A/N: Jiminy cricket, JT, you kind of blew me away. Thanks to julie5 and Scythe as well, and to all the new followers, favoriters, and reviewers. And the lurkers. Love for you lurkers too.

If anyone is interested, I actually researched and wrote a little thing about how the full alchemy labs in Skyrim would work in real life. It can be found on my blog (the link is on my profile); search the tag 'alchemy' and it'll pop up.

Chapter 21

Aldric looked down at his feet where Kaspar was curled, shaking and breathing erratically. The scout had collapsed not long ago, the poison working its way through his body much more quickly than Aldric had anticipated.

The two of them waited on a small bluff overlooking a tiny pond, several miles from the giant's territory. They had left the road and crossed into what served as wilderness in Blackreach—with no road to guide them, Aldric had had to rely only on his own knowledge and sense of direction. No luminescent plants or crystals marked the land, and it had been truly dark for once.

Until now.

Chasing each other in circles around the pond were three ghostly beings. Pale, small, and round, the bluish-white of their glow pierced the blackness around him. They swept past his spot again and again, the long trails of their light soaring behind them with a sound like a torch being thrust into snow.

They were wisps, the guardians of the places a wispmother lived. One of the spirit women had decided to make her home in an otherwise unremarkable area directly opposite from a Falmer camp. Aldric had had two choices—fight through the camp, or try to sneak past the wisps. With Kaspar's state, it had not been a hard choice to make.

Twigs watched them from clear across the pond, having already made his way past the eerie little sentinels. Waiting until the wisps had swept across to the other side of the clearing, Aldric heaved Kaspar up and slung him over his shoulder.

Moving fast and low to the ground, he crossed the glade without taking his eyes off Twigs. Shadows flickered and shivered on the other man's face as the wisps danced around. Once Aldric had reached the other side, he turned to look behind him. The pond was still quiet.

"What now?" Twigs whispered.

Aldric continued forward, wanting to put as much distance between them and the wispmother as possible. "We're not far from the field lab. There may be more Falmer in the area. I want you to keep your bow out."

Climbing up through hilly, rocky terrain, they finally reached the end of the cavern. The northwestern wall of the cave looming at them through the darkness was something he could feel rather than see.

When they reached the wall, they turned to face northeast. Across the stream of a waterfall similar to the one Tinùviel had nearly fallen from, Aldric could see another road—and, not far beyond them, the lab.

Faint buzzing stopped his next steps, and he had to reach out and grab Twigs. Nearby, two winged chaurus were sleepily hovering over a few dark shapes, and he could smell the putrid flesh of more pods.

The two of them crept past very slowly and made it into the stream. Through the chill of the water, Kaspar's skin felt very hot, and he groaned when he felt it wash over him.

"Almost there," Aldric muttered. "Try to keep your eyes open."

The silence he got in response unnerved him.

Twigs pushed the door of the field lab closed, leaning on it. "Your leg," he said.

Ignoring him—and the Sphere's dart in his thigh—Aldric made for the corner. Kaspar was limp as he lowered the scout onto the stone bed, his eyes rolling rapidly under closed lids. "I need you to light the candles near the alchemy station."

The only light in the laboratory came from the dim reddish glow of a crimson nirnroot resting in a planter on the counter, and the globe of the enchanting table nearby. Many stubs of half-burned candles were scattered around the lab, cold and dark.

The one-room building was small, but large enough to accommodate the workstation to the right, and a small living area to the left. Set directly across from the doors, a modest hearth with dead logs and a moldering cooking pot greeted them.

Bones swept into a corner were all that was left of the intrepid Altmer alchemist that had once lived here. The field lab was a strange, memorable place. Aldric kept the elf's journal next to his own alchemy lab in Breezehome.

A moment or two passed before Twigs was able to strike a spark strong enough to catch the tinder waiting on the counter. When he'd lit the first candle, Aldric passed its flame to a lantern and handed it to the other man.

"What's this for?" Twigs asked.

"I'm going to look through what's here, and you need to fill this with water from the fall we passed." Aldric gave him his empty waterskin.

For once, he didn't argue.

He turned to the shelves next to the counter, rifling through the findings. After a few seconds, he let out a curse. It was the same as he remembered it; most of the reagents there were next to useless. Some of the plants crumbled and turned to dust when he touched them.

Twigs reappeared behind him, holding the waterskin. "What should I do with this?"

Aldric looked over his shoulder and pointed to the alchemy station. Used mostly for experimentation, it was a basic version, missing a proper condenser and still column. "Put it next to the alembic."

Twigs blinked at him.

"It's the vestibule on the left. The blue glass."

"How long will this take?" Twigs asked.

Aldric lit the heater beneath the alembic, watching the flames slowly take. "Not long."

Forced to change his mind about what he wanted, he turned and picked up a long strip of skeever hide that had been smoked until it was nearly leather. Then he snapped off a piece of a mudcrab's outer shell.

Watching Aldric arrange the substances inside the alembic before pouring the water over it all, Twigs poked at the mortar and pestle in front of him. "Aren't you supposed to use this?"

"No, not with this."

A sharp intake of breath behind them caught his attention, right before Twigs shouted, "Something's happening!"

Aldric turned to see Kaspar's arms and legs tensing, and his spine arched as he began to jerk and shudder. Grabbing the empty waterskin near him, he ran to the bed and worked it between Kaspar's teeth. "He's convulsing."

"Do you remember when I told you of the woman that died after reacting to the frostbite spider's bite?" Twigs' face was strained as he looked at him from across the bed. "This happened to her shortly before she died."

Holding Kaspar's head still, Aldric shook his head. "He's not going to die."

The bite on the scout's arm had developed a purplish-red color, the skin around it stretched and shiny. He loosened the leather band above the wound when he saw how much it had swelled.

Time seemed to pass much more slowly than normal as they sat with Kaspar.

"Something is dripping from that tube," Twigs said quietly. He moved to take Aldric's spot when he rose.

The little hollow carved into the station had begun to collect some liquid. Dipping his fingers in it, he put them into his mouth and then spat the potion back out. It wasn't quite right, but they had run out of time. Aldric uncorked a bottle on the counter, dumped out what was inside, and placed it under the long neck of the retort.

When enough had gathered, he returned to the bed. Gently removing the waterskin from Kaspar's mouth, he brushed hair from the scout's face and leaned over him with the glass container.

"He's still swallowing on his own," Twigs pointed out. "That's good, right?"

"Yes." Aldric wiped away the bit of potion that ran from the corner of Kaspar's mouth.

Coughing, Kaspar opened his eyes and looked up at him, grimacing.

He tried to muster a smile, but it felt like his face was misshapen. "It doesn't taste good, I know."

The scout's eyes fell shut again and he turned his head away, still breathing hard.

Twigs took the empty bottle from his hand. "How long does it take to work?"

"It's already working," Aldric told him. "What I mixed immediately stops the poison. If we gave him a very strong draught, or a healer like Patric was here, he would recover."

"Can't you make a draught?" Twigs frowned. "With the things that are here?"

"No." He untied the band of leather from around Kaspar's arm and let it drop. "Everything here is very old. Only some of the ingredients, like the hide and the shell, were resilient enough to stay potent."

Looking down at the scout, Twigs swallowed. "He's still going to die, then."

"If he were anyone else, yes, he would." Aldric stood and began to remove Kaspar's boots and trousers. "Too much time has passed since he was bitten."

"What do you mean, if he were anyone else? And why are you taking his clothes off?" Twigs rose from the bed slowly.

Rory had once almost lost a leg trying to save a woman from the Silver Hand, many years before they'd met. She'd told him that shifting to her wolf, coupled with her own natural healing ability, had saved her leg—that the magic that allowed them to shift was an ancient form of the same magic that healers used.

"You've noticed how your skin tears and your bones break when you shift." He could hear her voice in his head. "And yet, when you complete the change, you're unhurt."

"Move away to the far side of the lab, Twigs," he said. "Stand still and do not make noise. He'll be confused and disoriented, but he will not hurt you."

Immediately, the scent of anxiety flooded the room. "What are you talking about?" Twigs demanded, his voice an octave higher. "What's going on?"

Aldric hovered over Kaspar, taking his face into his hands. "Kaspar. Wake up." He gently tapped the side of the scout's face a few times. "Wake up."

Kaspar opened his eyes, blinking hard at him. "Kyrr?" he mumbled blearily.

Twigs didn't miss that. "Who's Kyrr?"

Aldric ignored him. "Kaspar, it's time. Call your beast."

The scout didn't need to be told twice. He shut his eyes again, his brow furrowing. Right away, Aldric felt a shock of energy zing through the hand he had rested on Kaspar's face. It traveled through his fingers, into him, and his own wolf stirred.

Kaspar cried out, and Twigs had made it halfway to the bed when he let out a horrified gasp. The bones of Kaspar's face had begun to stretch and widen first, his jaw lengthening and his gums drawing back sharply. A tooth fell to the stone bed, followed by more.

Cracking sounds erupted from his chest as his ribs began to distort and bulge under his skin. Kaspar's hands clawed at his front when his flesh began to rip open, peeling apart in a long slash to reveal dark fur underneath. Both his lower legs snapped, one right after the other, and began to reform in their new shape.

Aldric had expected that Twigs might shout and yell, but he merely stuffed himself into the corner, as far away as he could get from the shifting werewolf. Holding his hands out reassuringly, he stood and put himself between Twigs and the bed. Grunts of pain and effort sounded behind him, soon deepening in pitch to low growls.

Kaspar dropped to the floor on all fours, coming around the front of Aldric unsteadily. He shook his head like he had water trapped in his ears, the thick ruff of fur around his neck swishing with the movement.

Even lowered to the ground, Kaspar's back rose nearly to his waist. "How do you feel?"

Bright yellow eyes rolled up to meet his. In answer, Kaspar drew the corner of his mouth back, giving him a distinct canine smile.

Twigs was peeping inarticulately from the corner like a giant, newly hatched chick. "It… he…"

Kaspar swung his head around to look at him, ears swiveling forward in interest. One massive, clawed hand moved on the ground in a step closer. Twigs visibly whitened. The scout's snout twitched as he drew a deep breath into his nose, scenting the air.

"He hasn't lost himself, Twigs." Aldric spoke low and softly. "The wolf is there, but so is Kaspar."

"He's a werewolf," Twigs croaked.

"Yes."

"He'll kill me." Kaspar approached him, sniffing his hand gently. "He wants to eat me."

Relief had flooded him so thoroughly that he felt almost drunk. He laughed out loud at Twigs. "No. But your fear smells good to him. And to me."

Huge, dark eyes flicked to his. "You. Are you one?"

"I have had lycanthropy for nearly ten years. Kaspar was born with it," Aldric explained. "You don't have anything to fear from us."

As if to confirm that, Kaspar turned back from Twigs and laid down on the floor, rolling to his side. Aldric could sense his exhaustion.

"Why did you tell him to…" Twigs swallowed, trying again. "To change?"

Aldric knelt on the floor next to Kaspar, and the scout allowed him to lift his long, heavily muscled arm. He pushed aside the coarse black fur, searching for signs of the bite. The skin on his arm was whole, untouched.

He looked up, unsure of what he should share. "Shifting can heal injuries. The bite is gone, and his body has repaired itself inside."

"Is Brynjolf a werewolf?" Twigs asked hesitantly.

Aldric fought a grin. Brynjolf was far too disciplined and orderly to ever be interested in the thought of giving himself over to an animalistic nature. "No."

Writhing, Kaspar began to return to his form as a man. When he'd finished, Aldric helped him up and back over to the bed, handing him his trousers. The scout had barely pulled them on before he laid back and rolled over onto his stomach on the stone.

Kaspar let out a snore almost right away. He was the only person Aldric had ever met that had such an impressive command over sleep. He could do it anywhere, at any time. Once he closed his eyes—sitting, leaning, slumping, in the cold, in the heat, with people yelling in the same room—it was over.

"Make yourself comfortable," he told Twigs. "We'll be here for a while longer."

Hours later, Aldric felt himself growing tired as well. They had placed a torch in a sconce by the bed, and another near the hearth next to him, and the warm glow of the flames made the field lab seem almost cozy.

Twigs was perched on the counter next to the enchanting table, resting against the wall with his legs folded in front of him. He'd been silent after Kaspar had fallen asleep, watching without commentary as Aldric tended to the small wound in his thigh and bottled more of the potion he'd made.

He spoke up then, voice quiet. "What do you think about the Tower of Mzark?"

Aldric knew he was referring to the injured person, or people, that had moved through. "I'm more interested in what you think of it."

Twigs shrugged. "Another person foolhardy enough to enter Blackreach."

"People," he corrected.

"There could have been only one person there."

"The trail of blood went nowhere near the dead Falmer," Aldric pointed out patiently. "Another person, an archer, killed it and took their arrows back."

He blinked. "So?"

"Think, Twigs. Use your head."

Twigs shrugged, confused. "What are you thinking, then?"

Aldric shifted his weight in the chair he sat in. "I don't believe in coincidences. Why would more people be inside Blackreach at exactly the same time as our team?"

Twigs straightened up, looking scandalized. "Augustus would not—" he started, clearly winding himself up for a huffy rebuttal.

A name. "Wouldn't he?" Aldric interrupted. "Rich men don't get that way by being unable to calculate the odds. Two teams means he's twice as likely to get what he wants."

"Not Sergius," Twigs shook his head, looking fierce. "Not him. Not without telling me."

"And the note Sergius had sent to my home?"

"He's greedy. He would've heard from others in our business, heard about the gold."

Aldric could see that his words were starting to get through. "How badly does this Augustus want this?"

Twigs didn't answer.

"Badly enough to spend hundreds of thousands of septims on us. So it's not wealth he wants." He nodded to the journal tucked in the other man's waistband. "I see you writing in that book every spare moment. What are you putting in there?"

"Everything," Twigs shot back.

"Then write this: gold isn't enough, in the end. Men like him will always want power. They lust after it like they do women. It talks to them."

Twigs scoffed. "What do you know about wanting power?"

Aldric stared at him and opened his mouth to reply to that, but Kaspar rolled over on the bed, sighing. Both men stopped, looking over at him.

"Is he ever going to wake up?" Twigs snapped. "How can he sleep that deeply on a bed made out of stone?"

Aldric considered the scout. "Might have to dump some water on him. Kick him in the ass."

Abruptly, Twigs' irritated expression dissolved with a chuckle, and Aldric smiled with him. They fell silent for a long time, and he had almost dozed off for the second time when Twigs cleared his throat.

"You said you've been a werewolf for ten years."

"Just about," Aldric agreed tiredly.

"Can I ask how it happened?" His tone was tentative, as if he were asking about a missing limb.

"I was not attacked, if that's what you're wondering," Aldric told him. "I chose it."

"You…" Twigs' brows knit together. "Why would you choose to be a—a—"

Monster.

Aldric wouldn't have told him about the Circle even if he could have. Twigs was too young and too naïve to have grown past seeing things in black and white; his attitude toward magic was evidence of that. "Because it made me stronger," he finally answered. "It sharpened my senses. It made me a better fighter."

"Will you be this way forever?"

Aldric thought back on the night in the plains of Whiterun, when the wild wolves had raised their call; he thought of being only a man once more, of killing the beast that was always quietly there.

He thought of how he might be able to break the bond with Rory, wherever she was.

"Yes," he said simply. "I will be this way forever."