The Honey-Nut Bushes
"What was the wagon like, daddy?" asked Freya. "Big sister Eli tells me about it but she keeps saying 'I forget' when I ask her."
"Well it had a big bed in the front where your mommy and daddy would sleep and when Baldor, Elisif, and Harkon were just little babies they would sleep up there with us when we went on trips with it. But Auntie Nibbles had her own bed down on the floor in the closet before we turned it into a bunk room for Baldor and Elisif."
"You slept in the closet?" asked Martin to Serana. "Were you bad? Mommy makes me sit in the closet when I'm bad."
Serana was having hard time thinking of the right answer for that. "I never was that sort of bad," she concluded.
"What was your bed in the closet like?" asked Freya.
"Well it was all cosy, velvety, and soft and I had a lid I could close and lock so I could be safe when I was sleeping," replied Serana.
"I wish I had a bed like that," said Martin who was thinking it sounded like a pretty neat arrangement.
"It wasn't a bed for little boys," suggested Serana. And she was right on the money. It had been the sort of bed which would have given little Martin nightmares.
"Mommy says she and daddy had to lift you out of the bed in the mornings," observed Freya at this juncture.
"Well it's true," replied Serana. "I was very sleepy in the mornings and your mommy and daddy sometimes had to come in and wake me up." And then she had that mischievous look she got on occasion when she would remember moments which she knew I would be embarrassed over. You see, when she had returned to mortality, I discovered she had a very bright pink blush in her face that would make her feel very hot as well. So I did what I could to embarrass her on occasion, especially since she could be very private about her relationship with Aurelian. Needless to say, she had never forgotten those first blushes and she retaliated when ever she could. I braced myself for what would come next. Not that I knew what deep and dark embarrassing moment was about to be revealed. There had been so many of them in those adventurous months.
"One day," continued Serana. "Your mommy was busy fixing her face so she would look pretty for your daddy and he tried to wake me up all by himself. And he slipped and I fell right on top of him."
"Did you hurt him?" asked Martin.
"I bet she did," suggested Freya to Martin nodding her head seriously for emphasis.
"My knee kind of hit him in a very sensitive spot so he hurt very much," she continued.
Sofia's eyes were twinkling as she lifted her second helping of ale to her mouth and began to drain the mug dry.
"Did mommy come in and kiss it to make it better?" asked Martin wide eyed.
And my darling Sofia managed to turn her head to the side so when she spewed that mouthful of ale it covered the wall and not Serana. I wasn't much help I was laughing so hard and Serana was blushing furiously and fanning herself.
"Well?" continued Martin, totally mystified by what was so funny.
Once I had recovered, I continued the story by saying, "So the next morning we got up and began to pack the wagon. Your mother first finished her breakfast and then gave me her 'Honey do it or else' list and she said . . .
"I'm really sure we'll find the books which tell us where it is at the Mage's College," she proclaimed to me as I put out the bread and cheese and sausage for breakfast the next morning. "So pack for two weeks just in case things go south . . . like they always do."
I nodded and smiled. She was happily nibbling her favorite cheeses and sausages while I did a quick check under the table to make sure she wasn't hiding a full mead bottle in her lap. Breakfast mead is three parts water and one part mead. Sofia's idea of breakfast mead is four parts mead and a picture of a waterfall on the wall behind her. I will admit I was in a good mood. This was looking to be the first time since I could remember that I would be doing something that had nothing to do with saving Skyrim from some world encompassing doom. I literally was going to get to travel with Sofia like we were just a couple. And there she was, munching away on her breakfast, pulling out . . . Get this . . . A sheet of paper and a quill pen and ink and she started to make a list.
I couldn't stand it, I had to walk over there and give her a hug around the shoulders and a kiss behind her ear.
"Valentine," she said somewhat sternly. "You're making my heart get all thumpity and I won't get what I need to get done if you keep this up because I'll have to throw you under the kitchen table and deal with you there for a bit. So take a deep breath, roll in a snow bank somewhere, and wait until this evening when we can attack each other after dinner."
I sighed, "Alright dear."
"Now pack the wagon like a good . . . mmm huzzz . . . bund? And when you finish that I'll give you this list of things to shop for," she finished. Apparently she was trying the word out for the first time and had not really learned to pronounce it right. I was more than happy to start packing the wagon. It would give me the means to do what I knew I would have to do if this trip was going to remain happy and romantic.
You see, one of the things I did when I first started my musical quests in Cyrodiil was collect any loose bottles of wine, beer, or ale and sell them at the local inns. About six or so bottles, ten if they were really cheap, two if they were high quality stuff, was worth a night in the local inn's bed. That changed when Sofia began to tag along with me. I wanted that girl so badly that I began to give her the bottles as a drinking treat when we would be walking from one place to another. I thought that she would stay around longer if I did that. I really didn't realize just how attracted she was to me when she had first laid eyes upon me back before I had been jumped by the Imperials in that ambush. But after my conversation with Mara in Sovngarde, I came to understand that Sofia had been selected and groomed by the Gods to make my quest to defeat Alduin possible. I literally would have been dead pretty quick without her. Given her background and behavior, I also came to the realization that the Gods enjoy a good practical joke as well.
Anyway, she would expect me to pull these bottles out on occasion for her and she would be looking forward to drinking while I was driving. Now it has to be understood that for Sofia, patience is not a virtue but a mind numbing behavior which keeps her from drinking when she would like. Accordingly while she liked being 'surprised' by a bottle coming out for her on a sunny walk down the cobblestones of Haafinger or The Reach, she also looked for excuses to 'find' the hidden bottles in my backpack. And when she found them, well she had to drink them, right then, just in case they spoiled between then and when I would pull them out for her.
You may note that alcohol is not easily spoiled. So? Sofia merely needs an excuse, it's factuality is not essential to it's employment.
So by the time we had been adventuring for a couple of weeks with Serana, my bottles were vanishing from my backpack on a regular basis. And the sweetrolls, did I mention those?
So packing the wagon was a chore I liked doing when she was not around. You see, when I had that wagon built, I had a dozen or so secret compartments installed in it which would hold bottles of drink. I made sure she was not around when I opened one of those up so she never was able to find all of them. And once she had found one of them, I would stop using it. Since it would no longer have ale or mead in it, she would stop looking there after a while and I was thinking she had probably forgotten where it was or how she can gotten into it. As it was, I now wrapped each bottle in a linen wrap which muffled the clinking of glass on glass. Needless to say, I could store 48 bottles of mead, usually Black Briar since that was her favorite, and likewise another 8 in the under-seat boot which was in the front. She knew about the under-seat boot, and would empty it in the first two days of our trip if she was feeling temperate. I was planning on two 'treats' a day for this trip.
It wasn't the easiest thing to do, packing the wagon, since we did not store it by the house. There was no room in the city of Solitude by Proudspire to store the wagon. It was kept in the stables by Katla's Farm, along with the draft horses who still had no names though I called them, "The Horses." So once I had the wagon hitched up, I rode it to the market place, purchased the Black Briar, wrapped them in the linen, stuffed them in the secret compartments, and then drove the wagon to the basement door where Jordis, my housecarl and I began the process of packing for a two week trip in which no serious combat as expected. Now note I said serious. There were still brigands about, there were still wolves, bears, sabre cats, and the occasional dragon who thought it would be a really great boost to his reputation if he became the one who 'took out' the Dragonborn. So the dragon scale armor was packed, along with the dragon-bone shields, swords, and bows. And these were the very pieces I had enchanted with the fire, frost, shock, and magic resistances I was able to master along with the paralysis and fire enchantments on the swords and bows before I, Sofia, and Serana had donned them and gone to Sovngarde.
So it should have come as no surprise that our weapons and armor were all nicely packed up in the closet and cupboards inside the wagon when Jordis and I and Sofia were conferring over her list outside the wagon as a group of six grey robed men walked up to us.
"You there," began their spokesman. "Are you the one they call the Dragonborn who is seeking after the Honeywine River?"
You simply can't say anything at the Bardic College when you are Dragonborn, it turns into a rumor which flies all over town in a matter of hours.
A quick scan of these people suggested to me that they were clearly strangers to Solitude.
"No, that's not me," I replied. "The Dragonborn is up in the Blue Palace talking with Falk Firebeard over the rumors that he will be shortly proposing to Jarl Elisif. Not sure if he's trying to fan the flames of them to get people to overlook that rather embarrassing failure of the sewer system after last week's rain or if they are trying to suppress them." I pointed towards the Blue Palace up the street.
"Seriously now," said Sofia. "Look at this guy." She pointed to me. "He's way too short, he has a pooch in his stomach from all the food he's been eating, and he's not got on any scary looking armor or weapons. He hasn't shaved. His ears need cleaning out. He smells like he's been laying in a crypt for decades. He's not even good looking! How could you possibly mistake this guy for the Dragonborn?"
I had not seen her being this smart in ages. I gave her a look which I hoped conveyed the idea that I had fallen even more deeply in love with her. Yes, all I wanted to do was give her a big bone cracking hug. But I restrained myself since it would not have been appropriate given the circumstances.
It's true! All of it! I swear! I really felt that way! Well maybe not entirely . . .
"Don't look at me!" insisted Jordis shrugging her shoulders. "I'm only a housecarl under the demesne of Jarl Elisif the Fair. I just do grunt work. I'm not paid to think or answer questions."
We've done this sort of thing before and so naturally they looked at each other confused. After all, your typical self-inflated person would have said "of course I'm the great and glorious Dragonborn, hero of Skyrim and savior of all the little children yada yada yada."
"But don't you want the celebrity status, Valentine?" You ask.
Well you have to understand, this isn't the Imperial City, this is Solitude. Among Nords, Dragonborn is not a title necessarily commanding respect and awe, it is not a political club wielded with complete impunity to threaten the little people with, it is, not infrequently, a challenge to test your manhood on. These guys might have been here to ask me to save their cattle from a great dragon, shake my hand so they could say they had met me, or clobber me so they could claim they were even MORE scary than the Dragonborn. And we were packing for our honeymoon and I was NOT in the mood to be sidetracked.
"Brothers," suggested one of them. "I think they are telling the truth. He certainly does not look like the Dragonborn. He's not even Nord. And the Dragonborn's wife is supposed to be a glowing beauty who's hair shines black as ink and twinkles in the starlight. Her face is supposed to be sprinkled with the spice of cinnamon freckles, and her eyes are supposed to remind you of the blue sky in morning. Her body is supposed to be toned to the quality of a goddess with skin as soft as silk. This woman has stringy black hair, splotches on her cheeks, and eyes which suggest a heavy night's drinking. And she looks flabby and fat. She can't possibly be the beautiful wife of the Dragonborn."
"That's it!" shouted Sofia summoning up her magic and pulling out her side dagger. "You are going to be BLOWN OUT of Solitude by the Dragonborn's wife RIGHT NOW!"
"Ah ha!" cried the spokesman of those grey robes. "I knew that would work!" He summoned up his own magics and daggers came out.
"We have been so PLAYED!" screamed Jordis pulling out her sword and shield. Like all housecarls, she had been born wearing steel plate and could not remove so much as a single knee copt without her body falling apart beneath it. She went into point while Sofia and I began to unleash firebolts behind her.
Fortunately, such is the quality of Alteration Armor spells that they get better when you are in normal clothing. So I was able to cast Iron Skin and throw up a ward which blocked their first icebolts. And they were coming at us with daggers and not two hand swords. Ironskin could handle daggers, even the one's forged of ebony, and I had never seen anyone wield one of those rumored daedric daggers which required the heart of a daedra to make. But on the down side, they proved equally adept at the casting of magic so our initial blows were pretty much unremarkable in their application. Then with five monks in front of him warding off our attacks and the sword thrusts of Jordis, the boss monk stepped back and shouted something in an ancient Imperial dialect which sounded like "Sanguinaris Alcoholis Inebriatus Bibierius".
And suddenly I was drunker than the combined drunkenness of Sofia and her twenty sisters each locked up in a 100 Keg Mead Vat. The entirely world was a wobbling and no matter how hard I aimed my fire bolts, they were only inflicting horrific damage on the clouds above and the cobblestones below. And a stray cat. But no puppies thank The Nine. The children of Solitude would never have forgiven me. Cats, on the other hand, are expendable. Jordis was likewise staggering among the monks swinging somewhat wildly saying things like 'Whasisgoningoninmahhaid?"
"What kind of spell was that?" mocked Sofia. "You would think if you were going to take on the Dragonborn and his Good Looking Wife you would cast something that would work."
You know, I really wasn't at all surprised by her immunity to this spell that had been just cast upon us. She does after all, have a very high alcohol tolerance. It took me a bit to get my ward up and switch to electrical streams. Jordis was sort of clumsily whapping people with her shield. Sofia on the other hand, swivel kicked her way through the five monk shield and clobbered the head monk with the pommel of her sword which broke the impact of the spell. I began to sober up. But I am speaking relatively. I was down to as drunk as Sofia and her nineteen sisters locked in their 100 Keg Mead Vats.
One ancient general observed that so long as you know your enemy and likewise know yourself, you will never be in danger during a thousand battles. These monks had done some homework, but they had failed to note Sofia's high exuberance for drinking and they had apparently been counting on the battle being rather one sided with that spell incapacitating us. Still it wasn't the like the battle in Castle Volkihar when the Dawnguard simply rolled over the vampires like they were sticks in the sand against the incoming tide. For starters the Dawnguard wasn't around to do that. So my bolts of electricity kind of swung this way and that way zapping Jordis and Sofia on occasion. Sofia felt the charge and informed me I was going to pay for that. Not that Jordis was much better, but she actually started to balance the battle out by stumbling into two of the monks and knocking them over with her on top of them. Demure little delicate girls my pimpled rear end. You don't want to be on the receiving end of a Jordis steel clad tumble. By this time I figured out that if I just shot at the street in front of me and walked the stream forward I was able to hit the monks somewhat.
So naturally this new revelation came three seconds before I had expended the last of my magicka reserves. Now don't get me wrong. I make piles of magicka potions. They were right next to me. Inside the wagon.
"If you kill me, I'll be sure to take you with me!" came Sofia's defiant cry. "Well, not with me but you know what I mean!"
I realized that outside of the one monk in front of me, there were three monks on Sofia and there was a dagger very close to her throat. In a brief moment of inspiration I metaphorically threw all my magicka into Oblivion's boiling lava lakes and staggered into the monk in front of me counting on my wobbling body force to knock him aside and then wildly swinging and kicking I fell into the three monks who had nearly cornered her.
"I'll safe yuh mah darlin Sofa!" I shouted. FAH ROOS DOUGH!
As you no doubt suspected, that had no impact what so ever.
"Screw the furniture!" she shouted. "And give me a hand here!"
I had made a discovery. If I just tweaked my staggering and swinging, I could actually hit them. What's more, they were having a hard time ducking my punches and kicks and body slams because when you are drunk off your duff, your movements are really hard to predict. And what's more, I was throwing myself into this drunken brawling with my whole heart and soul. For one of the first times that I could recall. I was the one saving her and not the other way around.
Jordis was taking a nice little drunken nap in the street, and gutter, she really hadn't made a decision on which she preferred. The two monks were conscious beneath her, but when you have a five foot ten inch woman, in the peak of physical fitness, who weights around 160 pounds and is likewise clad in 80 pounds of armor on top of you, it's kind of hard to lift that off of you. And when you happen to be a guy underneath that, there's that little part of your brain that's suggesting that this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Likewise it does not help when she is so relaxed that you begin to doubt the existence of her skeletal structure. So we were down to four of them for the two of us and one of us was still very much sober, though she was rather disappointed when she realized what the spell had done to me and Jordis.
I tried to do that Sofia styled swivel kick she was so good at when she smacks the side of a person's hips with a good solid hit with her foot and throws them off balance. But I tweaked wrong and hit him in the back of the knee. His leg when up, he lost his balance, he fell over, and cracked his skull on the cobblestone rim of the gutter. I made a note to try to duplicate that process on the next monk. It didn't work the next time but the pointed toe of my boot did make a rather forward, not to mention close enough to be indecent, introduction to his groin, so that worked too.
So we were down to two monks and Sofia was more than capable of handling one while I stumbled into the other and held on by grabbing the front of his robe. This resulted in a brief but rather animated waltz around the street while I lifted up my right hand, for my magicka had been able to recover, and shot an ice bolt which was supposed to go into his face, but not entirely up his nose. Not that I really objected to the fact that it went up his nose. That was more than an little incapacitating for him.
"You came this close to killing me," she snarled at the last guy, "Which would have ruined my honeymoon!" and with a good solid thrust, she put her sword into his head through the underside of the jaw and knocked his corpse away. Those monks who had survived were scattering and scurrying away and I was totally incapable of chasing them.
"Yew gonna getem?" I suggested.
She looked at me. "How in Oblivion, did you manage to get drunk?" She paused and frowned. "Without me!"
"Sorreybout that," I replied. "I thin it was a spelllll. Jordis goddet too."
She looked at me for a second. "I don't know that spell!" she exclaimed in annoyance. "Wonder if you can cast it on yourself," she continued to muse.
I stood there, with a few wobbles, while Jordis exhaled once as the last monk managed to get out from under her and tried to make a run for it.
"On no you don't!" cried Sofia. She kicked him in the pit of the stomach and plopped on top of him and grabbing him by the collars of his robes, pulled his face up to her. "Teach me that spell or I'll kill you!" she snarled.
"Kill me," he crooned. "And I go to Sanguine's Realms. And I would only teach that spell to a woman of charm, not a hag like you."
She slammed his head into the street cobblestones, repeatedly, while making little squeals of anger.
"Isokay Sofee," I said. "I thin yer beeeu . . . um beeeuu . . . um . . . gud lookin."
It's at this point that the guards showed up. They took a few seconds to process the scene. There were three monks dead or unconscious on the ground. Jordis was in a drunken sleep in the street. I was in a drunken stagger next to the wagon. And Sofia was completely sober.
"Are you alright?" asked one of the guards to Sofia as she stood up.
"You're asking me?" she queried.
"You're the only one sober!" the guard replied. It was clear he was still having a hard time processing the scene.
"It's not my fault!" she exclaimed. "You think I would be sober if I had a choice?"
"My point exactly!" the guard answered.
"Wait," muttered Sofia as she tried to process that.
I had just discovered that the shady stones of Proudspire were cool to the touch and I lay my head against them. It was making me feel better.
"Thane?" began one of the guards.
"They whacked us first," I sighed.
"You okay Thane Florian?"
"Godda drunk spell cast on me," I groaned. "I love you, wall," I muttered to the house.
"Ah," mused the guard. He turned to Sofia. "And you did not get the spell cast on you?" She looked at him uncertain.
"Yeah," I said. "Sheded buddit dident wurk"
Sofia sighed and her shoulders drooped a little. She rather languidly nodded her head. The guards picked up the unconscious monks and the corpse and carried them off while Sofia helped me into the house and upstairs to the bedroom.
"This is so wrong," she muttered.
I sort of stumbled into the bed and lay there for a bit watching the world swirl around me. I presume she helped Jordis into the house as well before she came up and sat down looking at me. Her and her twin.
"Hey," I suggested. "I see two of you . . . That makes you twice as beu . . . ummm. . . . bee uuuu tiiii fullllll."
"You don't think I'm fat?" she asked quietly. She was looking down at her stomach which was of course, slightly pouchy from the baby.
"Yew look like yew have our baby inyew," I said. "En I think that makes yew look really pretty . . . Yeah."
"You really mean it?"
"Sofi I've always thought yew were a goddass. Pretty as Dahbellah. Prettier. Iswhy I fellinlove withyew when you were on that haypile."
"But he called me a HAG," she cried. I winced. Loud noises were really starting to bug me.
"He wus playin yew," I sighed. "Trickin yew inta attackin him. He wuz lyen."
She pause for a second. Then she grinned. "YEAH!" she cried.
I winced again.
She stood up and walked out of the bedroom. I closed my eyes. When I woke up, it was dark, my head was pounding, and Sofia was asleep beside me. I staggered out of bed and worked my way down stairs to the alchemy corner where I made my hangover remedy. I had never had to drink it before, and while I did not greet the relief with a Whoo! like Sofia did, it was an interesting experience. It was like someone punched me once in the nose and knocked all the sinuses loose. Then the pain was gone and I could think clearly again. I walked back upstairs and got into some night clothes. Then I crawled back into bed.
"Mmm, Valentine?" came Sofia's soft voice.
"Yes Sofi," I replied snuggling up to her. She snuggled up to me, I turned on my back and she rested her head on my shoulder while putting her hand upon my heart.
"I want a couple of rubies on my necklace."