A/N: Hello. Happy spring break to anyone else who's on this particular vacation at the moment. I'm greatly enjoying my time just relaxing at home. But anyway, here's the newest chapter. The only note I have is that nothing like Dany's dream happens in the game, I just wanted there to be more of a connection there and more spooky supernatural type stuff going on, so, yeah. That's all. As always, many thanks to my beta reader (and sister) GrowlingPeanut. Reviews are appreciated.
Disclaimer: Everything belongs to Bethesda Softworks and George R. R. Martin.
Rating: M for some language, brief references to rape and miscarriage, non-graphic violence, and the consumption of alcohol.
When Dany and Sandor resurfaced from the tomb it was dark outside, and cold, and Dany realized suddenly just how tired she was. Sandor noted her exhaustion easily and helped her up onto her mare before nodding his head toward the nearby marshes.
"Morthal's just on the other side of the swamp. We can ride there and stay the night before getting back on the road."
Dany nodded wearily in agreement and pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders to ward off the nighttime chill. Absently, her hand crept to her abdomen, but when she remembered that nothing grew within, it returned to the reins.
The ride was an easy one, and the horses seemed eager to be moving once more, even if it was through the thick sludge of Morthal's swamps. They were tied up again outside the inn with minimal complaint from Stranger, and once Sandor roused the innkeeper, they made their way to their room. As the sellsword settled onto the floor in front of the door, Daenerys crawled into the bed, and when she fell asleep, she dreamed.
She could feel the heat before she saw the flames, but when her eyes opened, they were all around her. She was in Helgen once more as it crumbled to the ground, but all around her, time stood still. The executioner's axe was raised, but her head was not beneath it, for she was high above it all, suspended in the air, her eyes fixed on the ones that met her gaze. They were red as rubies, and held within them a strange and timeless evil.
The dragon cocked its massive head, and after a long moment, it spoke, its voice a deep, thunderous roar.
"Dovahkiin..."
When she opened her mouth to speak, her throat was dry, and her voice trembled. "Who are you?"
"I am Alduin, the World Eater, First-Born of Akatosh. And you are Dovahkiin, though they call you Daenerys Targaryen in your weak and grating tongue."
The Common Tongue sounded strange when he spoke it, but she heard a power in his name, and though she could not understand it, she knew that it was not simply the name he had been given by mortal men.
"Why is this happening to me?" she demanded angrily. "I did not ask for this!"
"No," Alduin agreed. "But prophecy foretold it. Your brother fell to my flames, and so too did your son shrivel in your womb. The dragon blood will die with you, Dovahkiin, for you are the last, as is written in the stars."
"What else does the prophecy say?" She knew that she had heard it, but she did not understand it, nor her place in it.
"That you shall be my undoing," Alduin snarled, his eyes narrowing. "But you are weak, and your mortal flesh will burn like all the others'. We will meet again, Dragonborn, in the waking world, and when we do, you will die!"
With a great roar, he rose to the skies, and with a Shout, Helgen began to stir once more as Daenerys fell from high above, plummeting to her certain death.
Dany woke with a start, shaking and sweating as she clambered from the bed and steadied herself on the wooden floor beneath her feet. Her body retched helplessly into the chamber pot for a few unpleasant minutes, but gradually, her stomach stopped its turning. She pushed her hair back from her forehead with a sigh.
Sandor was nowhere in sight, and so she quietly gathered her things and walked out into the common room of the inn. He was waiting for her at a table, and she could see by the light from the windows that they had only slept for a few hours.
"Couldn't sleep either?" he asked as she sat beside him, taking a swig from the bottle of mead in his hand. When she shook her head, he sighed and nodded. "We should take to the road again, then. No use in wasting time."
The town was still quiet as they departed, though the sun had already begun its ascent and the sky was alight with gentle hues of pink and orange. They rode at a brisk walk through the streets of Morthal, and took the steep road up out of the town just as the first townsfolk began to rise.
They were hardly beyond the sight of Morthal's thatched roofs when they heard the sound of frantic hoof beats, and a moment later, a rider-less horse thundered past, its eyes wide and wild. Sandor pulled Stranger to a halt as the massive courser whickered nervously, and he was just drawing his sword when a sabre cat rushed across the path in pursuit of the horse.
Spurring Stranger back into action, the sellsword galloped up alongside the snarling beast and with a downward thrust of his sword, he halted it in its tracks. He was dismounting to wipe the blood from his blade when a well-dressed Argonian ran over, breathing heavily.
"Have you seen my horse, ser?" he called out, stopping beside Sandor as Dany rode to meet them. "I was riding along the path when that sabre cat appeared and my horse threw me before galloping away."
Sandor grunted noncommittally and returned the sword to its scabbard before replying. "Aye. He's just up the road, not too far unless he's still running like the gates of Oblivion are at his hooves."
Nodding his thanks, the Argonian departed and as Dany and Sandor continued along the path, they passed him once more, struggling to tame his still flighty mount.
When they finally found a path south through the mountains, it had begun to snow heavily, and the horses trudged through it dutifully, but slowly. A strange pattern of rocks rose around them as they rode, and after a long moment, Daenerys broke her silence.
"I think this is the place they call Labyrinthian. Drogo told me of it once. He said it makes for a much quicker route through the mountains for caravans, but many are too afraid to pass through it, for tales of a curse, and rumours of terrible beasts lurking amongst the stones."
"Terrible beasts?" Sandor echoed incredulously. "The terrible beasts of Skyrim are in the skies now, and it's only since Helgen that they appeared. Besides, if a dragon can be felled, then whatever lurks here can be too."
He had hardly finished speaking when a flash of movement caught Daenerys' eye, and she let out a cry of alarm as she met the gaze of three dark and beady eyes. The troll, previously camouflaged by its snowy surroundings, lumbered toward them with surprising speed and Sandor drew his sword with a muttered "bloody hell" as Dany fumbled for her bow. The sellsword swore loudly when the creature ran past Stranger, missing the swing of his sword and charging toward Daenerys.
Before she could comprehend what was happening, she was being pulled from her saddle, the troll's claws tearing into the flesh of her arm. Crying out in pain as she tumbled to the ground, she tried to crawl away, but its claws found her leg and pulled her backward. Panicking, she grabbed for her bow only to find that it had been jostled from her shoulders, her fingers fumbling at the quiver that remained. Without thinking, she drew an arrow from within and thrust it forward, stabbing the beast in one of its eyes before drawing it back and repeating the motion, again and again.
She was aware of little else as she struggled to defend herself, and when she regained her senses, Sandor was at her side, pulling the arrow from her fist. "It's dead, Dany. It's dead." There was guilt in his eyes as he crouched beside her, and though she wanted to tell him that he had tried to defend her, all she could think of was the sudden burning pain in her arm and leg.
"It hurts," she managed to choke out through her tears. "Gods, it hurts."
Carefully, the sellsword prodded at the scratches that marred her flesh, and she cried out through gritted teeth as the pain flared stronger. With a frown, he set to tearing strips from his battered cloak, and after lining them with snow, he began to wind them around the wounds. Dany tried weakly to shy away from the cold, but Sandor held her firmly, shaking his head.
"I know what I'm doing, girl. I was a soldier for a long time. This will help with any swelling and as the snow melts it will help to wash away some of the blood. Can you walk?"
With his help, she was able to stand and hobble back to her mare, though every step sent a lance of pain through her body. She let him lift her onto her horse without resistance and slumped forward in her saddle.
"We're only a few hours' ride from Whiterun," Sandor said as he swung up onto Stranger's back and then rode around to nudge Dany's mare into a canter. "We'll ride hard, and get you to a healer once we're there."
Though the pace they set did little to ease the pain of her wounds, Dany didn't argue. The journey back to Whiterun was, thankfully, a quiet one, and it was as they reached the foot of the mountains that the city walls appeared on the horizon.
"What of the battle?" Dany asked quietly as they skirted around a giant slowly herding a pair of mammoths to the north.
"I don't know, girl," Sandor replied honestly, his expression worried. "No matter who won, they'll want me dead. I'll keep my head low, we'll take you to get healed, and then we'll be off to Riverwood. If we're lucky, they'll be too busy with the aftermath to notice another pair of travelers."
The fields around the city were black and dead, and the bloodstains in the grass were further evidence of the battle that had been fought there. At the city gates, a banner hung, deep blue with a golden center, marking the Stormcloaks as the battle's victors. Dany wondered absently if Stormcloak himself was still within the city, and if she would be able to keep Sandor from killing him if they crossed his path. Or if she should even try.
After leaving their horses at the stable, they made their way to the gates. Though they were initially stopped, they were allowed entry, for a tired and visibly injured young woman and her sellsword seemed no trouble to the young guards that held the watch position.
"Go to the alchemist's shop," Sandor ordered as they walked into the streets of Whiterun. "I have something else I need to do. Meet me back here at the blacksmith's when you're finished."
Nodding, Dany slowly limped toward the market square. Many of the buildings were charred if not destroyed, and she could scarcely count the number of people despondently working to rebuild their lives from the rubble of a war they had not asked for.
The sign to Arcadia's Cauldron was hanging crooked from a single chain, and when Dany opened the door, the young woman behind the counter looked distracted, busily straightening the ingredients on display and polishing dusty potion bottles.
When the young Breton cleared her throat, Arcadia looked up and her hands stopped their fiddling as she took in the bloodied makeshift bandages that bound her limbs.
"Here for a remedy are you?"
When Daenerys nodded, the alchemist came around the counter to her side and began to unwrap the strips of cloth and assess the damage that had been done.
"What sort of beast was this?" she asked curiously as she prodded at the swollen claw marks.
"A troll," Dany replied wearily, wincing at the alchemist's less than tender explorations.
"Troll? Hm. Interesting." Absently, she returned to her stock and began rummaging through the bottles that lined her shelves. "I recommend a potion of regeneration to help it heal faster, one of restore health to close the wounds, and then this poultice of charred skeever hide and mudcrab chitin to reduce the swelling and keep it from getting infected while it continues to heal. Use that at night and let it breathe."
Dany nodded blankly at the alchemist's suggestion and then withdrew the coinpurse from her belt. "How much?"
Arcadia eyed the items on the counter between them for a moment and then looked back to Daenerys before replying.
"Because you fought a troll and lived to tell the tale, I'll give you all of it for two hundred septims, but just know that you're getting quite the bargain."
Dany thanked her as she handed over the coins and took the bottles and the bowl of thick, vile looking poultice. As she reentered the streets, she pulled the cork from the first bottle and drained it in one swallow, trying to ignore its bitter aftertaste. Sighing heavily, she did the same for the second, and as she drank it, she could feel the skin around the wounds pulling tighter and drawing together. Shaking off the strange sensation, she walked back to the blacksmith's shop beside the gate and found Sandor waiting for her there.
When she approached, he waved for the blacksmith, and she wiped her dirty hands on her apron before moving to his side. After giving Dany a thorough once-over, the woman nodded.
"Aye. I think we have a few pieces that would fit her. Follow me, girl."
When Sandor nodded for her to go, Dany obeyed, following the woman into the shop owned by her and her husband. Weapons and armor lined the walls, and the blacksmith searched for a few moments before withdrawing several pieces of the latter.
"Try these on, girl."
It was an elven breastplate, leather greaves, and a polished glass set of gauntlets that were presented to her, and after quietly asking for the older woman's help, Dany had them fitted securely on her chest, legs, and arms.
When Sandor entered, he raised his eyebrows. "How does it all feel, girl?"
Frowning, Dany took a few steps and then stopped once more, flexing her hands within the leather bound and glass capped gloves that rose high to her elbows. "Awkward," she replied honestly.
"But you can move in it?" he asked. "It isn't too heavy?"
Testing her movement once more, she shook her head. "No. I've just never worn armor before."
Sandor nodded and crossed his arms. "Aye. You'll get used to it though. And now that you're the bloody Dragonborn, you won't be going anywhere without it. When I have the coin I'll get you a full matching set, but for now, this will have to do. It'll at least help to keep you from getting killed. How's the arm and leg?"
Dany shrugged. "Sore, but not as painful. Arcadia gave me a potion to close the wounds, another to help them heal faster and then a poultice to apply at night to help with the swelling and any infection."
He nodded once more in satisfaction and after paying the blacksmith for the armor, steered Dany toward the door.
"Let's be off then. The sun will set in a few hours and I'd like to be in Riverwood by then."
The road they took to Riverwood was the same one that Dany had used to escape from Helgen, and the sun was just beginning to disappear behind the trees when they reached the Sleeping Giant Inn.
"I'll tie up the horses," Sandor said as he swung to the ground. "You head in and rent that attic room, and we'll see what happens."
Nodding, Dany dismounted and entered the inn. It was warm inside, and loud, as Sven sang the beginning chords of Ragnar the Red and the inn's patrons downed their flagons of ale and added their voices to that of the bard.
She found the innkeeper behind the bar, and as she approached, the blonde woman smiled. "Good evening, lass. The name's Delphine. Looking to stay the night?"
As Sandor moved quietly to her side, Dany replied. "Yes. We're looking to rent the attic room." The more she looked at the woman, the more familiar she seemed, but no matter how hard she studied the Breton's features, she couldn't remember where they had met before. Perhaps she had simply seen her during her last visit to the little town.
Delphine cocked an eyebrow and looked at the two of them for a moment in confusion. "The attic room? That one's awfully small and cramped. And with only one bed too." Her gaze flickered over to Sandor and she smirked. "Though maybe that's what you're looking for, eh?"
Sandor's mouth bent in a snarl, but before he could respond, Daenerys spoke, curtly. "My sellsword will be sleeping on the floor, but all the same, we request the attic room."
Shrugging slightly, Delphine nodded. "No offense, meant, my lady. I've simply heard the rumors and I know that the Hound prefers his women to be young and pretty maidens. I would say you and Sansa Stark have that in common."
"We are both young and pretty, aye," Dany snapped irritably. "But neither of us is a maiden, seeing as she's been raped by Ulfric Stormcloak and I'm a married woman. Now, the room key, please."
Delphine looked impressed by the younger Breton's feisty outburst, and she handed over the key without any further resistance. "As it turns out, we don't have an attic room, and I'm not sure where you heard that we did, but you can have the one on your left. Make yourself at home."
Without thanking her, the pair made their way to the room and Sandor settled against the wall, his expression furious.
"She was only trying to get a rise out of you," Dany said calmly as she sat down on the bed.
"Aye?" Sandor snarled. "Well it worked. Snide bitch."
"Yes," she agreed. "But we have far more important matters to attend to."
At the reminder of their reason for being in Riverwood, Sandor's ire faded slightly, and in silence, they waited. After several hours with no word from any 'friend', they began to drift to sleep, and it was just as Dany was being pulled into unconsciousness that the door opened and a dark figure entered.
Sandor stirred and rose to his feet as Dany sat up, and after a moment, the figure lit a torch, revealing the innkeeper, Delphine, leaning back against the door, a satisfied smirk on her lips.
"So you're the Dragonborn I've been hearing so much about." When the two companions stared in disbelief, she sighed and straightened up. "Follow me. We need to talk."