Hi, everyone! Here is chapter three of A Nightingale's Song!

I am going to point out before I begin that almost everything that happens in these earlier chapters is happening for a reason. I am not writing anything that is not going to tie in with something that is going to happen later. This I promise. I thought it might be best if you bear that in mind...

Oh, and since I forgot to mention last chapter, the promised virtual sweetroll goes to Darkest Cloud, who was the only person worked out the meanings of the names of both of Gallus's parents. They are both derived from latin, since Cyrodiilic is clearly latin. 'Perdita' comes from 'perditus' meaning lost, and 'Iratus' means angry, irate or wrathful. Incidentally, I looked up the meaning of Gallus's name while I was researching, and I found that it means 'cockerel.' Interesting...

Anyway, enjoy the chapter!

CHAPTER THREE

Spring gave way to summer; a bright, glorious summer that seemed to bring life into every corner of Skyrim. The shining white snow on all but the highest peaks of the towering mountains melted, running down into the rivers and filling them to the brim with pure, clear water. The grass was greener and fresher than I had ever seen it before. The sky was a dazzling azure, the clouds ivory white, the mountains the colour of polished steel. Everywhere I looked, the world seemed brighter and more beautiful than it ever had before.

It might have been the warm sun, and the fresh rains. It might have been the turn of the seasons bringing on better weather. But as far as I was concerned, the day I met Henja, my life took a turn for the better.

Suddenly, I had a friend. A playmate, a companion, almost a sister. It was as if someone had lit a torch in the blackness of despair that was my life. Hardly a day had passed since our first meeting when I had not gone to visit her. We met every morning, almost without fail, in the glade where the silver stream ran and the mountain flowers grew. We would talk and sing and laugh and play together, our smiles bright as the sun shining down upon us, our laughter sending the birds flying up from the trees in fright.

I began to live for those hours in our secret glade. Hours of happiness, hours of joy like nothing I had ever experienced before. I felt like I was finally living the way a child should live. In a single day, Henja had changed my life. I still did what I had always done- travelling the world whilst never leaving my home- except it was a thousand times better, with a friend at my side. Henja and I had been to every corner of the known world, and discovered a thousand and one unknown lands. Together, we had not only slain Alduin, but delved into darkened passageways far beneath the depths of the earth, in search of the last of the Dwemer. We had found them, too, and brought them back to the surface world, and into the light. We had managed to prevent a brutal Thalmor invasion, saved the world from being overrun by Draugr, and climbed to the peak of the Throat of the World- where we had battled Alduin yet again. Every day, there would be a new mission, a new adventure, new identities to take on, new things about the world and about ourselves to discover.

Sometimes we would simply sit on the tree stump and talk. We would talk about the memories of our pasts, the dreams of our futures. We would tell tales that we had heard or read, legends that we loved, myths that we wished could be true. Other times, we would wander through the forest together. I would bring my journal with me, taking notes on the fauna and flora I found. Henja would climb trees, toss stones into the stream until she found one that would bounce on the surface of the water, and interrupt my meticulous recording by asking me questions, or yelling to frighten away the animals that I had been watching. I would yell at her, and she would respond by grinning until my frustration inevitably faded and I found myself smiling back.

But most of the time, we would shed our real personalities and forget all knowledge of who we were. We became warriors, soldiers, adventurers, explorers, mages, thieves, assassins. We became anything we wanted to be. We would either take it in turns being the villains, or we would take up our trusty sword-sticks and thrash the long-suffering dead tree. Dragons, Draugr, vampires, werewolves, Thalmor, trolls, giants, bears, sabre cats- all fell at our hands.

But it was not until a day perhaps four months after our first meeting that we actually tasted real adventure, that we took down a real foe.

It is a day I still look back on with pride and wonderment.

It is also a day that I remember with fear and shame.

It began the same way as any other day. We were seated together- my father at the head of the table, Prosperus on his right, Marcella on his left, and me next to Marcella. As far away from my father as I could get, with my sister to protect me if tempers became frayed. The rest of them ate slowly and with dignity- in the same way that they went about everything else- but I sprang upon my food like a starving sabre cat, wolfing it down as fast as I could.

'Must you gulp your food like that?' Prosperus stared at me in distaste, and I was glad to have my full mouth as an excuse not to reply.

Marcella smiled and laid a hand on my shoulder. 'Slow down, Gallus. There's no hurry.'

No hurry? I almost choked in disbelief. How could she say that there was no hurry? No hurry, with the sun shining, the birds singing, the sky clear and the day bright and warm? No hurry, with Henja waiting for me in our glade, ready to accompany me on yet another mission into the unknown? No hurry, with evil to be fought, lives to save, places to go, people to see, and adventures to be had?

But I had told no one of my newfound friend yet, not even Marcella. Father would almost certainly not approve, Prosperus would jeer, and Marcella would be worried about me, sneaking off into the wilds of Skyrim alone. I had kept her a closely guarded secret, and though I knew that it would emerge sooner or later, I was hoping that it would be later. And so I had to nod, as if agreeing, slow my eating pace until they were distracted, and then speed up again until my plate was empty.

I disappeared to my room the moment I had finished, and spent a few minutes reading, so as to make sure the other thought that I was at home and safe. I listened hard for the telltale signs- the front door slamming and my father's horse cantering away down the cobbled road, the sound of Prosperus thumping books down on his desk, Marcella quietly humming to herself as she leafed through the pages of a worn, ancient tome. Those were my signals to jump to my feet, pull on my boots, and creep down the stairs as silently as I could.

The moment I was out of the house, I broke into a run. I knew the way to our glade like the back of my hand now. It took me only a few minutes to reach it. When I did, I was unsurprised to see Henja already there, tapping her foot impatiently.

'You're late,' she told me indignantly. 'I've been waiting ages.'

I grinned at her. 'No, you haven't.'

She kept up a straight face for a few seconds, then gave up and laughed. 'All right. I've been waiting five minutes.'

She picked up our sticks, leaning against the tree stump. 'Guess what happened last night.'

'What?'

'That's just it. You have to guess.'

I snatched my stick from her and thumped it meaningfully against my hand. 'Henja…'

She grinned. 'I saw a sabre cat.'

My eyes widened. 'A sabre cat? A real, live sabre cat? Where was it? What was it doing?'

She nodded. 'I was helping Father plough the field, and we saw it. It was hunting elk.'

'How big?'

She stood on tiptoe and stretched her hands as far above her head as she could. 'This big.'

'Wow.' I stared at her enviously. 'I've always wanted to see a sabre cat. Did you see it kill anything?'

She shook her head ruefully. 'No. Father told me to go inside while he saw it off. I watched from the window, though.'

'Did he kill it?' I asked eagerly.

Henja nodded enthusiastically. 'He went and got his bow, and he shot it. Right through the head, like that.' She mimed firing a bow. 'It didn't kill it straight away. He had to shoot it again. And when it was dead, he skinned it and took out the teeth. He's going to sell the pelt and most of the teeth the next time he goes to Falkreath, but he gave me these.'

She reached into her pocket and brought out two small, deadly-looking fangs, the colour of dirty snow. I gave an awed gasp and picked one of them up, turning it over in my fingers. Its surface was smooth, yet when I tentatively pressed my finger to the tip, it was still sharp, so much so that I had to quickly bring my hand away before I cut myself. I could well believe that this tooth had once torn beasts to shreds- maybe even mortals, too.

'I'm going to make mine into an amulet,' Henja told me, slipping her tooth back into her pocket. 'But you can keep that one.'

I stared at her in delight. 'Really?'

'Of course. I told Father you would want to study it.' She drew out the word 'study' as if mocking it, but I knew that she understood. What listening to ancient legends was to her, learning about the world around us was to me.

I beamed at her. 'Thanks, Henja.'

'No problem.' She chewed her lip thoughtfully and picked up her stick again. 'How about being sabre cat hunters today?'

I nodded, my eyes shining. 'Yeah. The most famous sabre cat hunters in Skyrim.'

Henja ducked behind a tree. 'Stay under cover. The beast will see us coming.'

'Or smell us,' I reminded her. 'Their sense of smell is estimated to be roughly fourteen times as good as a mortal's-'

'Sabre cat hunters do not know things like that!' Henja hissed, thumping me. 'All they know is how to kill them!'

'Sorry,' I whispered. 'It's true, though.'

The Nord girl glanced around, then dashed forward, hiding behind another tree a little further on. 'Ha, I see the creature up ahead!'

I followed her lead. 'Today is the day it dies. All its kind will fear us, forevermore!'

Henja nodded. 'We cannot fail this mission. This is a man-eating sabre cat, and it's been preying on the people of Falkreath-'

'Let's let it go! It might eat my father!' I whispered, and Henja laughed.

'This beast has to die, for the safety of the people of Skyrim,' she reminded me.

I rolled my eyes. 'Whatever you say…'

'Sssh!' Henja hissed. 'You'll alert it to our presence!' She raised her stick, held it in front of her as if it were a bow, and pulled back an invisible string, ready to fire a non-existent arrow. I copied her.

'Ready,' Henja murmured.

I nodded. 'Ready.'

'Aim!' She narrowed her eyes at a patch of ground ahead of us, and I could see the ferocious predator in my mind, its mottled, shaggy pelt standing out against the undergrowth.

'Aimed,' I told Henja, and she grinned.

'Fire!' she roared, and we released our unseen arrows.

'Did we kill it?' I asked eagerly.

'No, we only wounded it. And now it's running. Quick, after it! We cannot let it escape!'

She tore off through the woods, and I hurtled after her, yelling dire threats to our invisible quarry. 'Run all you like, you won't escape the wrath of the sabre cat hunters!'

'Yeah! Because we have the speed of elk, the skill of wolves and the eyes of eagles!' Henja shouted. 'Our prey never escapes us!'

'It just did escape us!'

'Yes, but we're going to catch it! Come on!'

We kept running, branches and leaves crunching under our feet, deer, rabbits and birds taking flight as we reached them, their startled calls echoing through the forest. We ran through parts of the wood I had never seen before, places where streams tumbled over rocks with splashes and leaps and sprays of mist, places where ivy had grown so thick around a spindly pine that it had almost dragged it to the ground, places where the fire of a giant's camp glowed through the trees as if a miniature sun had been dragged from the skies and placed on the surface of Nirn, places where ancient trees, seemingly old as the world itself, creaked and groaned in the wind, as their rustling branches whispered in the breeze, as if sharing softly spoken words that told of hidden knowledge and secret things.

Perhaps trees talk to each other, I thought with a smile. Perhaps when their leaves rustle, they're talking. Maybe some of these trees are telling their friends about two children, running through their forest, chasing an invisible sabre cat…

Henja suddenly stopped short, and I slammed into her.

'Hey!' she yelped.

'Sorry. Why'd you stop?'

She held a finger to her lips, gesturing for me to be silent. 'Look.'

She pointed, and my eyes followed her outstretched finger, through the trees, towards the cluster of slate-coloured boulders that lay ahead of us.

The rocks were lying as if one of the Divines had been carrying them through the heavens, and they had slipped through their fingers and fallen to Nirn. One, a longish, flat one, was placed horizontally over two smaller, squat ones, forming a sort of bridge shape. Several more were piled up at the back of the bridge, forming a small cave-like structure. I could not tell whether it had been formed naturally or whether someone- or something- had put it together. What I could tell, though, was that it was not empty.

The first thing I noticed was the smell. It was a rank, musty smell, thick and heavy in the air, the sort of smell that had hung around the remains of wolf and bear kills Henja and I had encountered in the forest. It was the smell of a predator. A killer.

I looked into the cave, my heart in my mouth, and my eyes widened as I took in the dark, hairy form huddled within.

'Is that…' Henja's voice trailed off.

I finished the sentence, my eyes wide and my mouth hanging open with astonishment. 'A troll.'

I have always had a long-standing fascination with trolls. Perhaps it is because of so many of the tales my mother told me when I was younger featured them, or their hunters. The creatures have always fascinated me- their three eyes, their ferociousness, their cunning, their strength. Everything about them. And I suddenly found myself inching closer.

Henja grabbed hold of my arm. 'Don't go too close to it! It might wake up.'

I stopped, but continued to stare into the depths of the den. 'I've never seen one before.'

'Neither have I.' Henja sounded as awed as I felt. 'It's bigger than I though it'd be.' Her nose wrinkled. 'And it stinks.'

I squinted through the shadows of the lair. 'I wish I'd brought my journal with me.' I closed my eyes and frowned, trying to embed everything about the scene into my memory, in order for me to write it up later, when I returned home. 'Common troll, found in the forests south-west of Falkreath. Lair in a pile of boulders.' I looked around. 'Bones of previous kills scattered around-'

'Gallus,' Henja said suddenly, sounding worried.

'Ssh,' I hissed. 'Pelt colour, dark brown. Size… about twice my height.'

'Gallus!'

'What?'

'Shouldn't we go before it wakes up?'

'Why would it? Trolls have an exceptionally poor sense of hearing, and its eyes are shut, aren't it?'

'Yes, but the wind's blowing towards us, and don't you keep saying that trolls have a really good sense of-'

The troll grunted and shifted in the darkness. Our heads snapped towards it. Very slowly, it raised its head. Then suddenly three eyes were gleaming at us from the depths of the cave, glinting with malice.

'-smell,' Henja finished, her pale skin turning paler still.

We started to back away without a word, as if by some unspoken agreement passed between the two of us. The troll's dark form shifted again, and a low growl made the air tremble.

I looked at Henja. She was shaking, and her eyes were round with terror. Henja, my brave, fearless friend Henja, was afraid.

And suddenly, so was I.

I could feel my heart thumping against my ribs, pounding like a drum. My breath was suddenly catching in my throat, as if a hand was tightening around my neck, cutting off all my air. I had never known fear such as this before. It was not the same fear I felt as my father towered over me, his hands clenched into fists, his eyes burning with rage. He would strike me and beat me and do what he would with me, but one thing I knew he would not do was kill me. No matter what we felt for each other, he was my father, and I was his son. We were family. And he was not a murderer.

No. This was a different kind of fear entirely.

This was a fear that burned like a fire within me, so strongly that it consumed the entire world. It was a fear that made everything vanish apart from myself and those three black pits of hatred and doom. This was a fear that made me feel as if someone had torn out my insides, as if my throat was strangling me, as if everything, everything in the entire world was willing to destroy me.

It was not that I was afraid that I might die.

I was afraid because I knew that I would.

There was no hope, no chance of salvation or rescue. I was a skinny six-year-old boy, unarmed except for a short stick. I would die. There was no question.

There would be no mercy. Only death. A cruel, painful death.

But there are times when all sense leaves a mortal. Times when the mind gives way to the body. Times when a mortal suddenly loses everything that makes them who they are, and all that is left is instinct.

The instinct of prey.

Prey live by a simple rule. Fight or flight.

The troll exploded from its lair. Its mouth opened. Its savage, brutal roar that ripped the world in two, and saliva dripped from its fangs. Its gaze drifted over us, and I could have sworn that it smiled, a smile of pure malevolent greed.

We could not fight it.

And so, as one, we turned and ran.

The world was gone, and everything had ended. There was nothing in the world except running. Running for our lives. I was dimly aware of my feet pounding on the ground, my heart racing within my chest, branches and brambles whipping into my face as I ran, like cruel hands trying to catch me, to slow me down. I could see Henja out of the corner of my eye, her hair flying out behind her, sobbing with terror as she, too, ran. And behind us both, there was a heavy, thumping noise, and a snarling, a vicious snarling that slowly grew louder, and louder still.

Lumbering, slow, mindless beast as it was, it was gaining on us.

It would catch us. It would catch us both. Its claws would slice into our flesh and its fists would crush our bones and its fangs would sink into our heart and wipe out our lives forever and ever and ever and ever and ever-

As if we had never even existed-

As if Gallus Desidenius and Henja Snow-Walker had been simply tiny, insignificant, meaningless specks of life, that had existed for a single second before being destroyed-

As if we had been embers at the edge of a raging fire that had been blown out by a gust of icy wind only moments after we had begun to glow-

As if we had been nothing but minute islands in the ocean of time, rising above the foam for a heartbeat before being dragged under once more by the crashing waves-

As if we had been as worthless as skeevers, scuttling around in the shadows only to be crushed-

Skeevers.

It struck my mind like a blow from a warhammer. The realisation. And it was as if a fire had begun to burn inside my mind, as if my body had suddenly given way to my brain, as if instinct had been replaced by reason at last-

There was still hope.

Yet again, I was a skeever. And this time I was facing a real troll.

Strength could not save me. Speed could not save me. But sense could.

Sense and wit.

And all my wisdom- what little wisdom a six-year-old can have- came flooding back to me.

I reached out and grasped Henja's hand. She screamed, trying to pull away, but I held firm. She looked at me, and I saw relief spark in her eyes as she realised I was not the troll-

That's right, Henja, I thought. Hope. Have hope.

'Henja,' I shouted, over the sound of the troll's grunting and our pounding feet. 'Do you trust me?'

She said nothing. But she nodded.

And so I started to change direction.

Through the trees, over the stream, past the ivy-encrusted pines, towards the glow I remembered-

The glow I recognised-

The glow that was our only hope-

We kept running. The trees were thinning. We must be nearly there. The troll had been slowed by its awkward, loping gait, and the thick trees, but soon it would be upon us, unless we could make it in time-

We had to make it-

We had to-

The Gods could not be so cruel-

And then suddenly the trees were gone, and we were running out onto a stretch of open ground. Open ground where a fire burned, a fire as tall as I was. Open ground where a huge, woolly creature with tusks as long as my father was tall raised its head and regarded us curiously with small, beady black eyes. Open ground where the most astounding being I had ever seen was standing, gazing into the flames-

'Gallus, are you insane?!' Henja more or less screeched the words. 'That's an honest-to-Talos giant!'

'You said you trusted me!'

'I do!'

'Then prove it!'

We kept running. Past the fire. Past the mammoth. Past its titanic guardian-

The giant turned to look at us. Its eyes- Gods, I hadn't expected its eyes to look so human- seemed to stab us.

Please, I thought. Let what I've read about them be true.

The giant raised its club. It lumbered forwards. It let out a guttural bellow that seemed to make the entire world quiver in fear.

I skidded to a stop.

I knew that this was the time. Our fates rested in the hands of the giant.

It had a simple choice. Kill us. Or save both our lives.

I squeezed Henja's hand, closed my eyes, and waited.

I heard the sound of the giant's club swinging towards us. I felt a gust of wind smash into my face as it came towards me.

There was a loud, crunching thump.

And Henja's hand was gone from mine.

My heart almost stopped.

I screamed her name, my eyes snapping open. And then my heart began beating again as I saw her, still standing next to me, eyes still wide, but this time from astonishment and delight, and not from fear.

And I saw the giant snort and lower its bloodstained club, as the troll was sent flying into the air.

For a moment, I saw its face. It seemed startled, stunned. And there was stark terror in its eyes.

In that moment, I knew that it was feeling the same fear that I had felt as it chased me. The fear that comes with the certainty of death.

But I only saw its face for a moment. A heartbeat later, it was sailing away into the sky, a limp brown shape spread-eagled against the brilliant blue heavens, its limbs flailing, a few specks of dark red blood dripping down onto the grass, like dew made of liquid rubies.

Its lifeblood soaked into the ground, and with it went my fear.

The giant stared down at us with large, ponderous eyes, gazing into our small, thrilled ones.

'Thank you,' I whispered.

It gave a low grunt and turned its back on us, slowly lumbering over to its mammoth herd with its club swung over it shoulder. But I am almost certain that I saw a glimmer of amused fondness in its expression before it plodded away.

Henja was still staring at it with wide eyes, and I reach out and took hold of her hand again. 'We should go,' I whispered.

She didn't need to be told twice. We did not run this time. Neither of us had any energy left to run. We had been running on fear, and now the fear had been replaced by pure exhaustion.

We trudged back into the woods, our sides still heaving from the effort of our flight. Not until we were halfway back to our glade did Henja finally summon the energy to speak.

'How did you know that the giant would help us?'

'I didn't know for sure. I hoped it would.' I shrugged. 'Giants always intrigued me even more than trolls. I read a book on them one that said they were misunderstood by most people. They're not vicious, and far more intelligent that we give them credit for. They don't attack unless attacked first, or unless a threat strays too near their camps.'

'We went right into its camp,' Henja pointed out.

'Look at it from the giant's point of view,' I told her. 'Two children come running into its camp. The giant herds mammoths, which are about twenty times our size. We couldn't hurt them if we tried. We weren't a threat to the giant or its herd. But then a troll comes after us. Unlike us, the troll's a predator, a savage, merciless killer. That's a threat if the giant ever saw one. And so it takes its club and sends the troll into orbit. But it couldn't care less about us.'

Henja grinned shakily. 'I will never, ever, ever, say a bad word about all your scholar stuff again.' She stopped walking and turned to face me, and there was a sincerity in her eyes that I had never seen in her before. 'You saved my life, Gallus,' she whispered.

I felt myself turning red. 'Not really. It was the giant that-'

'And who led us to the giant?'

I said nothing.

'Gallus, if you hadn't thought of that, we'd both be troll food. I couldn't have saved us, but you did.'

I swallowed and tried to look away, but those sky-blue eyes held me firm. 'Thank you,' Henja said softly.

She hugged me in the way that only a best friend can hug you. In the way that makes you feel happy and comforted and hopeful and protected all at the same time.

'No matter what happens to us, I'll never forget this,' she whispered, 'I'll be your friend forever, Gallus.'

I smiled in a way that I had never known it was possible for me to smile. It was a smile showed not only on my face but in my eyes, in my entire body, filling me with warmth. And when I spoke my reply, I meant it with every last part of my heart and mind and soul.

'And I'll always be yours.'

I was late home. I knew it already. My legs felt as if they were made of lead, and I had not been able to manage anything more than a stumbling walk back to my house. The encounter with the troll had sucked all of my strength from me.

I hoped with all my heart that my father would not yet have returned. I did not want to face the inevitable questions that would come if he had. Nor the pain that might well accompany those questions.

Things had become better since I had met Henja. Perhaps it was because I was spending so much time away from home, and therefore away from him. Perhaps it was because she had brought out some of my inner strength. Perhaps it was because I had become wiser since I had met her. I could not say. But my beatings had become less frequent, and several times I had been able to hold a conversation with him without either of our voices rising in anger. Indeed, I was beginning to harbour hopes, however slim, that as time passed, we would no longer be enemies.

I did not want to destroy those hopes.

Hope is a strange emotion. A granted hope is one of the best feelings that the heart of a mortal can hold. But a false hope is the cruellest thing imaginable.

I swallowed, summoned my never, and pushed open the door.

Pushed it open to reveal my father standing behind it. Eyes narrowed. Hands on his hips. Waiting.

I almost turned and ran. But I had –however indirectly- slain a troll that day. And some of the courage I had found then was still with me.

And so I looked up and met those eyes.

'Father,' I said quietly.

His hand flashed out, grasping hold of the neck of my tunic. Though I pulled backwards, he held me tightly, and there was no escape.

His voice was low, but somehow that made it all the worse. The words were so much more menacing spoken softly. In that moment, he could not be compared to a troll, that blundering, stupid, beast. He was more like a snake, striking from the darkness where his fangs could not be seen coming.

'Where the Oblivion,' he snarled, 'have you been?'

I closed my eyes.

Once again, I was a skeever. And I had blundered straight into a trap.