's usual station in the open room on the right side of the grand hall.
"Ah, there you are," Farengar said as soon as they came in through the door-less entry.
"As summoned," James said with a nod.
Farengar eyed Bones, muttering, "Yes, well, not quite," before looking back at James. "You know that I have been studying the dragons for a long time, yes?" he asked, and, when James nodded the affirmative, plunged right on ahead, much to Bones's dismay. "Well, it's a subject of great interest to many, as you might imagine. While scouring some ancient—well, look, the point is that I've discovered there might be an artifact that will be of great use to us in Bleak Falls Barrow: the Dragonstone."
"All right, then. Bleak Falls Barrow, Dragonstone," James said with a nod. "Anything else?"
"Down to business," Farengar said with a smile. "I like that."
"Jim," Bones muttered, clearing his throat. "Don't you think you ought to… you know, wonder what else exactly might be in Bleak Falls Barrow? There has to be a reason Farengar isn't going himself," Bones pointed out. "It's only a hop, skip, and jump away from here."
"The short answer," Farengar snapped, glaring at Bones, "is that I don't know. And I don't care to know. I'm the court wizard and there's not much reason for me to go gallivanting around the countryside looking for things when I could just as easily hire someone like James to do it for me."
"I see; so, how much are you paying him?" Bones wondered.
James sighed and rolled his eyes at their bickering, but was unable to get a word in edgewise.
"His reward will be appropriate, if he can get the Dragonstone back to me," Farengar promised. "You agree to do this for me, don't you, James?" Farengar asked, then, purposefully ignoring any further objections Bones was offering.
"Yes," James agreed. He would have to explain to Bones later that it was in his best interest to have the court wizard in his debt, even if he didn't get paid as much as he might have wanted. "Sounds simple enough."
"Thank you," Farengar said with a nod, and James pulled Bones along behind him a moment later.
"Simple enough," Bones echoed sarcastically. "Yeah. One little scratch from a skeever and come down with Ataxia; see if you're so confident when you can't see straight and your hands are shaking." James just grinned and let him continue. "Draugr might pop out of a dark corner, cook us with some fiery dragon shout."
"Come on, Bones," James laughed. "It'll be an adventure."
"Adventure," Bones muttered. "Adventure is disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence."
There was nothing for it, James thought, still laughing. Bleak Falls Barrow was, after all, a tomb. He couldn't think of a more silent or dark place…