Cearbhail:

A slow chapter. a very slow chapter. But, it's filler information leading to the next chapter.

Oh...and enjoy =^.^=

Dear diary of shadows,

Fish, dear, bows, arrows. I remember when I was perhaps three years old, I saw this young fox that lived near our den. Our alpha decided it wasn't worth the effort of killing it. It had several pups of its own, and our alpha, my father, was more or less a tolerable leader, a respecter of nature and those who hunted alongside us. We had no reason to hunt the fox, no reason to eat its carcass. Our tribe never hunted for pure enjoyment; our tribe only ever tried to participate in the cycle of nature. To hunt to survive. I must admit, I'm only writing in this … paper thingy because little Lilly wants me to write what she's saying, but… let's be honest. Me, quills, paper thingies… words… spelling. All these I can't do. I'm just drawing what I hope are words on a paper. It looks like a drawing of a rising moon with squiggles forming all around it, like mist rolling off the morning frost.

Lilly is saying things about how her mother was not a spell caster, or something like that. I'm glad she let me in on her little secret, that she has come back from the future. I know she is telling the truth, for I scented no lie from her. So, I guess it's up to me to report what has happened since three days ago. Three days ago, according to Lilly's account, our Lydia got hit by lightning. She ended up somehow sleep magicka using while the forest around her and Lilly burned away. Lydia was able to somehow keep the fire at bay with her new magicka. And when the forest fire around them had burnt out, Lydia passed out. And Lilly broke her back. Skjor and I carried the two sisters to Darklight Tower to be tended by our new witch friends. The leader, a woman and possible mate of Skjor, name of Silvia, took a look at Lydia's new comatose state. She detected vast amounts of magicka stored away in her body… as well as a separate entity living inside her. A darker entity that is only awake during her darkest hours. An ice demon of sorts.

Lydia has refused to wake up since then, and Lilly's treatment of her back has been steadily improving. She is attending physical therapy for it now. She's recovering miraculously. I know the reason why, as does Silvia and Skjor. In fact, I'd wager everyone but Lydia knows the truth about Lilly and where she came from. We want to keep it that way. Even Olfina knows the truth about Cecilie by now and has vowed to not mention it to Lydia. Training is to continue once Lydia wakes up. With Cecilie's miraculous healing factor, she will be ready to train by the end of the day perhaps. If she can swing a sword, she can train. But no more bows! Ever!

Aela…

…

As Aela closed my journal, I nodded my thanks to her for capturing the past three days' worth of my experiences with having a broken back, as well as the slight instance where I woke up back home with Ruby and Maleek standing over me. I was able to tell them I was fine and somehow traveling back in time right before I slipped back into my dream. I guess while I was fighting an injury, I was somehow traveling back to the future in a dream while dreaming of travelling back in time. What kind of backwards nonsense is this anyway? I dream myself back into the past, only to become so injured that I have to sleep, then wake up in the present… and then fall back asleep and wakeup still in the same spot in the past? What the shab? It's almost like… the time spent between the past and the present are somehow connected to when I first arrived here or something, and that my body might somehow exist in two spots at the same time. So… if I leave… will I become comatose or something like that? Never waking up and perpetuating being believed dead or something like that? Or will it become every time I go to sleep I will wake up in this realm? Not going to lie. I'd enjoy the crap out of that. It was night back home, and day here. I could so pull that off.

"So… you wrote everything?" I asked as Aela handed my diary back to me.

She nodded, somewhat hesitantly. "Ah-hum. Yup. Sure. Of course. Don't look at me like that!" She finally exploded and stormed away.

I was curious after that, so I opened my diary up. The whole page was a drawing of the moon and woods from where Aela was born from. I could see scribbles of what looked like words… or something. I only rolled my eyes as I closed my diary. I totally forgot… she wasn't born human. She was born a wolf. They didn't teach her how to write. And even though my therapy is going great… holding a quill and writing is too difficult right now. I can barely even hold a sword. As it is, I'm still pretty bed bound. Not like it mattered though. Until Lydia wakes up, our training is on hold. I expect we'll be back to training by tomorrow or something though. I'm almost sure of it. Of course… I was sure of it yesterday too. And the day before that.

There was a light rap of the door right before Olfina pushed her way in, carrying a small tray of oatmeal with sliced carrots. "Good morning, sleepy head." She said to me as she walked over. Ever since she found out that I wasn't really Lydia's sister, but her daughter from the future, she's been oddly kind to me. I couldn't figure out why, but I didn't really want to ask either. "This morning's breakfast." She reported as she lay the food down on the nightstand. "Bland oatmeal with soggy carrots… again…" Olfina glared at the sloppy food before setting it down, shaking her head. "I don't care what kind of healing properties this crap has… no one should have to suffer that badly. So…" She reached behind her back, pulling out what looked like a massive glass of chocolate milkshake. "I made you this."

I couldn't ignore just how badly I wanted that. It was like… a calling or something. I reached out for it with a hunger, or I guess a thirst in this case. I ripped the glass from her hand and started chugging the thing down like it was my only salvation. And… it was immediate. All the pain in my back, all the numbness in my legs and arms… it was starting to disappear. It was like this chocolate milkshake was a massive healing potion… which those didn't really work on me when I'm dream-walking, I guess.

Olfina just stood there and watched me with a knowing look as I made the whole glass disappear within seconds of putting it to my lips. "Yup. I really love those too." She said with a nod. "Better than that healing crap. Chocolate is really good for the soul. Said to help heal it… so I thought… you're what, travelling back through time while your body remains in the future?" She asked with a shrug. "That would mean that it's your soul traveling back in time. And that would mean, if chocolate really heals the soul, it would heal it here too."

As soon as I finished the whole glass, I knew I was back to normal. I just felt whole, complete. I put the empty glass down, drawing in the first breath in the few seconds I downed the whole mug. I reached down, throwing off the covers of my bed as I swung my legs out to stand up. It didn't feel forced or anything. Only that I just woke up or something like that. I watched as I placed my feet on the ground, happy that I could feel my toes brush against the cold stone flooring. For the past three days, I couldn't really feel anything my feet touched. It was like I was learning how to walk with dead feet or something like that. Now I could feel the floor again.

I groaned as I pushed myself up, standing up on my own. My back gave no protest at all; it was like I never injured it to begin with. I felt normal… one hundred percent… normal. And that's when I had a great idea. "Quick, make more!"

Olfina held up her hands. "Whoa… just hold on killer. I'm cutting you off. You're already a junky…"

I shook my head. "No, not for me. Mo… muh.. my sister… Lydia."

Olfina's eyebrows shot up. "How did I never catch that before? You totally almost called her your mom. You've done it a lot… gods I'm dumb for not noticing."

"Yeah… because time-traveling daughters are so common…" I replied snarkily back to her.

She glared at me for a second before pointing to the oatmeal. "You still have to eat it, you know. But, you're right. I should go prepare some milkshake for Lydia. I will get quite the laugh when I dump it on her face." Olfina chuckled to herself as she backed out of the room. She looked at me before she left the room, looking me up and down. "Wow, you just look just like her. It's amazing…" She shook her head as she walked out of the room.

Aela nodded a farewell to me as she followed out behind Olfina. "I will leave you alone to bounce around like a jubilant puppy without fear of being judged for your silliness."

I waited patiently for Aela to duck out of the room, closing the door behind her before I started happily bouncing on my feet, dancing around the room, laughing the whole time while I was alone. I don't know how long I was being watched by Skjor and Silvia while I danced around the room like an idiot but when I turned around to do a spinning jump, I saw them standing in the doorway watching me with wide and astonished eyes. I quickly came to an abrupt stop, forcing a wide smile. "Um… I'm better now?"

Skjor nodded. "I can see that." He walked into the room, walking over to Lydia. "And I heard that Olfina has an all-cure that should help with Lydia's condition as well."

I nodded. "Yes. Chocolate milkshakes. They cure soulic injuries." Man, I sounded so smart right now. I don't know why the Elder Scrolls didn't tell me about this miraculous cure to almost everything soulic ever known. And… Olfina is the one that figured it out.

Silvia walked over to me, running her hands across my lower back, right where I broke it. I could feel her energy scanning every inch of my soulic imprint. "I can't believe it. Every broken bone is fully mended. It's amazing. It's like it never happened."

I nodded. "I'm not really a body. I'm a soul… I guess. My body is back home in my time. And I'm just the soul. Somehow. And that means that the physical potions like healing potions, which are designed for physical injuries… won't work on me so well. But soulic healing potions, like chocolate… will. Somehow." Man, I'm just bullshitting my way through my little dream-walk. There are so many rules that I couldn't possible know. If I die… will I just wake up? I think so. I mean, I was glancing in and out of this realm and my own… and I detected no injury when I woke up in my real bed back home. That meant that my dream-walk did not have any sort of effect on my living body. I might be able to use that information later on… during a very important life-deciding moment. Maybe. Not sure.

Skjor rubbed his chin in thought as he glanced me over. "Amazing. To think all this time, I could have been treating the butt-hurt apprentices' feelings with chocolates. With how much they wine about their safe space… they probably need all the chocolate they can get."

I honestly didn't have a reply for that. I've never really been one for safe spaces. My safe space was dead, my father ruined whatever space I had left… and come to think of it, the Elder Scrolls ruined anywhere else I could possibly call a safe space. Besides… it's Skyrim; home of the Nords. We don't need safe spaces. We're a frozen wonderland of massive cats, massive mammoths, massive giants, and massive egos. And massive beer. Mostly egos though. I'm sure Windhelm is roughly one fourth the size of Ulfric's ego. And I like the guy.

As Silvia finished up her little scan of me, she turned her attention over to Lydia. "I knew when I saw you the first time, you didn't belong in this realm. Any real magician would feel the tear you leave behind you. An echo."

"That's what Jarl Ravencrone said. Or… something like that." I thought back to my encounter with her. She talked to me like I was an echo, calling me almost the exact same thing. A thing that doesn't exist, but is echoing back somehow. It's weird; I can't explain it. I finally just shook my head instead of forcing myself to think of it any longer. I wasn't doing any good thinking around in circles like I was. I was only wasting valuable time I could be using to studying bow fighting. "Can I get back to shooting a bow now?"

"NO!" Silvia and Skjor screamed in unreal unison.

"Your echo cannot manifest properly with a bow." Silvia said. "When you release an arrow with a bow… it causes echoes throughout all time… echoing in every dimension… in every timeline… at every second. A stitched echo that sunders the very fabric of reality, forcing it to collapse upon itself until unreal expectations come to fruition." She pointed over to Lydia. "Like a little girl wanting nothing more than to learn magicka; a girl that cannot learn magicka because of serious mental blocks placed upon her by her twice/thrice cursed mother and father being able to suddenly tap into her blocked well of inner magick. A girl that will constantly be forced in random encounter after random encounter, forced to live in a simulated hell dealing with her own inner demons, fighting for control of whatever reality she feels she's living in… all for the sake of slowly giving into her madness, her multi-personalities, as they all converge on her mind, all fighting for control over her primary brain. Her primary ego."

Wow… I had no idea what on nirn was just being said to me. Well… I should. I might be seven, but I'm centuries old. "That was a lot of words." I informed Silvia of the fact that I was in fact… "I'm just a kid. Mind… I don't know. Using kid words?"

She seemed genuinely astonished that I couldn't follow her. "Lydia has… more than one of her running around her brain? And they have access to her different skills? Like the one that wore the dress you described… blasting magicka around? That would be one example."

I nodded. "No, I caught that. The whole… madness thing though."

Silvia nodded. "Basically, those other hers will grow stronger and stronger until she won't be able to keep them away. I give her about… hmm… until she's 26. If she's not killed by some outside force… then someday, she'll likely go crazy, especially if she's exposed to a chaotic shifty individual that will continually push the boundaries of what she considers sane interaction. But, I don't see that being much of a problem. She lives a nice quiet life in Whiterun, without anyone to pull her from that shell of a life… I don't see it becoming a big problem."

Wow… should I be glad Mom's dead in my time then? "Um…" I couldn't help but feel that I should say something… some kind of comment to say that… she met that crazy individual that eventually got her killed. Even as I tried to say something, I couldn't think of a proper response.

Silvia finally patted me on the back. "Lilly… I was joking. She's not crazy. Remember… I can see in the future. I saw her joining up with the High King. I was just having some fun with your feeble little brain." She poked me hard on my forehead, just enough to rock my head back a bit.

"Hey!" I screamed to her. "Trusting child! You destroyed my trust for you! Now I'm forever scarred and incapable of trusting any adult ever!" Yeah… I know how to kid around too. After I had a good poke back at her, I nodded to Lydia. "So… Lydia. Can you explain what happened to her?"

Silvia nodded. "Yes, I can actually. That jolt of lightning that hit her… it snapped her latent magicka abilities into action. She was completely out cold; it activated on its own. Her magicka turned on… to protect her… and you. You said you called her Mom… and when you did, she frowned and even more magicka snapped out of her."

"Do you think she'll remember it?" I glanced over to her as she lied unconsciously in her bed. Her eyes were beginning to twitch. It looked like she was beginning to stir awake.

Silvia shook her head. "No. That lightning did a real number on her. She shouldn't be alive, honestly. For her to just stand up like that and protect you with whatever magicka she has… it could only be done while she was unconscious. I wasn't lying about the mental blocks placed upon her by her father. He purposefully locked her magicka away; for whatever reasons, I know naught." So, Grandpa is the reason why Lydia was the only Battle-Born to not have any magicka in our history. "The only way those barriers could have been bypassed was is the entire brain was shut down… all the mental barriers tore down. When she wakes up, the barriers will likely reset. As such… she's only able to use magicka when she's sleepwalking. The oddest case of sleepwalking ever known, for certain."

Olfina took that instance to walk into the room, carrying a small glass of chocolate milk. "So… is it safe to feed her then?"

Silvia shrugged. "It matters not at this point. She will likely never recover without it. If you want your friend back… she will have to drink it."

I could see the slight struggle in Olfina's face as she wanted to declare that Lydia wasn't her friend. But, I could easily see that she was also struggling to not say it as well. I could actually see the confusion in her face as she tried to figure out what she wanted to say, if she wanted to say anything at all. She finally settled for a light scoff and the roll of her eyes as she walked over to Lydia. She pulled her mouth open and started dripping the chocolate shake into her mouth.

Lydia snaked up instantly as soon as the chocolate touched her lips. Her hand snatched onto Olfina's pulling the glass closer, bringing her own head up, chugging that glass like I was only a few minutes ago. Lydia coughed up plenty of it as she downed the whole glass; drinking like a person slowly dying of thirst in a sea of scorching sand and harsh dry air. The whole glass was gone in seconds, and in that few seconds, Olfina was cursing her head off every time Lydia coughed, spiting some of that shake in her face.

Once that two or so seconds passed, Lydia was slamming herself against her bed again, breathing heavily as she looked around the room. "Where am I?" She looked at all of us. "Who are you?"

"Wait…" Skjor said. "You don't recognize us?"

Lydia shook her head. "No… I…" She looked over at all of us. "I can't… ugh…" She reached for her head. "My head hurts."

Silvia cursed under her breath. "I thought this might happen. Memory loss. I wonder if it will be permanent."

Lydia continued to just sit there, glancing at all of us. "Where's Mom? Where's Dad?"

Olfina cursed loudly as she turned around, wiping shake off her face. "Screw this. I'm making another batch. Maybe drinking more will jog her memory."

I stood there, almost completely dumbfounded as Lydia looked around the room. I tried my best to recall any information on if my mom ever lost her memory at all. Or unlocking magicka. And of course… I got nothing. Jeez, limitless information and it's completely useless when I need to use it. Go figure, right?

"Lydia. My name is Skjor. I'm a Companion, from Jorrvaskr. You train with me on occasion." Skjor said slowly as he approached Lydia.

She glanced up at him, squinting through what looked like a massive migraine. "Um… ok… Where are we?" She started to push herself out of bed.

"Darklight Tower." Silvia answered.

"You're training with me in the forests of the Rift. You're here with Olfina, your younger sister, and Aela… my apprentice." I have never seen Skjor speak so calmly and precisely. With how Lydia was grabbing her head in pain, it was clear that he could be either screaming or whispering at it would just do just as much good. She was probably incapable of paying any attention at all. I couldn't blame her.

Aela and Olfina rushed through the door, both of them carrying more and more chocolate milkshakes. "We're back with the all-cure." Aela screamed as they rushed into the room.

They both rushed Lydia, not offering her a word in edgewise before they shoved the massive drinks down her throat. The result was more or less like the last one. Lydia silently screamed in pain as two glasses were shoved into her face, her arms flailing around madly as she fought both the pain in her head and coldness of the milkshake being shoved down her throat. And I just stood here by my bed, watching as Lydia was forced to drink more than anyone's fair share of frozen treats.

Lydia continued to scream and thrash against Olfina and Aela for perhaps six seconds before she stopped flailing her arms around. Her eyes started actually focusing as she started looking over to me, over to Olfina, and then over to Aela. I felt a sudden shift in her entire aura. And her composure started to return. "Girls…" She mumbled through her drink. "I'm good for now." She pushed the glasses out of her face, wiping what remained of the milkshake off. "Give me any more and I'll have brain freeze."

"What's the last thing you remember?" Skjor asked. "Are you sure you're ok?"

Lydia grunted as she reached for her head. "My head is throbbing but… I last remember…" She closed her eyes, concentrating hard as she started to relive the past. "We gave Lilly a bow… and… then… destruction, chaos, lightning… a massive storm… and then…" She paused, shaking her head. "Lightning, crashing all around us. I tried to protect Lilly. She cried for her mom… I tried to protect her. But, that's all I remember."

So… she did remember me calling her mom then. But… she was piecing it together with the danger we were in while we were running away. She thinks I was crying for my mom to protect me, when in reality I was trying to get Lydia's attention when she completely spaced out and turned into a snow mage.

"You don't remember anything past that?" Skjor asked.

Lydia shook her head. "No, sir. Nothing."

"What about before that?"

Lydia shrugged.

"Where are we? Why are we up here?" He pointed over to me. "Who's she?"

Lydia glanced at me. "My sister, sir. We're… I think you said Darklight Tower, in the Rift. And we're up here doing survival training because I'm stupid and almost got my friends killed."

Skjor nodded. "Ok, that's good enough. We'll take the next two days off to make sure you and Lilly are good to continue training. Until then… just rest up. Ok?" He said as he glanced back at both of us.

I nodded, and Lydia nodded as well. I had no intention of climbing out of my bed for the next few days. I still felt a little weak even though I did just have my entire soul replenished. And I think my mom could use the extra rest as well. With how much I've been screwing up this timeline… I'll be amazed if I'll ever be able to leave without getting her killed somehow. I should just get ready to go back. I hope she'd be ok with that.

Glancing over at her and how she was smiling at me, I knew that I couldn't leave just yet. Not until Akatosh pulls me back. I don't really have much to do back at home anyway. Just train in bardic combat so that I can beat Daddy in a bardic glaring contest. And even so… I'm learning a lot of stuff here. It might come in handy later. Bardic training can wait. I'd rather be here with my mom pretending to be her sister for just a little longer. I just hope it doesn't alter my timeline. I'd hate for this to become real and to someday read about how my mom was crushed when her little sister suddenly left her… just like her mother and her father.

"Good idea." Lydia said to Skjor. "I think I need to sleep this off more."

Olfina looked over at Aela. "We have the next two days off. What do you want to do?"

Aela smiled, wrapping an arm around Olfina's shoulder, hugging her close. "I'm thinking of a party. With streamers, and pillows, and nail polish…"

Olfina groaned. "I just had to ask…"

Cearbhail:

Things will pick up next chapter. Finally getting some days skipped, weeks almost. And get to see Lilly actually be able to sword fight. Pretty much letting her go back to her go back home, finally. So, time skip.