Chapter 11 – Breaking It Down

"Bleeding?" I asked in a groggy, pain-filled voice.

"Were you thonga?" Ralof asked.

"What?" He was pressing the blue cloth that I was wearing between my legs. I felt him wiping my thighs and womanly bits in a very clinical manner, which confused me, but I was in too much pain to care.

"Thonga," Ralof repeated the word that was unknown to me.

"I no understand," I muttered.

Ralof sighed. "Did you have life inside of you?"

"Life inside?" My brow furrowed in contemplation. Life inside. Pregnant? "No. Life inside?..." My voice trailed off. It was indeed possible. Thrinn and I had sex many, many times over the weeks I was with him in the cabin. Many, many times…. I shrugged, making an "it's possible I guess" face, hoping Ralof understood that I didn't know for sure.

"Is there a man?" he asked.

"A man…. Thrinn. He leave." I lay back down on the cold cave floor, frowning and hugging my cramping abdomen.

"Deb, I think you were thonga. You lost the kind."

"Kind," I repeated. I knew that word. Kind. Kinder. Kindergarten. I was pregnant. Was. "Good," I said.

"Good?" Ralof repeated.

"Yes, good," I grumble. "Thrinn no good, he leave. No want Thrinn-child. Good."

I heard Ralof grunt quietly. "How do you feel? Are you in much pain?"

"Yes," I answered. I heard Ralof begin to rummage around our loot, and then I heard the clinking of glass.

"Drink this," Ralof said, shoving a small red glass bottle in front of my face.

"What is?"

"Just drink it," he ordered. "Not all of it; try a little at fyrst."

I did as commanded. Ralof grunted in approval and scurried away to our loot again. I recorked the small bottle and handed it back to him. I was pretty sure my face looked like I'd just bitten into a rotten lemon. "Taste bad," I gagged a little bit.

Ralof said nothing, but handed me something that looked like a blue-grey bathrobe. I looked up at him inquisitively. "Put it on. It's a mage's kjol."

"A what?" I sat up, feeling somewhat better.

Ralof was obviously getting annoyed by my lack of understanding him. "Just put it on," he placed the clothing on my lap and turned around to give me privacy. I was cold, so I just put the robes on over my leather tunic. "Small," I said. "I am big."

"It's fine, you just have to have it on," he said, turning back around.

"Why?"

"For the magic," he answered plainly.

"For the magic?" I repeated.

Ralof groaned and rubbed his forehead, out of exhaustion or frustration, I guessed. "Are you not a mage?"

"Mage…. No know."

"Don't know," he corrected me. "By Shor, how are you a Nord but not know our language?"

"I no Nord."

Ralof laughed and shook his head.

I frowned. "What?"

Ralof groaned again. "Where are you from? You never said. You look like a Nord."

"No Nord."

"Not Nord."

"Not Nord," I repeated. "I from…," I sighed. How does one explain you are from a different dimension or whatever? "Not now."

Ralof stared at me, wide-eyed. "Not now? What do you mean?"

What the hell. "I from… after now." For all I knew, it was perfectly true.

Ralof continued to stare at me. "You're from the alumtid?"

"If alumtid is 'after-now', yes." Liar.

Ralof relaxed and leaned back, but still stared at me. "Are you feeling better?"

"Yes." I removed the blue cloth from between my legs. It was stained black-purple. I tossed it to the side.

Ralof turned to his left and looked toward what I thought was an opening in the cave. "I see light." He turned back to me. "Can you walk?"

I nodded.

"Good. Eat some more bear before we go."

. . . . . .

"Go on, touch the Mage Stone," Ralof said to me as we stood before three stone pillars. "You're a mage, you should ask for the gypt se regen."

"The what?"

Ralof chuckled. He walked ahead of me and touched the pillar to my right. "Like this. Feel its rik." When he touched the pillar that had a warrior engraved on it, the stone lit up with a white light and sent a beam up into the sky.

I gasped. "What… is…?"

"This is the gypt se regen. The regen are listening. Ask them for their gypt." He pointed, smiling, to the center pillar which had a wizard engraving.

I walked up to the stone and touched it as Ralof had the warrior-stone. Immediately, the stone lit up, and I felt strange. "I…. I am like bird."

"Hmph, good."

"What stone do? What is regen, gypt?"

"Let's keep walking. I'll explain."

. . . . . .

Gift of the gods. That's what Ralof said the stones provided. There were many stones, but these were the ones most sought-after. I wondered what gods he was referring to. I had laughed when I realized he was talking about actual divine beings, to which he seemed offended. I wondered if gods were more than just a myth in this world. I decided to be a good anthropologist and not laugh at comments like that again.

As we walked, he spoke about a war that was going on now, though I didn't understand much. He called himself a Storm-Cloak – those are the people that were going to be executed. Ulfric Storm-Cloak was the lion-man. He was some sort of ruler, if I understood Ralof correctly.

The town Ralof led me to was called River Wood, and I could see why. There was a big river flowing straight through the town, and a huge lumber mill appeared to be the main reason for the town's existence. Ralof led me directly to the mill where a tall blonde woman about his age met him with a smile and tight embrace. I understood the word she called him - bruthir.

Ralof looked excited to see a house on a small island in the river. I heard his sister, whose name sounded like "Gerder", say it was new.

About that time, I dropped out of the conversation and walked to the riverbank, sat myself down, and cried quietly. A very Scandinavian-looking dog came up to my side, whining, and licked my hands and chin with vigor. I missed my dog, Sam. I sobbed, and hugged the dog who was obviously trying to cheer me up.

"Deb," I heard Ralof call to me. I dried my eyes, stood, and turned to him and his sister. The look on his face told me he knew I had been crying. "Hey, are you alright?"

Damn. Whenever I was distraught and someone asked me that question, I always lost it. Every single time. I shook my head and began to sob heavily. Ralof took me in his arms. His sister said something about a house. Ralof walked, with me clinging to him, into the small house on the small island.

. . . . . .

I woke up sometime after sundown, alone in a small bed in a small, one-room house. Memories of the cabin I shared with Thrinn came flooding back.

Thrinn. Barbarians. Swords. Rape. Trolls. Magic. Dragons. Swinging an axe into a man. Giant-ass spiders. Gods.

Fucking dragons!

I curled up into myself on the bed and stared at the wood-plank floor.

"You're awake," I heard Ralof say from somewhere in the house.

"No, I sleep," I mumbled and turned my back to him and faced the dark window instead.

"You should eat, you slept all day," he said.

I smelled something delicious, but I wasn't interested. "Dragon," was all I said, in my language.

"What?" Ralof asked.

"Big black wing-animal in sky. Fire. Not dream?" I asked in Norren.

I heard Ralof walk up to my bed, and felt him sit down. "No, you didn't dream it. It was a dovah. I could barely believe my own eyes."

"Dovah," I repeated. "People die. Dovah kill."

"Yes, many died."

"I hurt man."

"What man?"

"In cave. With axe. Man dead now."

"Was that your first kill?" he asked.

"First kill?" I asked myself, and began to sob again. "Dovah is. Big… crawling thing is. Troll, magic… is."

"Yes, they syn. Dovahn were something of legend, but 'big crawling things' – fokosten – and trolls, magic…. These are nothing new."

I lurched up from the bed and screamed at Ralof. "New to me!" I glared at the man, and then flipped back over, facing the wall, in a huff, and refused to speak to him again.

I felt his hand rest on my shoulder for a good long while before I fell asleep again.

. . . . . .

At some point the next day I wandered into what was apparently a tavern. My stomach was in knots and loudly protesting my fast, so I sat down at the bar and asked for whatever food they had. I promptly received a small loaf of bread and a bowl of stew.

"Three gold," a gruff man said.

"Ralof gold," I said as I stuffed my face. I had no money, no belongings except my clothing, but I didn't care. I didn't think Ralof would mind.

"Anything to drink?" the barkeep asked.

I chewed the tough meat, swallowed, and then answered by pointing to a wine bottle.

For what must have been several hours I sat sulking in the corner of the tavern, alone, sipping from bottle after bottle of an amazingly strong red wine.

I was too tired and drunk to try to speak in Norren, so I reverted to English, speaking to no one in particular, though several people were in and out of the tavern throughout the day.

"And then, he just fucking left me," I continued in English to a thin, young blond man carrying a lute. I laughed when I saw the lute. "A lute? A fucking lute? Where are we, medieval England!?" I laughed again and drank more wine and munched on more bread. "He fucking left me... And he knocked me up! Goddamn men. Goddamn barbarians. Never trust a man wearing warpaint, I tell you what. Never, never." I threw the wine bottle against the wall and watched it smash into a million green glass shards. "Fucking bastard. I should have gone after him. No, no, fuck that. I should have never stayed with him. I wouldn't have gotten all attached and whatever, not gotten pregnant. Fucking Thrinn."

I turned to an older blonde woman who was always in the tavern and tugged at her sleeve. "Hey, hey," I said quietly, and then reverted to speaking in Norren. "What say?" I handed her the note Thrinn had left me.

The older blonde woman took the note from me, read it, and laughed. She looked at me, folded the note, and handed it back to me. "You don't want to know," she said, shaking her head and walking away.

"What? Hey," I stood, causing the wooden bench to make a loud frpppt against the tavern floor. "What say!? I no read. Speak me!" I thrust the note back at the blonde woman.

The woman glared at me, but reopened the note, cleared her throat, then looked at me. "Sit down," she ordered. I did. She returned her gaze to the paper. "Deb," she began, and then looked at me. "Deb? What kind of name is 'Deb'?" She shook her head, and continued. "'I hope you find your way to the College alright. These items I found around this cabin should let you kaup food. For a sahla mage, you're not half-bad. Thanks for…'," the woman stopped, and then snorted before laughing.

"What! Thanks for what?" I demanded.

The blonde woman smiled through her laughter, and handed me back the note. "Pay me for the food and wine, and I'll tell you."

As she walked away, I grabbed a loaf of bread and chucked it at her, hitting her in the head. "Speak me! What say!?"

The woman grumbled, and continued walking away from me. She said something to the barkeep about Ralof, but I decided to ignore the lot of them and continued to drink my wine.

Not long after I threw the bread at the woman, Ralof entered the tavern. I turned my back to him, ignoring the angry look on his face.

"So, I'm to pay for your veizlas, hmm?" he said.

"I no gold. Soldiers take. Forget. Forget dragon. Forget… fokosten," I said in slurred, broken Norren. Fucking goddamn giant spiders. I shuddered. I emptied another wine bottle into my mouth.

"There was wine in the house, mead at Gerdur's house. You didn't have to drink this wine. I don't want to know how much I owe Delphine now."

I shrugged and stuffed another lump of cheese into my mouth.

"Hey, enough, come on," Ralof tugged on the sleeve of the robe he had given me in the cave.

"Off me!" I yelled, swatting Ralof's hand away.

The blonde woman walked over to us. "Ralof, it's alright, really. Your girl is laargaar upset. She can work off the food and drink in time. Will do her some good, I think."

"Why did you let her keep drinking? She's a horm," Ralof yelled at the blonde woman. "And she's not my girl."

"Vathvet. She can clean up her own sothas in the morning. Let her drink. She needs it, after what some guy named Thrynn did to her." The woman left.

Ralof growled and sat next me on the bench, grabbed a fresh bottle of wine, and drank half of the contents.

I slammed my fist down on the table. I was suddenly seething with anger and my breathing quickened. I was hyperventilating. Ralof grasped my hand. After a while, my breathing slowed.

"I pregnant lost," I said in a whisper.

"Yes, I believe you were pregnant," Ralof answered, squeezing my hand. He drank more wine. "What did Thrynn do to you? Vidth get you pregnant and leave you."

I looked at Ralof, then reached for the now-crumpled note I had stuffed against my breast. I handed it to Viking companion. "Woman no speak me what say, what Thrinn thank me for. I believe no good." I squeezed bread in my hand until it crumbled. "Thrinn… bad man. Kill men. Leave me. Take horse. Bad man." I switched to English. "Fucking barbarians."

"Hmph," Ralof said as he read the note. "Legathaar you were too good to him."

Back to Norren. "Too good?" I thought for a moment. "Yes, too good. Thrinn bad man. Want forget Thrinn." I looked over at Ralof. "Well, what say? Thank me for what?"

Ralof let out a single, stifled laugh, and smiled. "I don't know how to explain the words."

I stared at him expectantly.

Ralof blushed, and cleared his throat. "He… he thanks you for… being there for him. With him. And for, eh…," he cleared his throat again, "sjugig han… han…, well, you know."

I shook my head slowly. "Nooo, I no know. Don't. Don't know." I rubbed my forehead.

Ralof ran his hand down his face in frustration. "He thanked you for putting your mouth on his… 'sword'."