(AN: My Warcraft fics have brought me back to this website, so I thought that I would give to those who have been patiently waiting an update to this story! Yay!)
(I will give you all a hint, which might give you an idea about what's happening in this chapter. The hint is this: the deeper i delved into the Elder Scrolls lore, the weirder things got.)
A Breach
Sigrun struggled as best she could, but her two captors were too strong for her to break free. The tunnels were dark and there were so many twists and turns that, though she hadn't been knocked out, she soon lost any notion of where she was going. Still she struggled against her captors, hoping that she might find a weakness and be able at last to break free: it hadn't happened yet.
"Go ahead and...struggle!" one of her captors taunted. "It'll be that much easier to break you once you're worn out."
"Why not just knock me out?" Sigrun returned. "Make your jobs a lot easier."
"Shut up, b*tch!" the second shouted, punching Sigrun in the face and causing blood to coalesce at her mouth where she bit her lip upon the blow. "Number One wants you awake for every minute."
"Besides," the first one returned. "Even if you happen to break free, where are you gonna go? We know these tunnels better than you."
For the next several minutes, Sigrun was led through the dark tunnels, with no idea where she was going. More so than this, there was something strange happening all around her, which the guards seemed not to notice. Periodically the dark walls of the tunnels would give way to the amber fields of Whiterun, and Sigrun would see her companion with her: now it was Jonna, now an older woman with dark hair, now a man with red hair, and then another woman whom she did not recognize. A sharp pain tore through her stomach, as though she was being torn apart. The grass faded into dead, burned earth. Far away, on the tops of the mountains, a giant made of brass strode through the mountains, each foot echoing like the pounding strikes upon a great drum.
Suddenly a light appeared and Sigrun saw where she was being led to: the dungeons inside this cave system. The guards led her to a room with a wooden table, with one end stained with blood. Though she couldn't guess as of yet what they were going to do to her, she struggled against her captors. Two larger guards appeared from the shadows and seized Sigrun's feet: now she was incapable of freeing herself. The four guards dragged her kicking and shouting onto the table, holding her down despite her protests. From the shadows there appeared another figure; an old Dunmer woman with shaven head dressed as a priest. Her hands were stained with blood and there was an empty look in her dark red eyes: nothing lived there anymore, no pity, no remorse, no sympathy.
"You've got some spirit," she said, her cracked lips twisting into a crooked smile. "That's good. Breaking you will be quite enjoyable."
"Now now, sister," one of the guards replied. "Number One wants the honor of breaking this one first."
"Never thought she'd have a personal interest in my business," the old woman laughed. She then turned to Sigrun. "I wouldn't be getting too comfortable if I were you, poppet. There are plenty of ways we can have fun that won't spoil your usefulness to Number One."
With that, the old woman brought forth manacles from the floor, which she fastened about Sigrun's wrists and ankles, then pulled tight the chains until her arms and legs were stretched outward. The old woman stepped between the space between Sigrun's legs and drew forth from her belt a blood-stained knife.
There was a brilliant flash of green and two of the guards flew backwards into the stone walls of the cave. A bright blue flash and the old Dunmer woman disappeared completely. The remaining two guards ran back towards the tunnel, weapons drawn and voices raised in challenge at the newcomer, still shrouded in darkness and invisible to Sigrun. Suddenly both of the guards let out pained groans, as though they had been mortally wounded, and fell backwards. A low rumble was heard and Sigrun's bonds shattered. Another flash of light shone, then gently faded to a soft glow and the room was illuminated.
Sigrun's eyes slowly adjusted to all the bursts of light, and then when the light faded to a glow, she saw the room into which she had been brought. It was a torture chamber, outfitted with all manner of instruments of pain and suffering known to man or mer throughout Tamriel. With a horrified yell she practically fell off the table: the blood-stained end was directly between her legs, and it didn't take long for her to guess what they would have done to her.
Looking about for her rescuer, Sigrun saw nothing else in the room but a soft glowing ball of light. Warily she walked towards it, then noticed that it began to recede away from her. She had no weapon and none present save for a whip that hung upon the wall; the only one with any weapon was the old Dunmer woman, who was nowhere to be found. With nothing but her hands, raised at the ready in case an enemy assaulted her, Sigrun walked forward, following the little globe of light.
It led through the tunnels, winding this way and that, until Sigrun became quite lost in trying to keep track of where she had been. All around her, she heard the sounds of women rallying, the Sisters of Strife were still searching for her. Every moment she feared that she would stumble upon one of them and the chase would be up. Yet the little sphere of light led her through the tunnels, never once leading her into the path of an enemy. After a while, the orb seemed to sink down towards the floor. Sigrun looked down and saw her sword and shield lying there, waiting for her. How it arrived there she could not guess: perhaps her rescuer, the one who had conjured this floating ball of light, was a powerful mage? The memory of the old man in the woods who had chased off the wolves came to mind. Once Sigrun had her sword and shield in hand, the ball floated back up to eye level, and continued to lead the way through the dark tunnels.
She went forward slowly at first, brandishing her sword and shield held at arm's length, in case of assaults. All around her came the echoes of the Sisters of Strife running to and fro through the tunnels; sometimes faint and distant, sometimes so close at hand that she was looking this way and that, after the noises around her. Yet still the light moved forward, seemingly slowly. She passed out through a fork in the tunnel, with one path leading straight forward and another path passing from the left and down across her path into darkness on the right. From the left-hand came cries, as if someone had spotted her. Instinctively, Sigrun lurched forward down the forward path, and the ball of light zoomed back, as if moving faster in answer to her urgency.
Now she ran down the tunnels, and the ball flew ahead of her, keeping pace with her haste. The sounds of pursuit behind her were faint, but magnified upon the bare stone tunnels. Yet she was a Nord, not the least hearty of her race, and the child of Eirik Bjornsson. And she was healthy and strong, having eaten food from the table of the Sisters of Strife. Having regained her strength from the slower wandering before finding her weapons, she could keep up this pace for a good while without doubling over. Yet for some reason, as she ran out into the darkness of the tunnels, winding this way and that as the light led her, the tunnel seemed to twist and contort around her, turning from stone to fog: only the ball of light, receding still before her, leading her on, remained untouched. But around her, out of the mist, images started to appear. Some of them were familiar, images right out of the dreams she had seen in her sleep: others were quite different.
A bald Altmer drove his spear through the back of another Altmer. Or were they truly Altmer? As she looked at them, she saw that their heads were not as long, nor their eyes as squint and slanted, as those of the Altmer. A dark-haired woman, little less in height than Jonna, took up an old black staff and turned into a gray-haired old man. She saw her father, astride the Tongues of Old, staring down a great black dragon. A Dunmer male with half of his face golden was dancing about, completely naked, babbling nonsense: or was it a male at all? A strange Argonian was kissing her mother! Strange creatures, both human and mechanical, with strange devices upon their heads, like empty boxes made of metal and glass, loomed out of the mist. She saw herself saving a baby bear from a dragon, only to burst into flames even as she did. A great wheel swiveled about on its rim, and became a rimless sphere with no sides.
Even as her mind seemed that it would break with all this knowledge, the tiny ball of light burst into a great burning blaze. Perhaps it was in response to the things she had seen, or from the sudden explosion of light; Sigrun closed her eyes and covered her face with her shield. The cold wind blew against her face: she breathed in through her nostrils and gasped in relief. She smelled the free, open air of the outside world.
She was outside again.
For a moment, Sigrun smiled. She was free and had escaped the perils of the Sisters of Strife. The cool air that met her made her happy, and for the present, that was enough.
There was a bright flash of light, and the orb vanished. Sigrun looked this way and that, but did not recognize where she had found herself. There were golden plains this way and that, with lines of mountains in the distance on all sides; but the westernmost mountains were slightly nearer than the ones in the other direction. The sun was still in the sky, that much was certain, and it seemed that she had time enough to put some distance between herself and the cave before nightfall. Her mind and heart went back to Jonna, who was last seen in Whiterun. But she had no idea where she was in relation to Whiterun.
Wait, Sigrun, just wait, she told herself. Think. Remember what papa used to say; if you get lost, just look for the Throat of the World.
This was meant for how she could find her way home: the full very went that she would find the mountain, the highest peak in all of Skyrim, and follow it until she found the White River. This would, in turn, lead her back to Lake Ilinalta, upon whose southern shores her house was located. But for her purposes, she knew that the Throat of the World sat just east of Whiterun, where she would need to be going. Therefore she looked about the golden plains of the tundra of Whiterun, looking for the tallest peak she could find. North she looked first, in the direction of the cold winds: the mountains were faint, crowned with snow and girded in a distant haze from the marshes below, but none of them stood out in her mind as the fabled peak of the Greybeards. Her blue-gray eyes turned to the west, where the land rippled and fell into steep, sheer crags, undulating on and on until they rose up again to meet the clear blue sky. But none of those peaks were the Throat of the World. To the south she turned, and looked face to face with the rocky cliff-face into whose side the cave wound away, towards her enemy. She made a quick jog eastward, coming around the bulk of the cliff-face to look at the land beyond it. It rolled upward, being lost in the emerald haze of ironwood and pine trees: that way was Falkreath, the way back home. The trees climbed on and on, until they failed at last and the mountains rose up to bar the path southward, but there was no great height that way. East she turned but saw only rocky hills in the distance, blocking her view any farther.
Dammit, she thought. If I could get up on top of this hill, maybe I could see what's beyond those peaks.
Eagerly she made her way up the cliff to its brink. As she walked up, she passed by a deer's body that had fallen upon a long, moss-covered boulder. It was a strange sight, a deer lying dead in the wild having not already been made the sport of wild beasts. But she didn't spend time pondering it, for she still had her goal in mind. She went up the rest of the hill; her left foot slid on some loose gravel as she ascended, but she quickly recovered and so claimed the summit. Here she looked east again; there, in the distance, like a faint purple smudge upon the horizon, loomed a massive peak whose top was lost among the lofty clouds of the heavens. No other mountain in all of Skyrim could have rightly born the name of Throat of the World than this one. Sigrun smiled: she now knew where she was, somewhere in the western half of the amber plains of Whiterun. The only trouble now was getting there.
As she was making her way back down the hill, she let out a quiet gasp and halted. What she had thought had been a rock was now moving. The first thought that came to her mind was a troll: she never heard of trolls coming this far out from the woods or the mountains, but there was always a first time for anything. She held up her shield and aimed her sword at the figure, her mind pondering whether she should strike now or wait to see if it was indeed a troll.
"Who's there?" a voice asked, and Sigrun caught herself from making a sound again: the voice came from the thing that had risen up from the ground, and it was the voice of a human, or some other intelligent being either mer or beast-folk, and decidedly not a troll.
"Who are you?" Sigrun asked. "What do you want?"
"Want?" the voice asked again. "I was sleeping just now when small rocks rained down on my head. Was that you?"
"Maybe," Sigrun returned. "Why were you asleep out in the wilderness?"
"Where would one traveling off the roads spent the night?" asked the voice.
"Anywhere but here," Sigrun responded. "Now get up, on your feet. Let me look at you."
The shape moved and Sigrun saw that what she had taken to be a boulder was actually a weather-beaten cloak wrapped around the form of a Nord man. She could tell that he was a Nord based on his height and his long beard, red like the color of his hair. He wore leather traveling gear that was at least half a size too large for him, and had a bow and quiver upon his back and a sword lying on the ground where he had been sleeping. Sigrun swallowed hard, but did her best to maintain her composure: she had the distinct recollection of seeing this man somewhere before.
"You look like some kind of rogue," she said.
"I assure you, I'm nothing of the sort," the red-haired man replied. "My name is Erik, and I'm from Rorikstead. Now if you've been sent by my father to take me back, I suggest you go back and tell him that I've made up my mind."
"I...what?" asked Sigrun. "No, I'm not taking you back anywhere. I just want to know what you were doing up here."
"Sleeping," Erik returned.
"But it's almost noon," Sigrun said. "How can you be sleeping with the day ahead of us?"
"I was up all night," said Erik.
"Looting and killing?" Sigrun asked.
"On the run," Erik retorted. "There are some dangerous people about these parts..."
"Yeah, I'm looking at one," Sigrun interjected. "Or maybe that bow and that sword are just for show?"
"Not for show," Erik said, with a slight smile as he examined his captor, with sleep now fully removed from his eyes. "But not for looting, and only killing what tries to kill me."
"Right," Sigrun replied in disbelief. "And if you're not a rogue, then why were you sleeping out in the wilderness?"
Erik scoffed. "It wasn't my choice. Practically fell asleep where you found me."
"And the animal?"
"Kind of a last minute thing, really," he said. "See, I shot him yesterday morning, took his skin and wore it like this. Took it with me when I left home I did: felt it would be useful."
"Why?" Sigrun asked.
"Rorikstead's on the border of the Reach," Erik began. "The Kingdom of the Reachmen, they call it. The Forsworn wear deer pelts and antlers for their armor; they're the only ones the Sisters of Strife won't mess with."
"You've heard of the Sisters of Strife?" Sigrun asked.
"Yes," Erik nodded. "They've raided Rorikstead several times in the last few years. Killing the men and boys, abducting women and girls. What becomes of them, I've never heard."
"You know their hideout is beneath us, right?" Sigrun asked.
"Well, in that case," Erik returned. "Let's put some miles between us and them, shall we? Unless you want to fight, in which case, I would ask that you let me pick up my sword first."
"I'm not here to fight you," Sigrun returned. "I..." She sighed, frustrated as she remembered that they were likely still looking for her. "Look, I'm not friends of them either, and I need to get out of here fast." She lowered her shield, but her sword she kept held up.
"Which way are you going?" she asked.
"Whiterun," he returned.
"Then go in front of me," she said. "I want to make sure you don't try anything. And pick up your sword."
They went onward, going eastward toward the Throat of the World, with Erik at the front and Sigrun following behind him, her sword in hand and ready to be drawn if need be. While they walked, Sigrun thought about where she might have met this person before. Her first thoughts were to the times she had gone to Riverwood, prior to coming out this way: she couldn't recall ever seeing him there. Perhaps he had been a friend of her father's? They both bore the same name; though her father's was closer to the Old Atmoran, the language spoken by the people of Skyrim within the first seven centuries after Ysgramor, and his was how it was rendered these days in the Common Tongue.
Hours passed by as they walked on in silence, with the distant trumpeting of mammoths upon the tundra plain the only sound they could hear for miles. At last, having flogged the recesses of her mind and found nothing, Sigrun decided that there was a more direct way of finding out. As a result, when Erik said that she was beautiful, she had laughed it off and thought nothing of it. While she wasn't ignorant of the ways of the world, she did not believe that anyone considered her fair in any way.
While they walked on, Erik began whistling to the tune of Ragnar the Red, a favorite folk song and often heard in the taverns of Skyrim.
"Can you stop, please?" Sigrun asked.
"Why?" Erik asked. "Aren't we going to Whiterun? That's the direction, so I've heard."
"It's just that your whistling is really shrill," Sigrun returned.
"Well, if I'm to your prisoner," Erik returned. "Can I at least have the pleasure of merry-making while I'm still alive?"
"You're nobody's prisoner," Sigrun stated. "We're going to Whiterun, and I don't feel comfortable having you behind me."
Erik grinned. "Why not?"
"You know what I mean!" Sigrun snapped. "Meeting you out of nowhere in the wilds, I have no reason to trust you."
"Well, then," Erik stated. "It's in my best interest to earn your trust."
"And how would you do that, exactly?" Sigrun asked.
"I could carry your burdens for you," Erik returned.
"And what's to stop you from running off with my valuables once you have them?"
"I'm not a thief, dammit!"
"I remain unconvinced."
"What about a traveling companion?"
"I have one already. She waits for me in Whiterun."
"What about money?"
"I'm not taking money from a thief."
"I..." Erik groaned in frustration. "I told you before, I'm not a thief! This is honest money, earned from years of work at my father's farm in Rorikstead. I've been saving up money for the journey ever since the Sons of Skyrim had their battle upon the plains of Whiterun seventeen years ago."
"Wait," Sigrun said, her eyes widening with surprise. "You know about the Battle on the Plains?"
"Yes," Erik replied. "I mean, I wasn't part of the battle, but you could hear it from miles around. Rumor has it the Dragonborn was at that battle, making all that noise; shouting, they say he was. It was that moment when I realized that if I waited around for my father to let me leave home, I'd be waiting for the rest of my life."
"I see," Sigrun stated. "But that was seventeen years ago, and you said you only just left yesterday. So what have you been doing since then?"
"Working," Erik sighed. "I know, no great deeds worthy of song. But our fortunes took a turn for the worse after the end of the Civil War. The Empire gave the Forsworn control over the Reach; that was the start of our problems. After that, the Empire's taxes grew and we suffered more and more. My father could barely make ends meet these days."
"So you left him to fend for himself while you went off looking for adventure?" Sigrud asked incredulously.
"No," Erik replied. "Well, not exactly. I've been saving up money for this journey for many years, ever since the Battle of the Plains. I wanted to make sure that my father had workers to tend the farm for him in my absence, so he'd not be left to starve on his own. Besides, unless something is done, there may not even be a Rorikstead to come home to."
Sigrud said nothing in response to this. His words held true for her, for they spoke to her desire to see Skyrim free of the evils that had been plaguing it of late. For some time they walked on in silence, the amber fields of Whiterun's tundra rippling in the cold morning wind. Ever they kept the sun ahead of them, for it would lead them at last to the city of Whiterun, which still lay east of them. After a little while longer, Sigrun thought she would put more questions to Erik.
"Erik," she spoke. He looked back briefly, though they continued walking. "You seem...somewhat familiar. Have we met?"
He shrugged. "I think I'd remember seeing someone as beautiful as you."
Sigrun chuckled. "Flattery won't get anywhere with me; and I haven't decided what I'm going to do with you, so I wouldn't paint a target on my back if I were you." He apologized and turned back around, saying no more.
As for Sigrun, his response had caught her as a surprise more than a cause for anger. For all of her young adult life, she believed that she was more or less tall and plain: she had her father's brown hair, rather than the golden hair that was considered especially beautiful among the Nords of Skyrim. Not in her wildest dreams could she have imagined that she would be held as fair in the eyes of another. Even as she mulled over this sad thought, it suddenly came to her; like a flash of lightning, she realized precisely where she had seen this man's face.
In the dreams she had witnessed while she escaped the caves. Why she had seen this man in her dreams, when she had never seen him before in her life, was a mystery. She half-believed that he could have been the one who had saved her from the wolves, but didn't hold to this thought very long. This man was a warrior and there was no mystery about him; that is, not the same air of mystery and dread that that one gave her. Now in her mind she had two things in her mind, if not three altogether. She would learn what was happening in Skyrim (as she had gained knowledge of in part from her conversation with Erik) and do her part to help, she would seek out Jonna and be reunited with her: no matter what had happened between them that had brought about their falling out, she knew in her heart that they belonged together and not apart.
Lastly, she would learn just who this man Erik was and for what reason his face haunted her dreams and visions.
(AN: This chapter has taken a long while getting out, for sure. Aside from what I've usually been whining about [health and real life obligations], I've lost interest in writing this particular story. The person who I based Sigrun on turned out to be another shill, and writing stories in the Elder Scrolls lore is an exercise in futility when you can literally say 'all the lore books lie' and 'it was a Dragon break' and get away with making an ungodly mess of contradictions.)
(I do have a question for all of you, though, who happen to be reading this story [all one of you]: if an Elder Scrolls movie or television series were made, where would you want it to be set? I think Morrowind would be a struggle only because prosthesis would be the most logical way of depicting the non-human mer while keeping that relatable "human" element that movie-goers enjoy [if you really think movie-going audiences will like a fantasy setting with 51% CGI, just look at how well the Warcraft and Justice League movies were received], but at the same time, I feel that prosthesis and body suits in films have been in decline since Cat in the Hat, and that people would find a prosthetic Dunmer or Khajiit would "restrict" an actor's movements and emoting. What do you all think?)