Silence, My Brother
A tale of Blood and Shadow
Darkness.
Not the darkness of night, or the cold, black infinity of the Void.
A familiar darkness, comforting, the darkness of the back of his eyelids; where was he?
He blinked, opened his eyes, and immediately wished he hadn't. The lamps threw out needles of yellow-white light, gouging at his eyes. He lurched upward, groaning as he tried to rub away the pain. Had he been drinking? No, he knew that pain well enough, something unique in this.
His back hurt, his shoulders ached, what was he lying on?
He finally opened his eyes and sat blinking owlishly in the light. He was in a hay loft, odd, that's a first. Never fallen asleep in hay lofts before; wait what? Dizzy, we're feeling dizzy now; drugged maybe? Damn, think, think!
"Sleep well?"
A woman's voice, it cut through the cloud in his mind like the prow of a sailing ship through a fog bank. Such a lovely voice, soft, pleasant, sly and seductive, yet it dripped with venom; like poisoned honey.
Suddenly, he became very much aware of his surroundings… and his blood went cold.
"Ohhhh, there once was a braggart named Ragnar the Red who came riding to Whiterun from old Roriksted!"
Jared ground his teeth in frustration as the carriage driver continued to bellow like a wounded horker: "And the braggart did swagger and brandish his blade as he told of bold battles and gold he had made!"
The driver, whose name was Feldir, was a great red-bearded brute of a man who was as tall as a draft horse, as broad as an ox, and as dim-witted as a mud crab. He was also a proverbial treasure trove of folk songs and anecdotes that could bore a man to tears faster than any crusty old veteran's war stories. Jared had hired the man in Whiterun, not knowing what he was getting into, and had grown to loathe him dearly over the course of the day.
Feldir was personable enough, but he was also a Nord, Nords were infamous for their bigotry. As a foreigner he was lucky to have found a carriage driver generous enough to provide him with transportation in the first place. If he simply told the man to shut up he might end up slogging through the snow for the next six miles to Windhelm. If he threatened him, he'd likely spend a few days in jail.
He considered throwing himself under the cart wheels, but Feldir would probably stop too quickly. Perhaps he could simply slit his own wrists, lie back and let the darkness swallow him up; or strip naked and dive into the nearest snow bank, the shock would surely kill him. Then the song ended, and the driver let out a deep, hearty, laugh. Jared sighed, and savored the few seconds of blessed silence before the older man spoke out again. "Ah! I do love that song, grew up in Whiterun I did. Up in the old homestead; right there next to Jorvaskr, mead hall of the Companions! When I was a wee lad I always wanted to be one, a Companion that is, Mum fancied I'd be farmer course' an Papa so wished I'd be a blacksmith like himself, but I always wanted to be an adventurer! Fighting bandits, slaying trolls, you know, seeing the world!" Here he turned to look at Jared, "What about you lad? You always wanted to be a traveler?"
In truth, he had never had a choice.
The Great War ended less than a year before Jared's birth. Having enforced their doctrine of racial supremacy the high elves, among other things, made a union of man and elf a crime punishable by death. Jared was half elf, the illegitimate child of a poor Bosmer woman and a Breton noble. Although he had been conceived and born long before the law was instated his father was found out and executed nonetheless.
He became a thief at a young age. His mother Leetha, a master thief herself, had taught her son the art and made sure he put it to good use. For years he and his mother lived happily in seclusion before she too was found out, and Jared was forced to run for his life.
Fleeing Highrock to escape the web of the Thalmor, he'd spent the better part of his childhood on the road. It was in an attempt to flee south to his mother's home country of Valenwood that Jared was kidnapped by a group of bandits who called themselves the Black Blood Marauders. Jared had eventually become a marauder himself, more by necessity than by choice, and led a thoroughly wretched existence until his eighteenth year, whereupon a sudden change of heart prompted him to turn in his fellow miscreants and set him down the road of life as a lonely wanderer.
Scarred and coarsened by a life of hardship, embittered through years of hatred and despondency, he met the man's lively green eyes with a hard, unblinking stare that caused the Nord's smile to wilt just slightly.
"No." He replied coldly.
Feldir turned back to the road, stroking his beard thoughtfully. "Well I suppose we aren't all born with an adventurous streak." He laughed, somewhat drily "I admit I was hoping you might share some stories of your travels, but I suppose that's none a' my business."
Jared sighed. The man meant well, the least he could do was try to be sociable.
"I came to Skyrim three weeks ago, if that's what you're after," he stared out into the forest, the tree boughs heavy with snow, the deep drifts of powdery white, the foreboding shadows beneath the canopy, "it wasn't by choice I'll tell you that much." He looked to the cloudy sky in time to witness the day's first snowfall, "Bloody weather." He muttered.
The driver nodded, "Aye," he said, "it's not many a Breton would choose to come to Skyrim alone, you from Daggerfall?"
"No, I came from Black Marsh."
"Black Marsh!" Feldir exclaimed, "What in Oblivion lands a Breton in Black Marsh?"
"Bad choices," Jared said, "and bad luck."
The driver looked on him with an almost sympathetic gaze. "Bad luck eh? Well we've all had our share hadn't we? First thing I thought when this bloody rebellion got started."
He was referring of course to the Stormcloak rebellion, begun by Ulfric Stormcloak himself. After a year or more of pointless skirmishes, the Jarl of Windhelm had decided to make known his opinion of the Empires treaty with the Altmeri Dominion by murdering Torygg, High King of Skyrim, as he sat on his throne. Torygg had been Jared's age at the time of his demise, and newly married at that. Now his wife Elisif served as Jarl of Solitude in his staid, she would be High Queen already, had Ulfric not convinced several of the other nine Jarls to back him in the effort to 'free Skyrim'.
Jared hated the Altmeri Dominion and their rulers the Thalmor as much as anyone, but any man stupid enough to think that one divided province could make war with the Empire was too stupid to earn his support.
"Bad luck," Feldir continued, "that now we'll have to choose between staying loyal to the empire or joining up with Ulfric and his boys." He shook his head disdainfully, "People are rightly stirred up about the damn Thalmor being allowed to rove around arresting people, just for worshipping Talos! But was it worth tearing Skyrim apart? Was it worth starting a damn civil war? No! Ulfric is a great man, but he's a fool if he thinks that the Empire will sit idly by and wait for him to muster enough strength to go to war with the elves!""I'm not surprised," Jared said, "maybe if the empire had enough strength to stand up to the Dominion, they wouldn't be so eager to squash this rebellion."
Jared smiled to himself. This was the kind of conversation he could get into, none of that niggling frivolity.
Feldir shook his head solemnly. "Lad, you're young enough to be my son, and yet you seem so old at heart." he paused a moment to brush snowflakes off his beard. "Let's see now, about how old are you lad?"
"Twenty-two by the first of Frostfall;" Jared replied, "though with this damn weather, I'll have some difficulty determining when that is."
"Frostfall's come and gone lad," Feldir replied, "the harvest and planting's long been done with, where have you been these past three weeks?"
"Lying frostbitten in the temple of Kynareth."
The driver turned to face him, eyebrows raised. "Frostbitten eh? That's no easy feat to overcome, assuming you're telling the truth of course." Jared raised his right pant leg, removed his boot, rolled down the leg of his stocking and pointed to his bare calf.
A large patch of scar tissue marred Jared's right leg, distinguishable due to the relative fairness of the skin around it. Jared explained that it marked were the priestess had, with care and precision, carved away the black, frozen flesh and remade it anew.
"She was a master in the art of restoration magic," Jared said while looking at the mark, "I was literally bitten by some half- invisible serpent or something; the priestess called it an ice wraith." Putting his boot back on he continued: "While she was removing the damaged tissue she extracted six teeth." Here he reached into his satchel and pulled out a leather thong from which dangled six translucent blue-white objects that might have been teeth, but could just as easily have been claws, each was nearly the size of a human finger. "She instructed me to keep them on my person while wandering the tundra in order to ward of future attacks." Jared returned the talisman to his satchel, laughing softly and bitterly. "She wouldn't accept payment you know, even though I offered; and I don't make such offers lightly." He shook his head, "I said 'name your price' and she replied: 'Oh no my child, your health and safety are reward enough.' 'But surely there's something I can do to repay you' I said." Jared sighed, "Then she said, 'yes, you may repay me by remaining true to your heart and following the voice of Kynareth wherever it guides you.'" He sighed, "Price I pay for being oblivious to the harshness of this land."
Jared suddenly realized that the driver had fallen silent.
He turned; the man was regarding him with an unreadable expression.
"So the voice of Kynareth, it told you to travel to Windhelm?" After a mutual silence he said: "No, not Kynareth."
"If not that, what then? I don't know if you're aware lad, but the people of Windhelm don't take too kindly to outsiders."
"It doesn't matter where I go, I'll always be an outsider."