AN: Bit short but I haven't written anything in like two months so I want to get back into it. They'll be another chapter tomorrow.

-x-

In the months that followed Harald began to recognise a strange feeling.

He found himself walking by the docks, staring out across the Bjoulsae or north to the summits of the Dragontails peering over the horizon. He was looking for something but what that was exactly he hadn't a clue. Even in his dreams he felt as if he were searching, lost in a mist but floating toward something hidden behind the mist, yet separate from it.

Elaine noticed his melancholy first but when she asked him what was wrong he couldn't give a proper answer, only that he felt a need for something. In his waking moments and during his continuing martial training or instruction at Master Vinothren's hand the boy was perfectly content. He had the sword, and that was enough, let alone the run of his Master's library, yet it was in the quiet moments when he couldn't lose himself in tales of old that the feeling crept up on him again.

Eventually though, now a year or more after Master Vinothren had narrated his forebears' lives, the elf called on him again to see whether Harald had thought any more about what he might want to do.

"You always told me stories of far off places." Harald said, "Always tales of snow demons of Akavir or sea serpents in Pyadonea." He paused for a moment, looking to the map of Tamriel Master Vinothren kept on one wall. "I want to see it all. But most of all I want to see the land of my fathers. Great mountains and high pastures, sheer cliffs and ancient stones. I want to see Skyrim."

The elf steepled his fingers, regarding him carefully. Then Master Vinothren looked over to the map and sighed. "Then you shall."

Harald didn't know what to say, he hadn't expected that. "You don't seem…"

"Surprised?"

"Opposed."

Master Vinothren smiled and stood up, coming to Harald's side. He knelt and clasped the boy by the shoulder. "Magnus fought his way across Tamriel. That his grandson would want to travel was known to me even the first day I saw you. The wanderlust is in your blood, to ask you to deny it would be to deny yourself." The elf's smile grew wider but there was sadness in his eyes, "The only thing there is to do is to prepare you." And he stood, going to the map and taking it down to lay across his desk.

A tension left Harald that he hadn't known was there. He'd feared Master Vinothren would try to persuade him to stay and that with the ease and pleasure of Wayrest life he'd succeed. It was heartening that the elf supported him, and he realised how much he'd miss the man who'd been like a father to him.

"Like Magnus however I don't imagine you know what you intend to do there." Continued Master Vinothren with a wry smile. "Have you given it any thought?"

Harald flushed and shook his head.

"Well Lennart is still in Solitude managing that end of the trade for me." Said Master Vinothren, naming one of the few sea captains in the elf's employ Harald had spoken to. "I'd have you there so he can keep an eye on you but life in Solitude wouldn't be much different from Wayrest. It's a city half full of Nedes anyway." He tapped his finger on the province. "And besides that, there's storms this time of year so I won't send you by ship. Nor overland to Markarth as the Reachmen are in arms. The Rift? I think not, and you must swear to me you won't go poking about in Riften or take any other foolish action." Master Vinothren said without looking up. "Leave vengeance till later, your father will understand…"

"I hadn't even thought of it." It was true, and indeed Harald supposed had he realised once in Skyrim he might have gone off to do just what Master Vinothren was concerned about.

"Yes well." Remarked the elf. "I've just realised this must be an old map, it's got Snowhawk on it and that city was destroyed during the Demonmarch. Dawnstar and Falkreath didn't do much better so I see no reason to send you there."

"What about Windhelm?" asked Harald, looking over the map. He had read many stories of the City of Kings.

"No." said Master Vinothren, "You'll be a stranger there and a stranger with elvish inflections to his speech at that. No I don't think so. And Winterhold is full of Azurites so not there either. That leaves only one hold but Whiterun seems perfectly suited. It's a trading city so you won't stand out as much there, and I'll be able to maintain correspondence with you from Solitude." He regarded the boy, "I expect at least one letter a week from you."

"Of course!" Harald protested. He would have written them anyway considering how strange it would be to stop speaking with perhaps the only person he'd seen every day for the last six years.

He thought on Whiterun, apparently they had a dragon there, Numinex, whom Olaf slew. That would be a fine thing to see!

"I'll go to Jorrvaskr." He said suddenly.

"Are they recruiting children then?" asked the elf with a smirk.

Harald looked at him, "A girl killed the Snow Prince at the Moesring and she was only two years older than me."

"That may be so but those were rather different circumstances."

Harald shook his head. Jeek of the River had turned his longship upside down after Skyrim had been retaken by the elves and since then Ysgramor's companions had occupied that storied mead hall. "If I'm to see Skyrim there can be no place better." He argued.

Master Vinothren frowned. "I suppose you're right." He said eventually. "It's a good think Ivar's taught you the sword then."

The old campaigner had finally moved Harald onto a fully sized sword. It was only a Legionary's weapon, and still quite large and heavy in his hand, but he'd said the boy was actually big enough now to hold it. Still though, there was no prospect of Harald matching a man in battle as however big he was he was still a child.

"How will I get there?" Harald eventually asked, "If you won't send me by sea or land?"

"I will, just not by those routes." Master Vinothren replied, "Corentin is going down to Anvil next month, you'll go with as far as the River Brena and then take a caravan north from Niryastare Gandranene-"

"Where's that?"

"It means 'River-Gift of Niryastare, it was the port of an old Aleyid city, around here." Master Vinothren tapped a finger on the border between Hammerfell and Cyrodii and continued, "You can pass along the edge of the Great Forest and though County Chorrol to approach Skyrim from the south. The roads are good there and the Legion still patrol them unlike in the Reach if I were to send you that way."

The elf sat back, "We'll talk more on this later, but you'd better get along to the house of Pellas."

"Why?" Harald asked, though he would probably end up telling Pellas and the other he couldn't think of any particular- "Oh."

"And now you see why your father never married."

Master Vinothren was right, Elaine would be furious.