A/N: Yeah, this is a boring chapter. It's just sort of writing itself for now, but I do have an actual plot idea in the works. ;3
Legerdemain
Chapter Three | Canis Root
The third time Quintus Navale laid eyes upon her, he didn't know it was her. It was the end of the week, and his master was well enough to tend to the store, so he was sent out to buy supplies around Windhelm. He had left the city walls in order to trade with the Khajit caravans, who often supplied them with rarer alchemy ingredients such as salts or moon sugars, and was heading back toward the hulking gates when it happened.
Now Quintus had traveled plenty around Skyrim, but always on the roads and always for alchemical reasons or fieldwork. In all of his travels, he'd had hired warriors who protected him from some of the lesser evils of the wilds. He'd thought the howl of a wolf was frightening. But the howl he heard then, which rolled over the snowy drifts and slammed right into his skin like ice, made his blood drain away.
His first thought was something along the lines of hurrying back to the city before he was burned to death by dragon fire. That was before he saw the actual dragon, of course. But out of the corner of his eye he saw unfurling wings, bright golden eyes searing even at a distance, and for the life of him he couldn't move. He could only stop and stare, his mouth gaping open like a fish out of water. The dragon's eyes turned right on him, and Quintus found that he was shocked by the intelligence that gleamed through them.
Weren't all dragons dumb beasts? He had heard plenty of tales, especially recently, about the winged terrors. But never had he heard of them being intelligent. And as he stared back with wide eyed fear, Quintus realized something very odd: he had seen those eyes before. Golden, shimmering, intelligent, manipulative. He had seen them in the strange silver haired Nord.
But he didn't have time to muse over his appreciation for the strange woman who had recently assaulted his every thought. Because at that moment, another dragon Shout was heard. But from the ground.
The dragon, who hung suspended in the air staring at him (at him!), immediately jerked his head away. The rest of its body followed like a languid stream. And yet there was nothing about this beast that seemed at all lazy. Its great claws, if he'd been standing beside them, were quite possibly the entire length of his torso and certainly had the power to split him down the middle in one strike. (If the stories had any truth to them, that is.) The beast's tail was flung out behind it as the dragon flapped its wings and flew toward the new sound. A tornado could have formed beneath those wings.
Quintus shivered, hardly noticing the guards moving over the bridge, pulling out bows and arrows, getting ready to defend the city.
He had half a mind to follow the other civilians as they rushed back inside the city gates. Any sane person would, of course. This was a dragon: a beast straight out of lore who could easily burn you to a crisp in one breath! And yet it was exactly that reason as to why Quintus lingered behind, pressed himself against a stone corner, and peered out into the snowy landscape of the White River. How his master would drool upon hearing his story! And wouldn't it be utterly dreamy to loosen a scale or a bone of that beast? To test the alchemical properties? He would be the very first, the first alchemist to ever discover the magical benefits of the huge, hulking, flying monster! Nurelion would be so proud, for once, to have him as an apprentice.
He was deep in his alchemical musings when something much more interesting happened. Before, he had thought little of that second Shout, which drew the dragon away from the city. He had wrote it off as a distracting welcome, had not given it much attention at the time because he was too overwhelmed by the relief of the dragon's attention breaking away from him. But then, somewhere to his left a city guard yelled in excitement, "Dragonborn! The Dragonborn has come to save us!" And that was when another Shout ripped into existence, loud even through the heavy torrent of always present wind. Directly after, the dragon's Voice retaliated in a very deep, very scratchy burst of icy particles.
Quintus knew very little about dragons or anything, really, that didn't pertain to alchemy. He rarely left the shop and so he had little knowledge about public events. He knew even less of the city gossip, but was generally fine with not being in the loop. But now he wished he'd listened a bit harder to his customer's conversations as they waited in line at The White Phial. All talk of dragons and the Dragonborn, to be honest, didn't interest him as much as it probably should have. At the time, he had been far too busy ringing up a customer while explaining the necessary preventative actions one must take while using a volatile ingredient like fire salts. He'd completely missed all talk of dragons after that, because then he had to go and fetch some herbal potions in the back room that were quite popular recently, and the old woman who wanted them had a large order of other herbs and home remedy ingredients to buy which kept him very busy. Not that he had a problem with all that. Quintus loved his job more than any other thing. It was his pride and joy, being able to learn from such a renowned alchemist as his master. Even if he was mean and grumpy on his good days.
Anyway, Quintus didn't really know anything about dragons. His vision of them was somewhat narrow-minded and acute. He didn't ponder over their abilities because he was too busy pondering over the next batch of ingredients to purchase from the traveling merchants, and which potions needed restocking and what ingredients were getting too old for proper use. So naturally, in his mind, dragon's breathed fire and fought from the sky. But here was a dragon (a real dragon!) roaring out icy particles and then landing with a powerful, frighteningly loud thud on the ground.
That wasn't, however, the part that actually shocked him. What really shook him up was the blurry figure of the fearless Dragonborn emerging from the foggy, icy snow, Shouting and hacking at the dragon's limbs and belly so quickly that Quintus could barely keep up. He did not appreciate warriors all that much. They were loud and brash and had too much pride that usually got them nowhere. They came into his shop demanding health potions without even pausing to consider the intricacies and even dangers of brewing such a difficult elixir. No, he didn't really like warriors. But this he liked. Even though he was too far away to properly see the Dragonborn, even though they were just blurry figures in the snowy wind, Quintus could appreciate a sight like this one. And when the dragon finally received its death blow, and the Dragonborn turned into a golden halo of light, Quintus could not look away.
It was only when the guards seemed to finally realize that he had still not gone back to the city walls that he was forced to turn his back on the scene. But never would he forget those golden eyes that blinked at him, or the sheer size of the beast as it hurtled toward the ground, or the dangerous glint of steel as the Dragonborn delivered strike after strike.
