I had a horrible tragedy happen in my family on Thursday Night. My Tio Luis, my great grandmother's younger brother, passed away. Deaths in the family are especially hard on me ever since I moved away from Miami and the fact that I had to attend the funeral via Skype made me feel terrible... But, my Tio Luis is finally at rest now, which is good considering how bad off he was. His skin was yellow, he couldn't leave his bed, he had lost so much weight, and he had developed dementia... At least I got to see him one last time before he passed away and was lucky that he remembered me.
He was a huge part of my life and one of the reasons why I'm a huge supporter of Gay Rights. I've decided to dedicate this chapter in his honor and hope that whatever spiritual plane he's in, he's happy. Lol... Who knows, maybe he's in Sovngarde right now, drinking mead and speaking with Ysgramor.
One more thing, I strongly encourage my readers to ask as many questions as possible in reviews. I love to hear from you guys and any questions I answer will be posted in the following chapters Author's Note.
I hope you enjoy this. Please remember to Fave/Follow/Review and be sure to share this story with your friends.
If you want to follow me socially, I have a Twitter account: NikkiNicole159 and I also have a Deviant Art account: Nicky-Nightmare
Chapter Twenty-One
Lassarina stared at the Thalmor mage, a mixture of shock and horror on her face. Millions of questions were whirling around in her head. How did he know who she was? Could he have been at the Thalmor Embassy when she and Einarr infiltrated it? She wanted so badly to know the answers to those questions, but she had to act, had to get away from this man and make sure he couldn't follow her. So she did the first thing that came to mind.
She punched him. Pain shot up her arm as she delivered the blow to Ancano's face, his nose crunching and spurting blood beneath her fist. Ancano howled in pain and clutched his broken nose with both hands, his blood seeping between his gloved hands. Without missing a beat, Lassarina swung her leg out, making direct contact with his stomach and causing the mage to curl forward from the hit. Planting her foot on the ground, she then grabbed his shoulder and threw him against the stone wall beside them, making sure his head hit it hard. Ancano collapsed on the ground, now unconscious, and Lassarina turned to Vilkas, who had watched the whole scene with wide eyes.
"We have to move," she told him, kneeling beside Ancano and searching his robe's pockets. She found some gold and two folded up pieces of paper with a broken wax seal that bore Elenwen's sigil and stuffed them into her belt pouch.
"Shouldn't we kill him?" Vilkas growled, glaring down at the Thalmor.
Lassarina opened her mouth to answer but was cut off by a sharp cry from back in the courtyard. The Khajiit that had told them about Finverior had seen the whole thing and was now running toward them, his hands engulfed in flames.
"Shit, let's go!" she ordered Vilkas, standing up and grabbing his hand.
Vilkas let out a snarl of frustration, sparing one second to kick Ancano's stomach before he started running, keeping a firm hold on Lassarina's hand. They ran across the crumbling stone bridge, completely ignoring the head-spinning drop to the sea below, and past a startled and confused Faralda on the other side. Once they were off the bridge, Lassarina moved ahead of Vilkas and made for the inn, pulling out the folded notes she stole off Ancano. Her eyes widened in horror when she saw what was on them.
"Rina, how did that Thalmor know who you were?" Vilkas asked her.
She didn't answer him, she just kept walking which frustrated her husband.
"Rina," he growled, picking up the pace so he could catch up to her.
When she didn't answer or look at him, his patience snapped. "Lassarina! Look at me!" he snarled, grabbing her shoulder and forcing her to turn around.
"Let go of me!" she hissed, slapping his arm.
"How did they know who you were?"
Lassarina's whole body shook and the notes in her hand crumbled under her clenched hands. Vilkas glanced down at them, his eyebrow twitching a bit as he forcefully took them from her. She saw his eyes go wide and his hand tighten on the papers. The initial shock was soon replaced by a dark look of fury that made even Lassarina flinch a bit.
"Gods damn it!" he shouted, crumbling the papers into a ball and throwing it down on the ground.
She flinched again and knelt in the snow to pick them up. Lassarina smoothed out the now crumbled paper, trying to get rid of some of the wrinkles, and stared at it. On one sheet was an almost perfect drawing of her face and on the other was a missive straight from the desk of the Thalmor Ambassador, Elenwen. It detailed her history, similar to what was in her dossier, but had a few updated details, the most eye-catching one being her mother's name: Freyja Fire-Song.
"Elenwen got a good look at me when Einarr and I infiltrated the embassy," she murmured, folding the missive for her capture and putting it in her pouch.
"Every Thalmor agent in Skyrim must know your face by now," Vilkas said, his voice tight with anger. "The date on that missive is a little over two months old."
"We need to leave Winterhold."
"Then we're leaving Finverior?"
"Nay, I'm going to leave him a warning at the inn that says it's no longer safe here. We'll go find Septimus after I've done that and head toward Windhelm. With any luck, Finn will be waiting for us on the road."
Walking into the Frozen Hearth, Lassarina went right up to the innkeeper and asked him for a sheet of paper, some ink, and a quill to write her message. He procured the items for her, and she quickly wrote down a message for Finverior.
Winterhold no longer safe. Had to run. Vilkas and I are traveling north into the ice fields. Meet us in the usual rendezvous point before dawn tomorrow. -Rina
She blew on the ink softly to dry it and gave it to the innkeeper with instructions to give it no one except Finverior. Vilkas had collected whatever belongings they had left in their rented room, and they were out the door seconds later. Lassarina quickly took her husband's hand in her own, and he gave it a little squeeze, trying to reassure her without having to say any words. She smiled at his attempt, but deep inside she was still extremely worried. How far would the Thalmor go in order to capture her? Would they hunt her down the rest of her life? Threaten her family and friends to get her attention? No, she couldn't let that happen.
Maybe I'll talk to Ulfric on the way back to Whiterun, she thought to herself.
They traveled down the steep roads to the icy beach below, avoiding a pack of ice wolves that were caught in a squabble with a sabre cat. Since it was late in spring, the Sea of Ghosts wasn't as frozen as Lassarina would have liked it to be. She had no desire to swim in the freezing waters or traverse across thin ice.
"Maybe we can find a boat around here," Vilkas suggested, noticing her hesitation.
"With any luck, we'll find the one man crazy enough to fish in the waters of Winterhold," Lassarina sighed, looking up and down the coast.
But much to her shock, luck was on their side and they found a man getting ready to cast off his small rowboat. Lassarina and Vilkas hollered at him to stop and ran over to him, the waves licking at the bottoms of their boots.
"What do you want?" the man asked, giving them a distrustful glare.
"We were wondering if we could borrow your boat," Lassarina panted, still out of breath from running.
"You want to borrow my boat? Are you mad or just stupid? I don't know you, so why should I just give you my boat?"
Rolling her eyes, she pulled out a purse full of gold. "Cause we'll pay you generously to borrow it for the day."
The man's brows rose and he took the pouch, weighing it in one hand before grinning at her and Vilkas, flashing his yellowed teeth. "Alright then, go ahead and use it for the rest of the day. Just tie it off here once you're done with it."
"One more thing," Vilkas stopped the man before he moved one step. "Would you happen to know of a man living out in the ice fields?"
"You mean the lunatic who's holed himself up in an iceberg? Aye, I know him. He never leaves, but someone in the College pays me good money to make sure he gets supplies once a week. Stark raving mad, he is."
"Could you give us his location then?" Lassarina asked.
The fisherman pointed due north. "Just head out about five miles. You'll reach the edge of an ice field and then you'll walk toward a glacier a little further ahead. You'll see a frost-covered boat right next to the entrance."
"Aye, thank you for your help," Vilkas nodded as he motioned for Lassarina to get in the boat.
The trip over to Septimus's location was a rough one. The water was choppy and kept splashing into the boat every time they crashed into a small wave. Both Lassarina and Vilkas were wet and their skin felt sticky from the salt water by the time they pulled to boat onto the ice field. She was shivering uncontrollably, and not even Vilkas's arm around her was helping.
"We might as well just have swum here," she muttered, her teeth chattering a bit.
"If we swam, we might have drowned," Vilkas told her. "The waters are rough today."
She shrugged and snuggled closer to him as they walked across the ice. Septimus's cave was easy enough to find since the door had two torches lit above it, signaling its location for anyone. Lassarina knocked on the door and was surprised when it just swung open by itself, revealing a ladder that led further down into the iceberg.
"Hello?" Lassarina called out, kneeling beside the opening down.
When she listened very closely, she could hear the sound of a man mumbling.
"Well, it sounds like he's down there," she told Vilkas as she moved down the ladder.
The moment she was low enough to touch the ground below safely, Lassarina jumped down off the ladder, only to have her feet slip out from under her. She fell to the icy slick floor and slid half way down a slope, shouting a bit from the surprise before she dug her heels in and grabbed at the ground with her nails to stop herself.
"Lassarina, love, are you alright?" Vilkas shouted as he climbed down the ladder.
"Aye, I'm fine," she replied, rubbing her sore ass. "Be careful getting off the ladder; the ground is slick."
Vilkas heeded her advice and carefully made his way over to her, helping her to her feet once he reached her. They slowly made their way down the rest of the slope, looking around the small ice cave in shock. The iceberg had been hollowed out, no doubt the work of someone digging into it, and embedded into the wall was a giant cube, taller than Vilkas and as wide as five people.
"What in Mara's name is that?" Lassarina murmured, staring at the cube.
"It looks to be some Dwemer artifact," Vilkas said, not taking his eyes off of it.
"Dig, Dwemer, in the beyond," croaked an aged and gravelly voice. "I'll know your lost unknown and rise to your depths."
Lassarina looked down to see an old man in mage robes, muttering incoherently to himself and pacing around the chamber, glancing over at the Dwemer cube every few seconds. Exchanging a look with Vilkas, she made her way down the rest of the slope and walked right up to the old man. He was completely emaciated, as if he hadn't had a proper meal in months, and his skin was all wrinkled. She also saw that it was dry and chapped from the harsh cold he lived with every day. His gray beard was dirty and matted, a bit of dried blood staining the hairs around his cracked lips.
"Are you Septimus Signus?" she asked him, her voice a horrified whisper.
"How long will it be sung?" he mumbled to himself, staring at the cube. "My feet were set upon rock, but it turned to mud and drew me down."
Lassarina sighed and placed both her hands on his shoulders. "Septimus, I need to speak with you. I've come seeking information. I heard you know about Elder Scrolls."
Septimus looked at her for the first time and smiled, his lips bleeding from the sudden movement. "Elder Scrolls. Indeed."
She winced at the sight of the fresh blood staining his lips and looked over her shoulder at a cabinet, the only piece of furniture in the cavern. A wooden cup sat on the shelf, and Lassarina took it in hand, pouring water from her water-skin into it before raising it to Septimus's lips. The old man's eyes lit up and he drank down the water as if he hadn't had any in days. She poured refill after refill until he had drunk his fill.
"So you know about the Elder Scrolls, then?" Vilkas asked gently, his concern for the elderly man completely obvious.
"The Empire," Septimus began, resuming his pacing. "They absconded with them. Or so they think. The ones they saw. The ones they thought they saw." He walked right up to Lassarina and Vilkas, lowering his voice to a whisper while his eyes were bright with delight, the look of a man who had a delightful secret. "I know of one. Forgotten. Sequestered." Septimus suddenly moaned sadly and clasped his head with both hands. "But I cannot go to it, not poor Septimus, for I . . . I have arisen beyond its grasp."
"So where is the Scroll?" Lassarina asked, eying the mad man warily.
Septimus giggled happily and leaned in again like a child whispering a secret into a parent's ear. "Here."
"Here?" Lassarina echoed, looking around the chamber. "Inside this glacier?"
"Well, here as in this plane. Mundus. Tamriel. Nearby, relatively speaking." He cackled and started to pace again. "On the cosmological scale, it's all nearby."
Vilkas growled impatiently. "Can you help us get the Elder Scroll or not?"
Septimus giggled and his eyes held a mischievous twinkle. "One block lifts the other. Septimus will give what you want, but you must bring him something in return."
Lassarina pulled her husband back. "What do you want?"
He motioned to the cube behind him. "You see this masterwork of the Dwemer. Deep inside their greatest knowings. Septimus is clever among men, but he is but an idiot child compared to the dullest of the Dwemer. Lucky then they left behind their own way of reading the Elder Scrolls. In the depths of Blackreach one yet lies."
Vilkas stiffened under her hand and Lassarina arched a brow in confusion. "Blackreach?"
"Have you heard of Blackreach? 'Cast upon where Dwemer cities slept, the yearning spire hidden learnings kept.'"
"Where is this 'Blackreach'?"
"Under deep. Below the dark. The hidden keep. Tower Mzark. Alftand. The point of puncture, of first entry, of the tapping. Delve to its limits, and Blackreach lies just beyond. But not all can enter there. Only Septimus knows the hidden key to loose the lock to jump beneath the deathly rock."
Lassarina could barely follow his explanation, but she understood that he knew how to get to this Blackreach place. "How does one get in?"
Septimus moved to the cabinet behind them and pulled two Dwemer artifacts out of a drawer. "Two things I have for you. Two shapes. One edged, one round. The round one, for tuning. Dwemer music is soft and subtle, and needed to open their cleverest gates. The edged lexicon, for inscribing. To us, a hunk of metal. To the Dwemer, a full library of knowings. But . . . empty. Find Mzark and its sky-dome. The machinations there will read the Scroll and lay the lore upon the cube." He placed the objects in Lassarina's hands. "Trust Septimus. He knows you can know."
"Know what?"
But Septimus had chosen at that moment to start ignoring her; turning away from her and Vilkas to stare at the large Dwemer cube in wonder. Lassarina wanted to press for more information, but once he started rambling she knew there was no getting through to him. Muttering a string of curses under her breath, she stuffed the Dwemer objects into her pack and glanced at Vilkas, who was staring at the ground, his eyes dark and unreadable.
"Love, is something wrong?" she asked him, reaching out and taking his hand.
"Blackreach," he murmured.
"You know about it?"
"Just tales that are frightening enough to make the bravest man keep away from it. The place is miles below ground and is said to be darker than the deepest pit in Oblivion. Falmer and Chaurus run freely and kill anyone mad enough to step foot within. And if they don't kill you, the automatons the Dwemer left behind will."
Lassarina's eyes widened. "And we're supposed to go down there?"
"If you really do need that Elder Scroll to defeat Alduin, then aye."
She pushed some still-damp hair out of her face and sighed heavily, trying to figure out what to do next. Before, she had been completely following Einarr's lead, excluding the infiltration of the Thalmor Embassy, where she had been in charge, but now it was up to her to make all the tough decisions and plan their next move. She was used to giving orders to her thieves, but not to her loved ones. But without that Elder Scroll, she and Einarr would never learn the Dragonrend Shout and the world was as good as doomed. They didn't have a choice.
"We need to go to Blackreach," she murmured finally.
oOo
They rowed back to the beach and tied off their borrowed boat where they had procured it before climbing up the steep path to the main road. Another snow storm had started up, and they both had to draw their fur cloaks tightly around them to keep themselves from freezing, wet as they still were. As they had rowed back, Lassarina had decided that they should still head to Windhelm to gather supplies for an extended period of time, since there was no knowing how long it would take to search Blackreach for the Elder Scroll. Vilkas agreed to the plan, thinking it was probably for the best since they could send a letter back to Jorrvaskr explaining where they were going to be going.
As Lassarina and Vilkas walked down the road, they had a small fight over whether one of them should return to Whiterun to be with the twins. Lassarina was insisting that Vilkas should return since Blackreach was going to be dangerous and they couldn't take the risk of both of them dying and leaving the twins orphans. But her husband was stubborn; he refused to let her go to such a dangerous place without him there to protect her.
"We're not going to die down there, love," he told her forcefully. "We're going to watch each other's back, find that damned scroll, you're going to kill Alduin, and then we're going to get on with our lives."
"I just don't want Faolan and Lyanna to grow up the way I did," she murmured, raising her voice a bit so it could be heard over the wind. "They way we did. I want our children to know their parents."
"And they will. Like I said, we're not going to die down there. I'm not going to abandon my children the way Jergen abandoned me."
Lassarina knew all about Vilkas's feeling towards his adopted father, Jergen, and always strived to be a good father to Faolan and Lyanna so they wouldn't ever feel alone like he had. Taking his hand in hers, she lifted it to her lips and placed a kiss on his knuckles.
"You're a great father, my love; never doubt that."
Vilkas smiled at her and placed an arm around her shoulders, holding her close to his side as they kept on walking. When they were about ten miles away from Winterhold, Lassarina noticed a lone figure standing on the side of the road, shivering in a very thick fur coat. Finverior.
"About time you two showed up," he complained when he spotted them. "I thought I'd freeze to death waiting for you."
"Just be glad you didn't come with us, Finn, or you would have frozen to death," Lassarina told her friend, pulling back her hood and revealing her damp hair, partly frozen in some places.
"So what exactly happened back at the college? I heard a lot of whispering about some woman in black armor attacking some mer named Ancano. Was that you?"
"He was a Thalmor agent who knew who I was," she explained as she pulled out the paper with her drawing on it. "I found this on him, and the missive makes it safe to assume that he's not the only Thalmor in Skyrim who knows my face."
Finverior stared at the drawing, scowling. "It's definitely a safe assumption. I know how the Thalmor work and think. If Elenwen wants you as badly as you say she does, she'll go to extreme lengths to make sure every Thalmor in Skyrim knows who you are and will no doubt offer them a nice reward and possibly a promotion for your capture."
"You said you worked for them for a time," Vilkas said. "Can you think of any way to get them to back off?"
"Only thing that I can think of is if something is distracting their attention. Maybe if your dear half-brother Ulfric gets this war of his in full swing, Elenwen will be too preoccupied to even think about you."
"I'll have to speak with him once we get to Windhelm, then," Lassarina sighed.
"So did you find what you were looking for in the ice fields? Find that Elder Scroll?"
"Nay, but we know where one is."
"And that would be . . ."
"Septimus told us we can find an Elder Scroll in Blackreach."
Finverior made a bit of a choking sound and stared at her in shock. "Blackreach? Are you serious?"
"Aye, I am. Vilkas and I are going to gather supplies in Windhelm and then head there through Alftand. You don't have to come if you don't want to."
"Rina, going to Blackreach is idiotic. I've only been in Skyrim a few years and even I know that."
She glared at him. "And what would you know about Blackreach, Finn?"
"I've heard bandits and adventurers alike speak of it and go on expeditions to fill their pockets with the treasures they say are down there. But not once have I seen any of them return. People die down there, Lassarina."
"Well, I don't have much of a choice, Finn. Einarr and I need that scroll to defeat Alduin. If we don't find it, the world as we know it will cease to exist."
The Bosmer raked his gloved hand through his shoulder-length hair and groaned. "Look, Rina, two people alone can't go down there. It's suicide. There's Falmer and chaurus and automatons. You need a team to be able to survive."
"Then come with us. You and I have gone into Dwemer ruins and have dealt with our fair share of all of those things."
"Yes, and we've nearly died each time."
"But this time we won't be going through withdrawal and have our senses about us."
"You can't go down there!" Finverior shouted, his voice echoing around them.
Vilkas stared at Finverior intently. "You seem to be familiar with the dangers in Blackreach, Finverior, for only having lived in Skyrim a few years. I've lived in Skyrim my whole life, heard stories about Blackreach, but you have a genuine fear in your eyes. What aren't you telling us?"
Finverior shifted uneasily, trying hard not to crumble under Vilkas's intimidating gaze, but to no avail. With a heavy sigh he said, "When I first came to Skyrim, I was desperate for money and I learned about some expedition to Blackreach. Naturally, I signed up and we went in through a Dwarven ruin called Raldbthar. There were twelve of us in the team; only me and one other guy made it out."
Lassarina bit down on her lip. "They all died in Blackreach?"
"We didn't even make it to Blackreach," he snorted, his eyes darkening as he remembered. "We barely made it halfway through the ruin. There were just too many Falmer. . . . Please, Rina, you've got to reconsider this. I'm begging you, here. Don't go."
"We won't be going through Raldbthar, Finn. We're going to be going through Alftand. Septimus even gave us the key to get into Blackreach." She let out a groan of frustration and turned away for a moment, only to turn back and glare at Finverior. "Look, Vilkas and I are going, with or without you. I've gone through all types of ruins with you before, Finn, so I'd like it if you'd come with us. If it's as dangerous as you say, we might need you."
A string of curses flew out of Finverior's mouth and he reached into his pocket, pulling out a vial of skooma and his pipe. Lassarina stiffened at the sight of the items and just stared, her heart beat picking up.
"What the fuck is wrong with you, Finverior?" Vilkas snarled, moving in front of her. "You out of all people should know better than to take that filth out in front of her!"
Lassarina pressed her forehead against Vilkas's back and braced herself to smell the sweet smell of skooma, but instead she heard the sound of glass shattering. She peeked out around Vilkas and saw Finverior crushing the skooma vial and the pipe beneath his boot.
"What are you doing?" she gasped.
"If I'm going, I've got to make sure I don't have shit like this on me," he muttered angrily. "If I have it, my nerves will get the best of me and I'll be smoking it before we get to Blackreach."
Lassarina looked her friend straight in the eye. "Is it really that bad?"
Finverior's eyes darkened and were filled with a seriousness she had never before seen in him. "Honey, I hadn't even taken a step inside the damned place, but I'd still choose Coldharbour before Blackreach any day."
oOo
They arrived in Windhelm two days later, having walked day and night through a blizzard to get there. Finverior's fingertips and lips had turned blue from the cold, and the Bosmer wanted nothing more than to get inside the Candlehearth Hall and warm up by the fire with a tankard of mead in his hands. Lassarina joined him by the fire, choosing to avoid going to the Palace of Kings for now, and was currently waiting on Vilkas to come back from sending out a letter to Jorrvaskr. They were going to rest for the night and gather supplies the next morning before heading to Alftand.
"The shit you drag me into," Finverior sighed, drinking deeply from his tankard.
Lassarina shot him a glare. "What would you have me do, Finn? Just ignore my duty, my destiny as Dragonborn, and just let Alduin win?"
"You didn't need a Shout that could knock a dragon out of the sky to kill them before. Why can't you just fight Alduin the way you've fought those other dragons?"
"Because Alduin isn't like those other dragons. He's more powerful than all of them. He is the thing that has haunted my dreams every single night since I escaped from Helgen. And he wants to destroy the entire world. If Einarr and I don't stop him, he will accomplish it. Everyone, everyone, will die, and without this Shout there's nothing Einarr or I can do about it. Without this Shout, Alduin wins."
She broke off to take a sip of the wine she had bought. "I refuse to let that happen. Even if it means I have to risk my life to get this Shout. I'm not going to let the world be destroyed. I'm not going to let my children die . . ." Lassarina took a deep breath, blinking rapidly to fight back the tears that formed at the thought of her two precious children dying. "It's something you probably wouldn't understand, Finn."
It was Finverior's turn to glare at her. "Why assume I don't understand? I have kids too, you know."
Lassarina choked on her wine a bit and stared at him, shocked. "Finn, you have a child?"
"I have eight children, to be precise." He grinned at the sight of her mouth hanging open. "What, you never thought with the way I sleep around, there wouldn't be an accident or two in the mix?"
"I would have believed one or two, but eight? Gods, Finn, why haven't you ever mentioned this before?"
"You never asked."
"How come you aren't with them?"
Finverior sighed heavily and drank some more mead. "They all have different mothers, so it'd be hard to be with all of them. Their mothers don't even want me involved in raising them. I tried to be there for the first couple of kids, but their mothers would always make me leave; something about being a bad influence on them."
Lassarina sat back in her chair and pressed a hand to her forehead. "Eight children . . . I wouldn't be able to handle that amount."
"I send their mothers some gold every now and then, keep the kids fed and all."
"Aye, but Finn, don't you miss them? Don't they ever ask about you?"
He shrugged a shoulder and frowned. "I mean, I've missed my oldest three, the ones I spent some time with, but I've never even met the other five. And to answer your second question, yes, they do ask their mothers about me. My oldest, Menelri, she's about fourteen now, and she's been convinced by her damned mother that I abandoned them, when in truth, she asked me to leave. And Drystan, he's about seven, I'm always getting letters from his mother saying how he's always asking about me. The others don't really ask about me, though, I doubt they even know my name."
Lassarina could see the sadness in Finverior's eyes and knew that deep inside, he hated that he wasn't ever able to see or talk to his children. He was a man who wanted to be a father but wasn't allowed to be one. She reached over and patted his hand in a gesture of comfort and he smirked at her.
"Now you can see why I prefer men over women," he chuckled. "Never have to worry about kids since we wouldn't have any, not unless we adopted one of those runts from Honorhall."
"You don't have to joke around to hide that you're angry, Finn," she murmured.
"Who says I'm angry? Their mothers are right: I'm a terrible influence on children. I drink, I smoke skooma, and I try to find a new person to fuck every night. No, any children of mine are better off not knowing me."
Lassarina wanted to object, but she was interrupted by a hand resting on her shoulder. She glanced up and saw that Vilkas had returned, but not alone.
"Aela!" she gasped, standing up and staring at the huntress. "What are you doing here?"
"I had just finished a job nearby and was planning on resting for the night before heading back to Whiterun, but then I saw Vilkas," Aela replied.
"But, Einarr, he woke up. I thought you'd be at Jorrvaskr."
Aela's eyes hardened and she snorted. "Your brother isn't accepting his limitations very well. To put it bluntly, he's turned into a complete ass and he's snapping at everyone who tries to help him. I had only been back a day before I left. If I had stayed, I probably would have ended up snapping his neck."
Lassarina frowned at the news but shouldn't have been surprised. She could have guessed Einarr would soon find trouble with the fact that his mobility was limited due to his weakened body.
"Vilkas also filled me in on what's happened and where you're going," Aela continued. "I want to come with you."
Lassarina's eyes widened. "You want to come with us to Blackreach? But, Aela, it's going to be dangerous. And what about Randulf?"
"Randulf will be fine without me for a little while. He's got Tilma watching him and is thoroughly distracted with Trystane, Faolan and Lyanna around."
"Might not be such a bad idea to bring a werewolf along," Finverior said softly, completely aware of the fact that Einarr and Aela were the last werewolves in the Circle. "She'd be able to smell trouble a mile away, kind of like you did when we first teamed up, Rina."
Lassarina mulled the idea over and looked to Vilkas for help.
Her husband merely shrugged. "Aela is as good as any of us in a fight, and Finverior has a point about using her senses to our advantage."
Nodding, Lassarina made her decision and looked at Aela. "Aye, we'll be happy to have you come along, sister."
Aela smirked and cracked her knuckles, her mossy green eyes bright with excitement. "Blackreach isn't going to know what hit it."
Te voy extranar, Tio Luis, te quiero mucho.
I hope you all enjoyed the chapter and remember to Fave/Follow/Review!
Much love,
Mirage