~ Chapter 2 ~
Unbound
Eda pulled up her hood, trying in vain to keep the soot from Helgen out of her hair.
She and Martin had waited in the treeline, watching the dragon burn and tear its way through the town, then take off northward. They'd waited another hour or so before making their way slowly back along the road.
The beast had made toward Whiterun, which meant they were headed in the opposite direction, south. But to go south, they needed to pass through Helgen, which was still on fire, pouring black clouds into the sky.
It couldn't have been any more than mid morning, yet it felt like night.
Even so, Eda guided the caravan out of the wooded path and onto the road proper.
They could see the cluster of blackened and snowy footprints making their way out into the wilderness and along the road. Panic stricken townsfolk and whatever soldiers remained.
She pulled off the road, as Martin jumped down and started going through the few bags that got dropped, gathering a couple swords and other minor belongings that fleeing people would leave behind.
Eda patted Hooves, her brown and sandy horse, as he stamped and tossed his head. "Easy big guy."
"Easy," the horse snorted. "You take it easy. I've got a great sense of smell and all I smell are dead people. Yuck. Not even a roasted apple."
Eda ignored him and pressed on.
The town gates were crushed under the gate house's archway. It looked unstable enough that she didn't even dare try the doors.
Instead, she headed to the right, following the wall. Stones and corpses littered the ground, but as she got closer to the tower, she found ash-filled foot prints and a rope leading up to the tower above.
Stones littered the ground here too and the body of a young woman.
Sighing and shrugging, Eda picked her way over the rocks and knelt next to the body.
She was young, even to Eda's elven age. Very young. Maybe late teens. Pretty, too, in a simple way. No fancy gemstones or questionable gold trinkets. Just a symbol of Kynareth, two black earings, probably stonework or clay. Her arm was broken, likely from the fall, and she had more than a few cuts, though the blood was long dried and frozen now.
Eda sighed again and patted the pockets of the pants the body was wearing.
A gold piece in one pocket, sewn into the lining. Not enough to be more than a good luck token, a common practice in Cyrodiil, but less so here, in the harsh north.
"Gold's a gold," Eda murmured, taking out her knife. "Sorry, kid, but you don't need this where you are now."
The body groaned and Eda yelled.
"Hircine's horny head!" She stumbled to her feet, dagger in one hand, a flick of flame in the other.
The young woman moaned again, her chest rising and her unbroken arm moving to her head.
Eda got herself under control and snapped the flames from her hand, sheathing the long knife.
Not a zombie. No magic around for that. Vengeful spirit? Maybe, but it usually took more than a few hours for such things to manifest, unless the soul was particularly powerful.
That was not likely the case here.
"Alive?" Eda muttered to herself. "Hey, you alive?"
"No," the young woman groaned again. Then she gasped, reflexively balling up on her broken arm. "Gods… ow…I hope not…"
"Hey, stay still now." Eda approached her, fishing a tonic from her satchel. "You've gone and done your arm pretty good. Let me help you."
The girl relaxed and Eda helped her sit up. Some of her skin was turning black from the cold, but Eda had seen - and mended - worse.
The arm though. Healing magic had its limits, and while Eda was a proficient alchemist, healing potions couldn't fix a broken arm all on their own - not properly, at least. She'd have to splint it.
Getting the girl to drink the tonic, Eda considered her options.
"Alright, kid. Normally, I'd fleece you and leave you. Got to fend for yourself out here. But, you look like you've been set on bad enough as is. And with that arm, leaving you would just be cruel.
"So, if you come with me, I can get you patched up. But it will cost you."
The young woman nodded, clearly dazed. "Thank you… I… I don't even… I'm Luz."
"Eda," Eda said, hefting Luz up. "But you might not be so thrilled to know my name later."
Getting Luz out of her sodden, torn, muddy, and bloody clothes, Eda cleaned up her major cuts as best she could, stitched the bad one over her eye, wrapped the rest, poured another potion in her and splinted her arm. Then she tucked her into the bed in the caravan, locked the door, and climbed out the front window-hatch and into the driver's seat.
"How is she?" Martin asked, concentrating on the reigns.
Hooves just ignored his pulls and flicks, heading toward Lakeview Cottage, knowing exactly where Eda wanted him to go.
Eda kicked her feet up onto the foot rest of the drivers seat, letting her mane of grey hair flow in the brisk Last Seed wind.
"Good enough. Going to be a while before she's fit again."
"So why help her out?" Martin grunted in frustration and tossed the reins to Eda.
Eda took the reins and gently looped them around the post. "She reminded me of someone I used to know. Besides, having an extra pair of hands isn't bad to have around. At least until she pushes to get back wherever she's from. Then… we'll see."
"One extra hand," Martin complained. "She broke the other."
"Very inconsiderate of her, I know." Eda snorted and folded her arms behind her head. "How dare she. I mean, with that dragon and everything." She glanced over at the bag next to Martin. "Speaking of… find anything good?"
"Neh," Martin said, pulling the bag over to sit between them. "Couple of swords, a set of colored chalk. Some potatoes… more potatoes. Lots of those. Oh, cheese wheel."
"Any gold?"
"Like, twenty septims," Martin said, holding out a small pouch.
"Good enough," Eda crowed, spilling the dusty and ash caked gold coins out into her palm. "Ohoo… shiny."
Martin gave her a sidelong look. "You're weird."
"I've raised you for seven years, and this is the thanks I get?"
"You kept me in the basement for a year."
"I didn't have a room for a child, Martin."
The pair bickered as the dark clouds parted, the evening sun setting before them, casting long shadows.
In the caravan, Luz's eyes flickered open and closed.
She was warm, wrapped in furs and a heavy quilt. Listening to Eda and Martin carry on, she felt a pang of homesickness. But it slowly gave way to a thrill.
She was out here. On her first adventure. All the best stories began with the hero being a lowly servant or even a prisoner.
The Tale of the Champion had been her favorite growing up.
Born from nothing, a common Breton, wrongfully accused, framed! Sentenced to death in the dungeons of the Imperial City, only to help foil the plot against all of Tamriel, becoming the Champion of Cyrodiil and defeating the Daedric Prince Mehrunes Dagon.
She'd been so enamored with the story, she'd even spent a not insignificant amount of her earned coin on other books about him.
The Hero of Kvatch: How One Man Broke the Daedric Seige.
Tribulations of an Archmage: The Mage's Guild Against Mannimarco.
Companions of the Champion: A Folio of the Champions Allies
War Against the Daedra: How the Hero Defeated the Oblivion Gates.
Travels in the Shivering Isles: Memoirs of a Madman.
The last one was strange, and so fantastical that Luz had debated its legitimacy as hotly as any scholar in the book store. She'd made many enemies the day she suggested the existence of a missing volume - somewhere between War Against the Daedra and Memoirs of a Madman - and a life time ban from Finius' Fine Folio.
She'd copied portraits of the Hero from his statues. Talked the ears off anyone who came by her Mami's inn, bothered traveling patrons and adventurers for any hint of story about The Champion.
Of course, not many people cared about some dead hero from two hundred years ago, but the few interviews she had conducted were jotted down in her journal, telling of marvelous adventures that the Hero supposedly had gone on - with a few of her own embellishments.
Her journal…
Home.
Mom.
"I'll get back to you, Mami," Luz murmured, turning over and drifting again. "I promise…"
Entry 1~
21st, Last Seed
I've been with Edalyn and Martin for a few days now. Eda got me this journal - its a bit moldy and has come weird writing in the front, but I just turned it over and started here, in the back. Now the front.
They've been great to me, especially while I'm such a burden. Broken arm, covered in burns and bruises. Eda found some old clothes for me to wear. They look just like the robes mages from the College wear.
I asked if she was a student there and she threatened to eat my tongue, so I'm going with yes.
But today, my arm is good. Stiff, but workable. And I'm going to start making it up to them.
Eda is a real, live, witch. I've seen her practice magic, but she brews potions and tonics and everything, and uses those strange crystals Alister had in his bag - except her's are blue and white. I wonder what the difference is between them and his black ones, but I'm a little afraid to ask. Don't want to overstay my welcome.
I want to get home. Eda said she could have her familiar, Owlbert, take letters to Mami, but… I don't know how she'd feel.
On one hand, I am supposed to be a novice for the Temple of Mara, in Riften, so it's not like she'd hear from me for a while anyway. I know she's worried about me, but if a giant hooded owl swoops down and leaves her a letter, telling her I'm in service to a witch, is that worse?
I mean, Eda seems pretty nice. Prickly, but I can see she's got a good heart.
And Martin Uriel Clawthorne. He's so young but you'd never know by talking to him. He's a bit shy, but he knows so much about Daedra and the Gods and how all the constellations move, and the standing stones!
Sometimes I think… I should just work off my debt to them, go home, forget about all this.
And sometimes I look at Eda working magic into a ring or cackling over a potion and just think… is that what The Champion would do? This could be the start of my own adventure. What if Kynareth guided Eda to me? What if I'm meant to be on this path?
Is this my only chance? To be someone… more than me?
Eda is calling for me. Probably needs me to clean up Hooves again. He's a weird horse, but nice… in a silent, wall-eyed way. You'd think he'd seen a ghost or something.
*Illegible sign off, with too many flourishes, and a scrape like a hurriedly dropped quill*