19th of Hearthfire
"We knew he would not let us leave without taking his revenge." I said.
"Yes." Aric said. "But I underestimated the number of men he had at his disposal."
"He was referred to as a Hedge Lord, beloved." I said. "Surely that argued a certain number of men."
"I take your point." Aric said. "But the term is more loosely used in Skyrim. This man was a hedge lord indeed."
We were required to wait until the morning to make a full count. And it took some time for my three attendants in dark blue to find the body of the man that was the objective of their search.
"That's Zedrick, your Grace." Kolmas said, pointing to a man a bit older than Aric who was wearing what under other circumstances would be considered outlandish armor. "And unless I miss the count, this is his whole army."
"A general never commits his entire army to one battle." Kurst said. "It is not a sound tactic."
"It would have been quite sound of Noxaura's mother had not warned us." Aric said.
"Will I finally hear that story told?" Rafel asked.
"In due course, sir." I said. "If I can pry you from my sister's side on our journey south, I will explain while we ride."
"You strike a hard bargain, Lady." Rafel said as he smiled at Jordis as she approached.
"Over a hundred men, not counting the ones that run off." Toinen said.
"How is your arm" Jordis asked Rafel.
"My arm will do well." He said to her with a smile as he glanced at the bandage on his arm. "It is my hand that needs tending. I admit that I have been somewhat remiss in my staff training. My hand is as stiff as if it is made from ebony itself."
"I detected no flaw in your wielding a staff that seems to weigh as much as I do." I said to him. "You looked as if you were dancing."
"It was a dance of sorts." He said as his eyes remained on Jordis, "But not one for polite company."
"I have a balm that will serve." Jordis said to him as she took his hand in both of hers and began to massage it with her thumbs. "I will massage it into your hand. It will help you feel better."
"I feel better already." Rafel said to her as the two stood quite close and looked at each other.
"This field must have a name." Kurst said. "It must be named, and the event must be recorded. It is the first victory, nay the first battle of any kind for the newly knighted Sir Noxaura."
"The Battle of the Shrine." I said. "Or Kyne's Victory, if I may refer to our Lady as she is known in Skyrim. We will attribute our victory over such odds to her. She sent us a warning. She has guided our steps to this very point. And she watched as we rid this land of a pestilence. But call it what you think best, brother. Cyrodiil is your home, and it is to you I give the honor of naming this battlefield."
I did not consider it an important comment when I said it, but I was clearly mistaken.
It took a moment for Kurst to react before he approached me and bent the knee and took my hand and pressed to his forehead.
"I am honored to name this battlefield, and this battle, fought before the very eyes of the mother who sired your line, sister." Kurst said.
"You will make me cry, Sir Kurst, if you do not stand up and embrace me." I said, as I retrieved my hand and opened my arms, my eyes becoming wet.
"I would never do so intentionally, Sir Noxaura." He replied as he stood, and we embraced.
"We will surely not attempt to bury this many men." Runa said to her father.
"No, it is the nature of such battlefields that they must stand so." Aric said. "And we have business south."
"Come sir, I will massage your hand." Jordis said to Rafel. "Our tent can be the last that is struck."
"Our tent?" Rigel asked me, her eyebrows rising, after the pair had walked away.
We rode south, rejoining the main road before midday.
"We will pass by an old Ayleid ruin as the road turns west." Ensim said to those of us who attended during a morning stop, drawing a small map in the dirt. "If we keep to the road it will take us to Skingrad, but away from the region of orchards. If we leave the road at the ruins and continue south it will place us on the doorstep of her Grace's old home by midafternoon."
"It's flat countryside." Toinen said. "The whole region is for planting. Grapes, tomatoes, apples. It's fertile soil."
"You should be a farmer, sir." Kurst said to Toinen.
"Nothing would please me more, milord." Toinen said.
"Each of you, once your service to the Reverend Mother is concluded, will have to opportunity to choose your new life." Aric said. "It is something to consider, in the quiet hours."
"The Thane and I will do what we can, once your year of faithful service is concluded, to help each of you realize your dreams." I said.
"Within reason." Aric said with a smile.
"So you'll be getting a new face then?" Kolmas asked Ensim.
"Shut up." Ensim replied with a snort and a laugh.
"Gentlemen, let us be on our way." I said.
"Very well." Aric said. "We have our marching orders."
It was midday when we passed the ruins and once again left the road. It was the same flatland we had seen this day and last, sparsely populated with trees, with virtually no cover for brigands or anyone else to hide. The tensions from the night before, a night that had been long on exertion and short on rest had since melted away. The lack of sleep and the heat of the day had all of us, variously and repeatedly, yawning and rubbing our faces to wake ourselves.
It was right after one such bout of yawning and rubbing that a shape in the distance began to form. The shape began to resolve itself into four or five buildings of various sizes as we continued to travel south. We would have to alter course slightly to the southeast for our path to take us there.
"We will stop and ask for directions." Aric said as he looked at me and smiled.
"You detest asking directions." I said. "It is a well-known fact that all men dislike asking directions."
"You slander an entire gender, madam." Aric said.
"It is not slander if it can be proved true, sir." I replied.
"Proof denies faith, madam." Aric said. "Is not the vocation of a priestess the propagation of faith?"
"It is sir." I answered, "But faith in the Divines, not faith in the ability of men to navigate."
"Depart the field, sir." Kurst called back to us. "You will not win this battle. You must withdraw."
"I make my orderly retreat, madam." Aric said to me. "But this is not a rout. I shall regroup in short order for a counterattack."
"Your counterattack does not frighten me, sir." I said before my laughter began to blur my words. "You will most certainly lose your way when attempting to return to the field of battle."
"Ask for terms of surrender, sir." Kurst called back to Aric. "You are defeated."
"Good lady, do you know of an Oneiromancer that lives nearby?" I asked the woman who was dyeing fabric in a large tub.
"A what, Mistress?" she asked.
"A woman who interprets dreams." I replied.
"Yes, Mistress." She said, as she pointed the way. "She lives to the east of here. Follow the path, and you can't miss it."
"Thank you madam." I replied.
She looked at me for a moment.
"You look a bit like her." She said.
"Then we shall know her when we see her." Aric said.
We continued east, as my excitement grew.
"What shall I say to her?" I asked Aric.
"If what you said is true, you need say nothing." Aric replied. "There will be little that needs explaining if she has watched you from afar."
"I do not believe that is how dreaming works, beloved." I said. "But I am totally ignorant of the process."
"Idgrod the Younger shares your Mother's gift, and her dreams took on a fanciful tone." Aric said.
"Yes, but ultimately her dreams always proved accurate." I said. "And Idgrod is in dire need of guidance and instruction if her dreams are not to make her run mad."
"May I make an observation madam?" Aric asked.
"I believe you have already made it, sir." I said. "What you now ask for is permission to share it."
"I have found it true that those who acquire titles by the handful often take on an argumentative tone when dealing with us commoners." Aric said.
My laughter delayed my response only a little.
"Your observation, sir commoner?" I asked.
"Your cottage has room for two." He replied.
It took me a moment to understand what he meant.
"She would never leave her home." I said. "And we have been apart for over twenty years. We would be strangers to each other, would we not?"
"I have no answers, beloved." Aric said as he reached for my hand where it rested on the pommel of my saddle. "I only mention it as something to consider."
Consider it I did. It was all that consumed my mind as we continued east, until the sight of roof tops came into view.
It was still a small village. It seemed to have grown smaller over time, even though the number of buildings had not changed. My mind knew it to only be an illusion, that it was I that had grown, rather than the village that had shrunk.
At the last cottage but one, the cottage with an abundance of pots containing herbs, or flowers, or a collection of other thing, arranged in what some other eye might recognize as a pattern, but to my eye only resembled chaos, that cottage with a signpost and a sign depicting moon and stars, that I had seen so recently in my dreams, at that cottage stood a woman whose hair was much like mine, whose eyes were much like mind.
"I believe this is your mother, madam." Aric said to me, as I began to weep.
"I believe you are correct, sir." I replied as I placed my hands to my face.
Aric called to Rigel to halt as I moved Loga out of our column and rode the final short distance alone before dismounting.
"You are not nearly as dusty as I had expected." My Mother said to me with a grin, her arms opened for an embrace. "Oof! Perhaps we shall delay further embraces until you have removed your armor. It is like hugging a tree."
"We will have ample opportunity." I said, my crying unabated. "I will surely hug you a thousand times before the sun sets."
"You look very well." She said, "Though you do not take care of your skin. You are quite freckled."
"Not all of my spots are freckles, mother." I said. "And you have more than your fair share."
"The other spots I choose not to mention." She said. "But I acknowledge that they were gallantly won."
"You were there, then." I said.
"Your recent adventures have all disturbed my sleep." She answered just as Aric approached, leading his horse. "Sir, can you not, out of common decency, plan your exploits so that they may be executed in broad daylight? I have not had a peaceful night's rest in some time."
"I will endeavor to do so, Mother, to the extent that the details are in my control." Aric replied.
"Please call me Orien." She said. "May I call you Aric?"
"Please do." Aric replied.
"You do not prefer Heimdall?" she asked him.
"Aric is what my mother called me." Aric said. "It is how I think of myself. And the name Heimdall comes with expectations."
"Expectations of a silver city on a high promontory?" she asked him.
"I have not dreamed of that city for a very long time." Aric said.
"I do not understand." I said. "Do you tell me that you have seen Aric's dreams?"
"Not for quite some time." She said. "Not since you were a little girl."
I did not know what to say.
"You have known of him for that long?" I asked her
"There are dreams that do not fade with time." She said. "His dream was one, though I did not recognize the significance at the time."
"It was the fanciful dream of a very young man." Aric said, "Nothing more."
"The significance was the dreamer, not the dream." She replied.
"Shall we continue to stand here blocking the lane?" Runa asked from a short distance away, "Loga's eyes are fixed on the contents of that oversized pot by her head."
"We will arrange our camp." Aric replied. "And then I believe a celebration is in order."
By village standards it was quite a raucous celebration. Any village as small as this one could not help but be affected by a temporary doubling of its population, especially when the visitors held a celebration and invited all the permanent residents to attend.
But duties must be tended to before raucous celebrations progress too far, and the duties of an Archpriestess of the Maetreum of Cybil are well defined at such events.
"You look beautiful." My mother said as I stood in the small room that had been my imaginary kingdom as a small child, my second best priestesses robes having replaced my armor.
Everything about the room seemed to be frozen in time. I could not identify anything that was different.
"The mattress is new." My mother said when I had shared my thoughts with her.
"I dreamed of this house often when I was younger." I said. "Especially after Catilia had spirited us away to Skyrim, and the cave that was to be our home."
"I know." She replied. "I would see you on occasion, when your dreams brought you here and you wandered through the house, your dream and mine merging into one. I would cherish those dreams and hold them close."
"Do not make me cry, Mother." I said as my tears overflowed. "I cannot deliver a blessing with red, puffy eyes."
"I am so proud of you, my little chick." She said as she wiped away my tears before embracing me.
"Did you know then where my path would lead?" I asked her. "Did you foresee what I must endure, and overcome?"
"No, chick." She replied, "Your future was too far distant for such details. And I was still quite young myself and had much to learn."
"You remind me of a topic we should discuss." I said. "But there will be time for that later."
"I dreamt of a Knight in your future when I was young." She said. "Back then I imagined that a Knight was the sum of all a girl would ever desire. He would be someone strong who would protect you as well as others. I never dreamed that the Knight would be you."
"I still cannot believe that it is my own life that I inhabit." I said. "At one time I was certain that I would die in a shack in the Rift."
"Until you met a man who dreamed of a silver city on a high promontory." She said.
It was then that I found the courage to ask her the question that had been foremost in my mind.
"Did you know our heritage?" I asked. "When you sent me away with Mother Pevel, did you know our heritage?"
"Yes and no." she replied. "It was never simply a matter of knowing or not knowing. I believe you are aware of that now. But such heritage leaves a trail, and that trail, when followed closely and studied, only leads to one place, or more appropriately, one person; and his name you know."
"Morihaus." I said.
"You never knew my mother." She said. "It was a deep sadness to me that you never knew her, and she never knew you. I was more fortunate. I knew both my grandmother and my great-grandmother. Had you met them you would understand. They were gifted, each in different ways; both of them were extraordinary. And they would both have loved you very much."
I sat for a moment and let my mind take in what I had heard. A line of gifted women, going back generations. It resembled what I had heard of the ward sisters, also known as the Beldaman Wyresses. Could Cyrodiil have its version of that powerful group? Could I myself be a member of such a group, and my mother, and her mother before her, going back generations? It would explain my affinity for the power of the Earthbones, an affinity that only awaited an introduction before asserting itself. Aric's mother was likewise a ward sister, but his skills were quite different. But when one is also descended from the God of Magic, ones talents must certainly lean in that direction.
A knock on the cottage door brought me back to the here and now.
"If you wish to bless a village that is not completely inebriated, you must hurry." The descendant of Magnus said with a smile from the doorway to my small bedroom.
The crowd had fallen silent as our small procession proceeded from our cottage, across the dirt lane, and to the place where Lucia stood waiting with the sacred Tome. She opened the Tome to the marked page as I held my staff in my right hand and raised my left before reading the invocation.
"Blessed Mother Cybele, Goddess of friends and families, we are linked together in a community of friendship and support. We pray for one another. We remember those who cannot be with us today. May we all continue to share in your gifts of love, strength, courage, and wisdom, and to know your joy. Give us growing understanding, sympathy with each other's difficulties, patience with each other's faults, and grace to walk in your ways.
I scanned the assembled faced briefly as Lucia turned the page.
Loving Mother, in your wisdom you have created us and given us many gifts. Today, we thank you for all that we mean to each other and to our friends and families. We thank you for the love that has brought us to this time and place, and for your love which abides to tie us all together. Where you are, Blessed Mother, there is love.
I knew that the gifts that I and my mother possessed had a different source; and that included gifts I had only recently been given. My eyes found Aric's as I gazed upon the greatest gift I could ever imagine.
Mother, your strength is sufficient for us all. We have committed ourselves one to the other in your presence, so we pray that you will continue to be with us in the unfolding of our future. Give us strength and courage in times of difficulty, wisdom, and love in times of opportunity and challenge, and the sharing of joy in times of happiness and success. Mother Cybele, may we continue to grow through the power of your love."
It was then that the celebration truly began.
It had been a long day after a long night. And while the merriment of our celebration brought us all to life again, once the villagers had departed for their beds, and we settled around our fire, the life began to ebb.
"It is wonderful to meet all of you in person." My mother said finally. "I have until now only glimpsed you in my dreams, when your nocturnal activities drew my attention."
"That must surely sour your opinion of us." Aric said. "Our nocturnal activities of late have been much too violent."
"Not all of your nocturnal activities involve violence." She replied as she looked at me and smiled.
I felt that point that the best place for my reddening face was in my hands.
"Gods, mother." I said. "Will you truly speak in this manner in front of my family and friends?"
"Were you under the impression that your family and friends were unaware of the attachment between the two of you?" She asked.
"We would all have to be as deaf as posts for that to be the case." Runa said, drawing laughter from her sister and a smile from Aric.
"Thank you all for taking my daughter into your family." My mother said to everyone present. "It has been a great comfort to me to know that she is so well loved and cared for."
Kolmas found a need to turn his back and wipe at his face.
"It is we who thank you, madam, for giving us your daughter." Aric said. "The Emperor called her a rare gem, and he is correct. And I have always thought her to be her mother's daughter, even though we had never met."
"We have met." She replied. "You will not remember it, certainly. It was many years ago, when we were both much younger, in a dream we shared."
Aric was quiet for a short time, as his thoughts raced across his face. I could sense his mind working. Eventually his eyes focused, and he looked at me.
"When first we met, I thought that I recognized you." He said to me. "I could not explain it at the time, and when I sensed the other connection we shared I assumed that was the reason."
The other connection was the seeds Potema had planted in each of us when she feared her rebirth was in jeopardy; a fear that was quite justified.
"You retained some memory of the image of my mother from the dream you shared." I said.
"You dreamt of green hills, and a small cabin by a waterfall." My mother said, "and sunlight filtering through the trees."
"And a beautiful woman bathing in the pool at the base of the waterfall." Aric replied.
"And a beautiful young man watching me bathe." My mother replied.
"That dream is decades in the past." Aric said as he looked at me and my mother in turn. "And even now the two of you more resemble sisters than mother and daughter. You and your younger mother would be twins." He said to me.
"Mother, must you smile so?" I asked as my mother responded to Aric's words, and certainly his beauty, much in the same way as most women. "Are you not past swooning at the compliments of a pretty face?"
"Not by a long chalk, dear." She replied with a girlish laugh.
"Then you truly are your mother's daughter." Lucia said to me as she bumped my shoulder with hers.
"Are you on my side or no, sister?" I asked as I returned Lucia's smile and shoulder bump with my own.
"Need we take sides, sister?" Kurst asked. "I would gladly call you both kin."
"As would I." Rafel said. "I am only a recent addition to this exceptional group. But I am fortunate to have met all of you."
"We are likewise privileged, dear friend." I said to the battle mage. "I will never forget the risks you took, coming to my aid. You sat calmly amongst a group of powerful mages, who could all have been cultists, and who could have turned on you in a moment and still you did not hesitate to come to my aid."
"Aid that you in no way needed, lady." Rafel said as Jordis placed her hand on his arm. Rafel looked up at her as his hand found hers. "I do not often pray to the Divines, lady, but I can tell you that the sight of you, maimed, bloodied, and motionless had me firing prayers at every divine I could recall, individually and collectively."
"We was all doing that, milord." Ensim said.
"The Divines must have thought the world was about to end from all the prayers directed at them." Toinen said.
"You came to my aid sir, which is all that matters." I said before looking at all the faces assembled around our fire. "You have all come to my aid when I was in need. My thanks are a poor reward for the danger you faced, but I give it nonetheless."
"It is what families and friends do." Lucia said. "We aid each other. We love each other."
It was only then that I realized that my mother was crying.
"Do not fret child." She said as I embraced her and kissed her forehead. "They are tears of joy, not sadness. Mostly joy, at least. It has been some time since I have had a family close by to share my love."
"As to that," I said. "Aric and I have a suggestion."
"Noxaura has a suggestion." Aric said. "I merely counted the number of beds in her cottage."
"You need not say yea or nay tonight, or any night for that matter." I said. "But it is something to consider, and you would make your daughter very happy if you said yea." I said.