In which life doesn't quite beget life just yet, and right is better than left.
Voros looked all manners of messed up. Worse than he had already before. With his fur gone, every bruise bloomed a little darker and angrier. And he plenty of those. Bruises. From where he'd got knocked around by the other wolf, for one, and where he'd tumbled freely through the dark underwater just like her. Except she'd dodged better. Obviously.
Sadja stopped at a quiet spot bunch of paces into the thick forest, surrounded by thick-barked trees, verdant shrubs, and soft moss bedding the ground. Was a good a spot as any, and she indicated for him to sit, pointing a finger at a deep seat formed by the roots of a tree so old, that tales it had to tell were likely endless.
Sam was already there, balancing on one of the root's crests. His stubby tail flicked about madly, happy and carefree like any good little goat that cared about as much about the worries of the world as the world cared for it. Oftentimes, Sadja liked to think people ought to be more like Sam, live their life like he lived his. Other times she wanted to roast him on a spit.
She clicked her tongue, and Sam bounded off the root with a tiny, challenging bleat. Voros, in the meantime, looked at her, prompting a low growl from Sten.
And then there was Sten. A horrible role model on how to go about one's day, grouchy and worrying his coat grey.
"He's allowed to look, " she told the hound. "Not eat, no. But look. Go guard Debby, you overgrown beagle."
At that, Sten huffed just once, and then plodded off, his tail stiff and high and his hackles still raised.
Voros, arms now folded, kept staring at her, his brow lifted with an unspoken question or observation or gods knew what.
"Mh." Sadja cocked her head at him. "They listen to me. Unlike Nords or wolves. Those just stand there, bleeding and whatnot. Go on. Sit. Before you keel over."
To her surprise, he did, wincing and hissing all the way. Probably because he'd have toppled over eventually anyway, making a real racket coming down. Like. A tree.
He was really tall, okay?
After he'd sat, one leg stretched out and the other propped up, she thumped down on the soft forest floor, right by him, her legs crossed under her. Voros kept staring.
Gods, he really did look like a wolf a little, didn't he? A wounded, mistrusting, shaggy thing.
"I'm going to help you heal," she said.
His expression didn't much change.
"So, you'll want to try and relax, mh?"
Again, all she got was that stare, and when she gently touched the tips of her fingers to his raised knee, it darkened to a one-eyed scowl.
"That was passed for relaxed for you? You poor creature, you."
Grunt, he said.
Grunt, she returned, a little half-hearted with her focus shifting a little more inwards. Down to an otherwise hushed thrum around her navel, snuggled up against her spine. At once, the hairs at the back of her neck stood at rapt attention and goosebumps shot up her arms. Not of fright or nerves, but from the steady pressure building where the thrum hid.
"Say, Voros, now that we fought goblins together and almost drowned together, and I had a finger stuck in you, are we friends enough?"
"What?"
Still looking. Staring. Kind of. His eye flicked to the side a little and his nose twitched, which probably stung the wide cut over it that still wept blood. He'd already started healing, she'd noticed quickly. Suppose being a werewolf came with perks that expanded past the thick fur, large stature, and fluffy ears?
What?
He'd had fluffy ears.
She rather liked them.
Sadja exhaled slowly. Breathed out the thrum that filled her core, danced along her bones and sung through her blood like the mumble of a freshwater spring bubbling through dark earth.
"Friends enough to know how you lost that blinker, I mean. Must have been before you got your wolf coat?"
The air smelled mossy now. More so than it had already. Mossy and of mushrooms blooming in thick shade and young grass pushing through a layer of detritus, spicy and green.
"Or how's that work? Do bits grow back if you lose them in one form or the other?"
Her ears itched, and Voros blinked, his brow furrowing and eye fixing on her fingers resting on her knee. They'd got a little warmer as the thrum built and churned inside of her until it spilled over like a gentle tide.
"Don't know," he said eventually, voice a bit thick. He also turned his head a little to look at the root next to his other leg. From a crack in its bark sprung a tiny, green tendril, worming its way up with a minuscule leaf sprouting from its tip. An excited little sprout, coaxed out by the magic nestled inside of her and drawing life to them, spinning it closer with every beat of her heart.
Sadja didn't know how it worked. It just did. Life begot life. Healed. Mended. Fucked if she knew why and how and she wasn't about to ever do her little head in trying to figure it out.
"Don't know how you lost your eye?"
He huffed. "No."
. . .
"Fair. You're new at this, mh? The being a wolf bit?"
No answer to that. Just a twitch of his lips, what with how he was a bit distracted by watching the tiny sprout slowly twist around itself and spring another leaf. On occasion, though his eye would cut to a wound on him, which probably all itched fiercely at this point, but he never moved. Didn't even twitch, except for his throat working up and down and his jaw tightening.
She knew what that felt like. When her magic sought to knit together a cut or dulled a bone-deep ache. There was no directing it. No telling it what it ought to fix. It just… did. And in its wake, it often left a very particular pull, like a drawstring pulling tight right by her navel again.
Mhm. Life begot life and life was a horny thing.
What the hell was this.
Caiden had never known much about magic. Or elves, for that matter. Now he sat here, unmoving, everything on him itching – and then there was another itch. Completely different, not currently scratchable, and in him, not on him.
From the way she eyed him the entire time, if he had to guess, she already knew about it. Maybe even expected it. And maybe it came naturally with this kind of magic. He wouldn't know. To him, healing was cleaning, ointments, and bandages.
Or else waking up with mostly healed gashes and maybe a few new scars.
That part was still relatively new.
Taking a deep breath, he still didn't move. Didn't even squirm under Sadja's eyes following his on occasion, or under the want burning its way deep inside him and hoping to get out.
Every second, it seemed to get worse. Growing hotter, until he did move, even if it was only a twitch. One Sadja noticed instantly, her eyes darting to his nearest hand.
Because that want tried to turn to a need, and that need always did start waking up the wolf. And it was far more violent and greedy a thing than watching that little plant grow.
His eye twitched next. By the time the restless howling in him made his shoulders jerk and his throat want to catch when next he tried to swallow down that feeling, he decided that was enough.
Reaching behind him to get a hold of a trunk for some support, he got to his feet. Sadja stayed hunkered there a moment longer, looking up at him, fingers still poised where his knee had been. She looked almost disappointed, a frown tugging at a corner of her mouth. Like she'd expected something more.
Or any kind of reaction at all, most likely.
You should thank her, something told him. Probably his conscience, still alive in there somehow even with a great wolf gnawing on it and him stubbornly trying to drown in ale whatever was left.
So he gave her a look, something that passed for a small nod, and grunted.
Sadja cocked her head enough that her long braid slipped down past her shoulder and pushed one of her pointed ears askew.
"Two little words, Voros."
Caiden huffed at first, but then he said, "Thank you."
Sadja perked up a little, like she'd just seen a small miracle happen, and put on a hint of a smile – which faded fast when Caiden started moving away from that tree, back toward the animals. Sadja didn't budge.
From her place in the moss, she called after him, "Where you going, Voros?"
"We shouldn't stay here," he said. If that other werewolf wanted to find them, he had little doubt it could. Follow the river, pick up a scent, and they'd be right here, waiting, tired and hurt. Easy prey.
"I do plenty things I shouldn't. It's what I do. Or didn't you notice?"
Caiden threw her a look. Sadja had flopped down now and was watching him from where she lay with her face sideways, half pressed against the moss, and one hand stroking over the soft greenery like she was petting a cat.
She looked silly as hell. Part of him wanted to scoff and shake his head. Another part almost wanted to smile.
Hadn't done that in a while.
That second part kept him from turning and walking away. He stood there for a moment longer, looking at her, her curious eyes set on him in return.
Until he prompted a bit flatly, gesturing with a sharp jerk of his head, "Get up. We're going."
Sadja's eyebrows went up. "You gonna make me?"
Caiden folded his arms.
Sadja stared at him and kept petting the moss.
Caiden narrowed his eye.
Sadja narrowed hers.
And, at once, they moved. Caiden unfolded his arms and took a step toward her, while Sadja sat up – only to realize he'd moved that same instant, widen her eyes slightly, and instantly collapse back into the moss like a limp rabbit. Even when he stood over her again, she turned her eyes up at him and went back to not moving.
He didn't say a word. He reached down, took her wrist, and tried hauling her to her feet. Sadja didn't cooperate, arm flopping around with no tension. Not pulling herself up.
She snorted out a giggle he could only think of as insane or something bordering on it, and Caiden dropped her arm, reached down, and scooped her up to throw her over one shoulder just as she started squirming.
"You're a fucking brute," she said, her voice carrying a grin, and her elbows poked into his back as she propped them up against his shoulder.
Brute or not, he got her to the horses.
Overall, Sadja thought today had been a success, and she turned that success around between her fingers, thumb at times rubbing over the rust encrusting the key. It was old. Real old. And it was a strange key. Had no teeth, for one. Keys were supposed to have teeth, those things that unlocked a… lock. Instead, the end twisted about like a corkscrew, which was why she'd almost not paid it any attention when she'd first spotted it. The harp on the flat end matched the sketches in the book though.
"What's it for?" Voros asked all of a very sudden, his voice all rough around the edges. No wonder, that. The man used it about as much as she used her good sense.
Looking up (and then up some more), she caught him staring at her from Apple's gently swaying back. Around them, the woods had cleared, given way to hills spotted with sturdy greens and lichen-covered rocks. Earlier, when the sun had still been much higher in the sky, he'd refused to stay by the lake, which'd been a shame. Working magic on him had taken quite a bit out of her, and she'd have liked to curl up in the soft moss and snooze for a bit.
On the other hand, getting hauled around on his back at been fun.
"A box," she said. "I'll get that next, once I figure out where to find it, anyway."
"And that's it ? That's all you got from the vault?"
"Mh."
His brows bunched down in a scowl.
"Yes, that's all," she said, pocketing the sad thing. "This little key. Though wasn't like I had a lot of time looking around, what with..." She gestured about with her hands. Clapped them together. Smiled, too, and the Voros fellow huffed.
After that, he went back to keeping that one eye of his out so attentively, she wondered if he was trying to make up for only having one.
A signpost came up soon after that, driven into the ground where the narrow path they'd been following forked off into two directions. Left would eventually— a day or so out —connect to a wider road that'd wind its way through villages and valleys and over hills to lead back under Skyrim's colder skirts. Right led deeper into Imperial lands, and along its webbing path, there'd be a library.
One with a large selection of maps.
Sadja shifted her weight a smidgen to the right, and Debby plodded that way, hooves crunching merrily on over the packed earth and gravel under them.
For a few heartbeats, she thought Voros might have kept going to the left. Parted quietly and, arguably, efficiently. Then trot-trotcame Apples, with Voros looking at her, his brow quirked.
"You know where you're going?" he asked. Doubtful.
Rude.
Sadja nodded and, because he'd gone back to being a tall shadow atop his pale horse, fished her well-worn book out from her saddle back to prop it up on her saddle horn. She licked at a finger and flipped through the pages until she found the bit where our dashing Imperial adventurer went to seek his fortune down in a sunken city. He'd get all soaked, she remembered, and that felt fitting, no? Except he got to rescue a princess after and she'd be real grateful a bunch of pages later, while all Sadja had got was a rusty key thing and a grouchy wolf.
Unfair.
Debby's flank twitched. Her ears flicked right. And Sten by their side rumbled in warning. Chin jerking up, Sadja threw a look at Voros, who sat in the saddle all wound up, reins in one fist and his other arm raised, fingers grasping over his back for the crossbow strapped there.
Yeah, he still had his crossbow. Unlike her and her bow, which was now no more than a splintered memory down in an empty goblin warren. Bleh.
He was staring past her, down the slope of the hill, over rocks and whatnot, into the valley where the shadows had started claiming the forest. When she looked that way, she couldn't see a thing. And when she raised a brow at Sten and his head swivelled that way, the hound only huffed.
Voros lowered his arm again, fingers sliding away from the crossbow. His shoulders gave the faintest idea of falling, though his throat jumped once and his jaw twitched. So did his eye.
"Seeing ghosts?" she asked.
"No," he said, at length. Then, eye set on her, asked: "You're not spooked by the werewolf? At all?"
"The other one? Psht. No. He seemed friendly."
His lips twitched down. "No such thing."
Sadja rolled her eyes and got back to reading.
Caiden had let his hand drop from the crossbow only very hesitantly, but he stayed alert. With how Sadja returned her attention to whatever she'd picked to read without a worry in the world, he thought someone had to. Someone else than the hound, at any rate. Caiden took a deep breath to let it out slowly. Tried to savor the silence that stretched on around them out here in the middle of no-where, where the path they followed fought a diligent, but ultimately pointless, battle against rain and wind and green eating away at it.
Relative silence, at least.
Heightened senses came with an inability to shut it all out. Everything wanted to deafen him, even the quiet, rhythmic beat of their horses' hooves crunching against the ground and the padding of Sten's paws. Each step moved tiny rocks, made them dance across the hard-packed ground. And he could even hear the occasional blade of grass brushing against the fur of Sten's legs as he walked to one side, near Sadja's horse.
Could hear it all. Every sound, every detail. Caiden inhaled again. Tried to refocus. On the echo of his wounds, maybe, the aches dulled by Sadja's magic and his own damned blood healing him faster than it should. Except that turned to scents – the smell of newly growing trees and a tangy touch of pine from the forest. Water, off in the distance somewhere, tinged with dirt. The scent of horse and dog and goat.
And, of course, Sadja. The wild spice, with a touch of metal and some leather.
That didn't exactly help him focus.
What he'd heard a moment ago, whatever it'd been, had a footstep heavy enough to be human. Or at least large enough to be a threat. When it'd kept moving, he'd known it had two legs. He wasn't entirely sure how, he just knew. Something buried deep in the back of his had mind told him.
Caiden tried to push it aside, glanced at Sadja again, and said, "Did you figure out where you're going yet?"
"Nh," was all he got, her nose still stuck in the map. "Somewhere with a library."
"That's not very specific."
They approached yet another fork in the road, with a tall, weather-worn, wooden signpost standing between the corners. The writing on it was faded. Needed retouching, or soon no one'd know where they pointed. Sadja squinted at it, shrugged, and turned her horse off to the left. Again.
"You even read it?" Caiden had to ask, but for some reason, he turned his horse that way, too.
"Sure. But mostly I just like left. Right is dull."
Right, he thought, following her.
Why?
Because if he didn't, she'd blindly ride her horse off a jagged ledge, what with how little attention she paid? Or she'd walk into an ambush? Or right into that other werewolf— his throat jumped, a touch of hot ice gnawing greedily on his spine.
He followed her, and threw one more long (and certainly not last) look over his shoulder at the shadows staring back at them from between the far off trees.