The Others
Chapter 2: A Secret Meeting
A/N – Hi guys, thanks for reviewing and I'll try to please with this next instilment (but since I'm a shit writer I doubt that'll happen aha).
Disclaimer – I don't own TES, Skyrim, etc. etc.
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I had drifted in and out of consciousness throughout the journey from Helgen to wherever the hell I was now and I hadn't been able to amass my composure enough to make any sort of recognition of where I was going, or who I was with. So, quite understandably, I was very confused when I awoke in a tavern – if it wasn't for the cut on the top of my head and the marks on my wrists from the shackles – I'd have quite possibly convinced myself it was all one long dream, or a drunken adventure, or possibly a skooma-induced hallucination. Unfortunately it slowly dawned on me it was none of them things; this was all real.
Scanning my surroundings I saw that I was lying on a small wooden single bed that was topped with the pelt of a sabre-cat, it matched the rug on wooden-log floor of the room which was adorned with a double-sized pelt, sewn together from multiple sabre-cat corpses. Wooden panels ran around all the walls of the room and there was a small stool and table next to my bed which, to my surprise, was occupied by a Redguard woman dressed in a plain brown cloth tunic and her long black hair was up tied in a messy bun.
"Hi there" she smiled at me, I tried to smile back but as I wasn't fully compos mentis yet.
"Wow, you've been out for a while sleepy-head," she said playfully "I've been waiting for to give you this for hours now, and it's really mean of you to keep a lady waiting"
A look of confusion spread across my face, I propped myself up against the headboard so I could engage in conversation with her more thoroughly.
"Ummm, hi there…." I spluttered, thoroughly unprepared for this encounter "I'm really confused, what's going on… why am I here?"
"Don't worry, it'll all make sense soon, you just relax and read this," the woman handed me a sealed letter, which I grasped awkwardly "You have a read of that and then come and see me at the bar" she smiled at me before departing and I attempted to nod coolly in reply back to her – but I have no doubt that in my present state of being I probably came off looking like some sort of brain-damaged Horker.
Once she had departed I resigned to open the letter and read its contents; it was written in hastily scrawled standard cyrodillic language:
"If you're reading this then you've made it safely to Falkreath and you've met my friend Naari. I hope this letter finds its way to you as I intended as I need to speak to you again, we all do. I don't have time to write any further, Naari will instruct you on where to go next.
Blessings of the Nine Divines upon you,
Hides-In-Shadows"
I re-read the letter multiple times over to fully absorb its contents, before looking over at the table where Naari was sitting, there was a rusted iron key left precariously on the edge of the table, I took the key and then noticed the small wooden chest at the foot of the bed, it was obviously left there for me. Fiddling with the lock I then proceeded to insert the key and loot its contents: a fairly dull Iron Sword that had seen better days; old nicked leather armour which had clearly been patched up multiple times throughout the history of its usage and finally a coin purse which I counted out and contained exactly 100 Septims.
Only serving to further my confusion, I examined the items I had assumedly been left and then changed into the armour, despite its age and tears, it was a solid leather hide and had been tempered to increase its resistivity to melee attacks – it fitted perfectly, much to my surprise. The sword was light in my hand and had a good swing to it, I knew it could do with taking to a grindstone and sharpened but I still think that I could leave a pretty nasty dent in a foe if it came to that. Once I'd finished gearing up I left my room and went to the bar of the traditional Nordic tavern stone pillars adorned with animal horns held up the wooden strut roofing and a warming fire was lit on the coal stove in the centre of the room and swords and shields decorated the wooden panelled back walls – the hall was filled with the noise of rambunctious Nords drinking and laughing set to the tune of 'Ragnar the Red' sung by a beguiling Altmer bard.
Casually I walked up to the bar where I could see Naari serving drinks to some customers: a flirtatious young Nord man who wore burgundy and had medium-long blonde hair, he was trying to proposition Naari over a drink and was failing badly; the other was a quiet and reserved Dunmer woman who looked mysterious and kept her head beneath her hood most of the time, contented with slowly sipping at her wine and not joining in the festivities. Once the two customers had cleared been served I got Naari's attention and before I could start asking her any questions she started speaking promptly.
"Hey there, good to see you're up and about! Now I bet you have lots of questions right?"
I could only manage a singly syllable of a confused 'Yeaaa' as a form of backchannel behaviour before she interrupted me again, clearly in a hurry as she had to see to other customers too.
"Well I'll answer 'em all quick as I can now and send you on your way before you bring the Imperials my way and cause me a whole heap o' trouble," she smiled, as sincerely as possible given the danger of the current situation "Well your friends passed through town earlier but they dropped you off here, said you were too out of it to travel and that the only chance any of you's would make it was if you split up, so I agreed to hide you here for a while – but you need to go as soon as you can, the Imperials could be beating down my door at any minute and I ain't much of a fighter so I think we'd be in for it then. Go to Fort Greymoor, north-east of here, in Whiterun Hold."
Nodding understandingly I quickly departed, but not before thanking Naari thoroughly for her kindness and hospitality and giving her a hug, I would have loved to stayed and talked to her, but I knew that I couldn't – not if it meant putting her in danger. As I stepped outside I was bitten by a fervent chilling breeze that howled most ferociously as it battered lavender plants and rose bushes outside the tavern; the hanging sign outside read 'The Dead Man's Drink'. I looked around the town of Falkreath for a short while before I departed, feeling the need to acquire some supplies for my journey: 2 healing potions from 'A Grave Concoction' the local alchemical store, priced at 20 Septims each; an old iron shield for a bargain of 15 Septims from the town's general store: 'Grey Pine Goods'. After having supplied myself sufficiently for the journey, I took my leave and began to follow the rough forest trail leading to Fort Greymoor.
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The journey was surprisingly less perilous than I had predicted and I made it to the Fort in less than an hour, along the way a strange ragged greyish brown-haired dog had begun following me; I quite enjoyed the company and he barked ferociously at any bandits who wanted to try and rob me. Although I did have one altercation that had inevitably held up my journey, a highwayman that attempted to hold me up as I crossed a bridge into Whiterun Hold; after emerging from underneath the bridge like some sort of troll he jumped in front of me, steel dagger in hand, and demanded that I give him the remainder of my gold. Naturally, the dog (who I have taken to naming Brandy, after my favourite Colovian drink, ha!) howled menacingly at this oncoming attacker, but he was not threatened and then mocked my travel companion before indicating to the wolf-pelt he had strapped to the shoulder of his studded hide armour, forming some sort of crude pauldron of protection. It was Brandy this time that was frightened and he took position up behind me.
"Here then ya braggard! Is y'gonna give us the gold or is I gonna have to take it off ya cold dead corpse?" The thief snarled at me
"Let's not get carried away here," I tried to reason with him "Were only 5 minutes away from the city of Whiterun, guards patrol this route all the time, if they encounter us fighting then we will both surely be taken into custody."
"'Ere now, don't think you can trick me laik that, am smarter then I look ain't I, Mr. Snuggles?" he propositioned to the clearly-dead wolf's head resting on his shoulder "I think you's is scared to fight me cos ya know I'll have ya guts fer garters!" He smirked viciously then moved closer slicing wildly at the air in front of me with his dagger, aimed at intimidating me (he also looked like a mentally-challenged Falmer, although I have my doubt as to whether that was his intention also).
"Hey now think about this, if you just walk away now I'll carry on my way and not breath a word of your being here to the Whiterun guard, I think you know it would be wise to heed my advice here." I calmly reasoned with the flailing bandit, who it appeared had succumbed to the sound voice of common sense.
Grumbling, he stopped attacking and regained his protective stance from earlier "Grrr, you might just have a point there, I dan't want to take on no guardsmen, those are some right tough wankers right there." The thief ran off, but was struck down from seemingly nowhere before he took five steps.
I examined the corpse, an arrow had pierced his carotid artery and killed him instantly; I looked around searching for the source of the arrow before glancing over at a warm torch light radiating from the upper balcony of a Whiterun guard's tower, I nodded in the direction of the guardsmen although I doubt they could see me, before taking off again for Fort Greymoor.
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Once I'd arrived at the fort I'd hoped to spot my three comrades from the execution, sadly there was no one in sight, I was about to give up hope but then Brandy ran off somewhere and I followed him – had he picked up their scent? Or was he just being a nuisance? I followed, he lead me to a small sewer entrance at the back of the fort, I had very little intention of going in through that entrance, unfortunately, Brandy had made up my mind for me and darted down the stone hall way, splashing in the sewers along the way. Begrudgingly I followed, but it was not ten minutes before I was glad of my decision as Brandy had leaded me directly to the hidden room of Fort Greymoor! What a good dog he is!
"You've made it at last!" I was greeted most fortuitously by the most jubilant Shadresi, he was anxious to greet me with a handshake and then lead me to the table where sat Iliwen and Vayln Marvos.
"It's good to see you again" Iliwen quietly signalled to me, granting only a shy smile before returning to furrowing her brow and hiding her face from me.
Vayln was less than pleased to see my arrival "Well, you've finally gotten here, it's not like we've been waiting for a good day at least for you – I say we don't need Lars for this plan at all, but that's just me!" he resounded most angrily towards the rest of the party, I nodded uncomfortably towards him, signifying a greeting of sorts.
"Here now Vayln don't be so negative!" Hides-In-Shadows reassured me and the rest of the group of my necessity to the group "He's just as much a part of this as the rest of us, the four of us got out of Helgen together and we won't desert one another now!"
"Fine." Marvos grumbled.
"Good, I'm glad we're in agreement," the Argonian continued his speech "Well we're all here for the same reason, the Imperials are after us – we're wanted criminals – some of us might be used to this, others perhaps not, but that is why we are together here now, we are going to make it through this…"
"Well that's all very well and good," Vayln interrupted "But what are we actually going to do? We can hardly take on the legion – you've got one arm, the girl's a crying mess and that Nord can't handle a sword!" he shouted almost spitting as he began to storm about the small stone makeshift conference room, finally taking up a residing position at the bookcase in the concave, taking out a hardback, leather-bound tome and effectively exiting himself from the deliberations for the time being.
"Oh Vayln give over!" Shadresi yelled, but getting no reply he merely carried on without the Dunmer's help "Right, well, ummm, ok the three, or four, of us here all need refuge from the legion – now I propose first that we plan a secretive evacuation, does anyone know anywhere we could go, to get out of Skyrim if we have to?" He questioned, hopeful of an intelligent response from his party.
"Hmm, what if we journey west, to Valenwood – the Empire's jurisdiction is overruled by the Thalmor in those territories." I pondered the idea, but before I could continue to suggest means to achieve such an end Iliwen interrupted, appearing very distressed:
"No! We can't go there" she screamed, sobbing slightly as memories of her time in Valenwood resurfaced "I'm sorry, I'm really really sorry for shouting, I just can't, I can't…. I…. just please don't make me go there, the Thalmor, they did things…." She trailed off as her sobs had now evolved into full blown cries and drowned out her pleas and made them incomprehensible, but that had more of on an effect on us regardless.
"I, I'm very sorry," I apologised awkwardly, I was indeed most endearingly apologetic for upsetting her, but my lack of social aptitude may have clouded the sincerity of my apology somewhat "I promise you, we will never ever take you to Valenwood, that's a promise, or to anywhere the Thalmor might be lurking, that's a promise Iliwen." I regained my composure and comforted the fragile young High Elf.
Smiling, she looked up at me and thanked me greatly before Hides-In-Shadows took control of the deliberations once again.
"Well we can't head west, and going south would mean we'd be running into the Imperial capital of Cyrodiil – and that would be an exercise in futility – so where else is there to go, we can't hide out here forever!" Shadresi was beginning to lose his patience, and as I'd seen so far he was a very patient man, things were bad.
"What if…" I began, hoping something would come to be whilst I stuttered stalling for thinking time "What if… What if…" then it came to me "Ah! What if we don't flee Skyrim at all – think about it, they're expecting us to flee, what if we hold out somewhere here in Skyrim whilst they spread their search across the continent?"
"That's the first good idea I've heard today," Vayln emerged from within his own little world in the corner and then proceeded to take my idea and spearhead the operation from then on "Ok, so we've established that we're not fleeing Skyrim, good, at least we've reached a unanimous decision for once. Now then, we need somewhere to go – I think it would be wise for us to look at our own pasts, we may be wanted criminals by the Empire, but we only have bounties on us in one specific Hold each, we need to find a Hold we're all of us are relatively unknown and settle there, don't you think?" he questioned us, but it wasn't really a question as he had made it so that there was no reply other than to agree with him.
"That's good thinking Marvos!" Hides-In-Shadows exclaimed "I'm wanted in The Rift – Iliwen, your bounty is for The Reach is it not?" she nodded, answering him "Right, and Vayln your wanted in Winterhold and finally Lars, where did you say your family hailed from?"
"Whiterun Hold" I replied solemnly
"Okay right, so that leaves Haafingar, Hjaalmarch, Falkreath, East March and The Pale. Any preferences people?" He quizzed us.
"Solitude is in Haafingar, that's the Imperial capital so that's likely to have much stronger Imperial presence than the other Holds" I commented, ruling that option out of the deliberations.
Vayln responded wisely "We can't stay in Falkreath, too close to Helgen, there likely to search for us here."
Iliwen nervously added her own input, scared of what we'd think "I think The Pale would be a good place to hide out – Windhelm is there, maybe the Stormcloaks would give us asylum from the Empire."
"Brilliant! Iliwen you should really speak up more often you have a genius brain!" Shadresi revelled and we all laughed and smiled and Iliwen joined in, her confidence seemingly boosted by her bright idea.
We all celebrated and cheered over a few glasses of mead that the bandits who previously owned this Fort had left over, even Vayln joined in the festivities, someday soon this would all be over – no more hiding out, no more running, just our lives free to live as our own.
That's what we told ourselves at least.
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A/N – Alright guys that's the end of chapter two thanks for reading, please R&R cos I need the advice and stuffs and I'll love you forever if you do thankies:D
