Night and Day

Karthwesten had come so quickly that for a moment, Brom was sure he was back snuggled into the bedroll near the mine. Lydia had led the way of course, having let him rest for seven hours or so before trekking back away from the barren mine. More intriguingly, Karthwesten seemed to be very close – Brom first spotted the minuscule village in the distance about an hour ago – and now here he was, standing right on a dirt trail covered with impenetrable snow.

As far as Brom could tell, there was no sign of civilization anywhere – and he had looked far away, in all directions – yet the only life that persisted were the odd elk and hostile wolf, if that. Mountains, once fierce and mighty, stood aimlessly in the farthest reaches of his vision – broken images superimposed on stretches of dark clouds overlooking a grassy, snow-laden tundra.

"Hands still shivering?" Lydia asked, perhaps tired from the walk, but perhaps also concerned.

"If you call twitching shivering, then yes," Brom noted, trying to scan the almost uninhabited village for any men or women. "Not badly though."

He was being honest. Most of the shivering had long since subsided and was replaced with a small twitching, every so often bothering his hands when Brom would clench his fists too tightly – but Lydia had chalked this up to the bitter cold rather than anything Brom could have caught.

"Good," she agreed. "Does anyone live here?"

Brom paced around the trail, walking directly into the center of the village. He could count all the buildings on one hand.

"Wasn't this your idea?" Brom inquired, twitching his thumbs in annoyance. "Come to Karthwesten, she said – we can stay there for a while, she said..."

"I didn't expect it to be empty," Lydia truthfully admitted, kicking a nearby wooden post. "Greetings! Does anyone hear me?"

Lydia's voice was loud and prominent, but it made no difference whatsoever. Her words drifted away from them, rattling through the barren, locked homes and blowing away with the wind.

"I don't understand," Lydia mused. "I knew Karthwesten's a small place, but – no one?"

Brom quickly spotted a ladder leaning against one of the homes, apparently cracked from disuse. With a deft hop, he made his way to the top of the rungs, climbing onto the roof before overlooking the remainder of the buildings.

Karthwesten, even if it was filled with people, likely wouldn't be anything that Brom or Lydia could possibly stay in for long – there were no distinctively colored signs that usually signaled the presence of an Inn, homes were cramped and discolored, and the only accessible source of information were several scrolls nailed to most wooden poles – usually advertising mining opportunities and recent hauls.

"Seems to me like a just a mining village," Brom called from above, acquiring Lydia's attention. "Probably just where those miners holed up after a day of work."

"That makes sense," Lydia agreed. "This doesn't look like a place where people usually live. Jobs – especially mining – could be seasonal."

Brom hastily leaped down from the roof, landing squarely on his feet before rolling over onto his back and onto his feet once more.

"Nice," Lydia complimented, seeming genuinely surprised for once. "Where'd you learn that?"

"I'd um," Brom began, shame flushing in conjuction with memory. "Well I'd have to – acquire food sometimes – food I couldn't really afford."

"Ah," Lydia nodded, appearing to understand. "Street life, is it?"

He chuckled. "If you could call it life."

She smiled sympathetically, then walked over to a nearby home, sturdily constructed with two floors – but no apparent maintenance, wooden chippings every so often gently floating down to reach the ground. Brom immediately noticed any lack of lock on the door, and worse – Lydia gently grasping the handle, then pushing forward.

"Wait," Brom secretly forced, grabbing her hand away. "Shouldn't we check to see if anyone's inside first?"

Lydia rolled her eyes at him. She impatiently slapped the face of the door briskly, keeping the same dumb-looking expression to further annoy Brom.

No sound came.

"I think by the grace of Talos," Lydia started, smile almost bursting from her mock-frown. "We'll be okay."

"Still," Brom pressed, again preventing her from pushing the door open. "It's not right. We should wait until someone comes around. It's their home, right?"

Lydia sighed, rubbing tired fingers over her face and now almost broken wooden armor, before suddenly straightening her posture.

"You're absolutely right Brom," she announced with great formality, perhaps even a bit of gusto. "It is wrong for the Dragonborn to hold herself to such low standards."

Brom blinked, completely taken aback by her response.

Without a moment's notice, she grabbed the edge of his heavy garment, shoving him towards the door and naturally – from the weight of her push – it gave way, Brom stumbling for balance before righting himself, displeased to see an empty, darkened room with a few crates and a staircase leading upwards.

"Lydia!"

"How dare you," she fired back, moving close enough to him to almost bump heads. "How dare you trespass on another's property? Have you no honor?"

"Lydia..."

"Dirty, rotten scoundrel you are..."

"Lydia!"

"Peasants these days..."

Brom shook angrily, for a moment thinking of tackling her and shoving her out of the room, then lock the door – then perhaps, he could scream his frustration at the walls.

"Well, you're lucky I am not surrendering you to the noble guards of The Reach!" she yelled, taking on an almost cartoonishly rigid saluting position, staring randomly off into the horizon. "For Skyrim! For glory! For old fat Nords the world over!"

Brom had to prevent himself from guffawing, forcibly biting his lips shut.

"Come kinsman!" Lydia roared fakely, slapping Brom harshly on the shoulder. "Let us forage for things in this most noble Nordic home!"

Brom allowed an insane laugh to burst out, completely unable to contain himself.

"Thank you," Lydia finally went, pleased to see his response. "See? I can make good jokes too."

"Not that," Brom breathed out, just barely stopping himself from devolving into fits. "You reminded me of somone I knew back in Whiterun, that's all."

Lydia's ears perked up, almost like a bunny's. "Who?"

Brom kept laughing, imagining Lydia's frame thicken and height increase.

"Brom, who?"

Come kinsman... what a memory...

"Brom, who?!"

For the Nords indeed...

"BROM!?"

Her voice was whining and impatient, but he did not bother.

I hope he's doing well, Brom earnestly thought.

. . .

As it had turned out, Karthwesten was remarkably barrren – not at all surprising considering the horrible cargo the home they had "raided" had supplied – in fact, most of the items were useless. A couple spare water pouches and a few potatoes had comprised most of Lydia's haul, and Brom had found a particularly straight-edged necklace that he shoved into his pockets.

A bigger problem currently was the lack of armor for Lydia. While the garments she had given Brom after leaving Markarth had held up well against the merciless weather, her own improvised wooden suit was tattered and chipped in practically every corner – but hope was present, if a bit primitive.

Brom had stumbled upon a particularly large suit of iron armor inside the home, ripping it off the mannequin and presenting it to Lydia, who accepted with due grace before cracking another joke.

"Pathetic sort of suit of armor, don't you think?" she asked, idly tapping it as she shoved open the door, letting in cool air. "Doesn't even fit me right."

"You're welcome," Brom firmly ended, noting its disproportionate size in relation to the rest of her form. "Besides, at least you finally got rid of that old junk."

Lydia nodded, perhaps ruefully, but stepped on to the porch of the raided home before turning bac k to Brom.

"Look at the stars," she whispered, motioning for his eyes to follow her gaze upwards. "Clear night. Cool too – but too cold."

"Yeah," Brom agreed. "Great night to stargaze."

He was taken by the sheer clarity at which he could see the stellar formations. Giant auroras gently wiggled in the farthest reaches of his vision, green colors spewing forth amidst a torrent of inky darkness – occasionally interrupted by a strongly shining star. He had never made a formal study of the star systems, but every place of each constellation seemed intuitively known – almost as if had been searching for the order in the universe all along, and now it was just reciting it back to him.

"Let's go on the roof," Brom noted, jumping onto the ladder he had used before. "Come on!"

Lydia raised her eyebrows at him, but followed him onto the roof before sitting down beside him.

"I never got a chance to notice how beautiful they are," Lydia mentioned, seemingly remorseful. "Years of fighting on the ground makes you forget what's above."

He couldn't sympathize with her – even if he wanted to. His entire life had been a dream of doing something worthwhile on the ground – and every night he had always looked to and noticed the stars. They were ever-present, not quite friendly but at the same time not hostile either. They seemed purposeful though, aesthetic paradoxes almost placed there for no apparent reason.

"Why don't you point out your favorites to me?"

Brom startled, blinking at her. "What do you mean?"

"Do you know any of their names?" Lydia asked, wrapping her arms around her folded legs. She tilted her head to one side in honest curiosity. "You must know a couple."

Brom dismissed this, smiling depressingly. "Not one. I only know how they look."

He turned back to the beams of light, almost blanked out by the force of the aurora. It was much stronger than any star could possibly glare, yet it also seemed forthcoming in its appearance – some sections of the aurora were dimmer to let some of the starlight through, while other parts almost completely blocked out the rest. The aurora itself had no definable shape, but he was certain it was evoking some nostalgia in him – he had seen it before, yet could not place it...

"Tell me your favorite one then," Lydia asked again, removing the iron helmet before placing it at Brom's feet. "Point me to it."

He smiled at her, a bit excited by her presence. He had expected her to simply move him away from his thinking, but rather – she was adding to it.

"Right now there's nothing prettier than an aurora," Brom denoted. "Don't you think?"

She held his words in her mouth, running them over a few times. "Yes. I'd say so."

Brom sat in silence for a bit. He wanted to continue talking to her, but a part of him also wished he could travel back to Whiterun and sit on the stable roof again – the view was much worse than it was now, but it was safe and secure: he had no bad memories back at Whiterun, no terrifying experiences, and no scars – yet it was ambiguous to say the least. Going back meant security, but here he felt awe – and fear.

"We all have regrets," Lydia chimed in, again frustrating him with her clarivoyance. "Sorry. Felt like it needed to be said."

Brom nodded, keeping his eyes on the aurora.

"What are we going to do?" she asked. "You can't keep putting off this question forever."

"I don't know," Brom truthfully came back.

"Brom..."

"I'm being serious," Brom mentioned. "Back in Markarth – I was just so desperate to get away... to feel like living again..."

"Well, now you know what living in Skyrim is," Lydia dragged. "Misery upon misery."

He felt irked by this, and he wasn't even sure why. He noticed the aurora flare up a bit.

"I don't think so," Brom quietly gestured. "Skyrim to me has always been a beautiful place – I mean I've never seen a - "

"Brom," Lydia cut across him, patronizingly wrapping an around around his shoulders. "You're what – sixteen years... and a half, now?"

"Yeah," Brom agreed, forcibly shrugging her shoulder off. "So?"

"So I would have thought by now, after all this - " Lydia noted. " - you'd maybe stop being so naive about the world."

He wasn't even sure why this kept bothering him. He had found her voice and tone easy to ignore previously, and that was under perhaps extremely stressful conditons – but now they were both at relative, if temporary safety – there was nothing filtering except his own conscience.

"I don't follow," Brom spat, tension rising. He was trying to focus on the aurora but her voice and proximity to him was rendering this impossible.

"I mean, what did you think the world was?" Lydia responded, equally angered. She narrowed her eyes at him, scowling a bit. "Sunshine and puppies, with every race and creature getting along in fields of dandelions?"

"No!" Brom at once resolved loudly. "But, I mean – it's not all chaos and bloodshed and killing people you know!"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Maybe," Brom asked acerbically, voice becoming bitingly low. "If you stopped thinking about everything as a target for your sword, maybe you'd appreciate things in life!"

"Oh shut it ya bastard," she spat back, standing up suddenly. "If you'll need me, I'll be somewhere else – actually being a realist."

"Good riddance!" Brom roared, watching her back retreat as she made her way down the ladder and out of his sight, disappearing into the foggy mist. She was out of Karthwesten, stomping off into night as the aurora continued to pulse above him.

"Keep thinking everyone's out to kill you, all right?" Brom yelled pointlessly into the dark night, knowing fully that he was most likely out of her hearing range by now. "See where that gets you!"

Brom's hands started to shiver once more, and the aurora's glow faded imperceptibly – she wouldn't have noticed it, but he immediately did.

A/N

Yes it's been too long since I uploaded (Again my excuse: life is unpredictable)... Anyway, new chapter!

I'll continue promising (and failing) to stick to a "new chapter every 2-3 days" vow, but at this point I'm sure it's become a bit of comedic relief for everyone to read :)

In other news, I get the fact that a lot of drama and not much action is occurring, but point is, it's supposed to be that way with the second Act, it's drama/suspense after all ... it isn't an action-filled story (although I'll always include a big chunk to break up boring segments), but I try to write convincingly and interestingly enough that it all seems worthwhile reading anyway.

As always, I'd appreciate any support and thank you for the view. Forge on!

~TW