AN: Story is still on "temporary hiatus" which just means updates are slow for the time being. Stick with me! I don't know if I will get another chapter up within a week or two. We will see. REAL LIFE! *shakes fist in air*
Responding to some comments: Kira Mackey, SKYRIMCEPTION. HEH. Also, ye old fridge would also work for mead, lmao. Yrsa's power of spooning… your comment may have been a subconscious influence for this chapter. Just sayin'. Timeywimeyspaceywavey, you SHOULD feel uncomfortable about Ulfric…. Cotton Candy Mareep, I love your comments! I'm glad you could stomach my Helgen chapter. I kind of wish I'd done some things differently, but, oh well. Most people think she's a bit slow… lol. There ARE so many more things for her to encounter. She's going to want to jump off a bridge soon! (jk but kinda not). I'm glad you like my Yrsa and Wuunferth. I love them too! And Stenvar. Heh. Moonflower04, I'm glad you're enjoying the story!
Chapter 28 – A Warm, Happy Place
I stared at Wuunferth, partly from excitement, but mostly from terror. "Found her? Where?"
"I don't know yet," Wuunferth answered. "This spell will lead us to her, though."
"What is the spell? How do you do it?"
Wuunferth lowered his hands. "Normally, one must merely think of an object or person, and cast this simple spell. It works much better if an object related to the mith is held in the left hand." Wuunferth then pressed the skull pendant into my left palm. "Think of the undead woman. Ask the gods to reveal her to you."
My jaw hung low. Think of the undead woman? I thought if it took Wuunferth this long to find her, I definitely wouldn't be able to find her. But, I tried. I stared at my right hand and waited for it to emit a bluish glow. And I waited some more.
"Nothing, Wuunferth. I do not know the spell. How can I make the magic?"
Wuunferth tapped his fingers to his bearded chin for a moment before turning to his bookshelf. He grabbed a worn, reddish-leather bound book and flipped through the pages rapidly. On the cover of the book was a symbol similar to a triskelion.
"Ah, yes, here." Wuunferth moved the strip of cloth to mark the page which he had found and handed me the book. "You can read while we walk."
"We? I come with you!? Wuunferth, no…."
"If you want to be a mage, Deborah," he said while goading me out of his room and into the hall, then shutting the door behind him, "you must be willing to face athstaethen that frighten you. If you do not, you will end up living your life on a farm. Now, read that passage, and follow me."
That shut me up.
The short entry in Wuunferth's book contained what I figured was some sort of incantation, but at the top of the page it said that the phrase could be merely thought, not spoken. I took the pendant out of my mage's robe pocket and placed it on the open book. "Can I wear the necklace, Wuunferth?"
"NO!" The old man spun toward me and spat the word with a ferocity I had not seen in him before. "No, it is too powerful. Just hold it in the left hand."
My wide-eyed stare at the mage ended when he spun back around and headed down to the main hall of the palace. I thought I understood the incantation, and I recited it in my head. I thought about what the words meant, and wondered if thinking in English would be just as affective. So, I tried.
God of Magic
I seek that I may find
Reveal, reveal
Light my way
It likely wasn't a literal translation, but I figured it meant the same thing. The words on the page were Norren, not the ancient language Wuunferth knew magic words for. This was more of a prayer than a mere spell, anyhow.
My right hand, however, failed to emit a blue-lit fog. While we stood in the main hall, Wuunferth took the skull pendant from me and silently performed the incantation himself. The blue fog traveled toward the giant palace doors and, I assumed, well passed them.
"Outside," I said. "I will get our cloaks."
Once properly dressed and accompanied by armed guards, we followed Wuunferth's blue fog. I kept attempting the locator spell, but nothing happened. I gave up for the moment and let Wuunferth keep the skull pendant.
The fog led us around the city. I still saw the small stone-walled streets as a sort of maze, and was glad to not have to go on this mission alone. Having two armed guards and a master wizard with me was quite comforting.
Finally, the blue fog came to an end, or rather passed through a door to a building.
"That's the Aretino house," a guard commented. "It should be empty." He looked to the other guard, who stood silent, staring. "Do we go in?" he asked the silent guard.
Finally, the other guard spoke. "I don't think we have a choice," He turned the handle, but the door was locked. "But, I don't have the key. Jorleif does."
Wuunferth grumbled something under his breath and stepped between the guards, gently pushing on their chests to move them aside. He held up his right hand and emitted a purplish-blue light that did nothing.
"What was that?" I asked him.
"Searching for anything dead, or undead…," Wuunferth replied.
"I see nothing," I said. "Is the undead woman gone?"
"No, no," Wuunferth replied, "she's there. She's lit up like a white flame. Only the caster can see the spell's effects."
"Oh." I made a mental note to ask Wuunferth to teach me this spell, too. Zombie radar. Zombdar.
Wuunferth then emitted a rich purple glow. I still saw nothing. He then reached out his right hand to the lock, emitted a red glow, and I heard a faint click. He then pushed, and the door opened. The guards immediately raised their weapons. Wuunferth turned to the one on his right and gestured towards the door. "After you…." The old mage's slight smile made me wonder what he knew.
"But, wait," one of the guards faltered. "How was the door locked?"
Wuunferth chuckled. "You tell me," he answered.
Both guards stood silent. One answered with, "The undead woman… can… lock?"
"No, idiot," the other guard walked over and in front of us. "Someone is up there."
"There is?" the less-bright guard asked.
"Yes, there is," Wuunferth answered. "Someone… small."
"Small?" The less-bright guard spoke quietly. The guards simultaneously lowered their weapons.
"A child," the other guard declared.
"Mm," Wuunferth confirmed.
"A child? With the… thing!?" My stomach turned.
"Yes," Wuunferth replied, "and it's alive. The undead woman, however, is dead."
"Dead? The child…," I tried to wrap my head around the concept, "a child killed the undead woman!?"
"Perhaps. Now…," Wuunferth once more bade the guards to proceed into the house. They did, slightly less unsure of themselves, however. Immediately after the door space was a wooden staircase leading up. The guards had their axes raised.
As we scaled the stairs I started to hear quiet muttering in a child's voice. I couldn't make out the words, but as soon as Wuunferth, who walked ahead of me, cleared the stairs, I heard the child gasp, and the muttering stopped.
"No! No! You're not supposed to be here!" I heard the child say.
I cleared the stairs to see the guards both holding their weapons in front of them, and the child, a boy, pointing a dagger at each guard in turn.
"What in Oblivion are you doing in here, boy?" a guard asked. "This house is city eyent."
"This is my house!" the boy exclaimed. "I do what I want!" He swished the dagger side to side between the guards, eventually adding Wuunferth and myself to the arc of his aim.
"Aventus?" Wuunferth asked.
"Yes! I told you, my house! Go away!" The child was stomping his feet at this point. He couldn't have been more than twelve years old.
"We have orders to search this eyent," a guard said as he took a step closer to the boy. "Stand aside."
Out of nowhere, the dagger the boy held flew out of his hand and behind us, far out of reach. Shit, that old mage can do everything, I thought. Note to self: ask Wuunferth about his telekinesis.
"Hey! Give it back!" As the boy lunged towards Wuunferth, a guard caught him in his arms and held him tight.
"Go on, mage," the guard said, "I think that's it there in that little room."
Wuunferth stepped forward. I didn't want to follow him, but I figured he'd want me to, so I did.
I later wished I'd stayed in the palace.
"What…," was all I managed to say as I took in the sight before us on the floor. Splayed out in anatomical position was the undead woman, of that I was sure. If that had been the only thing in front of me, I would have been only moderately ill at ease at the sight. I was not at all prepared to see the body ripped to pieces. How the undead woman ended up in this boy's house, upstairs, was a mystery. Why it was mutilated… I feared the answer.
The undead woman's face had been smashed in - I figured that would have been the only way to kill something like this, and maybe the boy discovered that quickly enough to survive. However, I only knew how the undead woman was destroyed due to seeing the facial bones of her skull completely shattered. The boy, for reasons I did not want to know, had defleshed her skull. Her facial skin and scalp sat in a pile in the corner of the small room. The rest of her body was cut apart at the seams that the necromancer used to put her together. I then saw what looked like stab wounds all over the body. Her chest had been opened, and the heart placed at the side of the body. The only blood to be found was brown and congealed, having long since stopped flowing before the woman was created and revived.
The little ironic blue-purple petals sprinkled around the carcass were the absolute last things I expected to see.
A dozen lit candles encircled the entire scene, giving it the look of some sort of satanic ritual. Wuunferth blowing them out dragged me back to reality; I hadn't noticed the guards leaving with the boy.
"It's the Black Rukevah," Wuunferth mused as he stroked his beard.
"Black…," was all I said while unwillingly unable to look away from the grotesqueness in front of me.
Wuunferth sat down on a chair. He was already deep in thought.
I joined Wuunferth in sitting, but I still couldn't look away from the undead woman's pile of parts.
"What… what happened, Wuunferth?" I finally managed to ask.
"Hmm, well, it seems the boy somehow lured the undead woman into his home, smashed her head in, and cut her up."
"But… what… is all of this?" I barely voiced the words.
Wuunferth sat in silence for a moment longer, then stood and said, "I will explain later. For now, we need to clean up this mess." The old mage approached the small room, held up his right hand, and began to shuffle the body parts, candles and flower petals about with his telekinesis. He had sorted everything into piles before stopping. He then raised both of his hands and sent out a flash of what looked like a compressed blizzard. The bits of flesh, candles, and petals all became inundated with frost and soon looked as if they were nothing but ice themselves.
"Wuunferth, what are you doing? We need to tell the Jarl," I said as he rummaged through the various cupboards and drawers.
"We tell nothing to no one," Wuunferth stressed. "The guards will make up something about the boy stealing bread, or… similar…. They know this needs to be kept quiet."
"But… I don't understand. What happened here? What is the—"
"Enough, Deborah." Wuunferth fluttered a large leather sack in front of him to check its size. "This will do. Help me put the resten into sacks."
I opened my mouth to protest, but stopped myself, and did as Wuunferth said. I was surprised at how strong the old man was while we each lugged a sack down the stairs and out of the house. In the middle of the street, Wuunferth set the sacks on fire and stayed there until there was nothing left but ash.
The burning remains did not smell like bacon. Not fresh bacon, anyway.
I followed Wuunferth back to the palace. Part way there, I asked him, "What are you not telling me?"
"I believe that I told you about the ritual used to pray to a dark god," he answered.
"Oh… the one with the hearts?"
"Indeed."
"Wait, you are saying the boy prayed to the dark god? He… used the… pieces…. But… what would a boy want with a dark god?" My voice rose to a harsh whisper. "How would a boy know about a dark god!?"
"Somehow, the boy came upon a book…. I found it in the house. It burned with the rest. The ritual brings someone to you – a snikmorthe – and you pay to have someone killed."
"What!?"
"The boy is an oth, and both of his parents died of natural causes. I don't know who he would want dead."
My mind then became overloaded with confusion, and I did not ask further questions. The rest of our walk was spent in silence.
When we got back to the palace, I went straight to my new room. As I locked the door behind me and stuffed the key in my mage's robe pocket, I wondered what the Jarl would have to say about Wuunferth destroying the body. I wondered if they would keep this room available for me if I left Windhelm for the college tomorrow and didn't come back for a long, long time.
I then began to feel death creeping along my skin, the very same sensation people have when they say they feel "buggy", as if bugs are crawling all over them. My skin felt tainted, and I immediately shed my clothes and plunged myself into the cold tub of water that was refreshed every day in these private rooms. If one wanted a hot bath they could use the larger, stone tubs down the hall, but these single-person metal tubs were perfect for an urgent bathing session.
I must have scrubbed myself for nearly an hour before I felt clean again. Before I dressed, I wrapped myself in a soft, large buckskin towel and lit the small hearth with fire-starter rocks. There was no way I was going to put on the same clothes again before having them washed, so I set out on my dresser the fur clothing I had bought in Riverwood, some spare underwear, and a chest binding. For the time being, though, I snuggled into one of the large chairs in front of the fire, and went to my happy place.
It didn't work. I tried to force thoughts of zombies, assassins, murderous children, dragons and gods out of my mind, but without easy distractions like a movie or TV to force my thoughts elsewhere, it was futile. The dream I'd had about some Daedric god named Meridia played and replayed through my memory. Worries of zombies walking the streets of a world I did not belong in grew more intense until I began to hyperventilate. I wrapped the buckskin towel tighter around me until I was safe from the world in a cocoon of leather and could regulate my breathing through the hide. The tears came regardless of my efforts. The towel served nicely as a snot rag.
Though curled into itself, my body soon began to tremble, and I became oblivious to the sounds that came out of my mouth. I knew I was crying, perhaps even shouting, but all I saw were zombies and dragons, dragon-fire and zombies on fire, dragons eating zombies and zombies eating people, black-robed assassins creeping in the shadows and zombies jumping out at the assassins and children jumping out at the zombies.
I didn't know when it would stop, the vastness of monstrous revelations this world offered. I was having a panic attack of the severest of degrees and I had nothing and no one to calm me. I forced my thoughts to turn to Stenvar, but all I saw was Stenvar decapitating zombies and outlaws with his massive sword, and then a dragon biting Stenvar's head off.
Some of my shouting in my native tongue registered in my mind: "Stop", "no more", "I can't". I felt my fingernails digging into my flesh, and it felt good. I let my body attempt to distract one pain with another, but visions of zombies with jagged teeth biting into my flesh replaced the vaguely comforting sensation. Despite the new visual horror that my brain associated with the self-inflicted pain, my fingernails pressed deeper. I felt some nerves scream and I knew I had pressed too deep.
And then something landed on my shoulder.
Something of a mix between a scream and a sob escaped my mouth, and I shot up from the chair and spun around to see Yrsarald looking utterly terrified.
"What!? Wh-…. How— damn, fuck!" Pulled back into reality, I finally heard myself wailing as I struggled to breathe. My speech came as a reflex, and was loud, and broken. I crumbled to my knees, still cocooned in hide. My sobbing continued. "Fucking fuck…."
Yrsarald said nothing, but I heard him walk toward me. I felt a hand attempt to grasp at my lower arm, but I fought it off with violent wriggling. I screamed more. Obscene words came flying out, unfiltered. The hand returned, stronger and more insistent. I knew I couldn't fight him off unless I let go of my hide wrap armor, but I couldn't bring myself let go. Yrsarald grumbled and next I knew the man was scooping me up into his arms and walking over to my bed.
He deposited me in the middle of the mattress, and I turned on my side away from him. I felt him tugging at the bedclothes and I instinctively lifted my body to let him pull down the quilts and sheets so that I may be covered by them. Yrsarald tucked the blankets securely around me up to my shoulders. My sobbing continued and I still refused to let go of my hide wrapping. The weight of his body upon the mattress caused me to lean back a bit towards him, and even through the multiple layers of fabric between us I felt the warmth of his remarkably high body temperature as he slid in close behind me. His right arm rested on my side.
We lay there without speaking until my sobs quieted.
"You missed dinner," Yrsarald said, finally breaking the silence between us. "I was worried, and then I heard your cries."
I sniffled and cleared my throat before I answered. "How did you get in?"
"Wuunferth used his magic."
"Oh."
"I talked to Wuunferth. It's over now. You don't have to fear the undead woman any longer."
I didn't answer him. Instead I concentrated on that thought – one more monster was dead. I added in the warm sensation of Yrsarald's latest attempt to provide comfort. Eventually, I fell asleep.
It was daylight when I finally woke. During the night I had flung the blankets off of me and the buckskin towel had become rather strategically placed. Yrsarald was still asleep, lying flat on his back, and snoring in peculiar, barely audible chuffing sounds. He must have been too warm too, because he had disrobed from the waist up.
I promptly rose from the bed and wrapped the towel around me, tucking the top corners into a fold between my breasts. The fur clothes I had laid out on the dresser were still there, and I realized someone had apparently come in during the night, because my death-ridden mage's robe and underwear were all folded neatly next to the furs. They smelled of flowers; someone had washed them. It was too warm in my room to wear much, so I quickly pulled on clean ladybriefs, wrapped myself in a chest binding, and rummaged through my compiled belongings until I found my linen nightclothes.
Yrsarald continued to snore, seemingly as dead to the world as a hibernating bear. I poured myself some water from a pitcher and drank heavily, and then snatched an apple and some cheese from one of my bags.
My panic attack the night before only briefly relieved my body of its sense of hunger, and now it was back threefold. For some reason, eating calmed me down somewhat when only general levels of stress and anxiety plagued my mind. The apple and cheese did nothing to sate my rabid hunger. Luckily, someone had placed a platter of bread and soft cheese on a table. I ate my fill, washed the meal down with more water, and climbed back into the large bed.
I could feel the heat radiating stronger now from Yrsarald. A vague memory from when I had an actual fever came to mind, and I recalled how he felt warm then, too. I wondered if part of the reason he ran hot was his sheer size, laden with muscles and a healthy layer of body fat fit for an ox. Or perhaps his dense, light red-brown chest hair insulated his body heat. Maybe both were the cause. The dense hair covered the majority of his chest and spilled down his torso, creating a sparse coat on his abdomen and a very noticeable "happy trail". I then noticed his arms and shoulders were covered in faint freckles; he even had a few across his nose and cheeks.
He was still asleep. I saw light stubble forming around his shaped goatee, and wondered just how thick a beard the man could grow if his body hair was any indication. As I pondered my half-naked acquaintance's biology, I caught a glimpse of a mark on his left pectoral, right over his heart, almost completely obscured by his chest hair.
Being a fan of tattoos, I couldn't resist the urge to attempt a closer look. The light was growing brighter in the room, but still wasn't bright enough to see past the chest hair clearly. I made out what looked like a series of vertical lines and a dark shape beneath them, all about the size of a baseball. I allowed my face to come close enough to the man to feel his hot breath on my neck, but I resisted the temptation to brush aside his chest hair to study the tattoo further.
"Is there a bug?" I heard Yrsarald's thickly-accented, deep voice ask.
I quickly sat up straight, unable to hide my blushing, caught-red-handed expression. Wait, what did he say? "What?" I asked.
"A bug, in my chest hair," he sat up and looked down at himself as he ran his hands over the dense coat of bronze hair. "It happened a lot when I camped with the army."
"Oh, ehh, no, no bug." I knew my face and ears were burning red.
Yrsarald was still combing his fingers through his chest hair when he blurted out a nearly-contained laugh. "I'm just yirvig, Deborah. I don't get bugs in my chest hair." Chuckling, he leaned back against the headboard of the bed and raised his hands behind his head. "It's my tattoo. You can look; I don't mind."
I managed a little laugh of my own, and edged forward to take a closer look at his chest, but I still couldn't see passed the hair in the dimmed morning light.
"You know, it's alright to touch me," Yrsarald said. "I promise you won't become vrelur with disease."
I looked up again at Yrsarald, the flush on my cheeks returning in full force. My lips formed a sheepish smile and I gave a slight shake of the head before touching Yrsarald's chest. I parted the dense bronze hair to examine the faint ink lines beneath. The main part of the tattoo was a solid blue square, which was easy enough to see. Above this were five vertical lines of varying length. The ink was faded around the edges, indicating that it was old.
"It is… a hand?" I asked as I sat a bit away from Yrsarald, giving him back his personal space.
"Yes. Well, a lab, of a bear."
A bear paw. "Bear. Like, the… things, in the palace? Like your armor?" I giggled. "Like Galmar?"
"Heh, yes." Yrsarald opened his mouth as if to say more, but for some reason decided against it. "Are you feeling better? You cried during the night… and screamed." The man's cheerful mood sank. The transition was instantaneous, as if my mood, or even thinking about my mood, affected his own.
I began to cry again. I recalled that I was expecting my period any day now, so I partially blamed PMS. Mostly zombies and dragons and devil-children, but partially the PMS.
"Hey, now," Yrsarald sat up and kneed his way closer to me. His massive lumberjack arms wrapped around me, and my sobs intensified. I turned my head to rest on Yrsarald's chest. My ear pressed against his tattoo, and I heard his strong heartbeat. A hand came down on my head, and fingers stroked my hair. The warmth of his body and sound of his heartbeat, which quickened the longer he held me, was not as calming as I, or he, expected. I badly needed a handkerchief.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Yrsarald asked in a voice so tender it belied his über-manly exterior.
I cried for a long time before quieting enough to speak. "I… don't…. I don't know." I pulled my arms away from him and sat back on my heels.
"What's that?" Yrsarald was looking at my left forearm, which he promptly grabbed. "What did you do to yourself?"
"What?"
"Look," he said, indicating the area just below the elbow.
Three small red crescents decorated the skin, caused by fingers that clung too hard. I frowned, and sniffled. "I was upset. I don't have the… I didn't have a way to stop the thoughts. It just happened. I am fine, now. I just… I'm tired, Yrsarald. I am so tired…."
Yrsarald was frowning, deeply. "You have many tattoos. And this?" he said while indicating my scarred forearm. "Is it pain you like?"
"What? Pain?" I closed my eyes and shook my head, then peered at Yrsarald again. "You saw my tattoos?"
"Yes. I tried to cover you up, but you were too warm and kept pushing off the blankets and your towel. I avoided looking elsewhere."
I felt my face flush immediately. "No, I don't like pain," I said as I stood from the bed. "I told you, I was… not… I was not all here last night." I hugged my body with my arms, suddenly feeling cold. I realized it was the lack of Yrsarald's body near mine that caused the temperature change. "How are you so warm? Are you not ill?"
A small smile crossed his face. "Another tale for another day." Yrsarald then stood, collected his top armor, and walked over to me. "If you are tired, rest. But it is clear that you need to talk to someone. So, talk to Wuunferth. I am here as well. Do not keep what is upsetting you inside; you will go hrena if you do." Yrsarald stepped up close to me. I had an odd feeling that he wanted to give me a kiss, but instead he gave me a lingering, amiable pat on the shoulder with his free hand. When he backed away, I couldn't quite interpret the look in his eyes. My only thought was that the man looked desperately sad, as if something that had been said, or left unsaid, had pained him deeply.
When he was gone, I closed the door, found my journal, and climbed onto my bed. I flipped through the pages until I found the notes of dreams I'd had since arriving in this world, including ones that occurred before I got the journal.
Dragon attacks, trolls, Helgen, barbarians…. I came to the notes I had made about the "dream" Meridia sent me and I tried to make sense of what she had said. I had noted that she had called me "champion" and that she had faith in me. She saw something in my world that was going to happen here, and knew I could help. A god named Arkay saw my marks, or my tattoos, I supposed.
The aching pit of despair inside my gut was not helping me concentrate.
I missed Stenvar.
