Chapter 21: Hunting with Aela

[27th of Last Seed 4E 201]

When I woke up in the next morning, I needed a little time to remember where I was, but then I recalled that I had joined the Companions and that I had been on a quest with Farkas during the last couple of days. The Circle member and I had been following an escaped bandit, and we had managed to find him and two cronies back in Redoran՚s Retreat. Without too much trouble we had captured the three men and brought them to Whiterun as prisoners. On the previous day I had also met Braith, the Redguard girl, who had been bullying Lars Battle-Born.

Quickly I left my bed and went upstairs to do my morning chores. After breakfast and a quick warm up training Vilkas approached, and he told me sternly:

"Whelp, today it is your turn to take care of the flowers around the building. Get a watering can and make sure to water them properly. Off you go!"

Watering the flowers? Really? Companions did that themselves? Maybe only whelps? I vaguely recalled that I had seen a couple of watering cans in the shed where the cart was stored, and I quickly hurried there and grabbed one. Now, where to get water? Of course, there was enough of that just down the stairs, where the creek from Dragonsreach came down and filled two basins, so this was going to be my source. Okay, why not? I spent about one hour filling the two cans I used and tending the various flower beds around Jorrvaskr, and while I was at it, I also spend some additional time with weeding. Surprisingly there was not much to do in that direction; maybe somebody had cast some magic on the flower beds? The watering itself was something I did not mind doing; it reminded me of the time I had spent with my grandmother in her large garden, at the time when she had still been alive and well. Tending her garden had been her one big hobby, and I had enjoyed spending a lot of time with her there; doing garden work was something I missed a little. Maybe at some time in the future I could have a house with garden somewhere around here? My mind went into daydreaming mode while I continued to do the chores, and I found myself to be quite relaxed and in a good mood.

Once I was done and the watering cans were stored back in the shed, I reported back to Vilkas that the task was done, and he even bothered to check if I had been doing it properly; maybe there had been other whelps using too much or too little water or skipping some flower beds. However, he seemed to appreciate my work, and after I had received his approval, I decided to visit the marketplace and look around; being a Companion did fortunately not imply that one had to stay in Jorrvaskr all day long and wait for orders.

Last time I had been in the market area I had noticed that I had not been in all of the stores yet, and I wanted to see what else there was. One building in particular had caught my attention, as it showed books in the shop 'window' on the ground floor. Well, technically it was not really a window, but a wall with painted books; I assumed that they did not have that many large glass windows around here. Anyway, I entered this shop today. The interior looked larger than one could have guessed from outside, and there were indeed many shelves with books, but one corner was more open and had a huge map of Skyrim pinned to the wall. I got closer and found that this map had many details, not only major roads and settlements, but also topographical and geographical details, ruins, mines and more.

I probably stood there admiring the map for some time, when a male voice suddenly interrupted my thoughts and made me jerk:

"Can I help you?"

I turned around and noticed an elderly Imperial, smaller than average, and I replied:

"Yes, maybe you can. I was admiring this great map here, and I am in need of a map myself."

"You have come to the right place. I am Tiberius Dravarol, at your service, and I am a cartographer. Most of my sales are books, but I actually specialize in maps. My niece, Nataly Dravarol, is even more gifted than I am, and she created this wonderful map on the wall. She lives here with me, and we continuously strive to improve our maps and learn about more locations and details."

"So, do you have maps for sale which can be folded and used for traveling?"

"Of course we do. The smaller maps show fewer details, but this cannot be avoided. If we tried to add all details to them, too, they'd get too crowded and also way too expensive for almost all of our customers."

The Imperial led me to a table where maps in different sizes were presented. There was a small one which showed only the main mountains, roads, cities and rivers, a medium quality one which had smaller settlements and roads and a selection of some other places, and a larger ones which also showed most ruins, forts and even some individual ore veins. The larger one turned out to be too expensive to me, with a price of more than one thousand septims, but I could afford to purchase the one with medium quality, and I took it.

Once I had exchanged a few more words with the proprietor and told him that I'd browse the books another time, I left the store and made my way up to Dragonsreach to visit Farengar. My purse was partially depleted, but I wanted to find out if there was another spell I might want to get. I took my time to walk up the stairs to the Cloud District; when I had been up there a few days ago, it had been during the night and I had not been able to fully appreciate the scenery. Now, in broad daylight, even with a partial overcast, I could enjoy seeing the two water basins on the sides, with some fish in them, the few plants seaming the stone stairs, and the imposing building on top of the hill slowly coming into view. I even took my time to stroll left and right a little once I was up there, and I enjoyed the smells from various flowers entering my nostrils.

Eventually I nodded towards the two guards standing left and right from the entrance – fortunately, one of them remembered me – entered Dragonsreach and turned right; the court wizard was busy reading a book, not bothering to look up when I entered his study. He was clad in dark blue mage robes, and it took him a few minutes to notice me:

"Oh, a visitor. I assume that you've come to Dragonsreach to discuss the ongoing hostilities, like the rest of the 'great warriors'?"

"No, not really, Master Farengar. Actually, I want to improve my magic skills, and I wonder if you might have a couple of appropriate spell tomes I could buy."

"Ah, a prospective mage, right? Sure, let me see what I have for you. Nothing dangerous, of course…"

He started to dig into some tomes on a shelf, mumbling to himself, and after a few minutes he turned around again:

"Do you have a preference for training in a specific direction? More illusion or alteration or something else?"

"No, sir, I do not. I already manage the basic healing and flames – this is restoration for healing and destruction for flames, right?"

"Yes, indeed. And now you may want to find out about the other schools of magic, right?"

"Quite so, yes. If I could cast a novice spell from each school, I might be able to find where my preferences and skills actually are."

"That sounds like a good plan, but of course you will have to pay for the tomes. Now, let me see – there is a tome for Candlelight in the school of alteration, which goes for 150 septims. Oakflesh, from the same school, is 180 septims. Conjure Familiar, in conjuration, costs 210 septims, and that's what I have right now, for novice spells, that is. What do you think?"

"I am not rich, and for now, I will start with Oakflesh – here you go."

I handed over the 180 septims, more than half of the money I had earned on the day before, and collected the spell tome. With my Khajiit eyesight, Candlelight was not going to be something I needed, but Oakflesh might be helpful for some fights.

"Well, good luck with the tome, and come again!"

"I will sure do that, thank you very much, and have a good day!"

Together with the purchase of the map, my financial reserves were now almost entirely depleted, and I would have to see where and when I'd get a chance to earn some more money. I had been more polite towards the wizard than I used to be in the game, but he was probably the best mage in Whiterun, and it would not hurt to treat him properly and with politeness.

While I walked out of his room Proventus stepped in, and I could hear Farengar telling him:

"Now that was a polite young man, eh, Khajiit…"

I spent the rest of the morning in the back yard of Jorrvaskr and read the new spell tome in all detail, three times to be sure. Then I closed my eyes and meditated on it, repeating the content in my brain; I raised my left hand and focused, but nothing happened at first; obviously I needed to practice more. I had, like in the game, managed to do basic healing and flames right away already in Helgen, but it appeared that learning new spells from tomes was not done quickly, like just with a snip of my fingers. On the other hand, the spell tome did not self destroy either, so that I might have to read it more frequently. It took maybe half an hour, repeated reading, some meditation and diligent exercises, when finally my left hand started to glow, and a dim magical aura was visible around my body all of a sudden. The color was somewhat different from the aura which showed when I prepared a healing spell, so this was probably the new spell. I smiled and shouted "Yes!", and right at that moment Aela came out and said with a smirk:

"That's nice – you give the answer before I ask the question!"

"What?"

"I was just about to ask you if you would like to go out and hunt with me, whelp."

That sounded like a good idea, not only as Aela was quite an attractive woman with a skimpy armor, but also because I was eager to to learn more skills; above and beyond that, even being phrased as a question, that was likely more an order, and I quickly nodded:

"Sure, why not? Are we going to hunt bandits or game?"

The huntress laughed and replied:

"Good question, whelp, but today it's going to be game. You had your share of bandits recently, with Farkas, right?"

"Aye, I had that. About hunting, you know that I cannot use a bow, right?"

"That's all right, for now, at least. Let's see how fast and strong you are and which other skills you might have."

She grabbed her bow and a quiver full of arrows, and out we went. The plains west of the city should be quite suitable for hunting as far as I recalled, and that's where we went. It did not take us long to see potential prey in the distance; there were some mammoths around Bleakwind Basin, with two giants herding them, multiple foxes jumped around, and all kind of deer, elk, and goats moved around, more than enough to feed the relatively small population in the area. Of course we needed to be prepared for predators as well, from wolves to saber cats and bears – that's what I had kept in mind from all of my playing, at least. I did not know, though, which habitats the large and dangerous predators preferred. I assumed that I might be more likely to encounter bears in the forests and wolves and saber cats on the plains, but I was not sure about that.

About halfway to the giants' camp, Aela asked me:

"Where and what would you hunt, whelp?"

"Depends on what we need, I reckon. If we need meat for Jorrvaskr, for all of us for a few days, we should try to get an elk, I should think. If it's just for a few of us, a few rabbits should do, or maybe a wild goat."

"Well, consider the former, and why not a mammoth?"

"First, they are guarded by giants, and as I have learned, defeating a giant is not an easy task; if we needed to do that, we should have more warriors with us. Second, there is no way the two of us can get a whole mammoth back to the city."

"Good answer. Now show me how you hunt a deer or an elk!"

Okay, that was going to be a challenge, as I had never hunted in my entire life. When I had played the game, I had had a bow or a crossbow and some powerful destruction spells, but this was different. At least I knew that many animals relied a lot on smelling, so that I had to pay attention to the wind direction; thus I first checked that. There was a steady wind blowing from the North, so that animals in that direction should not be able to detect me by smell. I slowly walked in northern direction and kept looking around, and it did not take long for me to see an elk. I tried my best to sneak closer, but when I was about twenty meters away I was seen or heard nonetheless, and the elk ran away; I tried to hit it with a small fireball, but found that my flame spell only had a very limited range. Quite obviously, even with the wind against me, sneaking up to an animal was more challenging than silently approaching a bandit. I heard Aela chuckling behind me, but I did not give up yet. A second attempt failed as well, and I decided to change my strategy. I saw a group of rocks ahead and climbed close to the top, carefully looking around. There was a small herd of elk moving in my direction, and the wind was from the right direction too, so that I kept very quiet. I had to wait for maybe twenty minutes when one of them, a slightly smaller and probably young one, got behind of the herd and was finally almost directly under the rock where I was on. With a sudden jump I dropped down and had my paws around the animal's neck, pulling it down. It tried to get up again, but I had already cut the elk's throat open halfway with the claws I had extended by instinct. As the animal was still alive, I pulled my dagger and cut the elk's throat, to avoid unnecessary suffering.

Aela was next to me a few moments later and nodded with approval: "That was very unconventional, but not so bad, whelp. From this meat we can eat for a few days, I should think."

We skinned the animal, or rather Aela did it and I learned from it, and I impressed the huntress by taking almost all of the animal parts on my broad shoulders. On the way back we passed a baby elk and an adult one close together. The young one had trouble with a leg and was obviously unable to move much, with the adult one prodding it without success. Naturally, when we got close the adult one fled, and I told Aela:

"Let me try to heal the baby elk."

"Don't spend the effort; when you touch it, the mama will not take it back anyway."

I recalled Kyne՚s voice from my dream though, stating "Use Nature's gifts wisely"; maybe I should try at least, even if Aela advised against it?

I ignored the huntress and knelt down next to the small elk. Preparing a healing spell I raised my hands and first let the little elk see it, hopefully to understand that I did not mean to harm it. It took a few minutes to work, but finally the young elk stopped struggling and just looked at me. I carefully moved my paws along the injured leg, letting the healing spell work, and although my magicka pool was still very small – I could keep the spell up for five seconds rather than four now, though – it was good enough for such a small animal, and when it tried to get up, it worked. Dark elk eyes looked into my eyes for a few moments, almost like thanking me, and the baby elk was gone running to mama; the adult elk was waiting for it a few dozen meters away.

Inside of me I felt like a voice saying "Well done"; hopefully that act had found Kyne՚s approval. Aela just shook her head and smiled: "Whelp, that was odd, but not bad. You show compassion for animals, and I like that."

Halfway back to the city I suddenly saw myself face to face with a saber cat which had approached without catching my attention. I yelped, dropped my heavy load, and got my axe ready, but after a few defensive swings the beast managed to make one of its paws connect to my chest. The leather armor I wore prevented claws getting fully through, but despite my size I was thrown back a few meters and suddenly looked up at the sky from the ground. The saber cat prepared to jump on me, but was abruptly stopped by an arrow hitting it. Of course, a single arrow did not kill a saber cat, but the arrow had been expertly aimed at one of the beast's eyes and hit the target precisely, and that was an injury even a large and ferocious animal could not ignore; it growled and turned towards the huntress now. That gave me the opportunity to get up and swing my battle axe deep into the cat's neck from the side, using both hands this time and applying all of the strength and power I had. The axe broke, but not before it was buried almost fully in the saber cat. A huge flood of blood rushed out of the animal's neck, and I guessed that I had managed to cut one of the main blood vessels there; the beast roared twice and then fell back to the ground, dead.

When my heartbeat and my breath had slowed down again I found Aela next to me. She looked at the beast's wound, shook her head and told me:

"Well, you do have a lot of strength, and you managed to hit the neck; that's good. I believe that we need to get you a more sturdy axe. No offense, whelp, but despite your killing blow, I do not think that you should go hunting on your own just yet. You did not pay attention to our environment, and you should have noticed the saber cat approaching long before it was close to you."

Of course she was right, and that was something I needed to learn. I nodded, and we continued our way home. She was walking very close to my side most of the time, and I did wonder if she had some specific intention for doing that. I could smell her body odor, and it had some trace of dog or wolf, which kind of repulsed me, at least when I got too close. I guess that dog/wolf smell was not something a big cat liked too much. I was not really surprised about that particular smell either; if the situation was like in the game, she was a werewolf like the other Circle members.

We got home without further interruptions, and I dropped the big piece of meat from the elk in the kitchen. My next stop was the armory, and I got a Skyforge Steel Battleaxe as a replacement for my broken axe. It was even larger and slightly more heavy than the Ancient Nord Battle Axe I had had before, but that should work just fine.

Before we separated, Aela told me with a smirk:

"You passed a different kind of test today, by the way."

I tilted my head and asked:

"Which one would that have been, Aela?"

"I deliberately kept very close to you multiple times, and I wanted to see if you'd attempt to make a move or so. You did not, so that you have reasonable self-control at least. Good."

She left, and I pondered her statement. She had been totally wrong about my behavior towards her. I liked her and found her attractive, but redheads were not my type, I had an issue with her smell, and I had decided to be very reserved about relations to the fair sex, for the time being at least. So, no, it had not really been an issue of self-control, but I did not have to tell her that.

[Author's Notes: If you believe that one of the side characters who appear in the story should show up more frequently, feel free to make requests in that direction; I am certainly willing to listen.]