Chapter 2: Dazed and Confused
Weiss's Perspective
I woke up with sharp pain in my right arm and head, laying on what seemed to be a bed of grass and leaves. I could barely move my body, but I somehow managed to lift my head just enough to see the scene around me. It was a massive evergreen forest, that stretched seemingly forever in all directions. Aside from the fact that I had no idea where I was, this place seemed very serene and calming. Just before I could slip into daydreaming, a slightly audible moan brought me back to reality, or at least what seemed to be reality. After straining myself to sit up, I saw Ruby, Blake, and Yang scattered amongst the forest floor not too far away from me. I made my way over to Yang, since she was the closest to me, and shook her a couple times to she if she was ok. Fortunately, she moaned and got up. She noticed how messed up her hair was and fell apart.
"You've gotta be kidding me!" She screamed, hair flaming and eyes red. While she was still raging, I walked over to wake up the other members. They were already up.
"Her hair got messed up?" Blake asked me.
"That it was. A single hair out of place." Ruby commented. We jumped when we heard a tree crash.
"Are you okay, Yang?" Ruby called out. Another tree fell in response.
"She isn't calm yet." Ruby whispers to us.
"I can see that." I agitatedly say to her.
"She'll calm down in a little bit." Ruby told us, ignoring my remark.
Once Yang calmed down, we started to head out, 20 trees left broken behind us. Ruby dashed ahead and was our scout. Yang hung in the back, so as to preserve her hair from getting messed up. I walked behind Blake, but not by much. I got my high-heels caught in mud, wet grass and moss. I had my combat skirt caught on branch after branch as we trekked through this unfamiliar forest. We all got down and hid when a roar cut through the calm in the forest. A loud boom echoed through the forest after we heard the roar. The sound of flapping wings was heard after the roar had stopped echoing. I looked up and caught glimpse of a very, very large bird flying overhead.
"It's like a reptilian Nevermore." Blake comments. Yang and I nod, not knowing what else to say. Luckily we were saved of having to find something to say by a red flash.
"I-heard-the-roar-and-saw-the-Nevermore! Are you guys okay?" Ruby spoke in rapid-fire and I only caught a little bit of what she said.
"What?" Yang asked, confused as to what Ruby was saying. She couldn't get it either.
"Did you not see the large bird?" Ruby asked, concern for her own mental state was evident.
"We saw it, don't worry." Blake assured her.
"We just didn't hear what you said, crater-face." I say to her.
"Well, I said that I heard the roar and saw the Nevermore and I wanted to know if you guys were okay." She told us.
"Ruby," Yang laughed "we're okay. We were just surprised by the roar." She told Ruby.
"Alright. I'm going to go scout again." And with that she disappeared in a red flash.
We started walking again not too long after Ruby left. Almost nothing changed with the quality of our walk. My high-heels kept getting stuck in the ground and my skirt kept getting caught on branches. It was a miserable walk. Everyone else seemed to be enjoying the walk. They clearly don't know the struggles of being an heiress. I got lost in thoughts about my own economic superiority to everyone else. In doing so, I never saw the red flash reappear.
"There's people up ahead. They were walking on a road." Ruby told us.
"Was there anything strange about them?" Yang asked.
"They were dressed weird. Like early kingdoms." Ruby explained. "Come on, I'll show you."
We walked after Ruby, then crouched when she did. We scanned for the people Ruby was talking about. I was seconds from getting mad at her for dragging us out here for nothing, then Ruby's hand reached out and pointed ahead. I looked and saw two men dressed in unusual garbs with iron longswords strapped to their sides. Their clothes was like someone made a tunic out of a potato sack. They had leather gauntlets and fur boots. And leather colored pants. Gross. I scoff at bad fashion, and this is a prime example. While I was critiquing their clothes, Ruby walked up to them.
"Excuse me, where are we?" She asked politely.
The one on the left looked at her weird and said "Where are we? We are in the Falkreath Hold. West of Helgen." He looked to his buddy, then back to Ruby. "Are you okay, miss? You're dressed weird and you don't know where you are. Are you from Cyrodiil?"
"Falkreath? Helgen? Cyrodiil?" Ruby asked, butchering the pronunciation of each.
The one on the right said "Let's take her to Helgen and turn her into the Legion. We'll probably get a reward for turning in a trespasser."
The one on the left responded with "Do you honestly think that the Legion will give us anything for her? If anything they'll accuse us for kidnapping her and execute us along with the Stormcloaks! For all we know, her parents are somewhere nearby looking for her."
The one on the right said "Hmm, you've got a point there. She's probably just messing with us anyway. Come on, we should hurry if we want to see the execution." The one on the left nodded and the two of them began walking away.
"Wait! What execution?" Ruby called out.
"The execution of Jarl Ulfric Stormcloak! If you want to see it, just follow this road and you'll be in Helgen in no time!" The one on the left called back as they hurried out of audible range.
Ruby ran back to where we were crouched and relayed what they had said, unbeknownst to her that we had heard it.
"Should we go to the Helgen place they talked about?" Ruby asked us.
"It seems like a good idea because it's a city and we might want a place to stay in for the night." Blake responded.
"Any objections?" Ruby asked.
"No.", "Nope." Yang, Blake and I said.
"Let's head out, then." Ruby said, disappearing once again in a red flash.
Yang and I groaned as we stood up and Blake stretched. Yang took the lead in our line and lead us along the road that would lead us to the town called "Helgen". It was a relief to not have my extremely expensive high-heels sink into the ground, instead they were scraping on the cobblestone roads of this weird place. It was slightly cold, even though it seemed to be autumn. I guess that's what would happen in an area ringed by large mountains. I looked towards a mountain that appeared to be towards the south and saw it reach extremely high towards the sky. Something told me that this was one of the shorter mountains. Yang was stopped up ahead and we looked to see why she had stopped. She stood before a sign that pointed to the different towns in the area. To the east was Helgen, but to the south west was Falkreath Hold.
"Should we keep going to Helgen? I think Falkreath Hold would be a bigger town." Blake asked us.
"We decided on Helgen, and Ruby already ran off." Yang responded.
"So what did you stop for?" I asked her.
"I couldn't read the names of the cities. The wood is really old, so it was hard to read from a distance." She responded.
"Helgen is to the east." I informed her. She nodded and continued on along the road.
She lead us along the road again and we continued to walk down the cobblestone paths. We passed a few cat-people that called themselves "Khajiit" and spoke in third person. We didn't have any of the "coin" that they wanted for their wares. Though "moon sugar" and "Skooma" sound like drugs. My high-heels were getting scratched up and those "Khajiit" faunus people didn't have any high-heels to sell me. When we had a city in sight, Ruby ran up to us.
"Those men guarding the gates told me that I had to be a resident to enter." Ruby pointed to men dressed in red and leather. What's with all the leather?
"Let's go talk to them, then." Yang said, walking to the men without waiting for us.
"Wait for us!" Ruby called, running after Yang.
When we showed up at the gates, the men there looked at us confused from our clothes.
"Halt! Only residents are allowed in and out of the town at this time. I suggest you move along." Said the one who appeared to be the commanding officer.
"We are lost and need a place to stay." Yang told them.
"Are you residents of Helgen?" The Captain asked.
"No." She replied and started to say something else, but was cut off.
"Then I cannot allow you four to enter. I suggest you head back down to Falkreath, or head north to Whiterun if you're looking for a place to stay." The Captain said, sternly.
"Let's go then." Yang told us, walking away.
We followed after her and once again headed down the cobblestone paths, this time heading to the south west towards Falkreath. However, a loud roar that seemingly cut through the air caused us to stop in our tracks.
"It's the Nevermore from before…" Ruby whispered. We all nodded, recognizing the roar from before. I looked back at the guards and saw them start to look uneasy, so that meant something is wrong.
We slipped off the road and hid in the bushes to wait and see if anything else happened. After about a minute or so, and hearing some yelling from the execution, the guards began to calm down. As soon as that happened, though, a second roar pierced through the air, this time louder than the first.
"There it is again…" Ruby whispered, a bit more nervously this time.
This time, the Nevermore came into view, and landed on one of the towers in the town. It sat there for a second, taking in the situation as the townspeople and guards began to freak out. Out of the chaos, we heard one woman's cry over everything else. "Dragon!".
"What's a dragon doing here?" Blake asked.
Before any of could respond the so-called dragon shot something out of it's mouth, which caused meteors to fall from the stars and crash unto this small town. Meteor after meteor fell and burnt this small town to the ground. Screaming from the families trapped inside washed over our ears and the only things we heard was the screaming and the fires. The soldiers we saw before led soldiers dressed like them out of Helgen and down the path we were standing on. After only a few minutes the city lay quiet, save the sound of fires. No more soldiers walked out of Helgen and no more families were screaming. Helgen was dead.
"Where do we go now?" Ruby asked, slightly frantically.
"North?" I offered.
"Why north?" Blake asked.
I pointed to the sign "There's a town called Riverwood to the north of here, and I think we should try to get away from this dragon." I told them.
"Let's go then." Yang said.
Ruby stuck with us this time, mainly because we should stick together incase of another dragon attack. Ruby and Blake walked in the front with me and Yang behind them. The second we stepped out of Helgen we noticed a ruin off in the distance. It was like it had a slanted roof, but the roof rotted away leaving the structure behind. But this was very far away.
The sun continued its ascent to the middle of the sky as we walked, and we heard wolves howling all around us once the remains of Helgen were out of sight. We got attacked a couple of times by passing wolf packs, which were quite weak. As soon as we began fending off the wolves, we realized that we needed supplies. I didn't think that there was dust in this place, so we would need to find a new set of weapons, or a dust substitute. Yang's gauntlets were out as a weapon because they were fully fueled by dust. Ruby's and Blake's were partially fueled by dust, so they just utilized their blades in an effort to conserve dust as much as possible. The thought of not being able to use their dust as freely as they used to didn't bother them too much, but it did make all of us slightly more nervous about this place than before. Thankfully, I don't have to share in their dust restriction, since all of the dust I'll need is imbued in Myrtenaster. Once we were sure that we were in the clear, we were finally able to take a moment to relax and asses the current situation. After a brief look around, Yang spotted a small grassy clearing that was slightly hidden away by the trees and rocks that wasn't too far from the road. We decided to take a small break in our journey to this "Riverwood" place, and made our way to the clearing that Yang found.
"So, what are we going to do about the dust shortage?" Yang asked.
"I don't have to worry about dust." I triumphantly said.
"Blake and I have blades, so we should be okay." Ruby commented.
Yang looked at everyone's weapons, her own included. "Alright, let's head out again."
"In around half an hour." Yang quickly added.
After our half an hour "break", more like a siesta, we walked again along the paths that ruined my shoes. We walked along the winding path that was said to lead us to the town called Riverwood. We saw several foxes scamper past us, almost as if they were looking for something. No more than five minutes later we saw a man dressed in blue and with leather armor, also he had an iron sword, walking a man in the same uniform to Riverwood. The first one had the same hair color as Jaune, but barely looked like him otherwise. The other had brown hair and bluish eyes.
"The one on the left kind of looks like Jaune." Yang comments.
"Speaking of Jaune, where's team JNPR?" Ruby asked, suddenly confused.
"You mean they weren't with us this entire time?" Blake asked, "I must just be in shock because I saw them with us."
"Are you okay, Blake?" Yang asked.
"I hope so." Blake responds, holding her head.
"Hello, there!" The guy in front of us called back.
"Uh, hi." I respond.
He paused for a second and looked us over, getting the same confused look that everyone else has gotten so far, but he shook it off quickly.
"Did you four happen to come from Helgen?" He asked.
"We weren't allowed in at the gates by the soldiers that were there, but yes we saw the dragon there." Yang explained.
The man's face hardened when Yang mentioned the soldiers. "Damn Imperial scum, can't even allow four young girls entry when a 'glorious moment in the history of the Empire' is taking place."
"What's the 'Empire' and the 'Imperials'?" Ruby asked.
The man looked at her confused. "You mean to tell me that you, as an inhabitant of Tamriel, don't know about the Empire or the Imperials that run it?" He finished his sentence nearly chuckling.
"Tamriel?" Blake asked.
The man stopped chuckling, realizing that we seriously had no idea what he's talking about.
"W-Well then, if you don't hail from Tamriel, then where do you hail from?" He asked, now confused and slightly concerned.
"We're from Remnant, more specifically the Kingdom of Vale." Blake said.
"Remnant..., Kingdom of Vale..., can't say I've heard of either of those places." He paused for a second to gather his thoughts. "I guess what I should be asking is how did you four get here?"
"We were looking through some ruins and we found a scroll that got really bright, then we ended up in Falkreath Hold." Ruby summarized.
"Hmm, that's interesting. Confusing, yet at the same time, that scroll you mentioned seems fairly familiar. Could you describe it?" He asked.
"Very ornate and adorned with gems." I explained.
"Was it large and covered in gold?" He asked, adding onto his original question.
"Yes." Blake responded.
"By the Nine..." He said, now in shock.
"What?" Ruby asked, confused.
"I'll explain that later, but how did you four come across an Elder Scroll?" He asked.
"It was in a ruin that had brass pipes and brass doors." Ruby told him.
"Dwarven? Now how did they get their hands on one of those?" He said more to himself than to us.
"Who are the Dwarves?" Yang asked.
"Look, I wish I could have the time to sit around and explain this to you four, but I have to stand watch and see if any more survivors make it from Helgen. My friend here is heading to Whiterun to inform Jarl Balgruuf about the dragons, if you're looking for a place to stay, I suggest you head there." He said, patting his friend on the shoulder a couple times.
"Do you mind us traveling with you?" Ruby asked the other guy.
"Not at all, I would be happy to escort you." The man said.
"Thank you." We all told him.
We walked north towards the town called "Whiterun", and the river that ran alongside Riverwood seemed to continue all the way to Whiterun. We walked around a corner and saw a massive city out in the distance. A very large building overshadowed the other small buildings.
"Do you know what that is?" I asked the man.
"That would be Dragonsreach, that's where the Jarl and his family lives, and where he governs Whiterun Hold from." The man said.
"Why's it called Dragonsreach?" Ruby asked him.
"If I remember correctly, it's because in ancient times a Jarl trapped a dragon there. If I remembered the name of the book I read it in, I would've told you." He said, in a very matter-of-factly fashion.
"Makes sense." Ruby responded.
We continued along the cobblestone roads and reached a bridge and a road that went past a meadery.
"Should we go across the bridge or past the meadery?" Yang asked, standing in front of the bridge.
"If you go across the bridge, you'll be heading straight for The Pale. So unless you want to head up to Dawnstar, I suggest we go past the meadery." The man said, motioning for us to keep walking.
None of us knew what Dawnstar was, so we followed him to Whiterun.
We walked past a stable that had a man that called himself "Bjorlam" who offered rides on his carriage to any major cities in Skyrim. Whatever "Skyrim" is. After a minute of walking through the fortifications around Whiterun's entrance, we finally saw the large wooden door on the front of it.
"Halt! The Jarl has closed off the city with the dragons about." The man was dressed in yellow with leather. His garb looked similar in make to the man-we-walked-with's garb. Must be a common thing to wear horrible looking armor around here.
Blake was about to say something to the guard, but the man cut her off.
"Riverwood calls for the Jarl's aid." He said, sternly.
"And what about the four...girls that are accompanying you?" The guard asked.
"They were at Helgen when the dragon attacked, like me, and they seek sanctuary in Whiterun." The man said.
"Alright then, you may enter. But no funny business, or you'll be tossed right back out." The guard said, seemingly more to us than the man.
With that, the two guards stationed at the gate pushed it open, and we entered Whiterun.
