AN: Responding to guest comments: julie5, I'm sorry! Things will get better. Eventually. Sia, I truly appreciated your comment, and I'm glad you're acknowledging a particular aspect of Deb's life, her fluid sexuality and confusion about it. The Tamrielic culture, despite being pretty racist throughout, doesn't have any cultural stigma associated with homosexual or pansexual relationships, and Deb's culture does (regardless of how she personally feels). As far as her future relationships go, I won't spoil anything by speaking further on it, but feel free to sign up and PM me if you want, or check out my profile here for a link to my Tumblr where you can send me an anonymous message.

Chapter 37 – Field Trip

"Well, hey, it's not the end of the world," Marcurio shrugged as he put an arm around me.

After returning to the College from visiting Stenvar I wanted to be alone, but my friend found me in my bedroom. He used a spell to detect living beings to find me.

Sneaky fucker.

"Besides, didn't you say he had, what, twenty years on you?" he continued.

"Twenty-three," I corrected Marcurio. "And I don't care. I really like him..."

"Do you love him?"

I didn't answer, not immediately. I didn't know what my answer would have been.

"If you have to think about it…."

"I love him, Marc. I love him. But maybe... I don't know. There are different loves."

"You mean different kinds of love? Sure there are." Marcurio reclined on my bed and invited me in for a snuggle. "Like the way Mystery Person obviously loves you is not the same as Stenvar sending you a fur hood."

"Stenvar is...," I sighed, forgetting my Norren vocabulary and searching for an appropriate alternative to "considerate" or "thoughtful". Stress and emotional exhaustion were not helping. "Stenvar is kind and knows what people need."

"Did he write you a love letter, though?" Marcurio's expression spoke a million words.

"No. But his face when he saw it..." I whimpered and wrapped an arm around my friend's torso. The cloth of his mage's robe felt good, comforting. "He was... surprised or... maybe... hurt. I can't be sure. But he then acted like he was happy for me."

"Well, take it from me, el'a, just because you have sex with someone doesn't mean they love you or you, them."

"Pfft. I know. I am not a child. I have had sex with no love. But, you know," I continued, "it is a... kind of love. I already miss him."

"Isn't he not leaving until tomorrow?"

"Yes."

"So why are you here?"

My fingers trailed the trim of Marcurio's robe. "It felt...," again I had to search for the words – inappropriate, uncomfortable, weird – "wrong to be there with him. I can't explain."

"Because he was not sending the letters?" Marcurio offered.

"Mm," I voiced. "I don't know. Maybe."

A knock sounded at my open door. It was Bird. "There you are," he said, and then laughed as he walked into my bedroom. "I knew I would lose him to you eventually, Deb."

Marcurio gave his husband a playful smack on the thigh when Bird sat on the edge of the bed next to him. The look on Bird's face told me he knew the outcome of my visit with Stenvar, but all he said was, "It's nearly dinner time. I'll buy us a few bottles of that spiced wine you like, Deb. We can all get proper drunk."

"Not tonight, Bird," Marcurio said, urging me to stand with him and get out of bed. "We're off to Saarthal in the morning."

"Oh, right."

"Saarthal?" I asked as we made for the dining hall. Despite being a bit depressed I was starving, likely from my morning's exertion.

"It's an ancient remains studyplaceat a ruin. Tolfdir's going to take a group of us tomorrow for the day, like an educational trip."

A field trip! I nearly laughed in amusement. "What is an ancient remains study place?" I asked.

"Ehh," Marcurio had to think about it, "it's a place where people...," he stopped in his tracks to think harder, "dig, you know..." He hunched over and mimed the action of shoveling something, then continued walking.

"Wait." I tugged on Marcurio's sleeve to stop him. "An ancient remains study place? Like... where people lived long ago? With old things and maybe... bones?"

"Yes…," he said, as if my need for a confirmation was silly.

I stared at my friend for a moment until the biggest grin spread across my face.

"I still can't believe you did not tell me people do ancient remains studies in Skyrim." I poked Marcurio's side as we walked with a large group of mage students, led by Tolfdir, across a snow-laden landscape to a valley where the entrance to a lost settlement was discovered.

"And I told you I didn't know that is what you did in your world," Marcurio poked me back, harder.

I was jumping up and down, practically skipping as we marched through the shin-deep snow. I was ever-grateful that Birna's shop had fur boots in my size, otherwise I surely would have gotten frostbitten wearing just my leather boots. No one else had a fur hood attached to their cloak – they settled for their mage's hoods – but even with my bear-fur hood my face and ears were freezing.

"We shouldn't be going to a ruin," Onmund grumbled. "What if there is a koth? My ancestors could be buried there."

"We're not planning to disturb the dead, Onmund," I heard Tolfdir call back.

"You didn't have to come, you know," Brelyna said to the young Nord.

I couldn't understand what Onmund grumbled in response to Brelyna.

Ahead of the crowd of ten mage students, Tolfdir stopped short and caused me to bump into the back of Onmund.

"Sorry," I said to him. The glower I received when Onmund turned around to stare me down was truly uncalled for.

"They're your ancestors, too," he said, nearly spitting the words, "why aren't you more disturbed by this?"

"My...?" I forgot Onmund didn't know I wasn't from Skyrim. "I... I never said going to a ruin did not disturb me. I am just... I have done it before." It wasn't really a lie.

Onmund gave me a look of disgust, and moved away towards the front of the group.

We had stopped walking, and I thought I could hear Tolfdir grumbling about something that "wasn't right". Out of curiosity, I walked ahead and strained to see what the fuss was about. Tolfdir was staring down into a valley, likely the one that held the ruin called Saarthal, and I could see that the valley was a bit of a mess but nothing struck me as odd.

Tolfdir continued down into the valley, us students following. "Marcurio, Fa'nir...," Tolfdir called to my friend and a Khajiit man... cat-man... the only two full laerling among us, "wards up," he ordered.

Wards? Wards. Wards up. "Why wards?" I asked anyone in earshot.

"Just in case," answered Azijjan, the female Khajiit.

Despite having been at the college for almost six months, I rarely spent any time with the Khajiit students, or in fact most of the other students that weren't Marcurio, Brelyna, Elodie or Osana. This wasn't exactly by choice. The Khajiit students were fairly exclusive, and the other human and elf students had formed a sort of clique that my friends avoided for no reason in particular. I had a feeling those in the clique just didn't like me or Marcurio or Brelyna, but I didn't really know why. But, because of the lack of time spent with the Khajiit students, I still felt awkward around them. Even in my inner monologue I had a difficult time thinking about Fa'nir and J'zargo as "men" and Azijjan as a "woman". I felt bad about continuing to think of them as cat-people, but I wasn't sure I would ever shed this mentality, nor my unease around Argonians, for that matter.

Azijjan's words hung in the air. Just in case. I couldn't see anything at the bottom of the valley that looked like it would attack us, so I was confused. "If there is possible danger, why are we going forward?" I asked no one in particular.

Brelyna turned to me with a frown adorning her face. "Training," she said, reaching a gloved hand toward mine and clasping onto my fingers.

"Training?" I looked down into the valley. Wooden boards were scattered across a space in front of an open iron door that led into the hillside. "I thought this was for the study of the ruin."

"It is," Brelyna continued, "but how would it look for mage students who wish to graduate to back away from the possibility of danger?"

She had a point. I recalled Wuunferth making a similar remark to me once.

We marched on down towards the valley floor. I hadn't been able to comprehend what I had been looking at, aside from the wooden boards and various bags and barrels scattered around, until I kicked something with my fur-booted foot.

I nearly tripped, but Brelyna caught me.

"Are you alright?" she asked me.

"Yes...," I replied before looking down at what I had tripped over. I was staring into the face of a pained expression. The pained expression of a freeze-dried mummy head. Just its head. "Brey!?" I called to my friend.

"Hm? Oh..." We clasped hands again, tightly. She was just as scared as I was, which was, somehow, a comfort.

"What... happened...?" I asked her.

"There are more," I heard Tolfdir say.

Indeed, there were more. What I had previously thought were logs or branches were actually parts of ice mummies. Arms, legs, a couple severed hands, and their bodies. I counted seven. Some of them even had hair, or beards. All of them were decapitated.

"It looks like they were... cut down, like with swords," Onmund concluded. He crouched down to examine the cringing face of a mummy.

"Wait," I had certainly heard Onmund incorrectly. "Cut down? Why would someone cut a dead person?" I was afraid of the answer, but these mummies were hardly as fresh as the undead woman in Windhelm.

"These weren't dead people," Onmund said, looking up to me with disdain, "these were draugren."

"What?" I asked.

"They were draugren," he repeated.

I opened my mouth to ask again what he was saying, but decided against it.

I felt a tug at my sleeve and found Marcurio, urging me to walk with him away from the others. "Are you alright?"

"Yes, Brey caught my fall. Marc...," I lowered my voice to a whisper, "what are those things? Draugren?"

He frowned. "They are... the dead that walk. They guard the kothen in places like this."

I then understood the reason for the dire look on my friend's face. I had told Marcurio and Bird one evening about the undead woman in Windhelm, and how much I hated and feared the undead. "They... they are in... there?" I looked to the ruin behind the open iron door at the base of the hill.

"They must have been, yes. Something led them out here, but they were beaten down."

"Alright, everyone," Tolfdir called out, "we need to see if Arniel and his students are alright."

I tugged at Marcurio's robe. "Elodie and Osana!" They had gone with Arniel to the ruin along with a student named Alerion. Marcurio couldn't hide his fear either.

It was quiet inside the ruin. Very quiet. I heard the occasional drip of liquid, like in a cave. I didn't like caves. Caves harbored outlaws and giant spiders and, apparently, the undead.

Tolfdir sent out balls of white light that hovered over the cavern. Magelight, it was called. The spell created something similar to the floating orbs of white-hot light that emitted energy and aided in the growth of plants even in the absence of sunlight. The energy used to create fire was directly related to creating Magelight and the energy orbs, but only Savos could create the latter, and they lasted for days instead of minutes.

Taking my first step into what was apparently an excavation site took more effort than it should have. I took one look at the wooden scaffolding and my heart stopped. I leaned into Marcurio for moral and physical support. He knew how I had apparently died in my world, and I wondered if he remembered about the scaffolding. I heard a small whimper come out of my mouth, and Brelyna came to my other side and took hold of my hand. She knew my story, too.

Tolfdir talked quietly as we descended into what looked like a once-great hall. My visible discomfort resulted in me receiving some odd looks from the Khajiit and other students that I never interacted with. I began to wonder if they thought me a cowardly child, or half-wit, even. I didn't care. I should never have come along on this field trip. The last thing I needed was confirmation that the walking dead did indeed exist in Skyrim, other than the creations of necromancers and spells I'd learned about. The last thing I needed was to see that the walking dead existed, even if they were dead walking dead. Of our group of mages, Onmund and I were the only ones carrying swords, and Onmund was likely the only one who could use it. This was not a comforting thought.

I could see from above that there were more bodies of the undead mummies, also missing heads and other parts. My only comfort at that moment was the fact that nothing, other than those in our group, was moving. Further and further we walked through stone corridors and down stone walkways that took us deeper inside the earth.

"Did ancient Nords truly live so deep underground?" I whispered to Brelyna, figuring as an elf she would be older and therefore maybe know more about the world's history.

"Yes," she confirmed, "many did."

"But why? Was the outside not safe?"

"They worshiped the earth, and animals," Marcurio offered. "This was a temple, not a home."

"The dragon priests lived in the temple," Brelyna added.

"Dragon priests?" I asked Brelyna.

Dragon priests. Apparently, in the ancient times, when ruins like this were actively in use and Nords still worshiped the earth and animal spirits, dragons were seen as living ties to Akatosh and therefore worshiped as gods. The dragon priests were the leaders of the dragon's cults and received eternal life for their service. Nords in Skyrim became enslaved, but then revolted, and many died until some dragons actually helped the Nords learn the words of the dragons. This was the shouting that Stenvar had mentioned. In the end, the Nords killed or drove out all the dragons and freed themselves. Saarthal, where we currently were, was destroyed by elves around this time, and a hero named Ysgramor eventually avenged his people and drove the elves out of Skyrim.

"And then elves came back again, during the Great War," I mused.

"Not elves, Altmer in the Dominion," Brelyna corrected me.

"Sorry," I said. A few moments later, I added, "So much war. I know why wars are fought, but, at the same time, I never truly understand. There is always one group that thinks they deserve land, or gold, or that the gods made them better. In my world, this only started, we think, when metal was first used, and farming began."

"In your world?" Onmund turned around and asked, an eyebrow raised. I had been practically whispering to Brelyna and Marcurio; the only Nord in the group either had excellent hearing or everyone else heard what I said as well.

Brelyna grasped my forearm and frantically shook her head. Don't respond to Onmund. Got it.

"Hmm...," Tolfdir said as we stopped, "I detect no life, other than us." The old mage spoke quietly. I feared, as he must have, what his magic told him.

"I want to learn this life detect spell," I whispered to Marcurio.

"We will look further," Fa'nir said as he moved forward. I watched as his tail hypnotically swayed from side to side.

Further we went, and eventually we found Arniel and two of his students in what looked to be a study area, full of books, journals, lanterns and digging equipment. Marcurio and Brelyna and I were crushing one another's hands as we held on for dear life. Arniel, Alerion, and Osana were lying, dead, in pools of their own dried blood. Arniel had been cut down by a sword. Alerion's torso was missing a section from the middle, as if a bazooka had hollowed him out. Osana's robes had been burnt, as was a portion of her body. A blade had been slid across her throat. I searched the area, but there was no sign of Osana's wife.

"Elodie!?" I cried out. My voice echoed into the depths of the cavern.

"Quiet!" a man named Patrice snipped at me.

When the echoing stopped, I heard a distant murmuring.

"Do you hear that?" Brelyna asked me.

"Yes. It came from that way," I said, pointing toward a small, sharp archway with rubble scattered around it.

The murmuring grew louder.

"Everyone wait here!" Tolfdir commanded. "Fa'nir and I will go on ahead."

Fa'nir and Tolfdir cast their wards and passed under the archway, sending bursts of Magelight ahead of them to light their way. Not long after, we heard Tolfdir shout, "She's here!"

The lot of us ran after the others.

Elodie was found in a small, circular room with an altar in the center. She was crumpled on her side, cradling herself, uttering soft cries and murmurs. There was blood on her robe and around her on the stone floor, as well as on the altar. Behind the altar was an open doorway.

"Elodie my dear," Tolfdir knelt down to her, "are you hurt?"

The woman gave no response.

"Elodie?" Tolfdir repeated.

We were all circled around her, waiting, watching, straining to decipher the murmuring that came out of Elodie's mouth. I couldn't stand the suspense any longer. "What does she say, Tolfdir?" I asked.

The old mage leaned forward, nearly touching his ear to the woman's mouth, and listened. "Find it. Find it." Tolfdir assumingly repeated what he heard. "The Psijic Order is watching. Find it. Find it. The Psijic Order is watching."

I felt Brelyna's gloved hand grasp mine.