A Simple Request
She was almost there; the light was surrounded by a gentle haze, and the voices calling her were softer and more enticing, rather than demanding that she follow. The sound made by the voices was something like music, but more sublime, like a hymn intoned by the stars.
"That doesn't make any sense," Shadowmere chided herself as she ran. "Stars can't sing." Barring the implausibility of the comparison, she could think of no better way to describe the sound.
"Hey," a voice said, the first time she had been able to discern any coherent speech from her dream. "Hey," it called again, more insistent and less lyrical than it had been, making Shadowmere think that something was amiss, her heart beating harder out of sheer instinct.
"Hey!" Shadowmere woke to someone shaking her pointed elbow, her arm still covered her eyes from that night when Saeana had left. "Who knows how long ago that was," she thought, allowing herself to relax, even as she forced her achy muscles into a sitting position. "Wake up, you've been asleep for about two days!" Letting her arm drop gradually, Shadowmere found herself blinded by the brilliant daylight streaming in behind one of the city guards. "I guess it's good someone was keeping track," she decided with a resolute yawn. "I was too busy going crazy and listening to star-songs."
"That would explain why I have to pee so bad," she muttered, running her hands over her face, trying to regain the feeling from her early morning facial numbness, not to mention hide her eyes from the light. "Where's Sigrid?"
"Making the rounds," the guard said, his voice sounding vaguely familiar as Shadowmere's brain began to catch up to her senses. "Not easy when she's got no means of helping those injured."
"Yeah, that'll slow her down," she said, her eyes finally adjusting to the light just enough to let her hand drop and see the details of the guard in front of her. The daylight illuminated the surface of his skin just enough to allow her to see the tanned color, and enough strands of hair to show the tawny hue. "Dickhead?" she murmured in shock, coherent enough to recognize the guard as the one she and Saeana had first encountered in Oblivion, but not awake enough to stop the unflattering pseudonym from scrambling past her lips. The combination of being hung over and naturally flippant with her language was definitely working against her.
"Excuse me?" the guard asked, either genuinely having not heard what she said or a consummate actor. Shaking her head, Shadowmere tried to recall whether the man had given her a name inside the gate, or not.
"What's your name again?" she muttered, ignoring the muted pounding in her head. Giving a subtle bow, the guard looked at her with his brilliant blue eyes.
"Ilend, Ilend Vonius," he said, standing up straight, though not losing eye contact. "Are you Saeana or Shadowmere?"
"Shadowmere," she said, wincing at the slight stream of sunlight coming in behind the guard. "Where's your latrine?" Ilend gave a humorless chortle, held the tent flap open and motioned outside with his head.
"Anywhere away from the camp," he said simply. " 'Away from camp' being the operative phrase in that sentence." Shadowmere cringed at the thought of having to use the bushes; she had hoped to have given that up. "And when you're done, make your way up to the castle," he added quickly. "Captain Matius wants to talk to you." Shadowmere stuck her thumb up to signal that she had heard him and pushed herself to her feet which, to her unrivaled surprise, had only a dull ache. "I guess I should be grateful for that," she considered, giving her toes a triumphant wiggle. Since they had felt as though they were filled with broken glass and snake venom two nights prior, a slight twinge was a small price to pay.
"How's Menien?" she asked, following him outside and trying to hide her face from the sun while she started unlacing the top of her armor from the bottom, finding it almost impossible to do both at once.
"A little thirsty and hungry, a dislocated hip and shaken as hell," Ilend said, motioning toward the tent where Menien presumably rested. "Other than that, not so bad."
"Well, tell him to get his ass out of bed and back to work," she suggested, the tingling in her bladder made the choice between the two necessities clear and she lowered her hand from her face, the dazzling sunlight making her squint until her eyes were no more than slits.
"He won't be doing that for awhile," Ilend sighed shaking his head and looking up, seemingly unaffected by the light.
"Why?" Shadowmere was hardly listening, she was almost all the way through her unlacing and the few grommets might as well have been needle eyes and the sinew the width of her fingers.
"Dislocated hip, remember?" Though he was still addressing her, the guard was now staring back toward the encampment with a peculiar blush in his cheeks. "Prude." She was amused by the fact that he was so uncomfortable with her unlacing her armor. "It's not like I'm going to drop trou in front of him."
"Yeah, but you pop it back in and down a potion and you're good as new." Desperate to get her hand back up, she worked through the lacing quickly, ignoring the man's unease.
"We only had one healing potion left." Shadowmere looked up as the man chanced a look back at her. "Your friend was willing to go and get you one, but Menien insisted on you taking the one here so your friend and Brother Martin could get going sooner rather than later." Despite the urgency in her bladder, and the swelling and throbbing in her feet, Shadowmere's guilt became the dominant sensation.
"So, he gave up the potion for me?" she murmured, adjusting her hold on the waist of her pants, glancing in the direction of Menien's tent. In the medical texts she'd often perused, she had read that a dislocated hip could be a crippling injury; Menien could have permanently disabled himself on her account. "Not to mention dislocated joints hurt like a bitch." She'd had enough to know.
"You should talk to him about it," Ilend said, looking away again, his blushing reaching to the back of his neck. "He said he wanted to talk to you and he'd probably be relieved to see that you're alright."
"Or scared," she scoffed. "I can be pretty scary when I get backed into a corner like we were in Oblivion."
"Scary or not, you saved him from a fate worse than death," he spoke to the sky. "Believe me when I say that Menien respects those who put the needs of others before their own." Though she knew it would come across as being in poor taste, she couldn't help but chortle at his comment; if she had learned nothing else in her life, putting other's needs first had been hammered into her.
"Alright," she said, swallowing her amusement as quickly as she could, though it wasn't soon enough to spare her the guard's disapproval. "I'll pee first, then go see him, then go have a powwow with the captain." Ilend turned on his heel and started away.
"Have a good time," he said, the wry hue in his voice nearly washing out his words entirely. "And don't forget to go talk to the captain."
"I know, I just said I was going," she snipped, angry that she was another second closer to pissing her pants.
"Just making sure," he called back. "Now it's not on me if you don't show up." She gave a quick middle finger to the man's back and wrapped the sinew lacing around her wrist as she darted down a nearby incline into the underbrush. Though it was nearly impossible to avoid in her lifestyle in general, Shadowmere disliked having to squat in the bushes; it was too bestial. "I might as well have hooves and a tail again." But she was hardly the only one in the camp with the need to take such measures, and she tried to dismiss the thought.
Her business quickly remedied, she pulled up her pants and hurried back toward the encampment which seemed surprisingly busy considering that, when Shadowmere had last seen it, all the inhabitants were more like zombies stumbling through a long abandoned ruin than living beings in an active town. Now, people walked with their heads up and their faces, while still etched with grief, were no longer streaked with soot and clean only where the tears swept the grunge away. They moved with purpose in the light of the new day, rather than aimlessly wandering in the darkness of yesterday.
"Ilend, you haven't found Vangogh, have you?" The Redguard named Boldon spoke to the guard some distance from where Shadowmere trudged up the incline. "When we opened the gates to the stables and shooed out the horses, he wasn't with them." Ilend sighed in annoyed disappointment.
"The stupid horse followed me into the gate," he said, clearly upset at his horse's lack of restraint. "He didn't last long in Oblivion."
"Oh, that's too bad." While the death of another life in Kvatch struck hard with the older man, Ilend seemed to shake off the loss like a dog shook off fleas.
"Yeah, but I learned my lesson," he said with determination. "The next animal I get will have more sense than to run headlong into danger." Every organ, muscle and nerve in Shadowmere's body twisted with a rage she hadn't encountered since she was a twenty year old killer with a virulent hatred for anything that drew breath. "I'm going to tie a cinderblock to that fucker's gonads and throw him down the nearest well," she decided, moving with the intent to do exactly that. "If nothing else I'm going to knock out a few of his teeth."
"Hey Shadowmere Blackmane's up and about!" She was shaken from her fury by the voice of Jesan, the young city guard who had carried her down from the gate. At the sight of his broad smile, she couldn't keep a firm enough hold on her ire to maintain it in any kind of significant capacity. "You didn't tell me your last name, so I made one up for you!" Shadowmere apparently hadn't been the only one who had imbibed, though she was relieved to see that his seemed to be for recreational purposes rather than medicinal.
"It's a good one," she said, only half in jest; she had never had a surname and until then she hadn't thought that she needed one. "Shadowmere Blackmane" seemed to easily flow off the tip of her tongue and "Blackmane" stood soundly after her bold first name. "It might be worth keeping around…" she decided. "Where's Menien?" She changed the subject, hoping to have at least a semi-worthwhile conversation with the drunken soldier.
"In that tent!" he said, motioning with a wine bottle and dropping harder than he intended to onto a log by the main fire. "Not in Oblivion, thanks to you!" Shadowmere shrugged and gave a cockeyed grin, not entirely sure how to take the man's praise.
"Damn straight," she said, opting for the cocky response. "I don't leave wounded soldiers behind," she added, casting a glare back at Ilend. Jesan, too inebriated to notice her tone, gave a raw, almost honking laugh, pointing at her.
"I know, I saw you make short work of that bottle we got for you when we first brought you in." Shadowmere had to laugh.
"I wasn't referring to that variety of wounded soldier," she clarified. "But I can't really argue the legitimacy of the statement." She could almost see her words flying over the top of Jesan's head.
"I gotta tell you," he started, his tone suggesting what followed would be at least moderately irrelevant to the topic. "I've seen some nasty wounds before but yours was the single most ungodly thing I've ever seen." A memory of her bruised, bloodied and broken appendages flashed into Shadowmere's mind, giving her toes a little extra tingle.
"Well I aim to please." Ambiguity seemed like the proper tone to take in her response, as she wasn't sure whether he had just given her a compliment or not. "I'm going to see Menien, but you enjoy your drink."
"Not an issue!" She grinned as Jesan lifting his bottle emphatically, the gesture nearly causing him to fall off of his log stool. His antics had been just enough to encourage her away from her homicidal ambitions, and it was almost calming to see the city guard cutting loose after having been through such an ordeal. At the moment though, she had another soldier to see, who almost certainly wasn't as relaxed. Lifting the tent flap, she took a moment to let her eyes adjust to the dim glow in the tent, lit only by the dusty fragments of light that found their way between the threads in the cloth.
"Shadowmere you are, without question, the damndest fool I've ever met," a voice said, bringing Shadowmere's eyes to the ground, where Menien laid, visibly uncomfortable but managing to hold a small smile on his lips. "I've never met anyone with such disregard for their own personal safety," he stated from his prone position. He was mostly reclined, with only a couple pillows under his neck and shoulders and another under his right hip keeping him at all upright.
"Nice to see you again too," she said kneeling next to him and sitting back on her still sore heels, as though she were leaning on two china cups. Menien gave a dry laugh, though the act cost him and he winced as the small movement visibly sent waves of pain through his body.
"But I have never been more indebted or grateful to anyone else in my entire life," he added, reaching warily under one of the pillows. "You have all my gratitude and if I had anything more than this, I would give it to you as well." Without another word, he handed her a small pouch jingling with no more than five or six septims. It was a pitiful offering, and Shadowmere shook her head knowing that taking it would be even more so.
"You don't owe me anything Menien," she said, pushing his hand back, the pouch still in his fingers. "People are supposed to take care of each other." With a condescending smile, the injured guard shook his head, though he kept his movement slight.
"The world would be a better place if everyone shared that philosophy," he said sadly. "You'd be surprised at how many people don't."
"I really doubt that." Shadowmere couldn't help but enjoy the irony in the fact that she used to be one of those people and Menien would never see that part of her. All he would ever know was the unscarred, kind woman kneeling next to him, refusing payment for a job well done. He would never see the scrawny, scared, angry girl with the battered face who would kill a man, and had, for a mere septim or two. "The question is whether I stop seeing her or not." "Ilend said you wanted to see me," she said, pushing aside the awkward silence before it had a chance to form.
"I did. If you and your friend hadn't come when you had, the gate would be open and I would still be trapped; probably dead. You risked a great deal to drag my sorry hide out of that hell-hole and when I heard that you'd been injured, I knew the least I could do to repay you was make sure you got the potion."
"Thank you for that," she interrupted, not wanting to seem unappreciative. "I was in pretty sorry shape and I probably would still be if you had taken it." That wasn't true and Shadowmere knew it; Saeana would have run to the nearest Mage's Guildhall and bought all the potions she could find if Menien had been given the one spare.
"They said you had broken your feet." If Menien agreed or disagreed with what she said, he kept quiet on the matter.
"I did, along with my ankles, lower legs and all my toes." Whistling, the guard opened his eyes a little wider at her disclosure.
"That's lousy," he said, looking down at his hip with slightly less disgust than only seconds prior. "You must have been in some pain."
"That's an understatement," she muttered, readjusting how she sat so that her heels and ankles were no longer being sandwiched between her weight and the ground. "I'm surprised that you didn't hear me yelling."
"Were you the one who was screaming obscenities and slurring your speech?" he asked, giving a disbelieving laugh.
"Yeah, that was me," she admitted, slightly embarrassed to own up to her language. "So how are they treating your injuries?" she asked, moving on as quickly as she could. Menien wrinkled his nose and shrugged with one shoulder.
"Just one injury, the dislocated hip from when you pulled me out of the cage. They gave me something to bite on and pushed it back into place and some brandy and wine to help me sleep. Now, it's just waiting until I can either get a potion or until it heals on its own." As horrific as the prospect of one's own hip being shoved back into its socket was, Shadowmere knew that Menien was extremely lucky. "If they can't get it back in, it usually heals wrong and a person is permanently crippled," she remembered.
"How long will that take without the potion?" she asked, absently rubbing her feet. Menien sighed heavily, as though he had to tell her that her dog died.
"At the shortest time, a month and a half, but that doesn't include the fact that I can't really move, so I'm going to lose strength. All in all, I'll probably be out of the game for three months." In any other time, that sentence would be an inconvenience, but it went much deeper than that.
"That means you can't do much in the way of rebuilding, can you?" she asked quietly. There was a great deal of healing that could be done in sweeping away the debris. "And he's not going to be a part of it."
"Yeah," Menien grumbled, his displeasure more than obvious. "I couldn't protect my unit in Oblivion, I couldn't close the gate and I can't rebuild now. I've never felt more useless in my life." Shadowmere shook her head in disbelief; she understood his displeasure, but the man was obviously not seeing things with the proper perspective.
"Menien, if you hadn't been there, Saeana would never have known how to close the gate. Hell she would have gotten stuck at the sigil keep without the key," she said, giving his shoulder an awkward squeeze. "So my motivational speaking leaves a little to be desired," she realized. Menien saw through her attempt.
"If I had been able to close the gate, the whole town would have been able to rest easier a few days earlier. You and your friend wouldn't have had to get involved and maybe not as many people would have died." Despite her lack of skill at boosting another's confidence, she couldn't let Menien continue to think he had failed.
"You had the guts to walk into an unknown world, and you had the strength to hold on until we got there to finish what you started," she said simply. "There's no shame in anything you did; as a matter of fact, you must have balls the size of watermelons." Menien lifted his eyes, a glimmer of amusement, if not actual relief, twinkling there.
"That would explain why you had to pull so hard to get me out of that cage," he scoffed. Shadowmere felt the corners of her mouth twitch upward. "I appreciate the chat," he said, with genuine gratitude. "But you should be on your way, especially if Captain Matius is waiting to talk to you. Shadowmere raised a skeptical eyebrow.
"How did you know that?" she inquired, crossing her arms and narrowing her eyes on reflex. Menien chortled, her expression amusing to him.
"He and I spoke earlier, he said he was going to speak to you," he answered, trying to push the pillow further under his hip. "Hey, before you go, can you help an old man out?" While she didn't consider herself the best choice for helping with anything first-aid related, Shadowmere didn't feel as though she could walk away from the man now.
"Sure, where is he?" she asked, smiling at Menien, who laughed as well as he dared, considering each movement gave him pain.
"I knew I liked you," he grinned, holding the pillow in place. "This thing keeps slipping out from under me. Can you roll me over enough that I can stuff it back in?"
"I'll do the best I can," she said, getting onto her knees and shuffling over to him. "I don't usually do things like this, so bear with me."
"I'm not going anywhere."
"Where should I…?" she trailed off, warily holding up her hands.
"Grab my shoulder and my ass and pull gently until I'm leaning against you." Shadowmere gingerly put her hands on Menien's battered, but well muscled, torso and helped him roll toward her as he frantically tried to pack the pillow under his side.
"Is that better?" she asked, easing him back. After a moment of settling and contemplating, Menien shook his head.
"It's just too soft, I'm not getting any support."
"Do you want me to try fluffing it up?" she asked, not sure how she was doing in a care-giving capacity, but less than confident in her skill.
"No, let's just try it again." Shadowmere again rolled the man toward her as he struggled to reposition the pillow. "Alright, let me down," he said after a few moments of struggle. Slightly out of breath, she lowered him onto his back, only to have him sigh in frustration.
"Still too soft?" she said, already knowing the answer.
"Yeah." Menien looked so discouraged that Shadowmere resolved to fix the situation regardless of her skill.
"Alright," she said, slapping her thighs for effect. "Let's try this again, but I'll try this time." Menien immediately resisted, shaking his head vigorously.
"No good," he refused. "I need you to hold me up." Shadowmere smiled, glad she had already considered this part of the problem.
"Put your arm around my back while I work back here." Still Menien hesitated.
"I need your help to stay up."
"Well I need both hands to get it in right." She crossed her arms and waited while he decided whether her plan was worth the effort.
"Alright," he finally conceded. "But try to be quick." As Menien's arm wrapped around the middle of her back, she leaned over his hips and pulled the pillow out from under him. "Ow, not so rough!"
"Sorry," she apologized. "I'm just trying to be quick."
"I know, keep going." She fluffed the pillow and folded it in half, knowing the man likely couldn't maintain the position for very long on his own.
"He's also probably staring at my butt," she realized. Many was the time she caught men glancing that direction, particularly when she was wearing her leather armor. "Hell even I have to admire my ass then." She didn't like to think she was vain, but she did have a realistic idea of how good she looked in black leather.
"I can't hold on much longer."
"I'm almost done." She quickly worked the pillow under the man's hip, resisting the urge to pound it in with her fist.
"I can't hold on anymore!" With a grunt, Menien tumbled backwards onto the pillow before Shadowmere could get her hand clear, forcing her to roll over the top of him to keep her wrist from snapping.
"Ow, hey you're on my hand!" As she made a move to pull her hand free, Menien groaned loudly.
"Don't pull it like that!" Her instinct had kicked in before she remembered that her hand was imprisoned under someone who was seriously injured.
"Sorry," she apologized again, even though her wrist was starting to hurt from the unnatural position in which she held it. "Can you sit up at all?"
"Not with you on top of me!" Menien's face was twisted with anxiety, as Shadowmere's full weight was being suspended over him only by her free hand that she had managed to plant on the bedroll.
"Well I can't move because you're on my hand!" she nearly shrieked in frustration, knowing her strength would eventually give out and cause her to come crashing down on Menien's injured hip.
"Ahem." The tangled pair looked up to see a man standing in the doorway with his hands covering his eyes. "Do you need help?" She couldn't turn her head quite far enough to get a good visual confirmation, but Shadowmere did recognize the voice.
"Sheogorath's nut sac," she muttered, shaking her head and pretending she was elsewhere.
"Ilend, what are you covering your eyes for?" Menien yipped, exasperated that help had arrived without knowing the problem.
"We…couldn't tell what you were doing in here." Looking at one another for a brief instant, Shadowmere and Menien replayed the last few minutes of their dialogue.
"It's just too soft, I'm not getting any support."
"Do you want me to try fluffing it up?"
"I need your help to stay up."
"Well I need both hands to get it in right."
"Don't pull it like that!"
"Well I can't move because you're on my hand!"
"I was trying to fix his pillow, you perverts!" Shadowmere shouted to the crowd outside, though she realized that the people outside were justified in being unsure what was going on in the tent.
"Yeah!" Jesan shouted. "You 'fix his pillow' Shadowmere Blackmane!" An oddly comforting juvenile giggle from the group passed like a wave around the tent.
"Almighty Azura," she muttered, closing her eyes and shaking her head. "Ilend, care to help us out here?" Cautiously, he lowered his hand and promptly put his hand over his mouth to cover an amused grin.
"Ilend," Menien forced out, clearly in pain. "You don't wipe that smirk off your face, and I'll make it known what I caught you doing in your sleep."
"I'm certain I don't want to know," Shadowmere thought, shaking her head. It took a moment for Ilend to sober up, but he got to his knees in fairly short order.
"Where do you need me?" he asked, surveying the scene, as well as other things, in Shadowmere's opinion.
"Stop staring at my ass," she warned, unable to see exactly where Ilend was looking, but if his shadow was any indication of the direction of his gaze, she wanted it to be clear that she had no desire to be eye-humped.
"I actually need you where Shadowmere is," Menien confessed, his cheeks flushing.
"Perfect," Shadowmere thought as Ilend hesitantly crawled up behind her, his body pressing against her back. Though she was hardly in a position she wanted to be in again, she couldn't help but notice that Ilend smelled surprisingly good. "What a weird thought…"
"Alright, grab my ass and my side and lift." Menien had clearly dropped any pretense of getting out of the situation ungroped, though Shadowmere still clung to the hope. Like a true professional, Ilend lifted his friend off of Shadowmere's hand, and eased him back down on the pillow.
"You're free," he said, backing away from Shadowmere and getting to his feet. Shadowmere was able to sit up and looked at Menien.
"Is the pillow at least right now?" she asked, eager to leave the situation behind her. "Because if it's not, then Ilend's going to have to help you."
"Perfect, thanks my friend," Menien assured her, though she noticed that Ilend looked relieved that he wouldn't have to grab the older gentleman's buttocks again. Menien again grabbed the pouch of coins and held it out to her again. "Sure I can't persuade you to take these off my hands?"
"No way," she said, motioning toward the tent flap. "They apparently think I'm a whore already, I'd rather not reinforce that opinion." Menien, and to her surprise Ilend, laughed heartily, though Menien's laughter was punctuated by wincing.
"Get out of here, you're going to kill me one way or another," he hooted, putting a hand to his hip.
"Alright, take care of yourself."
"You too kid." Making a move to stand, Shadowmere found Ilend's hand before her, offering to help her to her feet. To hide her disbelief, she put her hand into his and allowed him to pull her up.
"Thanks," she muttered, sparing an oddly shy glance at him. "If we hadn't just been in such an embarrassing situation together, I wouldn't have trouble making eye contact," she told herself. He nodded and held the tent flap open for her. As she walked out, she was greeted by the sound of applause and whistles from all those present in the makeshift courtyard. It was then that she realized she was covered with sweat, her hair hadn't seen a comb yet that day, her pants were still mostly unlaced and she was a little unsteady on her feet.
"Shadowmere, you're an animal!" Jesan hooted. "Out of one sickbed, into another!" She rolled her eyes and walked away, combing her hair with one hand and sticking up her middle finger to the rest of the group with the other.
"Hey," Sigrid said from the cooking fire next to her tent. "Good to see you up and, ahem, around." She spoke with a smile that resembled a leftover noodle on a white plate. "How are you feeling?"
"Sore," she said, leaning against the table and lifting her foot to rub it between her hands. "You alright?" The Nord shrugged, stirring a pot on the fire.
"No worse than anyone else around here." Since a mere glance around the encampment at all the amused people told Shadowmere that Sigrid, with her smile of obligation, was perhaps less well than she claimed.
"Do you know where Captain Matius is?" she opted to take the woman at her word, rather than delve into her pain.
"Up in the castle," the blond said, nodding up the steep, winding path. "The others said that you have to go through the chapel in order to get to it; there's too much rubble in the streets to get past." Shadowmere rolled her eyes at the idea. Being in chapels made her uncomfortable; they were places that represented nothing but lies built upon delusions and mortared with betrayal.
"Good to know," she said, heading toward the steep path up to the city gates. She didn't see a real need to tell Sigrid about her personal demons.
"You're not going to put on your boots?" Sigrid called after her, cocking her head and tapping the cooking pot with a spoon.
"No, they take too long to lace," she replied, casting a glance back to the tent where she had slept for so many hours. In truth, she simply didn't want to wear the boots. The last time she had worn them, it had been excruciating to take them off and there was almost certainly a layer of dried blood in the left one.
"If you hurt your feet I'm going to be really upset," Sigrid warned, her brow visibly furrowed with displeasure, even from where Shadowmere stood. She waved to let the alchemist know she had been heard, but didn't say anything.
"Shadowmere!" She turned at the sound of her name to see a Redguard woman following her with a pair of shoes. "Here," she said, thrusting them toward her. "There's lots of rubble up there, take care of your feet." Shadowmere accepted the shoes, curious as to how the woman knew so much about the conditions inside the town gate, as well as her name.
"Thank you," she murmured, sitting on the hill's incline and pulling the pigskin over her toes. "I don't think we've been introduced," she said, tying the rawhide laces. The woman smiled.
"I don't suppose we have," she admitted. "But between what you did for Menien and your crushed feet, you've become somewhat legendary around here. My name is Oleta. I was trapped in the chapel until your friend closed the gate."
"That's how she knows that I need shoes," she realized. "She was there." "Yeah, that had to be something," Shadowmere said, feeling like a moron as the words tumbled carelessly from her lips. She didn't know what to say; the woman had been trapped within the eye of the storm, yet she was looking after her. Oleta seemed to understand her bewilderment.
"To be perfectly honest," she said, offering a new conversation. "Aside from the daedra and the screaming it wasn't that different from any other day." Shadowmere had to laugh; the phrase "aside from the daedra" wasn't something she typically heard in casual conversation.
"Are you a conjurer or a nanny?" she asked, voicing the first two vocations that leapt to mind at the words. Oleta smiled, and shook her head.
"Neither, I'm afraid. I'm the healer for the chapel."
"So, the town does have a healer?" Shadowmere was somewhere between put out and legitimately confused at the older woman's calling.
"Were you told otherwise?" Oleta asked, her face creasing with what seemed to be her own puzzlement.
"No, but I was pretty badly hurt and it seemed my only options were Sigrid, Martin and a bottle of Tamika's finest." Oleta nodded slowly as an epiphany lifted a weight from her features.
"They probably knew I wouldn't have been much help," she confessed. "I used up most of my power within a couple hours, and my sign is the Atronach." Shadowmere was reminded of her experience in the daedric tower that culminated in having to reassure Saeana that it was normal to have fingers and hair.
"My friend is an Atronach too," she said, glad to have found a point of mutual interest. "Fortunately we had some scrolls and she was able to absorb some of them."
"Are you a mage?" Oleta looked equally glad to have found common ground and Shadowmere almost sorry to have to quash it.
"Oh no, just literate enough to read a scroll." Oleta's face immediately waved through several expressions, from shock, to anger, to relief, to condescension.
"I…" she started, looking skyward, as though she might find the she sought words there. "Wouldn't recommend doing that again. People have died doing that, both the caster and the target." For a flash of an instant, Shadowmere felt as though she was speaking to Ilura, having to explain a foolish adolescent peccadillo.
"We didn't use any dangerous ones," she stated, hoping the woman didn't really believe that someone who had been partially responsible for saving lives of so many would be that careless with her own. Oleta shook her head, crossing her arms, giving Shadowmere the impression that she thought she was, in fact, that careless.
"It doesn't have to be dangerous to be made dangerous," she explained. "Some of those spells are temperamental at best and the only difference between a Slow spell and a Drain Life spell is the pronunciation of a single letter." Remembering the fish-faces Saeana had made to explain how to pronounce V's gave Shadowmere an understanding of how close they could have come to disaster. Her face must have shown her through process, as Oleta's demeanor relaxed. "Still, it seems as though you've both survived, so no harm done." Eager to leave the topic, Shadowmere's attention came back to her feet, which had some residual throbbing.
"So, have you regained any of your power?"
"No." The healer looked deeply mournful at the fact. Shadowmere could understand why; it was the same as Menien not being able to do his job and herself not being able to follow Saeana.
"That's too bad." She wasn't sure what else to say, but Oleta didn't seem overly bothered.
"It is, but it will come back after enough time."
"How?" Oleta shrugged.
"I'll find a potion or the basin in the chapel will be re-consecrated. It's always come back before, there's no reason to think it won't come back again." It took conscious effort for Shadowmere to not roll her eyes at the thought of the chapel basin being a legitimate healing source. "Sprinkling magic water on yourself, that any number of other people have been dipping their diseased limbs into all day long, is just a really good way to get Ticklebritch or Rockjoint." She had said that to Saeana once, who dismissed her belief with an amused giggle.
"Well, if I find a potion I'll be sure to hand it over," she said, proud of herself once again for not over-sharing with people she barely knew.
"Thank you kindly. And be mindful that you don't do any jumping or running," the healer advised, nodding down to her subtly swollen feet. "You probably have a couple hairline fractures left."
"Thanks," she said, looking down at her feet, noting that the skin she could see around the shoes opening did seem a little discolored in addition to the swelling. Edging past the demented priest, who still reeked and muttered on the edge of hearing, she continued her trek up the hill. "What am I walking into?" she wondered, rounding the first curve, her calves already starting to burn. "I guess it can't be worse than walking into Oblivion." She remembered days earlier, though it seemed like another lifetime, taking Saeana's hand, both feigning confidence, and the two of them walking into the unknown. Shadowmere was blindsided by feelings of loneliness as she ascended the hill alone, the wind getting stronger the higher she climbed and tossing her already unkempt hair into a funnel cloud of black strands.
"Screw it," she spat, grabbing her hair in her fist and wrapped it around her hand, tempted to go back for her sword so she could cut it off entirely. Looking down, she could see that the walk down would be considerable. "Though I could save some time by jumping down." She pondered the idea, looking over the edge of the path at a near vertical slope to the next path, which also had an edge with an identical incline. The slants were also freckled with rocks of all shapes and sizes, jutting several distances away from the dirt face, meaning she had a solid chance of hitting at least one of them. "And if I jumped clear of the wall, I'd probably break my feet again and get on everyone's shit lists." Ultimately, she realized it was in her best interests to not go back and cut her hair and so completed what little was left of the ascent. "You dodged a bolt, hair," she said, staring at the knotted mess. "Of course, there aren't any crossbows in Cyrodiil, so I'm fairly unimpressed." During her time in Morrowind with one of her previous masters Shadowmere had seen a few of the weapons and, even as a horse, had to marvel at their quality and precision. When her master had tried to bring one back to Cyrodiil, he had been forced to surrender it at the border on the grounds that the Emperor had deemed crossbows, "too evil." Her master had gone back and sold the crossbow and bought a daedric dagger and returned. He then killed the border guards to prove the point that any weapon could be evil. Shadowmere later watched him die for his crime and both she and the dagger had become property of the crown.
"Good times," she thought, her tone spiteful even by her standards. Approaching the gate, she dropped her fistful of hair and walked through the hole in the heavy wood, careful to not step on anything that might penetrate the soles of her borrowed shoes. Standing up straight, she took her first look at what remained of the town, her breath leaving her lungs.
It was as bad as all the townsfolk had claimed, but at the very least most of the fires were extinguished. The smoke still hung like mist in the air and the ash formed an almost shimmering carpet on the broken ground. It was beautiful in the way a cemetery could be beautiful; haunting, quiet and a constant reminder that the cost of its existence was lives. The burnt out buildings, those that remained standing, looked like skulls devoid of flesh and features, only bare structure and holes giving away what it had once been. All around were the bodies of various daedra, clannfears and scamps mostly, but the dremoras had been soundly represented as well. Unable to quell her desire to explore the wasteland, to try and understand all that had happened, she wandered into one of the upright buildings.
"Was this someone's house?" she wondered, the idea making her shudder. "Whatever it was, it's not anymore." There wasn't much to see; ash, burnt wood, an abandoned cask and trunk and a ladder that presumably led to what was once the attic. To her surprise, a severed, mutilated torso had been discarded a few feet from where she stood.
"Is it bad that I'm not horrified at that?" It was logical that such a thing be there; the city had been destroyed in an instant by creatures that believed killing humans was akin to slapping a mosquito. It would have been questionable if there were no bodies to be found. "Still, this guy was alive once," she reminded herself, noting that the gender of the torso was the only thing that remained somewhat discernable. "Why doesn't this upset me?" She caught sight of a severed head in the adjacent building, the sight again bringing her no more emotion than if it had been a skein of yarn or an ear of corn. She claimed to have an interest in doing the right thing; she claimed that she cared about people. "Is that just…repeating Hannibal's order? Am I like one of those golems the Dwemer used to make?" The questions made her uneasy, and the sight of the body parts wasn't exactly helping her forget them. Making her way out of the house, she looked up to see a spire reaching toward a blue sky that was still hidden behind orange and black clouds. Some distance ahead of her stood the chapel, remarkably untouched for all that had happened around it with the exception of one of the steeples lying on the ground. For the moment, she forgot her disdain of that which the building stood for and was merely thankful that it had stayed intact and had been able to shelter so many of the townspeople who hadn't been fortunate enough to escape the onslaught.
"The chapel-going crowd is going to eat this up for years to come," she muttered, the words returning her general disdain of the Nine and religion in general. Despite her gratuity, she still had no desire to enter the building, the mere thought making her want to throw up on the ash-covered steps. Scoping out the fantastically high wall of rubble, bulked up by the crumbled steeple, she decided to try scaling it. Warily taking a hold of the debris, she climbed just a small distance before the footholds collapsed and made her slide down the pile. Desperately trying to regain her balance, she flailed as though she was the featured dancer in Sheogorath's court, her arms going one way, her hips spastically thrusting in every direction. "Damn, crap, damnit!" she cursed as she failed to defy gravity and fell backwards off the rubble, landing hard on her ass.
"Ow!" she yelled, before she could stop herself. "Stupid pile," she grumbled as she got to her feet and rubbed her tailbone. The throbbing spiked in her left foot when she made a move to re-mount the pile. "Stupid feet," she continued to grouch, forced to sit down on a large chunk of what was likely the city wall and remove her shoe. Her foot was more swollen than when she had started up the winding path perhaps an hour earlier and subtle patterns of deep blue and purple were barely visible. "I'm never going to be able to climb this thing with a broken foot," she sighed, looking back toward the chapel. She balked a little at the realization that she was just cutting off her nose to spite her face. "It's not like I have to take vows just to walk through the chapel," she told herself as her stomach twisted a little nonetheless. With a discernable limp, she made her way to the building's cracked, and dinged, but ultimately unharmed, steps. "I feel like I'm walking into a whorehouse." The door creaked ominously as she put her shoulder into it, the heavy wood cracked and warped from the heat of the nearby fires. Cracking open the door just far enough that she could slide into the gap, she was enveloped by the stark blackness of the chapel. If the area outside the building had been a graveyard, the chapel was a mausoleum.
The once brilliant stained glass simulacrums of the Nine were now clouded over from the outside by the grime from the smoke, effectively blocking out any light. The little light there was came from the smoldering fires set around the church, surrounded by bedrolls and a hodgepodge of small satchels. Walking with morbid curiosity around the building, she noticed that the altar basins had all been drained of water. "They probably ran out of drinking water and the holy water was the only thing left," she realized, smiling slightly. "At least they were smart enough to put their survival before their religion."
"Please don't let them take me." The voice in her head caught her off guard and made her jump in the manner the severed limbs should have. "No! Please, don't take me back!"
"Shut up," she muttered, knowing the remaining lines of this melancholy play; it played out in her mind every time she was in a place where the Nine were rumored to reside.
"You coward!" The little girl's voice was filled with fear and despair and hatred far too potent for a body so small. "You're a liar and a coward!"
"I said to shut up," she warned the performer, shaking her head as though she could shake the words out of her ears.
"You said I was safe here! Your gods are DEAD!"
"I SAID SHUT UP!" Shadowmere was aware of the fact that she was screaming and little else, other than her crippling emotional turmoil. Her heart pounded like a rain of blows from a smith's hammer upon an anvil and her breathing was like the bellows fanning the flames. Spying the door opposite of the one she had come in, she charged headlong for it, forgetting her ill conditioned foot and threw her weight into the door, slipping out and hurrying away from the accursed building. Out of breath and badly shaken, she took refuge on a block from a building that was no longer there, leaning against her knees and putting her face in her hands. "Why can't you just go away?" she muttered, weaving her fingers together and resting her forehead against the knot. "I can't change what happened back then, just go away." Her heart pounding out of control, she wrung her hands tighter in an effort to stop their shaking.
"Flyyyyin'," she murmured, trying to fill her head with anything that might remove the memories, if only until the next time she was in a chapel. Reynald Jemane's stupid song was as good as anything else. "Flyyyyin' in the sky! Cliff racer flies so high! Flyyyyin'!" The thoughts no longer able to paralyze her, she stood up, stretching her arms out straight and letting out a breath. "I feel like a jackass!" she proclaimed, in a louder voice than the one in which she had rendered the song. The nonsense she spoke was enough to distract her and allow her to focus on that into which she had rushed so carelessly.
This side of the chapel was much larger than the side closer to the town entrance and the damage seemed to go on forever. Fires burned in buildings like enemy flags marking their victory over the crumbling structures and the layer of ash on the ground covered the broken cobblestones like a funereal shroud. The bodies of a mixed bag of daedra were strewn about the area, some with arrows protruding from them, giving them the appearance of humongous, ugly pincushions. Upon closer inspection, Shadowmere could see that some of the arrows were definitively those that Saeana used.
"She was taking these guys down while I had my feet fixed," she remembered, an odd feeling of guilt nearly making her slap her own wrists. This was the battle Saeana had fought without her. Though it wasn't something that could have been helped, it was frustrating to her nonetheless. "I should have been here." A pang in her left foot got her attention, and she shot it a glare that could shatter glass.
"If you weren't already broken again I would stomp on you myself, stupid foot," she snarled before she realized she was verbally abusing her foot. "Yeah, stupid foot," she realized with a roll of her eyes. From there, her walk was quiet, consciously keeping her mind empty as she hobbled toward the castle. She kept her fingers busy twirling and smoothing her hair, intent on making herself somewhat presentable when she entered the manor and spoke with the de facto leader of the pack. As she limped along, she noticed but didn't react to the bodies of every sort and species lying along the path. "I should probably grab Saeana's arrows at some point," she thought, noting one daedroth that must have been embedded with twenty of them.
She walked into the courtyard of the castle, strewn with dead things like a macabre garden, past the bloody carcasses and into the manor.
"No, no, no you oafs," was the first thing she heard upon entering. "Put the fires out before you start moving the bodies! This isn't the time or place for a mass pyre." The man bellowing orders in the middle of the room looked like the conductor in the orchestra of the damned. All around were the few remaining city guardsmen, most moving as though made of lead and all looking as though just a strong exhale could cause them to lose the contents of their stomachs.
"Captain Matius?" she asked, approaching the conductor.
"What?" he snapped, turning around and bringing Shadowmere back to the first night they had met. Immediately, his face softened at the sight of her. "Oh Shadowmere, good to see you, thank you for coming," he said, almost as though he was genuinely glad to see her.
"Yeah, Ilend mentioned you wanted to see me."
"Hey men, take a break!" he called, motioning for Shadowmere to follow him to a table and chairs in a corner of the manor that was slightly tidier and not on fire, conditions that appeared to be in short supply. "Before anything else, let me just thank you for saving Menien," he said as they each took a seat. "In addition to being a fine soldier, he's also an old friend and I don't know that I could stand losing any more friends to this gods-forsaken disaster."
"It was honestly no trouble," she said, the mere thought that she had to keep assuring people that saving someone's life hadn't put her out somewhat bewildering. The captain scoffed.
"It takes a lot to make Jesan Rilian flinch," he said. "He flinched all night after seeing the condition your feet were in. He said that you had initially broken them when you were trying to get Menien out of that cage. The death run back into our world made everything shatter. You're telling me that didn't require a little extra effort on your part?"
"Hauling his ass out of there was a pain in mine," she confirmed, without reservation. "But if I had left him in there, knowing I could have saved him, I would have slit my own throat." Matius shook his head with something between admiration and skepticism.
"Your parents must have been something girl," he chortled. Shadowmere said nothing; she had no need to give her life story to a man whose only prior interaction with her was screaming orders and sending her into a place that would likely be the death of her. Fortunately Matius didn't pry. "Now, onto the reason I wanted to speak to you," he said, evidently tired of wasting time. "I got back Menien, but I lost twenty-five other good men and women." Guilt and grief weighed down his features and gave Shadowmere a shiver.
"I'm sorry," she said, hoping her impromptu shake didn't offend the battle-hardened guard. He merely sighed and looked suddenly overwhelmed.
"Not to mention Menien is out of the game until he's able to move again and all the men I do have are just about at the breaking point." Shadowmere began to see where this was going, and felt her shoulders tense in discomfort. "I have no business asking you to do this, after what you've already done, but I need you to take Menien's place until he's able to get back on his feet." This was what Shadowmere had guessed was coming. "In exchange, I would make you an honorary member of the Kvatch city guard, if you'll agree to help." The reviving of Kvatch was going to be a monstrous task, though the prospect of hard work didn't faze her. Her experience had taught her that coaxing something beautiful to rise from the ashes, literally in this sense, brought with it a sense of catharsis. "But this isn't something I need to recover from," she thought. "It would actually mean something to the rest of them."
"I don't know," she started, not sure how to tactfully decline his proposal. "Saeana may need me-"
"So someone who might need you versus an entire town that does need you," he interjected, crossing his arms. He had a valid argument; Saeana was more than capable and could almost certainly handle any situation that crossed her path in Shadowmere's absence and cathartic or not, rebuilding Kvatch was going to take as many hands as it could get.
"Alright point taken," she admitted reluctantly. "But she's expecting me to meet her at Weynon Priory, so I at least need to do that. I'll give you my answer when I get back from there." The captain nodded with reticent understanding.
"That's fair enough," he acquiesced. Satisfied that her indentured servitude would at least be postponed, she put her hands on her legs and stood.
"Is there anything else?" she asked, putting her hands on her hips. Captain Matius shook his head and got to his feet, seemingly for no reason other than chivalry.
"Not at the moment," he said, walking toward his men, who hadn't really stopped working despite having been given a break. "Thank you for making the climb."
"No problem," she said over her shoulder, raising a hand to wave.
"Are you limping?"
"I'm not not limping." That was as close to complaining as Shadowmere allowed herself to venture. Looking at the faces of those working to separate the dead from the debris, she felt no desire to even mention the comparatively slight pain in her foot.
"I thought Brother Martin fixed you up?" Captain Matius insisted, making a move toward her.
"He did as best he could," she sighed, turning around to face him. She didn't really want to get into the number of reasons why she was still injured. "There was a lot for him to fix." Matius furrowed his brow and looked down at her unevenly distributed feet.
"In that case I'm going to send Ilend with you," he said firmly, looking her directly in the eye. Shadowmere scowled and crossed her arms.
"That's not necessary," she said, matching his resolve. "Don't waste your breath," was more what she wanted to say.
"Necessary or no," he countered, narrowing his eyes to meet hers, something Shadowmere had only rarely seen. "I'm not taking the chance of losing any potential help I might have. He's due for a break anyway." Shadowmere knew the man only meant well, which was why she couldn't come out and say how very much against having Ilend come with her she was. She wasn't exactly used to traveling alone anymore, but she was capable enough to walk to Chorrol on her own.
"Can you spare Ilend for a couple days?" The thought came to her quickly and she threw it past her lips almost before she had finished processing it. "I mean I don't know how long the trip is going to take me with my foot in this shape."
"I can spare him," Matius asserted. "Out of curiosity, what is it that you don't like about him?" Shadowmere was taken aback by the bluntness of the captain's question.
"What makes you think I don't like him?" she asked, trying to cover her surprise. Matius laughed, apparently amused by her being caught off-guard.
"Everything on your face turns down when his name comes up," he said. Betrayed by her own facial expressions, Shadowmere had no choice but to come clean.
"In all honesty, I think he's a dick." It was blunt and honest and made the captain choke with its starkness.
"Alright," he said, after taking a moment to regain his voice. "Why do you think he's a dick?" It was infuriating to Shadowmere that she couldn't think of a reason other than a gut feeling to cite for not liking him.
"He left his people behind in Oblivion," she finally decided. "He should have been the one to bring Menien back."
"The way he says it, you sent him back."
"I didn't send him back." Shadowmere didn't waver on this matter. "He said he was leaving and Saeana okayed it. He ran away from people who needed him. Not just people, his friends, the people he was supposed to stand and fight with."
"Not until he knew there would be someone there to help them," Matius responded quickly, but without judgment. "He was also the first to volunteer to go into the gate." Secretly, Shadowmere felt slightly guilty about saying bad things about Ilend, but she mostly hated that her first impression had been incorrect. She hated being wrong more than hangovers and nosebleeds. "Regardless, we need all the hands we can get and I'm sending Ilend with you to make sure that you both get back in as few pieces are possible," Matius said, pushing past their previous conversation. "He can be ready to go in an hour or so, is that enough time for you?"
"That'll be fine," she muttered with a grudging voice. "Pick your battles Shad," she told herself. "It's not like I have to marry this guy."
"Do you need assistance getting back down to the encampment?" She shook her head, but knew that his concern was justified.
"If I'm walking to Chorrol I can walk down the hill," she said, perhaps a bit more flippantly than she had intended. Matius shook off her tone with a simple shrug.
"Your call," he said, turning and putting two fingers in his mouth to whistle at the guardsmen, who were using their free time to pull books out of a burning pile. "Back to work men," he barked. "If you wouldn't mind, send Ilend up here when you get back down. I'll let him know what his orders are."
"Sure," she said, limping toward the door and making a move to leave.
"And Shadowmere?" It took everything she had to not audibly groan with exasperation.
"Yeah?" She managed to keep her tone civil. Captain Matius smiled, his eyes softening.
"Thank you again for everything you've done." She wasn't sure what to say; her stomach fluttered with remorse for having been short with the man, and she was overwhelmed by the gratefulness he showed.
"You're welcome." The words felt inadequate as they passed her lips. Rather than comment further, Captain Matius simply smiled and nodded toward her feet.
"Wear your boots," he advised. "They'll give your feet more support than those flimsy shoes."
"Will do." Shuffling out of the building, Shadowmere shook her head and spit to make herself feel better about having to travel with the man she knew best as "Dickhead." "Why does that one man bug me so much?" It wasn't a question she thought she should have to answer. If she didn't like someone, why did she need a reason? In animals that sense of being able to discern a good person from a bad person was an incredibly useful trait, and one without any basis in normal logic. Of course in the world of humanity, disliking someone without a good reason, just on the feeling a person was bad was considered prejudice which, despite being widespread, was typically frowned upon. "But this is different," she decided, wandering through the large open area that led back to the chapel. "He isn't bad, I just don't like him." As she approached the chapel doors, a cold weight dropped in her stomach and Shadowmere briefly considered another attempt at climbing the rubble. "Don't be stupid," she demanded. "You already re-broke one foot; Sigrid will shit bricks if the other one goes." For a moment she just stared frozen at the portico, her fingers twitching.
"Walking into a building should not require a pep talk!" she snapped, needing to hear the words. She pulled the massive door open and went inside, intent on simply crossing the short distance to the opposite door and walking out, not allowing any time to linger and let her brain play games with her senses.
"Hey." The voice made her out and out scream and jump a mile, bringing the throbbing in her foot to a higher level of pain. "Hey, settle down it's just me." It was then that she spotted Ilend coming up the stairs from the chapel living quarters.
"Don't DO that!" she shrieked, grabbing her foot to keep her hands from automatically wrapping around his neck. "It's creepy enough in here without strangers sneaking up on me!" Ilend was visibly holding back his amusement at having so thoroughly frightened her, but bowed his head slightly.
"I'm sorry." His words sounded as though he actually meant them. "Believe it or not, I was trying to keep from scaring you."
"Hate to tell you this, but you failed miserably," she said, gingerly putting her foot back on the ground.
"So I see."
"Matius wants to see you," she said, pointing toward the castle's direction. "I was coming to the camp to tell you."
"Alright, thanks. And sorry again. Just remember to relax, there's no more monsters here."
"Oh if only you knew, Dickhead," she thought, leaving the building quickly before the monsters could come out of hiding.
Her mind was still reeling from Ilend's unintentional scare as she walked down the serpentine path, now greatly favoring her right leg.
"What the hell happened up there?" Sigrid rushed up to her, her bluebonnet eyes fixed on Shadowmere's left foot. "Did you have to kick in a door or something?"
"I got the living daylights scared out of me, jumped out of my skin and landed wrong," she said, deciding it was best to place the blame squarely on Ilend. "That Dickhead snuck up on me in the chapel!" Sigrid frowned and rolled up her sleeves as though she intended to render judgment on the offending Dickhead.
"Which Dickhead?" she asked, looking around.
"Ilend," she grumbled, leaning against the table near Sigrid's fire. The Nord woman immediately lost her confrontational demeanor.
"Wow," she said, lowering her fists. "He's not the one I would think of as a Dickhead. Merandil, he's probably the leader of the Kvatch chapter of Dickheads, but I doubt Ilend's even a member."
"He snuck up on me!" she yelped in her own defense. "He could have reached out and grabbed me!" Sigrid smirked, raising an eyebrow and putting her hand on her hip.
"And then there was an interlude of mad love-making in the house of the Nine?" Shadowmere physically lurched at the idea.
"Why the hell would you put that image into my head!" she asked, once she was certain that she wouldn't get sick if she opened her mouth. Her skeptical look still intact, Sigrid crossed her arms and raised her eyebrow higher.
"So you're saying that you and Ilend did not-"
"No!" Shadowmere nearly shouted. "No, no, no, no, no. No." Shadowmere shuddered at the thought, even as Sigrid looked a little disappointed. "Is my pack still in your tent?" she asked, trying to leave the topic behind.
"Yeah, your boots and sword are there too," Sigrid said, dropping the previous topic and nodding toward her tent. At a glance, the woman looked almost normal to Shadowmere; considering all that had happened, she would have been surprised if the Nord looked better than 'wrestling with personal demons' ever again. 'Normal' was almost completely unexpected. She thought back to the night when she had slept in Sigrid's tent and heard her cry.
"Was it stress or exhaustion or was there something in particular she was crying over?" she wondered, pausing before going in to retrieve her belongings. As she came out she saw Sigrid huddled over the fire next to her tent, stirring it thoughtfully and lost behind the steam rising from the pot. She sat on the ground and gingerly pulled off the pigskin shoes, the swelling in her left foot more than noticeable when compared to the right. Not wanting the other woman to see, she hurriedly pulled on her boot, wincing as it put considerable pressure on the break.
"How bad is it?" Sigrid asked, not looking up from the pot, though she had seen enough to know something was wrong.
"It's…broken," she confessed, leaving out the details like color and amount of swelling, both of which were considerable. "I think I broke it again."
"Are you kidding me?" Sigrid shrieked, jerking back the corner of the tent, holding her spoon as though she was ready to kill.
"Would it be better if I lied or played it off as a joke?" Shadowmere asked meekly, not sure that Sigrid wouldn't use her impromptu weapon.
"Either way I'm feeling compelled to break the other one," she replied as she returned to her fire, the sound of her spoon clanking hard against the pot making Shadowmere jump.
"Oooh, she's pissed," she deemed with wide eyes. "Sorry." She heard the spoon hit the pot again and Sigrid made an almost animal grunt. "I think I've pushed her over the edge," she realized, her body tensing in anticipation of something being thrown at her.
"After all that work putting you back together and to have you break again so easily," Sigrid sighed, leaning back from the fire and letting her head drop back in exasperation. "Can't things ever just be fixed?" She couldn't be sure how long she had been lying bleeding and broken in Sigrid's tent, she had been able to gauge time only in how often she drank from the wine bottle, but the work it must have taken to get her back in shape had to have been tremendous. "It's enough to make me cry." As Sigrid rubbed her forehead, Shadowmere couldn't help but consider her choice of words.
"Was she crying over my feet the other night?" She flinched as she tightened the laces of her boots. "Okay," she said, her curiosity getting the better of her. "I really have no business asking this, but I'm going to anyway."
"Oh boy," Sigrid sighed, putting a lid on the pot and crossing her arms, as though she was anticipating a showdown.
"Why were you crying the other night?" The woman looked surprised, then embarrassed that her moment of weakness had found a witness.
"I'd think that was obvious," she said, holding her arms closer to her chest.
"Yeah, but if it were just about Kvatch, you'd have cried out all that by now. You were thinking of something in particular." Looking suddenly haggard, Sigrid turned back to the pot, taking the lid off and peering inside.
"I was thinking of Freya, if you must know," she answered reluctantly.
"Who's Freya?" Shadowmere inquired as she tied off the laces of the left boot a few eyes short of the top. The sinew had run out, most likely due to the swelling requiring her to lace the shoe a bit looser than usual.
"My canary."
Shadowmere nearly wrenched her head with how quickly she turned to face Sigrid to see if she was in any way joking. Her bloodshot eyes near overflowing with suppressed tears as she struggled to keep stirring her concoction gave Shadowmere all the answer she needed. "When the attack came, I only had time to grab my trunk and run. I didn't have time to go back and get her." Shadowmere could hardly believe what she was hearing; the woman, who hadn't been fazed by the sight of her filleted hand and broken, mangled feet, was lamenting the loss of a simple little bird.
"That really shouldn't surprise me," Shadowmere considered, recalling that her life had been the result of Hannibal had being devoted enough to Penny to take the time to bury and avenge the fallen horse. "A canary can't be all that different." "I'm sorry," Shadowmere said quietly. "You don't think there's any way she survived?"
"I always leave the door to her cage open," Sigrid admitted, though her voice was devoid of hope. "But when she was scared she would sit in the cage and hide her face under her wing. So I suppose yes, she could have gotten out, but history gives me reason to doubt that she did." There was nothing Shadowmere could think of to offer comfort to the apothecary; it wasn't something she was all that accustomed to doing. More often than not, she found herself using sarcasm to deflect sorrow and that hardly seemed appropriate. Sigrid gave a slight, chilly laugh and leaned her head back, closing her eyes. "The strangest thing is that I keep thinking I see her, but it just turns out to be a flower or a leaf." Though she wasn't close enough to be certain, Shadowmere thought she saw a tear run from the outer corner of Sigrid's eye and leave a glimmering trail that reached her jawbone. "One time I saw a piece of my hair floating by and I could have sworn it was her." Many was the time Shadowmere had mistaken her long, rebellious hair for a bug or a shadow, but it had always been a relief to find it was not.
"But Sigrid must be heartbroken every time she sees it's her hair," she realized, feeling a bit melancholy herself at the thought of such disappointment. "I'm sorry." Sigrid shook her head and forced a smile, as though she could shake herself out of her depression.
"You didn't do anything," she assured her. "Maybe she did get out. Maybe she's just waiting for the smoke to clear before she comes back." Sigrid's words masqueraded as hopeful, but Shadowmere didn't believe for a moment that they meant anything.
"Maybe," she added uselessly. There was no consolation to be had; Shadowmere and Sigrid were simply engaging one another in a mutual lie for reasons that were altogether unclear. "I'll keep an eye out for her while I'm on the road." Sigrid looked up and her eyes lit up.
"You going somewhere?" she leapt at the chance to change the subject.
"Yeah, Weynon Priory," Shadowmere said, glad to have given the woman the only comfort that could be had at the moment. "I told Saeana I'd meet up with her there."
"Didn't Matius want you to stay?"
"Yeah. I told him that I needed to make sure Saeana didn't still need me. If she does need me, I'm going with her. If not, I'm yours." Visibly crestfallen, Sigrid made a valiant effort to simply shrug and continue her work.
"You have to do whatever you need to do, but to be honest it would be really useful to have someone around who's actually gutsy enough to get the job done. The guards are great," she added quickly. "And they've proven that, but they tend to get bogged down with the process." Shadowmere understood what Sigrid meant, though she hadn't been around them enough to confirm or deny her suspicions. "Not to mention it's kind of a sausage-fest with them now. I mean at this point Tierra's just one of the guys, so she doesn't nag them or keep them in line or make sure they take the time to bathe." Shadowmere had to laugh out loud, though she winced in the middle as she tightened her laces again.
"You're worried about them bathing?" she chided. Sigrid's eyes widened and she nodded earnestly.
"Until the town is rebuilt it's going to be pretty tight quarters in camp," she argued. "At least an attempt at personal hygiene would be appreciated."
"If I come back, I'll do what I can," Shadowmere said, swinging her pack onto her back. "If not, well then, good luck and thanks for everything." She felt like her tongue was stumbling to find the proper way to say goodbye. "Oh, and would you mind giving these back to Oleta?" Sigrid looked surprised as Shadowmere handed her the borrowed shoes.
"You're leaving now?" Sigrid murmured, accepting the shoes and struggling to keep her eyes from looking down.
"Yeah," Shadowmere answered, hoping she didn't sound as guilty as she felt. "I want to leave before Ilend comes back to follow me."
"Alright," Sigrid said, her eyes dropping in…disappointment? Shadowmere couldn't be sure, but that's what it looked like to her. "Take care of yourself."
"You too." Shadowmere nodded, shifting her bag onto her shoulders and heading to the road, her eyes peeled for any glimpse of yellow wings.