New chapter
I don't own Skyrim or Familiar of Zero.
Skyrim. A beautiful place with highest mountains and the deepest dungeons.
The coldest winds and warm natural ponds.
A place where the constant struggle between life and death can be seen all around there. Where only the strongest survive.
But despite her harsh conditions and the constant struggle, some may call this land where the soul can rest.
Some people come here for the adventure and be the one who was shaped by Skyrim. And some may come here after the natural wild nature to truly enjoy the sound of silen-
BOOM!
But for tonight we are not focusing on the beauty of Skyrim's harsh nature. But instead, we will look into deep into the woods where we can see two women. The younger currently trying to cough smoke out of her lungs and the other older writing something on her book.
"Remind me why are we still doing this?" Louise asked Brita who was sitting on a rock. Her eyes glued to a book she was writing. It was already very dark and the cold did start to make her feel numb despite the extra clothing she had over her clothes in which she woke up in earlier.
She had a large coat way too oversized for her. And she had boots that were brown and also way too large for her.
"I told you I'm writing down everything about your magic so that I can compare it to later when you have Magicka," Brita answered to her and kept writing to her book under a candlelight spell.
After Brita finished writing she closed the book and took something out of her knapsack. "Here catch!" Brita said to Louise and tossed the object to her. "It should increase your Magicka. Or in your chase give you the start for the Magicka to start forming naturally in your body."
Louise almost dropped the blue thing Brita had tossed to her. When she had a sure grip on it she took a closer look at the object. "Is this a potion?" Louise asked and looked towards Brita who just nodded. It was a small blue bottle with a brown cork on top. "Do I have to drink it?" Brita again just nodded. "Are there any kind of bad side effects?"
"Not really." That didn't help to calm Louise's mind. "I've heard that there might be a feeling of soreness after you have drunk the potion." Well, that didn't sound so bad. "Oh! And you might get paralyzed for hours!" Okay, that sounded really bad.
"I'm not going to drink something that could paralyze me!" Louise yelled to Brita who in response just shook her head.
"Don't worry! It just a very small chance that you may or may not suffer from serious side effects. But you can't be truly sure before you test it. So drink up!" Brita instructed her and opened her book again ready to write down everything that might happen.
Louise looked hesitantly at the bottle and unscrewed its cork. She looked towards Brita who just waved her hand in sign to continue. She brought the bottle to her mouth and drank all of its content. "Okay then now what?" Louise asked Brita who in response didn't say anything but continued to write down something in her book.
Then the feeling of warmth rose in Louise's body and she was surrounded by blue streaks of light for a second. Louise let a sigh of relief when she could still move all of her limbs. "Great it seems that your body can handle Magicka and it's already starting to generate in your body," Brita said bringing Louise out of her thoughts.
"Now think of fire and what it would do to the world around you." Louise raised her wand but the Brita took it away. "I don't think you need a wand for this. Just try to feel the Magicka inside you and when you feel it just let it out."
Louise looked dumbfounded at Brita first but then just went along with it and pointed her hand at a tree. She imaged what the tree would look like when burning, what kind of sounds it would make, and how the burnt wood would smell.
First, she thought the idea was dumb. But after a while, she felt something inside that tried to get out. So instead of keeping it inside she just let it loose through her hand.
Suddenly a burst of flames came from hand lighting the tree she was pointing her palm on fire. She got scared and quickly tried to stop it which it amazingly did! She looked at her hand in shock, then at the tree, and again her hand. After a while realization set in Louise. "I'm finally a proper mage!" Louise yelled happily and celebrated her small accomplishment by running to Brita and giving her biggest hug she could give Brita.
"Thank you! Thank you!" Louise repeatedly thanked Brita. Finally, she had magic that she could use! She could finally earn her mother's respect. The thought of her mother led her to think about her home and her happiness vanished quickly. But it came straight back when she imagined herself showing her magic to Èlènoare and to everybody else. 'They can't call me a failure anymore!'
Again Louise was brought back from her thoughts by Brita. "Thanks for the hug but let's focus on your magic. Now try doing your spell with your wand." Brita cut off Louise's celebration and handed Louise's wand to her.
"Fireball!" Louise shouted and pointed her wand to do the spell but like last the time only explosions came after. Now she was very confused. Does her wand stop her magic? And she didn't feel tired like a mage should after using magic. Instead, she felt like something else was getting tired.
"It seems that you can still use your magic or… the explosions. Now tell me how that felt?" Brita asked while still writing down on her book.
"Well usually I get really tired after doing many spells, but now I feel like only part of me gets tired." Louise tried to do Flames spell but only a small flame was a result. "It seems that my explosion took all of my M-magicka." Louise was now saddened by the lack of power to do magic. She just got it working!
Brita saw discomfort in Louise's face and quickly said. "Don't worry it will be fully back in a couple of minutes. And remember that more you train your magic casting. Easier it gets over time." Brita looked at Louise's face that seemed to be in frozen shock. But it soon changed to a wide smile.
'Couple of minutes?! Willpower usually takes hours of rest to restore completely back!' Louise could only giggle internally in delight. 'I'm going to be the best mage ever!' Before she could sink into her imaginary world Brita stopped her.
"But now comes the hard part," Brita said and took a book with a logo of the destruction school's symbol. "Throughout Skyrim, there are plenty of books which you can use to learn the new spell the book is telling about. And you can also buy copies of those books from different merchants." Brita gave the book to Louise.
"Wait do these books just tell you about just one spell?" At Brita's nod, Louise realized why it would take a long time to learn all of the spells in Skyrim. 'Why do people in here write an entire book for every single spell?'
Brita continued her teaching. "The Flames spell is one of the easiest to learn so you don't really need a book for that. But more advanced spell books have hundreds of different ways to do the spell the book is telling you about. And sometimes, a mage can only use one of the ways."
"And also there is a lot of history about the spell in the book. And it has a fair share of warnings about what not to do with them."
The book was very thick and had black covers. "So if you want to learn every single spell that there is. You should know how to read those books or it would take years to read them all and maybe decades to try all of their ways. And I expect that you don't have time for that."
Louise wondered how an entire thick book could only tell of one spell. She opened the book and saw immediately one of the largest problems she had. "Um… could you maybe teach me also read your symbols?"
Brita was confused for a second before she realized Louise's problem.
"Oh! I didn't count in the fact that your world might use different alphabets did I?" Brita looked a bit embarrassed by her mistake. "But worry not! You already know how to speak our language so it's just a matter of fact that you'll have to learn how to pronounce our letters."
"But for now let's head home and get ready for sleep." With that, the two of them started heading to the house.
Although Louise's first impression about her situation was devastating. It suddenly changed to the better because she knew that Brita would get her back home and the Skyrim gave her something that she couldn't even find from her home. Real magic!
So when Louise put herself to sleep tonight she had the best dreams of herself showing her new magical talents in at the home once she would get back home.
"Good morning Louise!" Someone shouted to a girl who was deeply sleeping in a bedroll on the floor. Well… sleeping until Old man Meinolf just shouted her awake.
"What is… where are... who?" Louise in her sleepy state could only mutter some words and barely even those. But she did somehow manage to rise from her bedroll.
"Oh no! Did you already forget me? The legendary hero Meinolf!" The man called Meinolf asked looking deeply hurt. "Where has this world come to when the youngsters don't even remember my name!"
Slowly Louise's memories came back and she glared at Meinolf. "Why did you have to yell in my ear?!" If Louise's glare could have killed Meinolf would have been dead already. To cuteness!
"Ah hah hah! Girl if that is your angry face then it won't work on anyone!" Meinolf said and laughed at the girl who tried to look angry but failed spectacularly in that.
"Anyway as why I woke you up as I did. Is because the morning is the best time of the day!" Meinolf chuckled little and looked at Louise again. "And you were sleeping for so long! I almost thought that you were dead!"
Louise tried to go back to sleep only for Meinolf to grab her and lift her off the bedroll. "Hey, adventurer don't go sleeping now. We have work to do!" She already didn't like the sound of work.
"Is this your revenge against me for calling you a bastard?" Louise questioned Meinolf. "I already said I was sorry!"
"Don't worry I'm not holding a grudge," Meinolf said and glanced at Louise. "Well… maybe a little but you already apologized for that. But I still I need your help this morning and extra pairs of hands would be useful!"
If she wasn't awake before she was now! Meinolf had dragged her outside where the sun was up at a perfect angle. To shine straight to Louise's face.
"Please let me go back inside!" Louise tried to plead the madman number two! "I think I'm going to be blind if I open my eyes!" Louise said while trying to cover her eyes by her arms.
"And why do I have to help you?" Louise asked Meinolf. "Can't I just like clean the house or can't I just help Brita instead?" The morning was cold and she knew that Meinolf wouldn't show mercy to her. Inside the house was warm and it had a nice bedroll just waiting for her.
Meinolf looked at Louise and remembered a girl who acted just like her. "Listen Louise you agreed with Brita that in exchange for magic studies. You would help us with our home chores." Louise already regretted her agreement.
"And besides! I need some help with the wood chopping. And Brita is currently in Falkreath looking for some reading books for you." Louise looked to the right of her and saw a huge pile of logs! "So roll up those tiny sleeves and put on your shoes! Because we have a great work ahead of us!"
"Can't I just go back to sleep please?" Louise whined small tears forming in the corners of her eyes. "I haven't even eaten anything this morning!"
Meinolf just ignored her complaints and brought her a couple of boots that actually fit her. "A girl like you shouldn't cry. You might find it hard to live like us if you truly come from a noble family." Meinolf crouched in front of her and put his left hand on her shoulder.
"You might think that our way of life is very hard. And I'm going to say that it is!" Before Louise could complain Meinolf quickly cut her off. "But it only makes you appreciate the small happy moments even more!" Louise looked the man in the eyes. She saw eyes that belonged to a man who has been through many if the life's hardships but always came on top.
"I want to go home," Louise said looking downwards.
"Louise. I know you must really miss your home and family. But I promise that Brita will find a way for you to return!" Meinolf said and lifted Louise's chin. "And remember this is Skyrim. Here heroes are made! And imagine this: A girl that went to frozen hell and came back!"
"Now that's a story I would love to hear!" Meinolf said and it did sound good if Louise was being honest with herself.
"Is it something Skyrim is known for? That many great heroes are made here?" Louise asked Meinolf who had a face that said 'Oh You bet!'.
"But if you don't want to help us around our house. We can just drop you off the Riften orphanage." Meinolf said in a voice that sounded like he was joking. But to Louise, it was a full threat that they could easily do and her body froze.
"W-when I said t-that I wa-" Louise's attempt at pleading from Meinolf was stopped by her stomach. Which finally decided to remind of its emptiness by letting a loud roar.
Meinolf picked Louise up and brought her near the wall of the house. "Hush! There is a bear nearby." Louise tried to say something but Meinolf's hand was in front of her mouth.
So instead Louise kicked to man in his left foot shin and pointed at her stomach with her left free arm.
"Oh…" Realization washed over Meinolf. "Sorry that we couldn't wake you up for the breakfast! We didn't want to wake you up because you just looked really cute when you slept." Louise felt a little annoyed but didn't show it. "But if you're hungry here have a potato."
Meinolf handed her a potato that wasn't even cooked! But because of her growing hunger, she accepted it anyway and started eating it. "So… what do we do today?" Louise asked Meinolf still munching on her potato.
"Now that's the spirit!" Meinolf gave a pat on her back that almost caused her to choke on her food. "First you can start bringing those logs here meanwhile I chop them."
Louise looked at the huge pile of logs and back at Meinolf. "All of those?" This was something a noble wasn't supposed to do!
"Of Course all of them!"
"Why didn't you just bring them closer so you wouldn't need me to bring them to you!" Louise's anger came back. She could be still sleeping!
Meinolf just chuckled at Louise's attempt to look angry. "Somebody has to cut branches and sticks that are still attached to the logs," Meinolf said and gave her an axe.
"And while you are here working with me I can tell you of my adventures!" There was a certain happy tone in Meinolf's voice which she didn't like at all.
"Now how about I'll tell you how I became a city guard at the age of fourteenth." By the way, Meinolf said that Louise just knew this was going to take a long time.
"And then I swung my sword in a wide arc killing all of the tree bandits all at once!" Meinolf finally finished one of his wild stories.
Despite Louise's tries to not listen to Meinolf's stories they still managed to get her attention. "Did you really kill them like you said because if so. I think I'm going to get sick!"
Meinolf didn't spare any detail of his murderous adventures. "I'm just wondering. Did you really have to kill them like that? Couldn't you just report of them to the guards?" Louise's question only provoked laughter in Meinolf.
"Louise that's not how Skyrim works!" Meinolf looked at Louise and saw her confusion. "People kill each other in here all the time. And guards' jobs are usually to keep the cities in order." What Meinolf said caused fear again to grow in her.
"D-does that mean somebody could literally come to your house, break in and slit all of our t-throats and just get away with it?" Louise couldn't understand Skyrim's lack of justice systems that the nobles had in Tristain.
"Don't worry! Nothing bad is going to happen to us when I'm guarding us!" That really didn't convince Louise but then she wondered who would like to hurt an elderly couple in the middle of the woods.
She quickly forgot about it and went to a log she had just got off its branches by her axe. She picked it up and started heading in Meinolf's way.
"Finally! Here is the last one!" Louise shouted to Meinolf and dropped a large log that she has been carrying at Meinolf's feet. She just hoped that there wouldn't be anything to do anymore.
"Great! Now that you have brought them over here you can help me to chop the rest of them." And with that Meinolf crushed Louise's dreams of getting to finally go rest. But luckily for Louise Meinolf had chopped the logs she had carried to him so there weren't that many left to chop.
But Louise still had to swing an iron axe to chop them and she simply didn't have the strength for it. "Can't I just quit for now and go inside?" Although Skyrim was a cold place working hard under its sun caused sweat and sweat attract mosquitoes.
"Sorry, but we can't stop now! It's going to rain this evening and we have to get these woods to wood shack before they get wet!" Meinolf denied Louise's dream again and pointed her towards the small pile of logs. "Wouldn't want them to get moldy now would we?"
Louise just let a long sigh and walked to the logs with the axe in hand. "Hey, Louise why is your tattoo glowing?" Meinolf suddenly asked.
"What tattoo?" Louise asked back.
Meinolf pointed her left hand. "On your left hand's palm. There seems to be some sort of writing and it's glowing." Louise looked at her left palm and indeed the runes were dimly glowing and she wondered how she hadn't noticed them.
But most of Louise's surprise came from Meinolf. 'How did he saw them when I didn't even notice them?' Louise thought. 'Maybe some of the stories he told me were true.'
During their work, Meinolf had told her many of his stories where he used his great sight. But she still doubted that some of them weren't real. Seriously who could see a bandit attack coming very far away from the woods in the dark?
"By the way Louise how old are you?" Meinolf just suddenly asked waking Louise from her thoughts. She just looked at Meinolf in utter confusion while chopping some logs.
"I'm currently twelve," Louise answered and asked right after. "Why do you want to know about it?"
Meinolf wasn't looking at Louise but instead looking at Louise's wood chopping. "Well, I'm starting to have doubts about your claim to be a noble. I mean... your swinging that axe like you would have years of experience." Louise's confusion just grew and she looked at the chopped woods.
She didn't feel any different, she had just done what felt natural to her. "I haven't actually done anything like this before." She glanced at her rune's way and saw them glow a little bit.
She let go of the axe and started to exam her runes. As soon as she let go of her axe she started to feel soreness on her forearms and her runes stopped glowing.
"Well, that was odd," Meinolf said while throwing some of chopped woods to a wood shack. "You should ask Brita about those she might know something about those runes."
When Louise and Meinolf finally had thrown the last chopped wood into the wood shack they let out a breath and just stood there for a moment.
"You know I'm starting to really doubt your claim of being apart of a noble family." Louise looked at Meinolf in the confused matter. Was that a compliment? "You are a hard worker and can swing the axe like you've been swinging it for years now."
"Why wouldn't I be noble if I was a hard worker or knew how to swing an axe?" Louise asked Meinolf.
"Well… if you were a true member of nobility you would be complaining all the time like this: 'Oh my clothes are ruined!', 'Where do these mosquitoes come from?!', 'I'm thirsty!' and so on." Meinolf said with a smug smile on his face.
Louise gave him a hard hit on his right hand. Well… hard for her but to Meinolf it was just a light tap. "Not all nobles are whiny and don't know how to survive without baths," Louise said and remembered her mother's tales when she had to survive in some of the worst conditions.
"And I'm learning to do magic from Brita in return for my helping," Louise said with a grin on her face. "And you are letting me stay in here instead of being a beggar in one of the cities or living in an orphanage. And when I get back home I'll be the best mage that has ever lived. Well… as long the church won't find about the true nature of this world's magic."
"I'll have to try if I can let my Magicka flow through my wand so it wouldn't look like some firstborn magic," Louise muttered to herself.
"Well anyway, our work here is done so let's head back inside," Meinolf said pointing at his home with his thumb over his shoulder. "And judging by the smoke that is coming from the pipe, I would say Brita is back home cooking dinner."
"Wait when did she come back?" Louise asked Meinolf while they were making their way to the house. "Surely we would have seen her come here right?" Although they were surrounded by the forest it was actually very quiet so she should have heard some footsteps coming towards them.
"Well, she likes to be sneaky whenever she can." Meinolf chuckled when he remembered one of their adventures. "She always attacked enemies from the behind with her fire, while I distracted them with my charge."
"What kind of adventures did you do together when you were young?" Louise asked out of curiosity and she didn't really want to hear any more of Meinolf's 'great solo adventures'.
"We can talk about it over the dinner. I'm starving!" Meinolf opened the door and as he said Brita was there standing next to a pot cooking something with a delicious smell coming from it.
"Wow, you worked rather quickly I haven't even finished seasoning the soup," Brita said looking at Louise and Meinolf. "But you need serious bathing. You smell like you ran a draugr infested dungeon from the entrance to exit."
"It was possible with our short friend's help!" Meinolf ignored an angry yell from Louise and continued. "You should have seen her swinging her axe like a proper professional."
"Heh, maybe you should take her to go sparring with you. She might make a great swordswoman." Brita said while looking at her husband's eyes that seemed to shine. "But she needs to learn the ways of our magic first of course."
Meinolf let out a whine and Louise sighed of relief. She wasn't going to try spar against Meinolf. He was a giant!
"But now shut up and come to the table for food!" Brita ordered them and took the pot of its rack and took it to the table.
Louise sat down and felt the most satisfying feeling when she could finally let her legs relax. "I told you working to the bone and then sitting down is the best feeling you can have!" Meinolf said to Louise and sat to the left of her while Brita sat to right to her.
"You were right about that. But I would still avoid the torture you call work." As the pot was set on the table she smelled the food and asked. "What is this? It smells really good!"
"Oh! Thanks for asking!" Brita said happily. "It is simple meat soup with horker meat and years of experience in seasoning. I hope you enjoy it!"
Louise took a taste and groaned in satisfaction. "This is the best meat soup I have ever had! You'll have to teach me how to make it!" Louise said even forgetting the prayer before food and just started eating.
"I'm glad you like it! But it's no secret it just takes years of experience to make it perfect." Louise didn't like that but at the moment she couldn't care because she was eating the soup that was really delicious!
They ate in peace talking about the day and what they've been doing. Until a thought crossed Louise's mind.
"Hey, I've been wanting to ask this." Louise raised her left arm to get the old couples attention. "What did you do before you came to live here?"
Meinolf straightened his back and was going to tell Louise about their adventures. Before being cut off by Brita's silencing spell again. "I'm going to tell her about our adventures and what we did before we met."
Meinolf glared daggers at Brita again who completely ignored his deadly glare. "In this house never ask Meinolf about our history. He will not shut up! Seriously he could go for hours glorifying the adventures that we had together." Louise looked at Meinolf who looked like Cattleya who just had been denied getting a unicorn. "And I bet you've been hearing stories of his adventures enough already. Those from the times before we met."
"But because I'm feeling merciful I'll tell you the shortened version of our story and let Meinolf fill in his side of the story later," Brita said and it seemed to calm Meinolf little. "But honey remember this! If you ever talk about what happened in the Arcanaeum. I will personally make sure you will burn!"
Brita knew how to be scary. But it didn't seem to be bothered Meinolf judging by his neutral face. "So what happened in the Arca-" Louise was cut off by her own fear when she looked at Brita's face and saw a stern face like her mother's face that promised pain. "O-okay… I won't ask."
"Well, at least that's over so let me begin!" Brita said while taking a more comfortable sitting position. "I was a student in the College of Winterhold and a prodigy compared to the other students in destruction magic!" Brita raised her hands and let small fires ignite in them. "Especially in the fire!"
"Anyway my days went on for a while and it got boring. So when there was a knight looking for a mage who could help in clearing a cave full of necromancers of course I volunteered." Brita stopped talking for a moment and seemed to be in her own nostalgic world.
"Was this man called Meinolf?" Louise asked bringing Brita back to Skyrim.
"Yes, you would be right. Oh, how would I put it?" Brita asked herself and shortly after continued. "Well… he came looking for a mage because by his words: 'All mages are necromancers so they must know how to take them down!' I almost slapped him there but I couldn't hit such a handsome man! So I just told him about the true nature of our magic."
"That I can only guess went straight over his head!" Brita glanced at Meinolf who just rolled his eyes.
"For our first quest, we went to the cave that had all the necromancers performing something I wouldn't want to describe to a young girl such as yourself." Louise wanted to know what they did but let it slide for now. "We went in Meinolf rushing in with his steel armor on and a steel blade in his hands. And I sneaked around the enemies while they were distracted by Meinolf's charge so it gave me a perfect opportunity to burn them with my fire from the behind!"
"We did few more missions together and realized that we were a pretty good team." Brita smiled at Meinolf and he smiled back. "After a while, we sort of fell in love and had many great adventures together."
"After we had gathered enough Septims to buy a house we moved into Solitude and started a family there." She went to the bookshelf and took out a brown old book. "Here are some of my drawings of the house in there."
Louise looked at one of the book's drawings. The house seemed to be a simple two-storied brick house with wooden supports. "Although we had a lot of money from our adventures, it didn't hurt have some sort of income. So that's why we built this small shack in here."
"We started to look for gold from near the river and so we became prospectors." Louise looked at Brita and Meinolf.
"Then why are you now living here?" Louise asked. "Did you lose your house?"
"No, we didn't," Brita answered her and continued talking. "We sold it when we started seeing the skirmishes between the Empire and some rebels. We might be old but we aren't stupid we know when a war is about to break out."
"And our daughter Anna had already moved to Cyrodiil after her husband when he moved back." Brita seemed to be saddened a bit. "So living there would only bring us a great risk."
"And that is why we are living here!" Brita said and returned to her seat. "But enough of stories from our past let's focus on the present now."
Brita picked up her knapsack from the floor and pulled a book out of it. "Now it would be perfect time for you to learn how to read."
Meanwhile, Meinolf has been trying to get Brita's attention by waving his hand. "Alright fine, what do you have to say?" Brita asked and removed her silencing spell.
"Finally," Meinolf said while trying his voice. "Brita got expelled from the college because we were caught having sex in the Arcanaeum," Meinolf told Louise quickly as he could and ran through the door to outside.
"Meinolf you are dead!" Brita yelled and ran after Meinolf while forming fireballs in her hands.
'These people are crazy!' Louise thought to herself and tried to ignore Meinolf's screams and the orange glow that came from outside. And judging by Brita's yells the orange glow could only be one of Brita's fire spells.