A/N: Sorry for the long wait. I ended up completely distracted by nanowrimo then I got all bent out of shape trying to finish my "novel" after I failed it.
Also, I am in the process of paring down this horribly long epic, so some of the content in ch. 1 may change, especially since I'm cutting out a bunch of subplots.
Finally, I apologize for my complete inability to write out dialectical speech. I suck at it. I know. Sorry. T_T
the blacksmith's wife/riverwood
[but the fortuneteller said]
She was picking flowers again.
Sigrid had been hoping that their...guest had finished with her recovery; if anything, she had appeared to be making herself useful that morning: rising at the crack of dawn and weeding the modest plot of pumpkins and squash at the very back of Sigrid's garden.
But no the girl was back to picking flowers and an assortment of inedible mushrooms.
"Did y'tell 'er the mushrooms are poison?" Hadvar set down the axe and wiped his forehead with his sleeve. Having sent Faendal up to Whiterun, Hadvar had taken it upon himself to chop the wood for Alvor's forge. He'd fetched the water too, hobbling to and from from the river with such dedication that even little Dorthe had deigned to stop chasing Frodner with a stick long enough to help. It hadn't lasted long, of course – Dorthe was a child, after all – but it had warmed Sigrid to see her family come together.
"Yes, I did." The legionnaire frowned. "She just nodded and kept picking." He shrugged. "I don't think she'll eat them, Aunt."
And then he'd stood up and gone back to chopping wood again.
Sigrid sighed and went back to the river with her basket of bloody sheets. By the time the sun had peaked in the sky, her spine was a single line of fire and her hands were blocks of ice; the stains were more stubborn than she was, refusing to abate no matter how hard she beat the sheets. The sharp smell of lye soap mixed with the repulsive tang of sweat, blood, and pus, and Sigrid resigned herself to burning them altogether. She would have to see if Lucan had a set to sell. If not, she'd have to barter with Delphine, a task no one ever relished.
The blacksmith's wife limped stiffly from the river, muscles protesting as she wrung the sheets the best she could before draping them over the rocks to dry. Once the sun did its work, she would tear them into strips for the fire.
In the meanwhile, she'd prepare the midday meal then get to work harvesting the rest of her garden. The pumpkins looked ready, and with winter coming she needed to get a start on the preserves. The cellar was, in her opinion, intolerably bare.
It would have been nice to have an extra pair of hands. Dorthe was nowhere to be found; Sigrid spotted their guest roaming the hills. The girl went about hooded, and though Sigrid could not see it at this distance, she knew the girl wore strips of Sigrid's old curtains as a scarf, wrapped carefully over her mouth and nose – what was left of it.
Sigrid dismissed any thought of calling out to her. It would be best to leave that one to her flowers.
That evening they sat around the dinner table, chattering cheerfully and carefully around Helgen and the straw pallet at the foot of the bed; the girl never ate at the table, not anymore. Sigrid had set her meal aside for her outside on Alvor's bench. Hadvar ate steadily, eyes only leaving his plate for his cup with the corners of his mouth turned down.
"I missed ya in th' garden today, Dorthe. Coulda used an extra pair o' hands, with all the laundry an' all." Alvor shifted uneasily in his seat. Hadvar bit into his smoked rabbit haunch and chewed dutifully, eyes never leaving his plate.
Dorthe squirmed, gaze darting like torchbugs in spring.
"Ah...well...you see..." Sigrid girded her smile with predatory patience. "Umm...Frodner and I went to the river. To catch slaughter fish for dinner! But we..."
"I didn't see ya at the river. I was doin' laundry there all day." Hadvar finally looked up from his plate.
"She was helping me fetch water, Aunt."
"Yes, in th' mornin'. I saw. Ya chopped wood all afternoon, nephew."
"She was with me then, too."
"Doin'...?" Dorthe's eyes were round in her chubby face, mouth opening and closing silently with some great internal battle. Hadvar straightened in his seat, shoulders back. He looked her full in the face even as Alvor shot him a quick, furitive shake of his head.
"I was teaching her how to use a sword."
A lesser woman would have slammed her fork down. Not so with Sigrid. He fork settled beside her plate with a soft, deliberate clink.
"Husband. Ya knew?" Alvor didn't sigh. He simply pushed his hair back from his forehead as he let out a breath. His voice was steady when he spoke.
"Hadvar. Dorthe. Weather's fine, take yer meals outside. Sigrid an' I are going to talk."
"But pa -"
"You should do as he says, mouse." Hadvar gently mussed her hair with one big hand before handing her her plate. "And Uncle, I think it's best if I stayed. It was my idea, Aunt, not Uncle's." Dorthe's huge eyes flicked from adult to adult before deciding that retreat was the better part of valour. Clutching her plate with both hands, she fled.
Sigrid rounded on him before the door clicked shut. "Fighting! Ya were teachin' her ta fight!" Her chair scraped backwards with the tortured sound of wood against wood as she stood abruptly, slamming her palms onto the table with a satisfying thud. "I understand wit' the smithin'. Blacksmith's girl should know the forge, even if she does na' work it. But fightin'!" Her brogue broadened with her distress. Hadvar's mouth opened, forming a response, but Sigrid barrelled on. "Dorthe will na join th' Legion, Hadvar, I won't hear o' it. She's goin' ta marry a good man with a head on' 'is shoulders an' gold in 'is coffers, and swingin' a sword ain't -"
"- she wants to learn, wife, and -"
"Meaning no disrespect, aunt, but these are dangerous times." Hadvar's eyes were hard, the lines of his face belonging on that of some old, grey-haired legate – not her little Hadvar, who had always loved lolling in the sun.
"Dragons ain't fought wit' swords -"
"Not dragons, aunt." Her nephew's voice, so serious and stern, had developed a note of pleading. "What comes after dragons. Looters. Bandits. Deserters." Sigrid could feel her mouth gape open, gaze gone incredulous as her voice.
"She's a little girl, 'Advar! Ya give her a sword now an' expect she'll 'andle looters?"
He was already shaking his head. "No, no, of course not. I meant to give her basics, enough to get away if -"
"- if?" Her tone had gone flat. Cold. Hadvar didn't even flinch.
"If something terrible were to happen. If she was ever caught alone." Sigrid stared, mouth working silently as she imagined her little Dorthe on the street, destitute and alone.
"Tha'll nev'r happen," she hissed, "we'd nev'r let -"
"Not by choice!" Hadvar's voice began to inch upwards, "but you weren't at Helgen, you didn't see -"
"Back ta dragons again?" Sigrid didn't hold in the sneer.
Alvor cut in, "Hadvar's right, Sigrid. It's better for her to start young, get her footwork in -"
"'Tis not ladylike, Alvor! No rich man wants a callous'd wife -"
"Sigrid, love, no rich man wants a blacksmith's -"
"That's not true, aunt, we're Nords, not Imperial -"
"An' if she goes harrin' for the road, then?" Sigrid rounded on her husband. "She'll get it in her 'ead that life's some sorta grand a'venture, then wha?"
"We send her off with our coin and blessings, wife. Like our fathers and our forefathers and their fathers before then -"
"An' let 'er die!" Sigrid was too wroth for tears. "Dragons in our skies, war at our door, and yer thinkin' o' teachin' 'er ta swing 'er arm -" Sigrid swiped her butter knife through the air in fine parodic form, "- 'ill be th' best, na movin' 'er ta Cyrodil, or takin' 'er up ta Solitude -"
"We don't have th' coin for that, blast it woman, for the last time -"
"- an' learnin' fine enough manners for a rich merchant man -"
"Aunt, a good man won't care for a callous or two -" Sigrid barked out a laugh.
"Oh, aye, a scar or two. Or three. Or a face like a burnt out forge-pit, eh?" Hadvar startled at the sudden change in tack. "Don't think I ain't noticed, you can'na even look 'er in the face now, can ya? Aye, just a scar or two, an' our Dorthe can get ta' hidin' her face at mealtimes -" Sigrid broke off abruptly, seeing the blood drain from Hadvar's face as his gaze swept past her shoulder to fix on the door.
Sigrid turned.
The girl stood in the doorway, a silhouette set against a dying sun. She stood casually, a basket full of flowers and weeds resting on one jutting hip. Backlit by the sun, face covered, her expression was impossible to read.
There was one awful moment of silence; then, in a voice thick and husky as woodsmoke, she spoke.
"My apologies for the interruption, Master Alvor, Mistress Sigrid. I only mean to ask if there was any glassware you could loan."
Sigrid found her voice again. "Aye. Top shelf, to th' right. They were my ma's." She flushed, embarrassed by her own babble; the girl only nodded.
"Thank you, Mistress Sigrid. I will be sure to return them intact." She went to the shelf, putting the glass jars into her basket. "May I use these?" She held up the empty potion bottles from that terrible night, cleaned and set alongside the other glass jars.
"Aye."
"Thank you." She paused in the doorway with a graceful nod of her head. "Good evening." She glided out, door shutting softly behind her.
Hadvar was on his feet, not running, but not walking, either. He paused by the door, half-turning: "It's true I can't look her in the eye, aunt." His eyes were fierce, bright with some unnamed feeling, "but it's not because she's ugly – it's because I'm ashamed."
The door slammed shut.
Silence rang loudly in the aftermath.
"I didn't mean ta hurt th' girl," she said, finally. "But it's true; no man'll take her to wife now, courage be damned. Hard road ahead o' her." She looked Alvor in the eye, head high. "I'll not have tha' for Dorthe."
Alvor seemed to sag inwards, scrubbing his face with both hands before speaking. "We'll not send 'er off to war, Sigrid." He said it so tiredly that Sigrid began to feel the first timid stirrings of guilt. "We only – Hadvar an' I – we only meant ta' train her up a little, build her up proper like -"
"- a Nord? Another Matilda?" He didn't respond to her tone.
"No. Like a proper smith. She'll have the smithy when I pass, wife. She'll need a good hand for weapons, 'specially now." He was in earnest; she could see it in his eyes, in the set of his mouth. He was in earnest.
"By 'erself?"
"If need be." Sigrid snorted.
"They'll take 'er wares in Riverwood, aye, but she'll never make it out o' 'ere. Horseshoes and plows for our maiden-smith, husband. Horseshoes and plows forever."
Silence. Sigrid had to strain to hear him when he spoke; his voice had gone so quiet.
"And is there something the matter with plows and horseshoes? Would you prefer soldier's steel? For Dorthe?" An awful look had come into his eyes then; not a look of anger, but a tired sort of defeat, a bleakness she had never seen in his face before.
And she could think of nothing to say.
Alvor stood, and for the first time it occurred to her that he was old; grey tinged his temples, and he seemed bowed to the ground, moving stiffly to the door. Sigrid watched the light play over the lines of his face: the laugh lines framing his broad mouth, the deepening crows-feet that crinkled whenever he spotted their baby girl – all of it familiar, all of it beloved, and she was struck with a sudden feeling of dread.
And still, the words would not come.
The door hut gently as he left for the deepening gloom. Sigrid sat alone at a table full of food and watched the candles burn down.
It was already dark by the time she made it to the Riverwood Trader. She'd finished salvaging what was left of the sheets shortly after cleaning up their dinner. Then she had gone into the cellar to root for whatever jars were left; she cursed herself for letting the girl take the whole shelf. She hoped she would be finished with...whatever she was doing soon.
Sigrid was just opening the door when she realized the siblings were quarrelling. They were so absorbed in it that they didn't even look up when the bell jingled at her entrance.
"- well someone has to do something!" Camilla was shouting, hands balled into fists. "Arval the Swift? He'll be Arval the Soprano once I'm done with him!"
"You and what army?" Lucan's usual drawl had developed an ugly sneer. "You think he did this alone? He's with that band up at Bleak Falls Barrows, and they'll do worse than make you sing soprano, you stupid girl -" He broke off abruptly, flushing red to the tips of his ears. "Sigrid! I didn't see you there." Camilla was nearly purple with rage, jaw shutting with a painful sounding click.
"Sorry you had to hear that." Lucan shook his head as though physically shaking off unwanted thoughts. "We've been burglarized, you see - thrice-damned drifter stole our claw." He pointed to the empty spot on the counter that had once held the tackiest gold ornament this side of Whiterun. Sigrid couldn't say she was sorry to see it go.
"Brother was just telling me how stupid I was for wanting it back." Camilla's sweet voice was sharp as razors. "He finds cowardice an admirable virtue." Lucan rounded on her with an aborted bellow.
"Try sense, you damnable -!" He caught himself, clutching the edge of the counter as he took a deep breath. "Sigrid, you're sensible. Kindly explain to my charming baby sister why it is inadvisable for a pair of merchants to raid a bandit fort. Feel free to paint the bloody details." Camilla was already rolling her eyes. "Well then, hire someone, brother-dear. Tell them they have their choice of misbegotten loot. Adventurers like that sort of thing, though I'm telling you that their loot can be our loot if you'd just let me -"
"No! Casting sparks is a party trick, understand? It'll tickle for a bit before they shove a sword through your gut. I should have never let you read those blasted tomes!"
"Well, fine then!" She turned to Sigrid. "Say, do you suppose Hadvar'd -"
"No." Sigrid's tone brooked no weaseling. "Not Bleak Falls Barrows. I'll na hear o' it." Camilla pouted. Sigrid ignored her. "I was wonderin' if ya had some sheets ta sell."
She was lucky; he did have some sheets to sell. They were clean enough, if threadbare, and she supposed she could always air them out on the morrow. Sigrid counted out her septims and placed them on the counter, the calloused pads of her fingers snagging lightly on the wooden surface. She lifted her fingers away, noting the dirt beneath her fingernails that she could never quite clean, the ragged cuticles framed by tough, ruddy skin.
Abruptly, her throat seemed to swell. Sigrid swept the sheets into her basket, turning quickly before they could see. She hastened out the door with a curt farewell, vision blurring.
Silly, she scolded herself, but she took the scenic route home.
Her windows were glowing with the warm light of a blazing hearthfire. She stepped in, the noting Dorthe playing with her doll as she lolled in her own bed; the pallet on the floor was conspicuously empty. Alvor sat at the table, watching their daughter with a fond smile, bottle of ale open beside him. Someone - likely Dorthe, by the haphazardous arrangement - had placed a bouquet of flowering weeds on the table. Alvor's drumming fingers would occasionally graze a stem, recoil, then resume their rhythmic beat. He looked up briefly at her entrance, acknowledging her with a nod. He didn't meet her eyes.
Sigrid bustled in, busying herself with setting the sheets on the beds. Dorthe moved obligingly from the bed to the floor, Rosna the doll viciously slaying the wooden leg of the kitchen table. "Careful, Dorthe." The little toy sword wouldn't do much damage, but Sigrid found hatch marks on the furniture unseemly.
"Aww, mother…."
"Dorthe."At that Alvor took a breath, and Sigrid stiffened. He released it without a word. For a moment Sigrid thought Dorthe would make him pick sides as she so often did, but she merely slunk away to practice Rosna's sword-fighting on the corner wall. Sigrid breathed, and let it go.
"Didja bring these for me?" Sigrid put the weeds - coarse and colourful, with thick hardy stems and leaves - into a deep bowl. The vase that usually sat on the shelf had disappeared, likely taken by their guest. Dorthe beamed.
"Yes! I did!" Then she added, less exuberantly, almost shyly: "They're pretty like you." Sigrid didn't miss the look she snuck at Alvor. So she hadn't forgotten. Her baby girl was growing. If ya helped me in th' garden you'd know the flowers from th' weeds. Sigrid bit her tongue, keeping the well-worn words from tumbling out.
"Thank ya Dorthe. I love them." She arranged the flowers in the bowl into a sort of wreath so the riot of colour held some semblance of order: deep blue, green leaves, violet, green leaves, blue again. She hadn't realized she'd had so much martyr's thistle growing about the property; she resolved to weed them within the week.
Once Dorthe was tucked into bed - once the shutters had been secured against the autumn chill, once the candles had been blown out, once the fire had been stirred just right - she lay in the bed beside Alvor, watching his broad back rise and fall gently with every breath. She wondered if he was sleeping. Dorthe was already snoring lightly, Rosna held in the crook of her arm.
Sigrid was full of words, but her throat was too tight, too narrow to let them out.
Perhaps he really was sleeping.
Sigrid lay on her side, facing his back. She let one hand rest lightly on his elbow, letting the warmth of his skin seep in through her fingers. She shut her eyes, waiting for sleep. The night deepened.
At some point in the night - just as she was starting to tilt into the dark, heavy arms of sleep - she felt an answering warmth: a big, broad hand, gentle and strong and just as calloused as her own lay gently over knuckles. Smiling, Sigrid slept.
Sigrid woke to the morning sun beaming its rays over her face. She bolted upright in bed, mortified - she'd over slept. Not badly, she thought, eying the light tracking over the floor and bed, but enough. She could hear Alvor moving outside, preparing the forge fire, and beyond that the sound of an axe striking wood. Hadvar was busy too, it seemed. Disconcerted, she stood, wondering if they'd eaten. She rummaged through the cupboards. There were two loaves of bread missing, as well as some smoked jerky. She winced. They'd eaten, apparently, but not well. She would have to bring out a little something.
"Dorthe!" Her daughter snorted sleepily from the bed, feet sticking out from under the covers. "Dorthe! Up!" Sigrid turned to put some plates on the table. She'd cook up some eggs and potatoes. She had some carrots in the pantry still, she was sure -
"Hadvar! Hadvar! Haaaaaadvar!" She looked up sharply, with a startled, jagged movement that nearly spilled the bowl of Dorthe's weeds. Dorthe sat groggily from her bed, trying to track the sound with half-closed eyes. It was Lucan, and he sounded frantic.
She needed to wear something. She looked down at her shift, then hastily pulled on the dress she had worn yesterday, not bothering with the laces. She wrapped herself in the biggest shawl she owned, hastening out the door before she'd finished tying her hair back from her face.
Sigrid burst out onto the porch. The men didn't even look at her. Distantly, she noted that Hadvar had never come in last night; he was dressed in the same clothes he'd worn yesterday, newly rumpled, and he'd been determinedly splitting logs for Alvor's forge again before the interruption. Surely he hadn't stayed the night with - not with her. Surely not. Before she could pursue that line of thought, Alvor jumped the rail that separated his forge from the rest of Riverwood, walking towards the trader with quick, worried steps.
"She's gone!" He was babbling, hair unkempt and clothes in disarray. Sigrid noted that he'd buttoned his shirt all wrong, every button one hole too low as though he hadn't looked into his fancy mirror before leaving. "She's gone, she's gone, she's gone up there to die -" Alvor reached him, gripping his shoulders gently but firmly.
"Camilla's gone?" Lucan wheezed before he spoke again.
"Yes. Camilla's gone. She's gone to Bleak Falls Barrows after that bloody claw. She took an apprentice robe and a few scrolls. Food, water. Maybe her own knife too, I don't know." He was twisting the front end of his shirt in his fingers, over and over. "Hadvar," he turned to her nephew, "you have to go after her. She'll die. They'll murder her. They'll do more than murder her, their brutes, they'll -" he swallowed then, hard. "You're a legionnaire. You can do it. You can get her back before she's - before -"
"No!" Sigrid's outburst surprised everyone, even Sigrid. Squaring her shoulders, she soldiered on. "No. He can't. He's injured, an' he's just one man. They're dozens o' them up there, dozens, and they'll shoot 'im dead afore they even -"
"I'll go." Hadvar met her eyes briefly with an unreadable expression, before turning to Lucan. "I'll go. But I'll need a few things. And get Sven - he's not the best with a sword, but I want someone to watch my back. He'll do it if it's Camilla. Aunt -" He turned back to her again, suddenly cutting off as though he'd lost his nerve. "Aunt, I…" He managed a smile. "I'll be back before dinner. With Camilla. You'll see."
"But Hadvar - nephew - ya can't just -" Alvor was already stepping in.
"I'm goin'. You'll need another man -" Sigrid didn't bother speaking. She grabbed her husband by the arm.
"No. By Mara, no. It's been years since ya've swung a sword -" Alvor was shaking his head, shaking her hand off his arm and she suddenly felt very cold.
"I ain't sending Hadvar off without another man. Like you said, wife, they've got dozens -"
"I'll go." They turned. The girl was standing on the road that came up from the Sleeping Giant in a relaxed pose that suggested she had been watching them for quite some time. "I'll go," she said again. No one spoke.
The girl started to walk down the road. Sigrid noticed that she was still carrying her basket, though this time it wasn't filled with wildflowers and weeds. The blacksmith's wife blinked at the sight of her glass jars and bottles, gleaming with colour in the morning sun. What in the -?
She stopped in front of Lucan. "I'll go," she said again, for the third time, and it seemed to bring the man out of his stupor.
"Oh. You're...walking." He sounded completely baffled; Lucan didn't get out all that much.
"Yes," she agreed, and she sounded very serious. "And I am well enough to go fetch your sister with Hadvar and Sven." She paused. "But I will need a few things." That seemed to stir him.
"Things? What things?"
"Supplies, mostly." She tapped the stopper on one of her bottles. "More potions, if you have them. I have healing potions here, but none for magicka -" she looked him in the eyes, "- and if what Mistress Sigrid says is true, I will be using quite a bit of magicka." She paused as though in contemplation. "And scrolls. I want to look at any scrolls you may have. Staves. Rods. We need to plan this." Hadvar finally stirred.
"Sif, wait." His brow furrowed. "I'm not saying you're not...capable...in any way, but you're - that is to say, you don't seem -" The corners of her eyes crinkled in a way suggestive of a smile.
"I'm well enough. And if what you told me is true I owe her my life." She nodded respectfully to Lucan. "We must move quickly. If she snuck out last night she has quite the head start." Hadvar didn't look convinced, but if the girl went, then Alvor…
"Yes," she said, and Alvor sent her a sharp look. "Yes, please. If you think you can help, I - we - would be grateful. Alvor's needed here -" Sigrid returned his look, "- and from what Hadvar's told me, you can handle yourself in fight." Even if you're a mage. She had been expecting Hadvar to glare. To her surprise, he merely looked thoughtful. He gave a curt nod.
"Yes. Yes, Uncle, I think that might be best. If she feels she's well enough, then we'll take Sif." Alvor's eyebrows lifted, clearly not convinced as he swiped his gaze over her small, delicate form.
"Don't worry Uncle," he grinned. "once you survive a dragon, bandits are nothing.
Sigrid was beginning to get a sinking feeling again. Brave words.
She hoped they wouldn't be his last.
Next Chapter: Faendal and Camilla come to realize that one must "...GATHER YOUR PARTY BEFORE VENTURING FORTH!"
