"What would an ocean be without a monster lurking in the dark? It would be like sleep without dreams."

― Werner Herzog

"Þurh modgemynd bi þam miclan hwale.

Se bið unwillum oft gemeted,

frecne ond ferðgrim, fareðlacendum,

niþþa gehwylcum; þam is noma cenned,

fyrnstreama geflotan, Fastitocalon."

"The great sea-monster which is often unwillingly met,

terrible and cruel-hearted to seafarers,

yea, to every man.

this swimmer of the ocean-streams is known

as Fastitocalon.

-The Whale; Old Egnlish poem

The old man who sat huddled in his ragged blanket on the Windhelm docks spoke of monsters. Monsters on the Sea of Ghosts- terrible, hateful things with a hundred eyes and razor-filled maws and lashing tentacles and ship-shearing claws and above all else with a bottomless hunger, such a hunger that they could devour all the men in the world, aye and the Mer and the beastmen also, and never sate but the slightest portion of it. He would speak of monsters, and nothing more.

Ylva Alfhildsdottir, called Sure-Shot by some, could barely make out the old man's words from where she stood, huddled under the Argonian Assemblage's awning talking to the dockworker Neetreenaza about a trade she'd really rather the guards know nothing of. She listened with half an ear as the Argonian talked, watching the small knot of guardsmen who were in turn watching the old man. Neetreenaza continued his rambling discourse on the difficulty of procuring the item in questions, gesturing furiously to illustrate his point before sighing and saying, "You're not listening to a word I'm saying, are you, smoothskin?"

She raised her hands defensively. "Easy, friend. I was listening to you. The old man's rambling caught my attention for a spell, aye, but I was listening to you. You told me to keep an eye out for the guards, and I have, and to not breathe a word of this to them or anyone else, and I won't."

"Well," he muttered, "fair enough." He gestured to the small bundle she held in her hands. 'Anyway, remember, mix with a double-handful of warm water, and stir well. Burn the stick afterwards; you don't want to use the good spoons for this. This'll take care of all your problems, guaranteed. Old Argonian recipe."

She handed him the sack of troll livers he'd asked her for last week, they shook hands, and with one last cautious glance around the docks he slunk off, leaving her to her thoughts.

She leaned back, wrapped the damp wool of her cloak tighter around herself, and cursed the rain, the cold, and the entire city of Windhelm viciously.

The docks of Windhelm were a miserable place- always have been, and it'd take a blessing from the gods or another Miracle of Peace to improve the situation. The reek of old fish and decay, the stumps of rotted pilings from the old docks and the rotten wood of docks that desperately needed replacement, the bitter mumblings of the exploited Argonian dockhands in an incomprehensible patois of Cyrodiilic and Jel, the overcast sky that alternatively poured forth snow and freezing rain; and overlooking it all were the grim, blue-clad Windhelm guard with their sturdy oak truncheons ready to crack the skulls of the rebellious or malingering or just excessively foreign.

The city had been built by snow-elven slaves, battle-captives from the Battle of the Moesring back in the Merethic, as the capital of the First Empire of the Nords. Ysgrammor had them all executed after it was finished, to spare him the trouble of feeding them. Walls mortared with elven bones, or so the Nords say. It was a boast to them, testament to the strength of man over Mer.

What a shithole.

Ylva hated Windlem. You wouldn't think it to look at her; with hair the vibrant red of fresh-spilled blood and blue glacial ice for eyes, with muscles thickened by labor and toned by the traveller's road, and with her garments of tanned pelts, she looked every inch one of the old Bear's 'True Nords.'

She'd spit in your face to hear it. She was no milk-drinking worshipper of 'mighty Talos', no fawning kneeler licking the blood off the boots of some fool with a piece of gaudy gold on their brow, be they Imperial or Stormcloak- no follower of an oath-breaking tyrant-king whose pretty words could never scrub clean the stains of dishonor that king-killing and cowardice had caked on his reputation. Ylva could care less about the Greybeards and their Way of the Voice or the Empire or the petty kings of men, but Ulfric had sworn oaths to each and broken them all, and even daedra-worshippers knew the power of oaths and the folly of breaking them.

She considered spitting at the feet of one of the guards to show her disgust for a moment, relishing the thought of a good brawl to warm her blood against the dank chill, but then thought better of it. Nords the guards may be, but they lacked the traditional willingness to engage in friendly scuffles, or at least put that willingness on hold while they wore the uniform, and she had no desire to spend her night in Windhelm's dungeon, or blunt Veidr-hrafn's edge splitting the cheap helms. Her mother's sword left it's scabbard rarely these days, but better little use than poor use.

Although, given the way two of the guards were rousing at the old man sitting harmlessly in one of the small dinghies bobbing in the water to the side of a green-painted longboat for what seemed scant cause, splitting their skulls might be honorable enough work after all.

She walked over to remonstrate with the guards, pulling her hood down low to block out the bitterly cold sea wind, but found her way blocked by another, who stuck his hand near to her face and said in a low voice, "Easy, kinswoman. No need for trouble." He gave her armor and weapons a careful look- at least, it had best be her armor he was staring at- gaze lingering on the well-worn killing blade scabbarded at her side and the old hunters bow on her back. "They'll not harm the old man, but he's scaring the sailors with his ramblings. Can't have them shaking too hard in their boots to go back on the waters, eh? We'd all go without fish, and I can't imagine Windhelm without fish!"

A blatant distraction it was, but Ylva had to admire the smoothness of his tongue. She wondered if his father was an Imperial, but refrained from asking. "Aye," she agreed easily, relaxing her stance and holding her hands out slightly away from her sword, "it would be a hungrier city indeed, but better smelling!" She grinned to take the sting out of it.

The guard laughed. "You've a point there! Ah, but we'd miss the smell! How else would we know we were in Windhelm, and not in Sovngarde? Are you a warrior, here to join the Stormcloaks?" He looked again at her armor, seeming to take in her traveler's pack and the collection of tightly-rolled hides lashed below the sleeping mat. "Ah, no, you'd be a hunter, then, come to sell your wares at the market, right? Oengul War-Anvil the blacksmith buys pelts sometimes, for fittings and suchlike, but honestly you'd be better off selling to that dark elf merchant in the marketplace, Alval. He's always willing to buy fine furs, and you sure look like you- ah, see? They're taking him away now."

"No trouble for him, I hope?" she replied, crossing her arms. "The dungeon might be an improvement on the docks in this weather, but still hardly the place for an elder who's lost his mind, if such he has."

"What? Oh, no, they- hey, Ullr! Where are you taking the old man?" He turned to the other guards as they half guided, half dragged the old man out of his dinghy and onto the dock.

One looked up from his labor and replied, "Candlehearth Hall! Going to take old Shorsten here for a nice mug of spiced mead and a good meal, burn the chill out of his bones." Ylva could barely hear his next, muttered words. "And out of his head."

"There you have it, kinswoman," he said happily, turning back to her, "he's off to the inn to warm up." He cast an eye to the clouds. "And perhaps best you join him! Look at the clouds; be freezing rain if I'm not mistaken, enough to bury the docks in an inch of ice if we're unlucky, and won't that be a pain and a lot of salt to clean off! We already scattered gravel, but watch your step tomorrow, it'll be damned slippery going! Could break your neck. Wouldn't want that."

The last was pointed, and Ylva held up her hands in surrender. "Fair enough," she replied. "I can buy fish another day!" It hadn't been her reason for coming to the docks and talking to the Argonian, but no need for him to know about that, was there? Her affairs were hers, and none of the Windhelm guard's concern.

She let him hurry her away from the dock and it's whispering, sullen-eyed sailors up a narrow stairway towards one of the smaller city entrances, hand irritatingly possessive on her shoulder. "So," he asked as they walked, "I'm Baldor. Just a guardsman, but hoping to be released so I can enlist. What's your story, huntress? And your name, of course! Can't keep calling you 'huntress'!"

"Ylva," she replied. "Yvla Sure-Shot, they call me. A huntress, yah, and a traveler. I set my feet where I choose, live off the land, and sell fine pelts when I need the coin. A hard life, aye- ach, damn these stairs are slippery-" She nodded politely as he promised to pour gravel on them his next shift, and continued "but a fulfilling one, you know?" And so, with cheerful talk and rambling bluster, she let Baldor lead her to the inn.

But, she thought, I am going to have words with the old man. Just you try and stop me!

"Gods… they're all dead. It killed them. It killed them all."

It turned out that a heavy blanket and a mug of Elda Early-Dawn's famous hot spiced mead had not worked the miracles Baldor had expected. The old man had been set near the fire in one of the comfortable Breton-style armchairs, but the thousand-yard stare on his face and the heavy trembling of his hands that threatened to send his drink splashing over the rim suggested that the comforts were lost on him.

The conversation in the upper floor of Candlehearth Hall was muted, the spirits of the people dampened by the old man's misery. The sailors and off-duty guardsmen kept their voices low out of respect, and even that loud-mouthed sellsword Stenvar seemed loathe to engage in his usual boisterous drunken nonsense.

The old sailor had a bandage over one eye and more around both hands and wrists, the blood seeping slowly through indicating wounds that, while not life-threatening by any means, clearly showed that whatever it was he was babbling about had in fact occurred. If the strange marks visible on his face were any indication, not only had whatever "it" was been real, it had had teeth. Sharp ones. Strange, though. All her years of hunting, she'd never seen bite marks like that. They looked almost… round?

"Nine save me," he whispered, staring at his drink like it was a portal into Oblivion itself. "Nine save me." He was trembling.

Ylva, having seen Baldor off with vague promises to buy him a drink the next time she was in town, crouched beside his chair, waving off Suzana as she tried to protest, and asked gently, "What is 'it,' old man? What did this to you?"

"Nothing did that to him," Stenvar grumbled from his seat in the corner, glaring sullenly from over his tankard of frothy ale. "He got in a shipwreck or something. No need for everyone to act like the world's ending. These things happen. There's a big storm, mast breaks off, ship runs aground, sailors get smacked all over the ship. Happens."

The old sailor looked up from his mug, glared over at the mouthy sellsword, and said "Monsters. Monsters took me ship, ate me crew. They did! I was there! I saw it! With my own two eyes I saw it! Saw it clear, saw it clear as day when it ripped me eye out, I did!"

"Easy, sailor," Ylva said gently, with the same soothing tone she'd use to calm a panicking hound or horse, laying a hand on his arm. With the way his chest was heaving and his eyes were near to rolling back in his head in fear, he almost looked like one. She wished she had studied illusion magic with the hags when she spent time with their Hircine-worshipping coven back in the Reach- a good Calm spell would have worked wonders here, but she'd neglected the art, and she hardly had the time or opportunity to put the alchemy she'd learned into use. Well, good old-fashioned talk would have to do. "I don't doubt you. Ignore the lout; he's just sore Suzana isn't flirting with him anymore. Please, tell us more."

The old sailor calmed slightly, and took a deep fortifying draught of his mead. The old Nord cure for all that ails you seemed to work, as his hands steadied somewhat and his breathing calmed. "Shorsten. Me, I'm Shorsten I mean, Shorsten Salt-Mane. A sailor. Been a sailor all me life, man and boy before th' mast. Crewed the Mermaid, a merchantman, for these last five years under Captain Aspidia. Good captain she is- was. We sailed fer th' East India company; ebony ingots, rare furs-"

At this, Ylva nodded slowly. 'Aye, I sold pelts to the East India Company, many a time. Like as not you shipped my pelts- I hear tell rich folk in Cyrodiil have a hankering for Skyrim pelts."

"Ah? 'zat so?" Shorsten asked, nodding thoughtfully. "You th' one took those two fine ice trolls back, what was it, year an' a half ago? Heavy damn things, I remember. Took two of us to haul each one up. Leather strong enough to turn a longbow shot, I'd reckon."

"Aye, if I remember aright. Two big bucks they were, mean bastards, and tall as Ysmir. Took some strong poison on my arrows to keep them down without fire, and tough shooting to catch 'em in the eye where the hide wouldn't protect them, but worth it in the end." A silly diversion, maybe, when discussing such dreadful events, but it had the intended effect. Shorsten seemed calmer now, his gaze steady and his words calm and collected.

Stenvar growled, and Ylva turned to glare at him. He was sitting hunched forward in his seat, abandoning any pretence of not listening. "If you're gonna make the old man talk, let him talk! Enough yacking about furs."

He opened his mouth to say more, but held his tongue as he found a heavy green hand clutching his shoulder. The orcish woman- one of the sailors or so Ylva presumed from her salt-stained coat and cuffed boots- seemed to squeeze, and Stenvar went pale, even for a Nord. "Go on," she said calmly. "Finish the story, Shorsten."

"Aye," he sighed. "Aye. So, as I said, I crewed th' Mermaid under Aspidia. Ran th' trade route from Windhelm to Farrun to Stros M'kai and back, hauling pelts and ivory and ebony there, and brought rum and amber back. Good work, especially when we got to warmer waters. Ah, you can barely believe th' memories now, here in th' cold…" he trailed off, his eyes distant, fixed on happier times. He shook his head as though to clear the memories from it, and continued. "We were on th' run back, mebbe three, four days out of Hsaaric's Head I reckon, when we first saw it. Just a glimpse at first, really, a flash o' something that come outta th' water, and then woosh, back under before you caught more'n a flash o' light off it. Mebbe there was scales on, mebbe there wasn't. Was it a serpent, a whale, th' tentacle o' some larger beast? We jes couldn't tell. Th' captain, she told it 'twas nothing, and we believed, damned fools. Laughed, we did, and joked, and placed bets on what it really was. I had full twenty septims on a giant squid 'gainst that Breton Francois' shark. Oh, we thought it quite th' jape. But then came the stench."

Several of the patrons laughed or snorted at this, only to be silences by Shorsten's deathglare, and by the quiet gasps of some of the sailors.

"Reek o' th' grave, it was, an' it hung over us like a thick fog. Came from nowhere we could find, it did, though we tore the ship apart fore t' aft searching for somethin' gone rotten or moldy. No, the stink came from the ocean, bubbling out of the depths. And, aye, on the second day the sea did bubble. Not heavy, mind, but steady, an' a green fog did come out. Little enough that you could see it only when th' light hit it right, but th' stink as powerful enough that it knocked th' gulls out of the damned sky. Near rained them, it did; their little bodies breaking in the deck. The little bodies…" His gaze went distant again. "Ill omen, it was," he said firmly. "Ill omen."

"Aye, and then what," Yova asked urgently.

"Then what? Then it damned well killed us all, girl. All but me. I was on watch at th' time, dawn watch, and th' sun was barely o'er the horizon when I first saw it. A squid it was in truth, judgin' by th' tentacles that rose outta the water and broke the ship's very spine like a twig, and I tell ye I've been so saddened t' be right.

We sank like a damned stone, far to fast t' get t' th' was bare ten of us left clingin' to broken boards or barrels, includin' meself. Th' water was icy as Ysmir's frozen breath, and everyone who wasn't a Nord died in th' first hour of the cold, no matter what we did t' war, them. Olaf called fire down, with magic ye see, but the cold… it were too much. Worse hisself to the bone calling fire, but never enough to drive the cold away. Died himself, he did, worn thin 'till the cold got him.

The beast… it did nothin'. Didn't eat any o' us, didn't tear at th' ship, didn't even stay t' gloat. Just… vanished. We meant nothin' t' it. Might not even have known we were there."