So, it's not snowing where I am (yet), but it sure is cold. And I hate the cold. Probably the reason for the overdramatization of the Pale in this chapter. My brother calls me a milkdrinker but...oh well. I'm just gonna sit here in my coats and blankets and accept that I am a milkdrinker. Anyway, thanks to all of you who have stuck with me so far. I know it probably seems like the story is moving a bit slow, but I hope you will hang in there a little longer. And in the meantime, I hope you enjoy this new chapter. Happy reading! Cheers!
A biting north wind swept across the tundra as Marcurio and Adaria trudged through the snow drifts that stood between them and the warmer southern regions of Skyrim. The icy air kicked up clouds of powdery white, stinging Marcurio's face like thousands of tiny needles and chilling him to the bone despite the layered robes he wore.
"Good gods, Adaria," the Imperial chattered, shivering violently. "Couldn't we have stayed in Dawnstar a little longer?"
"If we had stayed there any longer, we would have been stuck in Dawnstar until spring," the Dragonborn responded matter-of-factly.
The mage pouted at this.
"At this rate, it'll take till spring for me to thaw out."
Marcurio didn't know how she did it, but Adaria seemed impervious to the fierce chill that nipped at them from all angles. The bare patches of skin that showed around the edges of her armor glowed crystal white in the grey light that shrouded the landscape, but if she felt the cold at all, she certainly was showing no signs of it. Who knew, but maybe it had to do with the dragon blood that coursed through her veins. If that was the case, Marcurio was twice as jealous of her power now. Then again, it might have just been because she was a Nord. After all, the Nords were practically born on ice, and they seemed to have an unhealthy affinity for subfreezing temperatures.
"Don't worry," Adaria sighed. "We'll be back to Heljarchen in a few hours. You can thaw out then."
He was too cold to even smile properly at this point, but Marcurio quirked a weak grin at the dragon-eyed woman next to him and, drifting over toward her, said teasingly, "You might just have to keep me warm until then."
Without so much as looking at him, Adaria stuck one index finger out, poking him in the temple and pushing him back to an arm's length.
"You're a fire mage," the woman stated blandly. "You can keep yourself warm far better than I can. And in any case, the more you play around, the longer it's going to take for us to get somewhere warm."
Again Marcurio pouted. That wasn't the point…
"Fine," the mage sighed dramatically, summoning a flames spell in both hands and huddling them close to himself. Already he could feel the snow on his face melting into tiny droplets. That could be a problem in and of itself, though, come to think of it.
"The gods hate me…"
The wind whipping back and forth threatened to put out the flames in Marcurio's hands, and so he concentrated more closely on them, pouring more magic energy into maintaining the tiny semblance of warm he had managed to find. Well this was tiring…
He was so focused on his flames that he didn't even notice the pile of rocks only barely peeking out from under a blanket of snow in front of him, and the next thing the mage knew, he was headed face-first for a pile of icy white. He might have actually ended up on the ground if Adaria hadn't grabbed him by the back of his robes and hauled him to his feet again.
"Thanks," Marcurio chuckled sheepishly, holding his flaming hands close to himself again.
"Watch where you're going," Adaria sighed in response, turning back to the invisible path she had been following since their departure from Dawnstar. "Who exactly is always warning me not to stumble into a skeever den? Because if you fall in one, I'm not hauling your ass out of it."
"That's not very nice," Marcurio pouted. "I'd rescue you if you fell in one."
"I wouldn't fall in one to begin with," the Dragonborn replied nonchalantly. "I can smell a skeever from a mile away."
"Well excuse me for not having a dragon nose."
For a moment, the pair fell into silence, Marcurio trailing behind as Adaria forged ahead, her long red hair whipping wildly back and forth. Ice and snow clung to the rivets in the woman's dragonscale armor and blanketed the bare patches of her arms, neck, and face with a deathly sheen. She truly made for an eerie image right now, almost like a cursed soul wandering the landscape rather than a living, breathing warrior.
At this thought, a wry smile came to Marcurio's lips.
She looks cold. Guess I had better keep her warm.
Quickly the mage slid up behind his dragon-eyed companion, all but pressing himself against her back as he huddled up into as much of a ball as he could manage, putting his flaming hands between himself and her. Well, she wasn't very big, but she did serve as a decent wind shield at least. Not that that was what he was doing, of course, but…
All of a sudden, however, Adaria ground to a halt, leaving Marcurio no choice but to faceplant into the rucksack resting on the woman's back.
"Ouch…" the mage groaned, releasing his flames spells and putting both hands to his sore face as he stood up straight.
Adaria glanced over her shoulder at him, one eyebrow raised.
"Are you that cold?" she questioned.
"I am frozen," Marcurio replied, his voice muffled and distorted thanks to the hands he still covered his face with. "I am completely, utterly, and incomprehensibly frozen. If I have to go on like this for much longer, I think you very well may have to just leave me here and thaw me out in the spring."
"You're so dramatic," Adaria sighed. Then, glancing around, she added, "There's a rocky overhang just up ahead near that stand of trees. We can build a fire there, warm up, and maybe eat something before we continue on to Heljarchen."
"You're my hero," Marcurio responded, heaving a relieved sigh.
"Dramatic," the Dragonborn retorted, though there was a glint in her eyes almost akin to laughter.
And then, without another word, the woman turned and set off toward their destination up ahead.
Though it took some effort, it wasn't long before Marcurio and Adaria had managed to get a strong campfire going, and Marcurio all but plastered himself to the fire as he watched the Dragonborn pull out various food ingredients and begin to slice and season them.
"What are you making?" the mage inquired, leaning over curiously.
"Just some smoked salmon and vegetables," Adaria responded matter-of-factly, cutting all the food into a cast iron skillet at her left hand. "I picked up some fresh produce while you were chatting up the locals in Dawnstar."
"Is that where you went off to?" Marcurio chuckled sheepishly.
Again the man looked down at the food, then smiled happily.
"It looks great."
"It isn't even cooked yet," Adaria retorted.
"Well, yes, but you're the one making it, so I know it'll be good. Now all we need is some nice warm mead to go along with it."
"Bag," the Dragonborn said, tipping her head slightly in the direction of her rucksack which rested on the ground on the opposite side of her. "Should be a couple bottles in there."
Marcurio's eyes widened slightly at this.
"You're going to let me go through your bag?"
"If you are not completely, utterly, and incomprehensibly frozen to the ground yet, yes," the woman responded sarcastically. "And in any case, you seemed to have had no qualms about going through my things in Heljarchen, so I don't understand why you're making such a fuss now."
Ouch…
Marcurio gave his companion a sheepish laugh, then moved around to the other side of her and began to search for the mead in question. He had always wondered what Adaria carried around in this bag of hers, but damn…
"A person could get lost in this thing," the mage said in disbelief, leaning forward even further as he continued to dig. "You don't have Alduin stashed away in here somewhere, do you?"
"No," Adaria responded, using her Blades sword to pull coals out from under the fire and placing the cast iron skillet full of food on top. "He was much too uncooperative for that."
Marcurio let out an audible laugh at this, then paused when a round metal medallion caught his eye from amongst the random other objects stored in the endless void. Quietly he pulled the object out into the light, and he couldn't help but let his jaw drop slightly when he realized what it was he was holding.
An amulet of Mara?!
For a moment the man stared at the object in his hand in wonder. Then he looked up at the dragon-eyed woman kneeling unconcernedly in front of him.
"Um...Adaria? Care to explain?"
The Dragonborn glanced over nonchalantly at his question, but she paused when she spotted the amulet.
"Oh. That," Adaria said, shrugging as she turned back to the fire. "What about it?"
The man blinked in disbelief at the woman's flippancy.
"Do you even know what this is?"
The Dragonborn gave him an irritated glance, though it was fleeting as she looked away again.
"I'm not an idiot."
Marcurio paused, then inched closer to get a better look at his companion's face. Again the woman gave him an irritated glance, but he returned it with an impish grin.
"Don't tell me you're secretly a romantic," he teased.
"Hardly," the woman stated bluntly in response, standing and moving over to her rucksack.
She frowned as she searched.
"What did you do to my bag?"
"What do you mean, what did I do to your bag?"
"Everything's all out of order. It looks like a sabercat got stuck in here."
"It was organized?"
Marcurio had to jump back slightly as a bottle of mead came flying toward his face, and he laughed as he caught the object with his free hand. He then set the bottle near to the fire, watching as Adaria returned to her seat.
"Seriously, though," the man continued. "Why do you have an amulet of Mara? Generally speaking, an amulet of Mara means you're looking to marry."
"If you wear it, yes," Adaria nodded in response.
Marcurio's impish grin broadened as he reached over toward the dragon-eyed woman next to him.
"Well, in that case, I think you're missing a piece of equipment."
The amulet barely reached Adaria's shoulders before she grabbed the mage by the wrist, her iron grasp stopping him instantly.
"That is a very bad joke," she stated harshly, turning a pair of steely silver dragon eyes on him.
Marcurio held up his free hand in surrender.
"Sorry."
At that, the Dragonborn released her grasp on the mage's wrist, turning her gaze back toward the fire, and Marcurio sat back dejectedly. Maybe that shouldn't have come as such a surprise, but he honestly hadn't expected to be rejected so acutely.
"I found that amulet," Adaria said suddenly.
Marcurio looked up to see his companion staring off into the dark, snowy night.
"Oh?"
The Dragonborn nodded at this.
"It was shortly after I came to Skyrim...and after the dragons came. I went to aid Jarl Balgruuf's housecarl against a dragon at the Western Watchtower. There were many who had already been slain by the dragon there. I was desperate back then...taking anything of value from the dead bodies. I had taken that amulet hoping it would be worth something. When I returned to Whiterun, however, I found a woman crying there for her lover who had died at the watchtower. I was sure the amulet belonged to that man. I never did feel it was right to sell it after that."
Adaria's voice trailed off at this, and for a moment, silence descended on the camp. Marcurio frowned as he thought about it all. So Adaria wasn't from Skyrim? Where was she from, then? And why had she considered herself so desperate that she needed to loot dead bodies? She had mentioned once that she had found Bolar's Oathblade, her treasured sword, in Bloated Man's Grotto. What kind of life had Adaria lived before becoming known as the Dragonborn? He was glad that she now felt open enough to tell him even this much, but her animosity toward the amulet of Mara and her story about it now left him with more questions than answers.
"So why did you keep it?" Marcurio questioned at length. "You could have given it to the man's fiancee or traded it or buried it or anything. Why simply carry it around?"
"Good question," Adaria responded. "Who knows?"
She then bit the cork out of her bottle of mead, spitting the little stopper into the fire and downing a swig before continuing.
"Maybe it's a reminder of what I am or the destiny I was born to fulfill. Maybe I just forgot about it and didn't think about it until you said something. I don't really know."
Marcurio swallowed hard, then prodded further.
"Did you ever think maybe it was because you might have wanted what that man would have had had he survived?"
Adaria paused at this, then took another swig of her mead.
"That is not a life I could ever live," she responded softly.
Marcurio's heart sank a bit at this.
"Why not?"
At this, the Dragonborn let out a heavy sigh, setting her mead off to the side as she pulled the skillet from the fire.
"You're full of questions today, aren't you?"
Marcurio watched as the woman separated out the majority of the food onto a plate and handed it to him, reserving only a small portion for herself.
"Adaria, you need to eat more than that."
"Just eat your damn food."
For a moment, the mage watched as his companion slowly ate, seeming to completely ignore him as she scanned back and forth across the landscape. She didn't seem to be interested in answering any more questions.
Heaving a sigh, Marcurio then turned to his own food, curling up as close to the fire as he could manage. He turned this way and that, almost like a chicken on a spit as he tried desperately to get all of himself warm at once, but by the time he had finished his food, he had given up on this idea, too. Even with the rocky overhang they sat under, it couldn't stop the bitter gale that swept up over the ridge.
His back was turned to Adaria as he finally pulled his mead away from the fire and popped the cork out. He smiled slightly as the taste of the warm, sweet liquid slid across his tongue and down his throat, a burning aura forming in his core. Thank the gods for mead, at least. He would just have to ignore the chill on his back.
Marcurio was still thinking this, however, when, all of a sudden, he felt a hard, scaly form press up against his back, and he turned slightly to see Adaria sitting with her back up against his own.
"Not long and we'll be somewhere warmer," the woman said, glancing out at the frozen snowscape spreading out before them. "Falkreath should have a fair amount of work for us to do while we wait out the worst of the winter. The Rift is relatively warm, too, though you should know that well enough."
For a moment, Marcurio stared over his shoulder at the woman behind him. Then he smiled, relaxing his shoulders against hers as best he could considering the dragon spines going every which way. He turned back to the fire, but pressed closer when he felt her head come in contact with his as she took a swig of mead from her bottle. His smile broadened slightly. He was fairly certain that the warmth in his core wasn't just from the mead now.
"Adaria," Marcurio said, holding his bottle of mead out toward her.
The woman glanced over slightly, paused, then clinked her mead bottle against his own.
"To a bright future," the mage said, smiling broadly.
Adaria stared at him for a moment, then turned away to look at the surrounding landscape again.
"Sure," she replied softly.