The form of a stag appeared above the plain, moving its luminescent head a little, but otherwise motionless.

Bend out the land, dance in blood

Bend out the land, dance in blood

Anyone close enough saw Tasha Razrtip's lips synchronous with the crowd chant. The flutist's melody mingled with the chromatic tones in an above-super-C wailing, and the two Nordic drummers accompanied. Azuyia could feel the music in her skeleton as if she were standing neck-deep in the waters off southern Valenwood, her entire body lifted and pushed with a current strong enough to make her gasp. The lead musician's guitar had disappeared into an outline of the primal force itself as she screamed an ebony stiletto down the upper frets with one hand and called out with the other.

"Helllllllllllllllllllllloooooooooooooooooooo ... Whiterun!"

4E 200 Morning Star 01 at the Eastmarch seashore north of Windhelm

The old sailor took his walk down past the Snowmill tor and on to the coast. Wulfheard was eighty-one this year. Thank Talos for the peddler through this landing with all his southland uisge beatha and a bit of moon sugar, if you knew how to ask. Wulf, as the villagers called him, still made rope and twine for the carts in to Windhelm a couple days away from their little street of houses and fishery tables. His hands were stiff, though, to say nothing of the knees and back. Aaaahhhh, the blood warms from a Breezehome song He kept up past the relic stone with a pipe loaded to the brim with catseye powder and took another swig of the amber. Then out at the first dune he felt his face freeze through the holiday goodies.

Wulfheard ran back to the tor. He had first scratched a charcoal rubbing on paper over a decade ago when he had said goodbye to the seafaring life for good. He ran his fingers over the most legible part of the runes:

I wandered all the seas to find my shore

I arrived onshore to be lost

Inland Skyrim I only sought the coast

Just to find the hearthfire

4E 200 Rain's Hand 15 first month at Southall Collegium

Azuyia wrote in her journal during break.

There are many theories about the origin of the heart. Not the pulmonary organ, mind you, we're talking the imperial symbol. Some say it's an emblem of a sacred flower. I'd think that story more of the garden variety, a pretty thing to desire in moonlight. Others point to the shape. Presto. The heart of the world. So amusing that I hail from Greenheart.

4E 201 some time in Midyear

Wystan appeared at the door. Azuyia and Ryvanni had been laughing off the rest of the afternoon over tea and bread. They looked at him through high cheeks.

"Letter for you," he said, dropping the envelope on the table in front of her. "Was at the notary this morning."

"News," Azuyia asked. She turned the envelope over and frowned at the lilac seal the size of two septims.

"Aw, dad's still having me run courier around here," he said with a little annoyance as Ryvanni snorted through her cup, "friggin who woulda thought Falkreath bearskin would be so popular in Pompa Concorda!"

The ensuing banter between Wystan and Ryvanni drowned in the buzz between Azuyia's temples. She lifted the galleon motif of House Cybo.