Author's Note: I forgot to mention this the previous chapter - the reference to Saturalia (basically Skyrim Christmas) is based off of Steelfeathers'mod in Skyrim SE's Creation Club. It's got holiday-themed gear and a mountable reindeer! Go check it out!

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As soon as Gliwin stopped the carriage in Helgen's central square, Aryll scrambled out. He still felt guilty about their previous conversation and for making his friend shut down so quickly.

But in my defense, he thought, how was I to know? For someone rather expressive in her words and actions, Aryll was actually fairly private. He had moved into the village at the age of twelve when his apprenticeship first started. Though she had been living there for apparently two years, she still only ever spoke to Klimmek. Either that, or she was constantly hurrying off to who-knows-where. It took him months for him to finally meet her and introduce himself, much less to learn where she kept going almost every day. As they grew older, he had always hoped that they would grow closer. Ivarstead was a small town far from most of the major cities. There were hardly any visitors, and Aryll was the only one his age. But, on the days they did talk, they had never reached a true conversation the way they had today. They had never discussed anything personal. Aryll was always talking about her chores with Klimmek or her most recent visit with the Greybeards.

He climbed down from the front seat, unhitched Gladwen, and went to stable the horse. Don't get me wrong: I still like her, he thought. She was intelligent and loyal to her people, whether those people were her neighbors or the monks. She's just really difficult sometimes. Difficult to speak with and most certainly difficult to gain her trust.

"You're one of the few people who didn't know about my situation." She had something along those lines, along with, "I don't want you to be sorry for me."

What does she want from me? Everything I do seems to peeve her.

"Klimmek of Ivarstead checking in," Gwilin said to the stablemaster. A child came around the corner and led Gladwen into an empty stall. Now, the Bosmer turned back to the market. Temba had allowed him to travel with Klimmek to Helgen before, and he recognized many of the vendors from his previous trips. He actually knew quite a few of them by name. Most of them were from the smaller villages within the hold, but a few of them did come from the larger cities. These were the wealthier merchants who could afford to peddle their wares elsewhere. And then, of course, there were the traveling merchants, mainly Khajitwho had literally traveled from Elsweyr to earn some coin.

He had been told that this was one of the smaller Market Days in the whole of Skyrim, but it didn't seem that miniscule compared to Windhelm's. He had not returned to his home city since his parents had sent him to learn from Temba, but he could remember roaming the street fair as a child.

Something nagged him about this last thought. Aryll said she barely remembered her parents, he thought. If she had been a lot younger when they had died, he might be able to understand that. But, she had been eight. Granted, most people didn't remember details from their childhood, but remembering people, remembering family was different. One could never really forget family no matter how long they had been away from them. Gwilin had not seen his father for nine years, and he still remembered the elder's final words of encouragement for him to "go out" and "be whatever you want to be". The chances of Aryll completely forgetting her family would be near impossible, unless her mother had died at childbirth and her father had died soon after. But, if that were the case, who had been raising her for her first eight years? Surely, she would remember that.

As he returned to the wagon, he could see her diligently unloading all of Ivarstead's trade goods with Klimmek.

"Gladwen's squared away," Gwilin said.

"Thank you," Klimmek acknowledged. "There are a few more loads left. If you both can help me organize the stock, I'll take first shift."

"Come again?" asked Aryll with a confused look.

"It's your first day out of the town limits," said Klimmek, "I want you to have a chance to experience it all."

"Right now?" She shifted. "Are you sure you don't need help here?" Gwilin got the feeling she was purposely avoiding his gaze.

"Eventually, once we have a larger crowd," the Nord said. "For now, go out and meet people. See new things. Ask questions. Gwilin here can show you the ropes." Normally, the boy would have been thrilled to do so; but after this morning, he dreaded nothing more.

On the other hand, this could be a second chance, he reasoned.

"Sure," he decided. "Come on, Ary. I can introduce you to some of the vendors."

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Zelda woke up in a bush.

So, this is what it's like to be an adventurer, was her first thought. She could feel cuts and bruises, supposedly from her and Link's crash landing…

Link!

She scrambled to untangle herself from the brambles and branches and looked around. Seeing Link passed out on the bank of a nearby stream, she hurried to his side and felt for a pulse. A sigh of relief escaped her. Thankfully, he was still alive, and his injuries did not seem worse than her own.

Now that she knew they were still together and both well, Zelda took a moment to analyze her surroundings. While Hyrule's natural environment was, in fact, wild, it always appeared vibrant and well-maintained. Here, the trees and rocks all jumbled together in a cacophony of dark green and grey. The sky above was bright with the rising sun, but Zelda was surprised to see the fading reflections of two crescent objects sinking in the west. Are those both moons? She wondered how hard she had hit her head.

She reviewed everything she remembered up until this point to test herself.

We were at the castle. I told Link that I wanted to see the excavation site. I made a fire… he said all of those nice things about me. She could feel her face warm at this. We read the journal and went to investigate the shaft. We held a moment of silence. Then, the goddess statue spoke. More importantly, it had echoed her prayer from the night before. And it started glowing. I reached out to touch it, and Link tried to stop me. Then… The next part seemed too surreal to be true. They had found themselves in a strange space that seemed to show them bits and pieces of their lives. Though Zelda wasn't sure what Link had seen, she had been baffled by the scenes she had observed.

She had seen her experiments with the Silent Princess, trying in vain to get it to grow in an indoor environment. She saw herself as a mere child playing with her mother. She saw many sleepless nights reading as many Sheikah records as she could to understand the prophecy given by the fortune tellers. These were all moments in her life that she highly valued and kept to herself. To see them before her eyes was strange, small to say the least.

That wasn't all that I saw though, she thought. Around the time the bells started to toll, she was sure she could see a robed figure peering out of the mists. She knew that silhouette anywhere. Father, she confirmed. He had been watching her, refusing to step into the open. Why wouldn't he speak to me?

And that was when she and Link had fallen through space into this colorless land. Zelda quietly reviewed these memories over and over in her head, trying in vain to put all of these pieces together.

If this is somehow an answer from Hylia, she thought, why would she send us here? Where is here?

Whatever the answer was, she decided she could wait. Right now, she had to tend to both of their injuries. She looked in her bag to see if any of her supplies had broken or scattered during the fall. They were all surprisingly accounted for and intact. With a roll of gauze in her hand and a dagger to cut it strapped to her belt, she got to work.

She had finished bandaging Link and was now finishing treating her own wounds when he groaned.

"Wakey, wakey," she sang.

"Sorry I shot the cuckoo, ma'am," he senselessly mumbled. "It tried to eat my face." Zelda snorted and giggled at this, which was probably what brought the Champion into gradual consciousness. "I swear, scary Gerudo lady with a spear, I'm a girl," he said as he pushed himself into a sitting position and struggled to open his eyes.

"My apologies for the misunderstanding, my lady," Zelda said.

"That's right – you better be…" He froze and slowly opened his eyes to her grin. "Please," he cringed, "tell me I didn't say any of that out loud."

"How big was the cuckoo?"

"Ugh." He rubbed at his eyes, his arms barely concealing the red of his cheeks. "May the Goddess kill me now."

"That would be a shame, considering I just patched us up."

"How long was I out?" he asked.

"Not much longer than me," answered Zelda. "Although, I can't say for sure how long I was unconscious." Link was about to sit back and prop his hands behind him when his hand touched water. He looked back at the stream.

"We're not in the tunnels."

"No." Not wanting to startle him, she allowed him to make his own observations on their surroundings.

"I can't see the castle. What happened to Hyrule?"

"I don't think anything happened to it, per se," she said. "I'm sure it's just fine. We're just not there anymore." She probably should have been panicking; that would have been the most logical reaction to a situation like this. But, compared to holding back the equivalent of the apocalypse for one hundred years, this seemed a relatively small problem.

When Link noticed she was not scared, he settled himself.

"We were at the shaft, looking at the goddess statue," he said.

"Then, the in-between world," she agreed.

"Now, we're here. But, where's here?"

"I don't know, but at least we're safe." She glanced around and tried to find another bright side to keep up morale. "This place has nightshade." That sounds odd, she thought as Link scrunched his eyebrows in confusion. "So, we know what not to eat here," she explained, "but that also means there must be other familiar plants nearby. That means not everything here is completely foreign."

"Assuming this is another land, possibly another world…"

"Yes?"

"I would hope that means there are people here too, which means there's hopefully a road."

"Agreed. And seeing as how we're in a wilderness, there will likely be wild animals. We should get moving soon. Are you able to walk?"

"I think so." Link pushed himself onto his feet and swayed a little. "I feel the ground, but my brain's still going through a weird state of vertigo." Zelda stood and offered her arm to the Champion. "Thanks."

"Any time," she said. They looked around. "Which way should we go?"

"If we get to a high place, we might be able to scope out the land."

"There's a hill a little ways south of here; that is, assuming the astronomy of this world is similar to our own. It may or may not. Apparently, there are two moons."

"Two moons?"

"I saw them earlier this morning. One big, one small."

"Huh." Link blinked hard. "I thought I'd seen everything. Right then – the hill to the south." Gradually, the pair began walking through the brush into the strange unknown.

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Market Day was more fascinating than Aryll had expected. She was expecting her walkaround with Gwilin to be awkward, and it was for the first few minutes. But then, Gwilin introduced her to Ri'saad and company.

"This one looks surprised," the caravan leader said.

"I think you're the first Khajit she's ever met," said Gwilin.

"I've heard stories," Aryll said, "but I've never seen one of you. We don't get a lot of company in Ivarstead." Ri'saad then introduced her to the rest of the caravan and told her about their homeland, Elsweyr. Gwilin had allowed her to lead the discussion, which was ultimately brilliant, because she had a lot of questions. Thankfully, Ri'saad was willing to answer all of them, and he didn't seem troubled at all. He even taught her greetings, and when she and Gwilin decided to continue on, she left with an emphatic "May the road lead you to warm sands". Then, they met some fur traders from Whiterun. Once again, Gwilin introduced her.

"Do you know everybody?" she asked at one point.

"Only the sellers. They return every year. Well, most of them do. Oh, hey! Gharol's here! You've got to meet her: she's brilliant with a forge." And once again, Aryll was rendered speechless, not because Gharol was an orc – for she had seen orc travelers pass through the village before – but because of the strangely formed armor the smith pounded into shape with such ease.

She talked to so many people and learned so much that she was almost disappointed when the time came for her to lend a hand at back at their stall and wagon. But, she soon perked up when she discovered that the buyers were from as many diverse regions as the vendors.

The day passed by quickly, and soon the trio was repacking the wagon and preparing to return to Ivarstead.

"What did you think?" asked Klimmek as he hid the lockbox safely under some goods he had bartered from a citizen of Riften.

"It was brilliant," Aryll said. "Everything was just brilliant. The people, their stories, their skills…"

"We stood at the forge for ages while she asked Gharol why orc armor was shaped the way it was and what materials she used," Gwilin said.

"They use an element called orichalcum! It's stronger than Nord steel!"

"I'm glad you enjoyed it," Klimmek smiled. "Gwilin, lad, will you retrieve Gladwen?" The Bosmer nodded and went back to the stables. Now, that Aryll and her guardian were alone for a short time, Klimmek became a little more solemn. "You had a chance to hear about a lot of places today."

"I did, and they sound fantastic."

"You know, my offer still stands. There are other Market Days in other areas of Skyrim. Perhaps, next year, we can go to another one – that is, if you're interested in seeing more of the land." She wanted to say yes more than anything. But, as he said these words, there was that sinking feeling in her stomach again. Leave me alone, she told it, this is supposed to be a good moment.

"I would love that," Aryll said. "Thank you."

"Klimmek!" Gwilin had only been gone for a few minutes, but now he came back, notably without the horse. "Gladwen won't leave."

"What do you mean?" asked Klimmek.

"I mean, he won't budge. I went to pick him up at the stable and he refused to leave the stall."

"I thought we were over this by now." The Nord slumped over to the stable and called the horse. "Gladwen, here." Aryll heard the horse whinny. "Gladwen, come here." Klimmek's silhouette was entering the stall to lead the old steed out, but Gladwen reared and kicked his hooves. "Alright! Alright! You win, you big chicken. I swear…"

"What's with him?" she asked Gwilin just as Klimmek came back over.

"He gets fidgety after dark," said the elf. "He's always nervous at the end of each Market Day, but he's never refused to move like this. And he's never acted so…"

"Crazy?"

"Terrified."

"I suppose just soothing him isn't enough?"

"On a normal night, maybe," Klimmek said. "But, he won't be going anywhere this evening."

"So, we're stuck here?" Gwilin asked.

"We should be able to leave at dawn; but otherwise, yes. Thankfully, Helgen has an inn, and we have the coin." For some reason, Aryll had a hard time processing this.

"We're staying in Helgen?" That sinking feeling had gotten heavier, as if solidifying into a solid weight.

"It will be a new experience, but there's no need to worry: the inns outside of Ivarstead are a lot more comfortable."

"And while there are more people," said Gwilin, "you'll be with us the whole time."

"But…" She didn't know how to form this into a coherent thought.

"What is it?" Klimmek asked. This doesn't feel right, Aryll wanted to say. Maybe we should leave Gladwen here and hitch a ride with one of the caravans. What if I have the dreams again? What if something awful happens? What if we somehow get separated?

"I snore," was all that she offered. Both men stared at her for a moment. Then, Klimmek chuckled.

"Not any louder than your average Nord," he said. "It'll be fine. I'll go get us a room." He closed the back of the wagon and made his way towards a dimly lit building with smoke coming out the chimney. Aryll immediately made her way towards the stable and tried to calm Gladwen down.

"It's alright," she whispered and stroked his nose. "It's okay. I get it."

"Okay, what's really wrong?" asked Gwilin. Aryll jumped, not realizing he had followed.

"Well, it's true," she managed, "about the snoring. I'm quite loud."

"You were having such a good time today. You were excited, giddy even. Now, you look as scared as the horse."

"I just don't think staying here is the best idea."

"It's better than leaving at night and hoping you don't come across bandits."

"Honestly, I think I would find that preferable."

"Tell me."

"No."

"Why not?"

"You'll probably laugh," Aryll said. "It's viewed as superstition, alright? You wouldn't understand." Gwilin looked ready to argue, but he stopped himself and took a deep breath.

"Try me," he challenged. He's joking, she thought. But, when she examined the expression on his face, she changed her mind. I suppose there's not much harm. I probably seem unstable to him as is.

"The Greybeards have a saying," she said. "'When Nirn is loud, it thrives with prosperity. When it is quiet, it holds its breath. And when it begins to tremor, only chaos is anticipated.'"

"That's a long saying."

"A part of my training revolves around studying our realm and its aura. Nirn has become increasingly quiet in the past months."

"Okay," he pressed, "and?"

"It's only just recently begun to tremor."

"Are you talking about Gladwen? 'Cause he's kind of a chicken."

"It's not just him. Wildlife has become more and more aggressive and unruly. My trip up the mountain takes me by a cave troll. Normally, I could walk right past it, as long as I didn't pose any harm."

"I thought giants were the gentle ones."

"Giants, trolls – really anything will keep their distance from a human if said human isn't a threat. Besides, with very few people making the pilgrimage to the monastery, there's enough prey to keep it happy. The other day though… I had to fend it off."

"It attacked you?" asked Gwilin. Aryll nodded. "Obviously, you're alive, but are you okay?" The girl shrugged.

"It was nothing, really."

"That was nothing?"

"It was nothing that I… couldn't handle," she said, and she hoped he didn't notice her voice break at this. She had swiftly won the fight against the creature. But, the result had not been pleasant. She could still smell the creature's burnt fur and flesh. The Greybeards had a strict code to keep their ways preserved within the monastery, and to not use it in violence. She remembered sprinting those last hundred steps with tears freezing to her cheeks…

"That's not the point," she said. "The point is that it shouldn't have attacked me in the first place. It hadn't in the past. It went from docile to aggressive within the span of a day. Just like Gladwen."

"So, you're saying this is part of the 'tremor'?"

"I'm saying that Nirn has been expecting something for a long time now, and that whatever is about to happen will be soon."

"But, how do you know it will happen here in Helgen?"

"I don't exactly. But, I do know that when we're home, I'm close to the one place that could give me answers."

"That… kind of makes sense." Gwilin sounded wary.

"It's alright if you don't believe me. I wasn't expecting you to." She glanced up at the sky, towards the now completely overshadowed Masser. As she had suspected, the Serpent was the brightest it had been. Meanwhile, the Lady had remained at the same constant glow. "Something is coming," she said to no one and nothing in particular, "and it will be here any day now. I may not know what it is, but I would feel a lot safer anticipating the change from home than anticipating it in a strange place."

"The good news is," said the Bosmer, "aside from Market Day, nothing ever happens in Helgen." She was surprised to feel his hand on her shoulder. It was not necessarily unwelcome – just strange. "I'd venture to say that we're just as safe here as we would be in Ivarstead." And, I really hope you're right, Aryll silently answered. "At any rate, even if we wanted to go anywhere, we couldn't. Not if Gladwen's like this. And if this 'tremor' you mentioned has spread, traveling could be even more dangerous." He has a point. She didn't like it, but he did.

"I've never stayed in an inn before," she said, changing the subject. "I know we have one, but I've never stayed in it."

"Well, I can tell you this: it's a lot warmer inside than it is out here." Both chuckled at this.

"Alright, I get the point," said Aryll. "Just give me a minute." Gwilin nodded his head and began his walk back towards the Helgen Homestead. She turned back to their horse and scratched its ears. "We'll be gone by tomorrow. You'll see." She didn't know what was worse: the fact that she seemed to be reassuring herself as well as Gladwen, or the fact that the sinking feeling only became heavier, as if confirming her worst fears.

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That first hill that Zelda and Link hadn't revealed much. What they did manage to discover was an old, winding road. Link figured this was probably the best shot they had at finding a town. Choosing to follow it east, the couple began walking.

And walking.

And walking.

This is worse than the Lost Woods, he thought. At least, with the Korok forest, there was a riddle for him to solve that told him where to go. Here, he was traveling blindly without a destination in mind.

He and Zelda talked along the way to keep their morale boosted; but as the day got later and they got closer to nowhere, he couldn't help but tense up. Back in Hyrule, any time the night came, powerful monsters would arise. While Zelda had confirmed that this world was, in fact, somewhat similar to Hyrule in terms of plants and animals, he really hoped the Stal monsters would not be a commonality.

At one point, the sky had begun to darken, and Link knew they would have no choice but to make camp. He was just about to suggest to Zelda that they make shelter in a nearby cliff overhang, when she raised her head.

"Look! Smoke!" Sure enough, on the other side of a rocky slope still a far distance off was a thin line billowing into the sky. Where there's smoke, there's people, he thought. And hopefully good food that said people are, maybe, willing to share?

It took a while to get to the slope with their injuries (while they weren't serious, they were still painful); and by the time they got there, the stars were out. Just our luck that the moon… I mean, moons aren't out, he thought. At least, the campfire was casting a glow to make up for the sky's noticeable lack thereof.

Agreeing that just stumbling into the camp without knowing who they were encountering would be unwise, they crept up the hill to evaluate the situation.

"They're all matching," Zelda whispered.

"And they have weapons," replied Link.

"Soldiers?"

"Maybe. Or maybe, they're just bodyguards. Look." He nodded towards the one person in camp that was dressed differently than the others. This man wore a colorful woven tunic under grey robes and a fur cloak. Unlike the others, whose facial hair was littered with cuts and uneven stubble, he featured a short, well-groomed beard. The edges of his hair were also styled into two thin braids that were strewn with beads and thin leather cords.

"He must be some kind of royalty," agreed Zelda. "But… why would someone of noble blood be camped in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night? If he's from around here, he would know the land. Wouldn't he know where to find a nearby inn? And, wouldn't he stay there?" That's a good point, Link thought. "And, thirteen soldiers seem an awful lot for a simple band of personal bodyguards, don't you think?"

"I mean, you had five Champions."

"Perhaps. But only one was assigned to me," she smiled, causing Link to smile back, if only for a moment.

"Maybe this land is more dangerous than we thought," he whispered. "So, what do you think? Do we risk it?"

"They certainly have a decent defense. And, they have food. At any rate, we… get down." She pulled both of them behind the rock. Before Link could ask what she was doing, he heard a loud "ARGH!" followed by a cry of pain.

"What was that?" an accented voice demanded, right before the air was pierced with metal clangs. Very slowly, Link and Zelda returned to their viewing place. Now the campfire attendees were in a battle with a new group, this one filled with soldiers in red.

"Another troop?" Zelda asked.

"They're being attacked," said Link, already reaching for his shield. "We can't just sit here."

"Hold on: how do we know who to help?" She was right, of course – they didn't know the full story. They couldn't just run into the fray and fight people without knowing who was who or what the cause was.

"We can't just sit here," he said.

"But, we can't just attack people at random," she said. "So, what do we do?"

"FUS…" came the accented voice, which had come from the noble himself.

"STOP HIM, MEN!" came another. Before the man could continue whatever he had been about to say, he had been tackled by multiple soldiers in red and promptly gagged. Now, he struggled to break free as his hands were bound behind his back and he was forced to his knees. The sight was awful to behold, and it took everything Link had in him to not jump into the open.

We don't know what's going on, he reminded himself. When he looked over at Zelda, her face was pale with mortification.

"Let's get out of here," he told her. They both turned to find swords pointed at each of their throats.

Standing above them was a woman in steel armor. With muscles bulging under her garments, her weapons held like natural extensions of her arms, and a confident smirk on her face, Link could not help but think of Lady Urbosa.

"Trying to get the drop on the Imperial Legion?" she asked. "I don't think so. On your feet, both of you."