Tirdas, 25th of Hearthfire, 4E 201
Kjell and Vilkas walked the rest of the way back to Jorrvaskr in a surprisingly comfortable silence. For Kjell, what they had just shared was an entirely new experience. He'd had plenty of intimate experiences with men before, but even after this one, the whole way back, he didn't lose that feeling. It rose up in his chest when he kissed Vilkas and hadn't gone away. He'd never felt anything like it before.
It was early enough still when they arrived back and Jorrvaskr that there was no one in the main hall. When the door latched behind them and closed out the outside world, and they were alone again, Vilkas pulled Kjell into his arms one more time, for one final kiss to end their night together.
"The others should be starting to wake up by now," Vilkas murmured into Kjell's ear.
"Are you worried?" Kjell asked.
"I just don't want them asking questions…" Vilkas said, reluctantly releasing Kjell from his arms.
"Do you want me to go take a walk and come back a little later?" Kjell offered.
"No," Vilkas said. "I will. You should try to get some sleep."
With that, Vilkas turned and quietly went back out the door. While Kjell found the idea of sleep appealing, he knew it wasn't in the cards for him right now. Kodlak had given him a task and he was to leave this morning. No time like the present, Kjell supposed. Quickly and quietly, he went down the stairs to the room he shared with Athis, Njada, and Ria, grabbed his knapsack – already packed and ready – and went back upstairs to begin his journey. He was already gone by the time Vilkas returned to Jorrvaskr.
. . .
It took a day of walking to make it to the general area of the Glenmoril Cave, and it wasn't the only cave in the area. Something about the place made Kjell feel profoundly uneasy. It gave him the sense that sinister magic was just generally afoot here. He didn't want to camp in this area – especially knowing that at least one group of potentially dangerous witches might be about. But the sun was beginning to set, and Kjell still hadn't located the specific cave of the Glenmoril witches. He was also starting to crave rest; it felt as though it'd been ages since he'd had a restful sleep.
Or any sleep at all… Kjell thought, remembering the previous night. Counterintuitively, the thought of it made him feel energized – but he knew that energy would be fleeting. He needed to stop for the night. By the time he got his tent set up, he was once again ready to take a rest. He didn't even bother to build a fire.
. . .
Fredas, 26th of Hearthfire, 4E 201
Kjell was awake before sunrise to begin backing up his tent. His sleep had been restless, leaving him feeling almost more tired than he had before he set up camp. He had hoped to dream pleasantly; after all, during the waking hours of the previous day he was hard pressed to keep Vilkas off his mind. But instead he was plagued by dreams of an eternal hunt in which he never caught his prey. It was an endless endeavor with no reward.
Kjell knew these dreams were brought on by his conversation with Kodlak – and perhaps, he thought, but the eerie atmosphere of this place. Still, the dreams made him think of Aela and Skjor. After death, would Hircine's hunting grounds really be the paradise Aela seemed to think it would? Was Skjor's soul at peace with his fate? As Kjell finished taking down his tent, he tried to shake these thoughts from his mind. He needed to focus on the task at hand.
It was a bit of a hike, but a little after sunup, Kjell was sure he was in the right place. A heavy, unnatural mist floated around the entrance to the cave. Outside was built up a disturbing display of animal parts – bones, skulls, and antlers, draped with unprocessed, rotting hides. Ominously, Kjell heard a clap of thunder as he approached the mouth of the cave, and it began to rain. At least I'm not staying out here in the weather, Kjell thought darkly, as he readied himself and, dagger in hand and knives at the ready, silently snuck inside.
If Kjell thought the storm outside was ominous, then he had to find the inside of the cave downright foreboding. The place held an atmosphere that just felt wrong.
A short way in, Kjell came face to face with some sort of wooden effigy. Its staring face almost made him jump out of his skin, very nearly blowing his cover – if he made a sound now, the witches inside the cave were sure to hear the echo. Fortunately, he managed to remain stifled.
Inside the first cavernous room Kjell saw a grotesque hag – hunched over, misshapen, and pacing back and forth. She didn't look like much, but Kjell knew well that looks could be deceiving. Especially when dealing with witches, mages, or magicka of any sort. He decided to find a dark corner off to the side of the entrance and watch her for a few moments. He'd have to take her by surprise if he wanted to take her down without alerting anyone else.
The witch paced a while longer. She didn't seem to see very well, Kjell noted. It appeared that she was attending a large cauldron on a fire in the middle of the room; whatever was in the cauldron didn't seem to be ready for her yet.
When the witch finally turned to the cauldron (thereby turning her back to Kjell) and began stirring its contents, Kjell took the opening. She was intensely focused on her concoction now. Carefully, Kjell moved close behind her, hardly daring to breathe until he was in position. Then, all at once, he grabbed the ugly hag from behind, cutting deep inter her throat to disable her voice. When all the witch could do was gurgle, Kjell stabbed her several times – in the side, in the stomach, in the chest – to make sure she was dispatched.
When he was satisfied the witch was dead, he took a step back. What even is this… thing? Kjell thought, looking over the limp creature before him. He hadn't asked Kodlak what the Glenmoril Witches were, but rather had simply assumed they were some sort of human. Now he wasn't so sure. Some parts of this thing looked human-ish, mainly her face and the trunk of her body. But her hands and feet were bizarrely misshapen into something resembling claws, or perhaps talons, and she appeared to have feathers growing out of parts of her arms.
The Witch didn't look like the sort of creature Kjell wanted to face again. But he also had no intention of leaving any survivors in this cave. So, satisfied this thing was dead, he silently moved farther into the cave.
The next witch he found across a small pond in an offshoot chamber. She was the same sort of strange creature that the first one was. Although he didn't think these creatures had much in the way of visual prowess, Kjell didn't want to risk it seeing him skirt the bank of the pond to get to it. Instead, he chose to improvise. He quietly returned to the first room and retrieved the spoon that the first witch had used to stir the contents of her cauldron.
Returning to the room with the pond, Kjell tossed the spoon hard into the water near his side of the bank. He was almost surprised this worked – but the witch hobbled over toward the area where Kjell had thrown the spoon to investigate. As she made her way around, Kjell set his dagger on the ground and readied a throwing knife.
Kjell couldn't afford to miss, and he didn't. When the witch turned and was walking in Kjell's direction, he took aim. Then, as hard as he could, he hurled the knife directly at her throat. It stuck, and more importantly, she was stunned; fair enough, Kjell thought, I can see how this would be a confusing turn of events.
Grabbing his dagger, Kjell leapt out of the shadows toward the witch and tackled her, slashing like wild. Like the last witch, he repeatedly plunged his dagger into this one, hitting any and every potential weak point he could think of. Then he dragged her body back to the first room with the other dead witch, like some sort of grisly collection.
There were three more witches in the cave, each dispatched in similar fashion. Once Kjell had taken out all five witches and confirmed there were no more in the cave, he dragged all the corpses to the main room. Now he was faced with the gruesome task of removing their heads – the seat of their power, according to Kodlak, and the thing they would need to cure the curse of lycanthropy that these witches had cast over the Companions.
Kjell retrieved three carefully folded up burlap bags from his knapsack, and as he did so reflected that it probably would have been a good idea to bring a larger blade with him for this part – an axe, or even a sword, or something. Doing this with a dagger was going to be difficult.
As Kjell worked at cutting through the first witch's neck, he shuddered. It seemed almost as though the dead witches were watching him; monstrous though these creatures were, knowing that they had been sentient and that they were magickal made this task all the more unnerving. And, truth be told, despite the fact that he had been doing it a lot more since getting involved with the Companions, Kjell hadn't ever particularly enjoyed killing.
Well.. except… his mind suddenly whispered, flashing him disoriented images of dead wolves and a heavily mutilated elk. Kjell squeezed his eyes shut. I didn't enjoy that, he insisted to his own mind. That's not who I am. Kjell shook his head, stood up, and left the cave, unsure if he could finish what he started. At the very least, he needed some air.
Outside the cave, the strange mist around its entrance seemed to have lifted. In the broad light of midday, this place seemed almost mundane. There were birds chirping and animals skittering around in the woods around the area. Had this place had so much life before now? Did killing the witches clear an unnatural aura from the area, or had he just mistaken a simple morning fog for some sinister presence that wasn't really there. I need to get out of my own head, Kjell thought. Just get it over with and get out of here, he told himself, taking a deep breath and heading back inside.
One by one, Kjell managed to remove the dead witches' heads from their bodies. He let them ooze and drain out in the dirt on the cave floor for several hours as he took another break outside in the open air. Stepping out into the light, he was slightly distressed to see that it was already late afternoon. There was no way he could pack those heads into the bags like they were now, still wet, still leaking. They would bleed right through the bags.
As much as Kjell didn't like the idea of camping here, the day had been exhausting, both mentally and physically. Harvesting the heads had been an ordeal; Kjell was more quick than brawny. It had been quite a workout.
Kjell also didn't want to risk there being other Glenmoril Witches not presently inside the cave. So, he waited outside for a few hours – not wanting to be near those witch heads any more than he had to be – and then returned to the cave. He was relieved to find that the heads were no longer bleeding much, so he triple bagged them – hence all the burlap – and left the cave.
Outside again, Kjell walked a distance from the cave opening and set up his tent among some shrubs. It wasn't perfectly unnoticeable, but this was as concealed as he could get it for tonight. For this night, Kjell did build a fire – having these five dead witch heads on him was a heavy burden on his mind, and he didn't want to be in total darkness tonight.
. . .
Loredas, 27th of Hearthfire, 4E 201
When morning came, Kjell was eager to get back on the road. He'd had a sinking feeling ever since he arrived at the cave, and he was ready to put it behind him. Decapitating five deformed hag women in a dank and musty cave by himself had taken a toll. Kjell couldn't wait to be around his people again.
My people… Kjell thought to himself, as he made his way back toward the cobbled road that would take him back to Whiterun. Never in his wildest dreams had Kjell ever thought that the Companions would be his people. He'd always told himself he preferred a life in the shadows, but he had taken to the Companions' warrior-mercenary lifestyle so well that it made him wonder… Was life as a thief what he preferred, or was it merely all he thought he could ever dare to aspire to?
Kjell's thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a flash of brown scurrying across his path. A rabbit. He started forward instinctively to chase it, but managed to stop himself after a few steps.
"No…" Kjell told himself through gritted teeth. "Keep it… under… control…"
Kjell saw his vision start to blur at the edges and dropped down to his knees, clenching and unclenching his fists. Just then, someone in a low hood ran up to him. They must have thought to take advantage of Kjell, standing there in the road, clearly in distress.
"Alright," the figure said. He looked Argonian. Or maybe Khajiit. Kjell couldn't focus. "Hand over your valuables, and I'll spare your life."
"Get away," Kjell said, his voice coming out in a growl. He had dropped his knapsack and the burlap bag and was clutching his head in his hands.
The thief seemed to take his dropped bags as a concession. He stepped forward and went for the burlap bag, untying it and peering inside.
"Ugh!" the thief shouted, "that smell! What in—" he stopped, seeing a face staring blankly out at him from inside the bag. "Oh gods, what have you done!?"
The thief looked at Kjell in horror just as the physical transformation began. Kjell's hands quickly tripled in size, his nails morphing into long, sharp claws. His body ripped through his clothes as he grew to tower over the thief, and his face elongated into a snout.
Kjell roared and swiped at the thief, slicing through his skin and tossing him aside like a ragdoll. The thief smacked into the face of a boulder at the foot of a cliff several feet off the road, dazed and limp from the impact. In a rage, Kjell towered over him, foaming at the mouth, the saliva dripping down from his sharp teeth. The thief managed to scream one last time before Kjell ripped into his flesh with tooth and claw, destroying his body and face until they were unrecognizable.
. . .
When Kjell came back to himself, he was lying on the side of the road naked, covered in blood that wasn't his. Although he had blacked out sometime before transforming, he knew he had. He also knew nothing good could have happened.
Looking to his surroundings, Kjell found an absolute disaster. A mutilated Argonian against a boulder. An overturned cart, with its contents strewn all over the road. A Khajiit lying in the road without a face. A slaughtered horse, its belly ripped to shreds. Kjell felt a stinging feeling creep into his jaw, and a moment later he was doubled over puking on the side of the road.
After a few moments, Kjell steadied himself on a tall rock. His head was pounding. This unexpected episode had left him feeling exhausted and sick. But he had to calm down and look for his belongings. As distressed as he felt about what he knew he had done, he couldn't be found like this and he couldn't return to Jorrvaskr empty handed. He needed to gather his knapsack and the witches' heads and get out of here before someone else came down the road.
Kjell relaxed somewhat when he found his knapsack and the burlap bag. He had lost several hours, he noticed now that his panic had started to subside. So he wouldn't make it back to Whiterun today as he had planned. He would have to get himself sorted out and get as far away from this scene as he could before camping for the night. This would be the hard part – his energy was already spent. Yet still, he found his rest was always restless and uneasy.
The first order of business was to put something on. Fortunately, Kjell had a set of clothing in his knapsack that he could wear – although his armor pieces were shot. He used a small amount of water from his waterskin to wipe the blood off of his body, being careful to leave some water for himself to drink as well.
The rest of this day passed in a blur, but Kjell did the best he could to look normal and distance himself from the bodies. At the very least, he didn't run into anyone else on the road. He was fairly confident that he wouldn't have any trouble – relating to this incident, at least.
. . .
Sundas, 28th of Hearthfire, 4E 201
Kjell was up well before the sun, quickly gearing up to go. The early morning chill had made it a bit difficult to get his body moving, as he had again slept without a fire. He walked the road like he was in a dream. Every little thing made him feel spooked. At one point he thought he saw a disfigured hag hobbling toward him in the distance. He gasped audibly and stumbled backward a step, before his eyes cleared and he was that it was just wildlife moving in the distance.
This whole trip felt like it had all gone wrong, and it left him all the more eager to keep moving. The sooner he returned to Whiterun, the sooner got these disgusting heads back to Kodlak, the sooner they'd be gone altogether.
. . .
It was late morning when Kjell finally made it to the gates of Whiterun, and he was so relieved he almost cracked a smile – before reminding himself that he had an image to maintain, even among the Companions. But upon passing the guards and entering into the city, Kjell immediately felt that something was wrong. Aside from the two guards posted at the main gate of the city, the Plains district – the lowest level of Whiterun city and the first district one enters upon passing the gates – was dead quiet. There was a weapon shop and a tavern located directly inside the city gates, not to mention the large residential area, and there were no people and no sounds. This time of day, there should be children running and playing, adults bartering and gossiping, and the sounds of the blacksmith at her forge. But there was nothing.
Kjell picked up his pace a little, unnerved by the quiet that only continued as he made his way past the houses to the market. No one was attending the market stalls. It looked as though everyone had dropped what they were doing and just left. Kjell felt a weight in the pit of his stomach, as if he had swallowed a large rock.
When Kjell ascended to the Wind district, he saw where everyone had run off to. There was a crowd of people at the bottom of the steps up to Jorrvaskr, staring up in horror. What is going on? Kjell thought, a feeling of dread rising from the rock in his stomach. He pushed through the crowd to find Torvar and Aela on the steps, standing over dead bodies.
"The Silver Hand," Torvar said.
Of course, Kjell thought. He didn't even need to ask.
"These two aren't a problem anymore," Aela said, in her even, confident voice, gesturing to the two Silver Hand warriors lying dead at her feet. "But I think a few stragglers managed to make it out."
"Was anyone hurt?" Kjell asked.
Torvar and Aela faltered.
"You should go inside," Aela said quietly.