Skyrim Audio-Adventure

by TheKaweahCat

In the woods near Helgen, an unsuspecting and unremarkable hunter is thrust into a life of harrowing adventure. These are the transcripts of my audio fanfiction youtube series of the same name.

14. Chapter 14

Skyrim Audio-Adventure

Chapter 14

"The three dreams"

The hunter felt no comfort when they ducked back into the shelter of the treeline, he felt very little in fact. He could not feel his fear, though he knew he must be frightened. He could not feel his zeal, though his body continued fighting. He couldn't feel the pack on his back, the boots on his feet, nor the burns on his hands. He could not feel the bruises from being hit nor the cuts from being slashed. He could not feel his skin, cured and dry, nor the features of his face, crimson red and grim. He only learned of all of this when they had reached the falls, and he fell to his knees at the edge of the pool.

The face looking back at him in the gently rippling water didn't look like his. Died blood caked his face. It lay in streaks where it had run from his nose, his mouth, his ears and eyes. Everything else was black form the dirt, soot and sloppy ichor. His furs were torn, his hair matted with sweat and for the first time since they'd begun there flight through the dead forest he felt something. Confusion, alarm, and regret. It flashed cold, not directed by flesh but unbound, striking out like lightning across the fabric of existence.

"Knees, my knees, were have they gone? I'll bet the bastard imps have replaced them with stone hinges." Bracknel sat down hard next to him and pulled out his waterskin. Finding it empty he glanced at the pool. "Oh to oblivion with it." he panted and bent over the water scooping handfuls into his parched mouth. Just as he'd almost caught his breath a splash startled him. The hunter was laying face down in the water. The old Nord reached for him but the hunter had not gone inert, his arms were working hard scrubbing the grime off of his face. When he emerged he almost looked human again, just a tad peaked. That is until one looked into the young half-breeds eyes, and saw that they were empty.

Bracknel swallowed and looked around "How far behind is it?"

"I don't know." the hunter said hollowly.

"Is it tracking us?"

"I don't know."

"Are you alright?"

The hunter gave a deep sigh and wiped some blood out of his ear, "I don't know."

"Listen," the old bowman's voice was tight "I'm so sorry, I had no idea that's what we'd find. I thought it would be a bunch of undead and a thorny wizard chanting mantras and spreading poison. Those constructs were something else entirely."

"Where were you?" the hunter asked "Why did it take you so long to shoot it?"

"I was delayed, there were ghouls all around the camp. I had to fight them off and by the time I got back shit was already glowing. I'm sorry, I don't know how many times I can say it." The hunter didn't respond. He looked at his hands and saw where the skin was angry and swelling. Bracknel cleared his throat. "Anything broken?"

"No."

"Good, here drink this." Bracknel handed him a potion. After a second the hunter took it and numbly sipped.

"Gods, I almost want to apologize for telling you you're ready, for introducing you to the companions and setting you on this path. But, you should have seen yourself up there lad, you fought like a thing possessed, you did yourself proud. Blast you did the companions proud. We were just barking up the wrong tree."

The hunter blew his nose into his hand and it came away bloody. "This is exactly what I wanted to avoid."

"I know, I know, but you also wanted to take your cuts at the world yes, to gain the power to make a difference?"

"How many times has this been?" the hunter spoke as if not hearing. "How many times has my life hung in the balance this past month. It's nearly been taken from me so many times I can hardly tell if it's mine at all."

"It is yours, I've seen you fight to keep it."

"Is that what makes it mine? To earn it through combat? Is that how it works? Is that what validates it?"

"Ok I'll be having none of that. What did you think I was testing you? Did you think for a second that any of this was about you? We have a job to do. We took up this task for the good of the land."

The hunter cut him off with a wave of his hand "No, no you're right. This is no time for a pity party."

"Precisely, and heck, if we get out of this I'll throw you a pity party myself."

The hunter huffed in a tired laugh, and looked at his red eyes reflected in the water. "Was my whole face actually bleeding?"

"Aye from every orifice. I nearly fell over when I saw you up close."

"Huh..." The hunter pulled his lip aside and examined his gums looking for the source of the bleed.

"What exactly did that thing do to you."

"I can't say for sure," the hunter said, still sounding hollow for all his apparent improvements. "But I think it tried to rip my soul out of my body."

Bracknel wiped his face with a shaky hand. "Well, good thing I got there in time to stop it."

The hunter reached a hand down to the water to drink, and saw his arm stretching away into infinity. "I'm not so sure you did."

Bracknel opened his mouth and the hunter heard his voice catch. They sat there in silence for a moment, then a hollow roar echoed to them out of the trees. Again the hunter knew he should be terrified but it was as if the fear had reached a physiological peak and having no where else to go just faded away. He calmly filled his water-skin as the old Nord wiped his eyes and stood. "Come on night will be upon us soon. We need to get down the mountain and get help."

"No, it's too fast. We won't beat it down the mountain."

"We can't very well hide if it's got our scent and you falling in the water just make us easier to track."

"Not if we make a false trail."

"We don't have time." insisted Bracknel, his eyes were on the trees and he'd subtly dropped his voice to keep it from carrying.

"Bring me a big chunk of bark and a branch," the hunter continued, again, as if not hearing, "one with as many needles as you can manage."

Bracknel shook his head and darted away as if the hunter was a lost cause, but a moment later he was back with a huge slab of black bark freshly ripped off a corrupted tree. "You're thinking of a broom right?"

"Right."

"Got it." Bracknel moved off again seeming more driven as he pieced together the plan for himself.

Meanwhile the hunter gingerly removed his furs revealing the pale flaxen shirt underneath. It was wrinkled and riddled with various stains from effort, toil and blood loss, but when Bracknel came back, branch in hand, he easily recognized the garb of Kynereth. "You stole that?" he said incredulously.

"Chew me out later." the hunter said peeling the once fine fabric off of his torso. It was heavy with sweat and clung his form. "Hand me one of your arrows."

Bracknel did so and the hunter jammed the shaft through sheet of bark, then he carefully impaled the soggy shirt on to it. The old Nord watched as this bizarre raft slowly came into being. He saw the hunter pull some twine from his pack and fumble with it for a moment.

"Here," he said offering Bracknel the string. "I can't feel my fingertips. Can you tie this all together?"

"Sure." the bowman noticed the tremor in his young friends movements as he took the raft and string. After a moments practiced work the raft was finished the shirt suspended on the raised line like a tent or folded sail. No sooner was the scent lure water worthy when that chilling roar came again clearer and most certainly closer.

"Set it in the current and lets cross the rocks." the hunter pulled his furs on and swayed to his feet "We'll sweep over our tracks on the other side."

"Do you know where we're going to hide?"

"Yeah, I've got a spot in mind."

"Where up a tree?"

"Something like that."

Where most places would have been kind enough to feel familiar upon a second passing the forest of wisps was not so polite. The infernal fog had been replaced with the gloom of twilight and again one felt lost and outflanked in the scenery. Beset by the same unnatural calm the hunter took the landscape easily enough counting steps and touching tree trunks as he went. Bracknel did his best to keep pace while covering their tracks but stumbled and tripped over large roots. At times he was following his young companion by sound alone.

The hunter strode through a bramble thicket not reacting as it pricked and pulled at him. Bracknel walked around and found the hunter standing next to a large tree with a familiar burned out hollow.

"Well I'll be a skeever." the old Nord panted "this is where you fell in right?"

"It is." the hunter replied, not looking at him "Don't worry we are welcome here."

"What are you on about?"

"We were told as much."

"By who?"

"By her." the hunter said pointing of into the night. Glowing faintly in the distance, peaking out from behind a tree the pale lady watched them. Her elven features still a mask of melancholy, her spectral hair still waving in a missing breeze. The pair blinked and she was closer peering at them from under a low bow but a few yards away.

A sourceless whisper tickled the back of there necks as they looked into those darkly shining eyes.

"I told you there was nowhere to go."

The hunter replied evenly as if this was any other conversation. "That you did, we found nothing worth finding."

"You've returned a changed man."

"I feel it."

"You feel closer to us and yet you feel closer to them."

"I am not one of them. I am not one of you. But I am not what I was."

"You've met the Baron."

"I've slain the Baron."

"Truly?" even through the strange echo of the woman's voice the pair could detect surprise. For a moment a symphony of voices began to slither from the trees only to be silenced by a curt motion of her hand. "Is it over?"

The hunter shook his head. "I don't think so. A hollow one pursues us."

"I've heard the call of the beast. It hunts you as it has hunted my flock."

"We work to see the end of the beast and of the sickness in the deep wood. Will you shelter us from this evil?"

The pale lady tilted her head, as if considering. "Please." offered Bracknel weakly.

The ghostly mask remained fixed on the hunter but broke then into a soft smile. The mouth opened slowly wider and wider, and just when it seemed the face intended to turn inside out a cloud billowed forth. A silent rolling tempest. Bracknel raised an arm and braced himself, the hunter did not. The fog curled around them and the world disappeared. There was nothing. In the fog and dark they likely wouldn't have known that the hollow tree was there if they hadn't seen it prior.

"Come on." the hunter said and stepped down into the hole.

Bracknel followed, slipping a bit but keeping his feet. At the bottom he set down his pack and sat hardily, leaning against it. "If this is to be our hiddy hole then theirs no sense in starting a fire. Do you have any jerky left?"

"No, I ate if all before the fight."

"Why in Nirn would you do that?"

"I don't know. I guess I was nervous."

"Bah! I suppose I can't blame you. I never liked the idea of dying hungry."

"I wouldn't like it."

"Saw a woman in Bruma starve to death a long way back. She got this stomach problem, a growth of some kind. Had food and all the love and care of her husband but she just couldn't eat."

"Do you have food?"

"I have ingredients, herbs and salts, I figured we'd catch something." he looked up at the entrance. "Fat chance of that now. Guess we're going hungry for the night."

"Are you nervous?"

"Depends on how much you trust these spirits."

"I trust them enough, they have no reason to harm us."

"What has reason got to do with it, ghouls and ghostys, drawing lines and pickin sides. Blast..."

"I think we've seen stranger today."

"Hm. Speaking of witch let me see you're hands."

The hunter didn't offer them rather Bracknel snatched them up to examine them, running his fingers over them lightly "Goodness me you practically cured them. So much for not having jerky."

"Will I lose them."

"No no, nothing so dramatic. Your calluses saved you a bit, but you're going to loose that skin. No potion can stop that."

"Damn." the hunter muttered looking at the angry red flesh.

"Come first light we need sneak our way out here and get help."

"Solders and guards will be hard to come by like you said, and we have no money to make a bounty, I suspect anyone else who was familiar enough with the area to raise a hand in its defense was in that pile up there, or walking with the wisps."

"Then we'll take a couple weeks and try again, we'll beg anyone we can maybe Aela can get some of the companions to pitch in. When we're armed and mended we'd get back up there and deal with whatever the necromancer has cooked up in the mean time."

The hunter shook his head slowly. "We wont find the necromancer there, there were no living souls."

Bracknel squinted at the hunter. "How do you know?"

The half-breed shrugged. "I didn't see any?"

The old Nord leaned forward, "What in oblivion is happening you? What did you mean you're not what you were?"

The hunter was considering his augmented hand flexing it deliberately. Then he peered back at his friend and just for a moment suspicion flashed across his face, but was gone like the passing of a cloud across a cold sun, and the hunter's eyes were distant again. "Did you ever play that game when you were a kid?"

"Which one?"

The hunter took up a stone and balanced it on the back of his hand. "You take a boiled egg and balance it on a plate and you try to run from one place to another without dropping it. Everyone else can do anything to make you drop it but as long as they don't touch you or the plate. You can do anything to avoid it as long as you don't grab the egg."

"The game sounds familiar but I can't say I've ever played."

"I know some people who come up with steaks and bets to make the game more interesting but we never did. Who were we to argue with the pure drama of breakfast on the ground"

"Ok but what does the egg have to do with this?"

"I am the egg." the hunter said bizarrely, "and I am also the plate. I feel like I'm rolling around, slipping and drifting in my flesh, and every now and then..." He tilted his hand and let the stone fall onto the ground. He and Bracknel looked at it for a moment as it sat there. "I'm seeing things a shouldn't and from places I'm not, I'm feeling things I can't describe and I'm numb to all the things that I can. I have to work to keep myself centered but it's getting worse. Time is so slow. It took me nine tries to pick up that stone though I bet you only saw the one... I didn't get soul trapped but I fear I've become unmoored. That's what I meant when I was talking to the pale lady. I don't know why but I can suddenly feel there fear. The necromancer would consume them for power and so those who could came here and now so have we."

Bracknel nodded slowly trying not to let the outrageousness of what was just said shake him "Ok... what can we do to fix it? Er you. Fix you."

"I don't know." the hunter said dryly.

"Think a drink will help?"

"I'm already drinking water.. and the potion."

"No I mean a drink. Here..." Bracknel turned and opened his pack. After a moments rummaging he emerged with a pair of bottles. "I brought a couple ales so we could celebrate after we took care of the necromancer. Don't wanna let them go to waste."

The hunter was so flabbergasted a numb eyebrow rose. "Where in oblivion did you get those?"

"The Sleeping Giant where else?"

"No I mean how did you transport them? I didn't hear any clinking in that bag."

"I said it before you don't know how to store shite."

"You'll have to enlighten me once we get out of this." said the hunter reaching out and taking the bottle he was offered. "Or if we get out this." To his surprise the bottle was chilled he could tell by the small ice crystals flaking the outside. However in this stuffy forest of the dead he was not about to complain about a cool drink.

"Cheers." Bracknel said removing the cork and doffing his brew. "To you and your pessimistic arse."

The hunter tipped his drink in return "and to you, you crazy Nord bastard. I bet there's a nordic idiom about this. 'its never a bad time for a drink in Skyrim' or some such saying."

"Well it's less of a saying an more the vital law of life here. You'll never guess how many folk even wildlings like us keep an extra drop of something on them."

The hunter nodded along and took a swig "As an imperial I'm amused. As a Nord I'm almost proud." The pair drank in sore, aching contentment. The hunter was ecstatic he could feel the cool drink working down his throat and reinvigorating his senses. Maybe he was wrong and this would pass like an illness. With that he fixed Bracknel with a sudden and piercing glare. "I'm curious, what has you convinced that necromancer is up on that mountain?"

Bracknel was taken aback, "Well, it's obvious isn't it that's where the poison is coming from that's where the corruption is."

"Yes but there was something else remember, we weren't this certain earlier today."

The old Nord ran a hand across his brow. "No I remember being confused but now I can't remember why."

"Neither can I." said the hunter looking at his hand again. "but every time I try to think about it... my hand hurts. Even now when I can barely feel anything I can feel that."

"Must be in a lot of pain."

"Yep and when was the last time it was in that kind of pain?"

Bracknel took a sip and rocked back in thought. "I imagine, the day you lost it."

"Exactly," said the hunter bitterly. "the day it was cut off by a blood sucking fiend who had just been messing around inside my head."

Bracknel's jaw went slack. "So what you're saying is..."

"What if it's not my finger that's the problem, what if it's my mind."

"You're body is remembering, it's trying to tell you whats wrong."

"And if somethings wrong with me, there's probably something wrong with you too."

Bracknel's eyes widened. "Someone's in our heads."

"Not just someone."

"The necromancer?"

Just then a crunch of branches sounded in the distance. The pair froze like deer and wordlessly turned their heads to the opening of the hollow. The silence of the fog damped all sounded even the hiss of their own breath, neither of them were certain that they had heard the sound at all, and still they listened. Then rumbling out of the night like a nightmare encroaching on the mind came those dreadfully familiar steps. It started as low rhythmic pulse but before long the hunter could feel the thuds in the wall of the hollow. The abomination was practically on top of them. Pine needles shifted and scattered as the thing rooted around and pawed the ground. They heard the sound of tree bark ripping as a nearby trunk was gripped by fearsome claws. Neither dared to breath as the sounds of movement grew clearer and clearer. Then, in gloom outside the hollow the faintest of shapes appeared. The jagged points of antlers and ridges of high vertebrae. The beast lopped along but a stones throw away from them. It stopped and turned its head as if scanning. It was unclear whether it was searching by smell, sight, sound or something else. They heard no sniffing nor baying nor even breathing. They heard nothing at all to indicated that the thing even had lungs. This made it all the more chilling when the jaw flopped open with the scrap of bone on bone and it bellowed its high call into the night.

The two bowmen glanced at each other. For one mad second the hunter thought they were about to take a drink. Couldn't make their situation much worse could it? Then he felt the breath on his neck.

He looked back to see none other than the pale lady, her head and torso protruding oddly from the dirt and wood of the hollow. Her elf features were no longer dower, they were split into a mad wide-eyed grin.

"Hold on." she whispered.

He stifled a startled shout and stammered. "I... What?" A ghostly hand shot to his chest and suddenly he was pulled away. Before he knew it trees were rushing by, whizzing passed his ears as he flew through the forest with a speed unknown to man and beast alike. The trunks appeared out of the fog and disappeared behind him in the same beat of a flies wing. He wanted to wale but the wind was rushing into his open mouth too fast for him to get any sound out. The stars descended from the sky and danced around him wheeling and burst in the deep wood. A huge tree came up before him and he was diving for the base. He dry-heaved and fell forward onto the dirt.

"Stranger?" came Bracknel's voice. "What's going on?"

"Shhh," the hunter hissed, dragging himself back to a sitting position, "it'll hear us."

"I doubt that, its gone off."

"What?"

"Did you miss it? It was about a minute ago. Some lights popped in and flitted about. Then the damned thing just took off running."

"You're kidding."

"I'm not, are you alright?" the hunter just looked at him wide eyed and haggard. The old Nord nodded, "I just realized how stupid that sounded."

The hunter ran his hands down his face and looked for his drink it had spilled onto its side but there were still a few good draws to take. He snatched it up and took them, Bracknel eyed him cautiously and followed suit.

"Fuck me sideways... what were we talking about?"

"We were talking about our minds being... off, wrong somehow."

The hunter sniffed hard as if trying to clear his sinuses. "Shit you wanna start A and go to Z?"

"What we should be starting with is a priest."

"Or a wizard that we really trust."

"Off the table."

"Of course, its practically an oxymoron with you."

"You're an oxymoron."

"Nice Brack, nice..." the hunter shook his head. Ears ringing. He was so very tired, and given how detached he felt from his body, this fatigue ran deep. He shifted his weight to lay back against the wall of the hollow, eyes still trained fruitlessly on the opening. He felt something poke his back and twisted to look, but the dark of night was upon them and his eyes wouldn't pierce it. He felt for it and his hand brushed across a firm fleshy plate that seemed to be protruding from the wood itself. "Hey I think there's a shelf mushroom sticking out of this tree."

Bracknel emptied his ale and squinted at the hunter licking his lips "Aye that there is, artists conk as I reckon."

"Does it do anything?"

"It eats decaying wood and makes you mildly sick to eat it. The taste is terrible as I've heard."

The hunter felt around the shelf again. "It's almost as hard as the wood itself, not like that..." he trailed off as a thought struck him. "Do you still have some of those mushrooms?"

Bracknel paused in the process of pulling out his own bedding "You mean the Mora Tapinella?"

"Yeah, what did that do? I remember you said the cap was good for energy and the black stuff would kill me. What else was there."

Bracknel rubbed his neck uneasily. "Well the neck, frills and spores all have properties that effect the mind. The neck acts more on the senses, making you more aware and adept. The frills and spores seem to expand the mind in far more esoteric ways. Mages and holy-men have been known to make elixirs out of it. Clears their heads and strengthens their bond to Aetherius, or so they say; those elixirs don't get around much. Only man I ever saw take some started having visions and went a bit mental."

"Was he different afterwards?"

"Not terribly, took him a week or so to get right but he was fine. What are you thinking?"

"What are the odds that it could break a spell?"

"A spell? Unrefined raw spores and frills, it'll break your mind I'll promise that."

"That ship has sailed, for both of us... why not try?"

It sounded like a joke, it sounded like so many of those little gaps the two were always throwing at each other; but as the their eyes began to adjust to the dark they both saw that the other was dead serious.

"I just want to point out..." said Bracknel counting on his fingers "injured, soul torn, healing potion, alcohol, empty stomach... and now psychoactive mushrooms."

"I understand, but if we don't find a way back to our full faculties I don't see us getting off this mountain."

"What ever happened to a good night's sleep?"

"It got torn up by the beast."

Nothing but blackness was reflected in the pairs eyes as they measured each other. After a moment the old Nord shrugged and pulled up his pack. "Here" he said after a quick rummage and tossed the a couple frill filled caps to the hunter. "Take it with water."

"Are you taking it too?"

"I've got to." the Nord said pulling out more for himself, "We don't know how the spell works, if you break free and I don't whose to say I don't try to kill you."

"Is that a possibility."

"Almost anything is a possibility with magic, it just depends and what the mage in question is capable of."

The hunter nodded, the idea had occurred to him as well but he had written it off as paranoia. "Well their proficient at monster making, I can say that much."

"You got your water?"

"Yeah I got it."

"Do as I do." Bracknel said and scooped out the frills and spores with a quick circular motion. The hunter fallowed suit and the old Nord raised his finger as if they were toasting again. "To our poor heads." he said. "May they stay on our shoulders."

The hunter matched him. "for another week at least."

Bracknel stuck the finger in his mouth and swallowed, "Month more like."

The hunter took the frills as well. "Don't get too ambitious, this is Skyrim."

About an hour later the pair had lay across from each other in the hollow. Bracknel was as far to the back as he could get, curled up between the wall and his pack. Meanwhile the hunter was laying back on the slope that lead into the tree. He had come here hoping to find a breeze snaking through from the outside, hoping that the woods would grant him just a huff, a small sighing breath to cool his throbbing head. Yet all he found was a familiar view. Staring straight up he could just barely see the trunks of the trees reaching for the sky somewhere above this labyrinth. Reaching to starlight and moonglow.

Sleep should have come easily to him in this dream like space, but it didn't. The fatigue for all its potency was too far away from him as he flickered in and out of his physical form. He flexed hard trying to anchor himself in his flesh but still the world slipped out of his grasp. It was this ceaseless battle for order that kept is mind racing and rummaging around inside and out, looking for any solution. His thoughts reached down to the roots feeling the life essence of the decrepit forest still thrumming in the earth like a pulse beneath the skin. He snapped back to himself and was instantly bored enough to start counting the vague outlines of trunks around him. One... two... three... four... five... six...

"Are you asleep" came the agitated voice of his companion.

"Go to sleep Brack." he grumbled.

"That's a no then."

"What's got you up? The Mora Tapinella kicking in?"

"No nothing yet, you."

"I don't think I'd know if it was?"

"Oh you'd know your gums will go a little pale."

"My gums?" the hunter rolled his tongue around his mouth, "Shame we don't have a mirror... or light."

"You'll feel it eventually, a dryness and then a numbness." the hunter heard his companion trail off and shift around. Then the old man chuckled to himself.

"What is it?"

"Nothing you just reminded me of something. Forget it go to sleep."

"Nah you've peaked my interest now. I could do with a bedtime story."

"What to you want me to tuck you in too?"

The hunter glanced down at a his bedroll in the dirt. "I mean if you can figure out how, then be my guest."

He heard the old man sigh, and a pack of crickets took up the call in the following silence. After a thoughtful moment Bracknel began, "Well, when you said 'mirror' it just reminded me..." he cleared his throat, "When Aela was younger I played a little joke. You see she was always a spirited little thing, took after her mother. And while her mother was a huntress of great renown and quite well respected, she was far from being a 'lady'... Nord women are known for being hardy and elegant in equal measure; but even then walking around covered in dirt and blood was a shade eccentric buy the standards of the wind district.

"This makes so much sense now," the hunter mumbled.

Bracknel smiled and continued "Aela followed right in her footsteps; she was a scrappy little pup, always in trouble with someone over something. Anyway, one day this kid threw mud at her head, she of course pummeled him and his friends into a sniveling mess. Next thing I know she wanders into the hall, twigs in her hair, red on her knuckles and mud still on her face. She wanders into one of the shield maidens quarters and just sits looking at herself in the mirror. I gave her some time then went in and asked her what happened. Apparently one of the kids said that they only did it because she always walks around such a wreck they assumed it was on purpose."

"Jeez no wonder they got the piss kicked out of them."

"I didn't know what to say, so I just waffled on about appearance and how we are seen by those around us, and somehow the thought came to me to tell her... that she can't be that much of a reck because if she was then the mirror would break when she looked into it."

The hunter quirked an eyebrow at the sky, "How did she take that."

The old bowman gave a wheezing cackle, "How do you think? She looked in the mirror, smeared the mud all around her face and looked again. Then she went home and her mother had to deal with her checking the mirror constantly. Of course eventually she turned it into a challenge and started trying to break the mirror with only her face. She would pull every bizarre expression imaginable, she's roll her eyes around and tug at her lips, poor mother though she was possessed. One day I saw her take a plate of food over to the mirror and chew it up all open mouthed and messy. It didn't last long but she never worried about her appearance again and my word did I get some mileage out of that."

The hunter was to haggard to laugh but he smiled, somewhere in his minds eye he saw little Aela running about getting to trouble. For some reason he imagined her already sporting those three streaks of paint across her face. He looked up at the fog above him and blinked, his vision beginning to go dark at the edges. He counted the trees around him, 1... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6...

Darkness all about him, a black darker than the darkest night, deeper than the deepest sea. He reached for the ground and found only space. Technicolor bubbles of pink and blue burst before his eyes but he cannot see them, he only knew they are there by the voice of his heart. Motion, massive an irresistible sent him tumbling through the void. He spun and flipped yet felt no discomfort nor nausea. Wind did not blow, gravity did not pull, he was as comfortable as if he were standing still though he knew he wasn't. The flickering lights in his mind pooled to glow and blinked out. Then came a voice.

"Well, well, I do believe I recognize you."

The sound was so great he thought it might shake him to peaces, the waves of sound struck him from all directions bombarding him with the force of a falling star. He put out is hands as if to brace against the voice, it was so crushingly solid as he pushed back that he found he was gathering his feet and standing atop the sound.

Everything around him was dark stone. He stumbled awkwardly his legs getting used to his weight again, as if they hadn't carried it for years. It the dim a spark flickered died. With a distinct click it came again and by its briefest of lights the hunter saw a familiar sight, a pair of hands gipping flint. At the third strike a flame burst forth, not lighting a torch but seeming to light a figure into being. The flame rushed upwards with a whoosh and spent itself like flash paper. But standing where it had just blazed was a glowing figure loosely wrapped in a deep red doublet. It was a man not quite like any he's seen before. His cloth was fine but action ready, his face was sure and confident. His nose was straight with just the faintest hint of hook. His jaw was square and strong, his chin prominent under thin lips. His shoulder length hair was a soft brown that framed bright blue eyes. He looked Imperial, Colovian to be precise, except all his features even his clothes were alight with a deep golden glow, as though his body housed the setting sun.

The man strode for forward easily and clapped him on the shoulders "I was right, it is you, it's great to see you again." the hunter felt he should respond but his voice came out a directionless murmur more of a sigh than anything resembling speech. "how long has it been? You've certainly grown quite a lot, you look... well you look terrible but that's neither here nor there."

"I'm... Sorry but do we know each other?"

The man turned him around and started marching him off into the black arm around his shoulder. "Oh yes we met before, I just don't think that it was me you met."

The hunter shook his head trying to piece that out. "Wait," He turned shrugging off the arm trying to reach his gaze out to his surrounding. "Where am I? How did I get here?"

The two strong hands found his shoulders again and firmly ushered him onward, "You are somewhere you shouldn't be and I must leave it at that for your own sanity, as to how you got here... only you would know that but I'll certainly say you've got the knack. I still remember how you gave everyone such start last time, like mouse running through a classroom."

"I'm sorry," the hunter said, apologizing awkwardly. "I really don't remember, who are you?"

The man paused and offered him kind smile. "You can call me Martin."

The hunter blinked "You can call me Stranger."

"Oh it's changed, how fun." and the pair kept walking.

"Where are we going?"

"Just getting you back where you should be, if I'm not wrong it's right around..." the man faltered staring ahead. The hunter followed his gaze to see a wide wall of blackened stone, lit bye the mans glowing presence. Into that stone was carved a vast and intricate scene of conflict, he saw towers crumbling, he saw armored men clashing, and in the center of this meticulously realized mural he saw a beast, black scaled, wings spread wide blanketing the sky, jagged horned head reared back in a silent roar. "What's this doing here?" said the man calling himself Martin.

The hunter looked over to his strange glowing companion. The man's face was stoic but his eyes were squinted as if he were attempting to solve a puzzle. Then a small smile curled its way onto his lips. "Ah...The wheel turns again. Brother makes war with brother, the night makes war with the dawn, my blood makes war with itself... my first born hungers... And so the wheel turns." The man looked up beyond the wall. "I do wonder what lies beyond that horizon." he turned to look at the hunter and a myriad of emotions flashed across his face like color flashing between the wings of a butterfly. It started with what the hunter could only call crestfallen, but then settled into a soft smile. "Come, let's get you back."

"What is all this"

"This is none of your concern. I'll take care of it." Martin raise a hand and the scene spit. The stone swung open like double doors and bright white light rush into the dark carrying with it a bitter frost. The hunter raised a hand and braced against the biting wind. "Besides you've have problems of your own by the looks of it. Keep your head up and good luck."

"Wait!" the hunter called turning back to the man but he was gone along with the darkness.

All was whiteout and freezing cold. The blizzard had found him again. The wind was strong enough knock him to his knees but he stood fighting through it. He trudged forward, or he hoped he did, for what did direction mean in a place like this? The snow flakes were volleys of arrows riding the air pelting his front. They were accumulating on his form like he was stalwart tree trunk.

"Hello!" he called into the storm. His voice was being buffeted back to him making it inaudible even to his own ears. As if in answer a gust swept him up almost tossing him to the air, his feet slipped and he fell into a snowbank. He wheeled his arms almost swimming to stay atop the icy powder. Why was he here? What was he doing? His face stung as frost crept into his ears and nose. If he didn't move he'd be buried in an instant.

He fought to his feet and was hit full force by a wall of snow, it caked his front and he spun letting the same wind that brought it fleck it away. He kept moving in what he hoped was the right direction but he was less and less curtain. Where was she? She can't have gone that far. "Jo!" he called desperately. "Jo!"

The blizzard could leave no challenge unanswered. Somewhere high above and deep below he heard an crack like the earth was splitting. Suddenly the ground beneath him lurched, shifted and began to slide. He flung his arms around looking for purchase but there was none, everything was rolling and falling, below along and over him. The avalanche roared and swallowed him whole. "Father!" he screamed as the snow flew into his mouth, "Mothe-" he barely got the second word out before he was crush into dust by the force of the mountains.

His world went dark once more and he floated along. Reduced to nothing but particles drifting atop a vague consciousness. He felt nothing but the infinite scattering of raw nerves. The dust swirled, bounced and settled onto the dirt. At the tips of his fingers, he felt the dirt. He felt the solid earth beneath his back and cool air of deep night in his lungs. He opened his eyes.

The trees reached up around him as they had in the evening before. Sweat cooled on his brow and his lips and mouth felt swollen and dry. The crickets played somber slow notes somewhere beyond the fold of his reality. He wanted to lick his lips but he couldn't, his tongue didn't respond. He reached up to his mouth but the arm wouldn't move. Had it gotten worse? He strained hard to sit up but it was like a weight was sitting on his chest. He strained harder and popped up, all at once he was loose and free, he felt momentary relief until he looked back and saw his own body still lying half atop his bed roll. Swiftly he lay down, terror gripping him so tight he was almost scared to breath in case that had stopped working too. After a minute of laying there in silent anguish, he felt the air gently trickle into his lungs with the cool of a glacial stream. Again he tried to stand, this time moving relaxed and slow. All he managed was a twitch of an ankle. Was this it then? Would he lay here till time ran itself out? Unable to move but too scared to free himself. His calming breaths melted into quiet sobs and the trees above him melted with the tears in his eyes. His world twisted and blurred and while his face could not but appear stoically still, he wept.

Suddenly, through the tears he saw something move in the foggy canopy. He blinked as rapidly as he could trying to clear his eyes but he could do nothing about the gloom. High above, odd spindly shapes shifted and whipped just beyond the range of his sight. Then with the deep hollow popping of wood a shape the size of a carriage came falling straight towards him. It was not unheard of for the thin tops of trees to be snapped off by a high gust of wind but he never thought that it would be the root of his demise. Still dreadfully inert he watched in quiet horror as a the shape descended, then in confusion as it started slowing down.

A wooden mass resembling a splintered section of a mighty fir, loomed into focus above him. It hung there strangely for a moment all brown bark with veins of green moss and lichen running across the cracked surface. Then with a sound like an old stuck drawer, a pair of eyes snapped open. The hunter blinked. The eyes blinked back, huge and dark throughout like an animal's. It was then he saw the slopping shoulders and torso stretching up into the grey. They too were gnarled wood and bark, curled knobs and swollen galls like the imperfections of skin and hair. A birds nest was resting in a branch to the right, to his eyes the branch had twisted like an outstretched arm gently baring the nest aloft, like one who bends down makes sure not to spill their cup.

As his eye met the dark orbs if this strange timber giant, a voice came to him. It was not loud nor soft for it was not heard. No clamber articulated the words, no rumble shook the forest, it simply was there, clear as his own thoughts, if not clearer. It was not cruel nor kind nor earnest. It was an even thing, a balanced thing, a voice meant to stand for millennia.

"Hi there." it said simply.

The hunter gave a particularly squeaky breath in return. He thought it a pathetic sound but felt entity nod calmly, if a voice could nod at all. Its wooden head didn't actually move.

"Sundered, like so many I have seen, but not yet lost. This is good." the thing blinked at him in a way he found equal parts endearing and disquieting.

"I know your spirit. My lady told me of you some years ago, and I marked your arrival on the far side of the lake. I've known the days when you'd walk in my woods, and I've felt your footprints through creatures on my roots. I saw you struggle through storms and hunger and isolation. Never once did I move to help you, nor should I, it is not in my nature." the wooden head tilted to the side. Slowly and with many creaks and pops, "My lady however has taken a liking to you." A blue butterfly fluttered by in the space between them before alighting on the gnarled crests atop the giants head. "She's seen you work against the thoughtless and seek balance with the land. She seems to think you'll be the one to beat back this putrefaction. Looking at you now I'm not so sure."

The hunter tried to shake himself body and mind as a child shakes away a nightmare, but the apparition persisted. Then his eyes widened as a massive hand woven from branches and creepers came out of the fog along side the head and reached for him. He closed his eyes in fear as the voice continued "But I know this... you can no longer be broken, you will need to be one and whole for what comes next." beyond his closed eyelids a light burst forth in the dark. Warmth sprung up from the roots below. It crept and crawled over him, burrowed deep his flesh and blew the spark within into an inferno. A burn bereft of pain welled up like a river over flowing its banks. His eyes shot open only to see bright white, stars of black and blue burst into life, lived and died, in an instant. He felt some a unseen hand fussing at his mind like a quilter fusses at cloth and thread. A black star burst before him and as it died he was pulled into it.

Gasping to life he sat up slightly, His eyes were blind in the shadow of the hand but the distant song of the night crickets suddenly felt sharp and present. As the bizarre tree giant ascended and was slowly swallowed by the gloom, he saw several wisps of dark smoke rising from his prone form. His arms jumped into action, he patted all over himself feeling for a flame or burn or wound of any kind. There was nothing. No pain, only the acute tactile response of his nerves to stimuli. He was back, somehow someway he was back.

No sooner did the panic begin to drain out of him did a profound exhaustion take hold. His eyes unfocused and began to drift closed. Suddenly a dark raggedy shape flew through his periphery. He was up and sprinting after it in an instant. Like a stone dropping into a lake, the details of the present parted and crashed together, enveloping him once more. He was in the forest of wisps recovering from a hard fight; somewhere a necromantic construct, some dread golem was hunting him and his friend Bracknel; who was running off away from their hiding place likely under the effects of Mora Tapinella.

He sprinted through the fog, roots and branches attempted to waylay him but he shrugged them off with a renewed vigor. Bracknel was lost in the haze but the hunter could follow him by the echoey sound of waling. It wasn't long before he'd caught up. His friend was flailing his arms around and stumbling aimlessly, his mad rush seeming to break upon the rocks despair.

"Aela!" he sobbed "Aeralin!"

The hunter rushed in front of him and grabbed his shoulders. "Brack snap out of it. Its not real."

The old mans face was a stony mask anguish, "No! I'm sorry!"

"Aela's not here, come on we need to go back."

"AAAAAAAHHHH!" the hunter felt the old Nord's cry deep in his heart. It the inconsolable sobbing of a man with a life so heavy with regret, his footsteps could sink the mightiest of ships. The hunter looked around nervously and spotted a broken branch, a sign of the route they'd taken.

"Its all a dream," the hunter offered trying to subtly steer the Nord back the way they'd come. "its just a dream."

"No!" Bracknel said now sounding all too present. "Even if I were take up vigil at the gates of Saavangard I'd never see them again. A watch unending to a misty night. My heart lost in the depths of the heavens."

The hunter's heart broke then, just a little. It was like seeing the old hound for the first time. He felt like he knew so little and understood so much. He had just been sent reeling threw the depths of his mind, yet or every esoteric vision or demon of the past he faced, his friend would face that tenfold. With nothing left to do he threw his arms around Bracknel and hugged him with all the tenderness he could muster. The Nord squeezed his ribs in return before the grief became too heavy for him and the pair sank to their knees.

Through Bracknel's wales the hunter could hear a distant ripping and rumbling sound. It grew in to a deafening cacophony of snaps low pops. As his friend clung to him, the titan of the tree's once again spoke into his mind.

"Sleep while you can." it said "The wretch approaches once more. I will delay it but you must leave by first light. Make hast little one."

The hunter looked up and around, seeing nothing he muttered "Ok." and carefully guided Bracknel back to the hollow.

The in crisp hours of pre-dawn the Hunter roused Bracknel and they set about packing their things. Like the morning before they were largely silent, the difference being that back then neither quite knew what to say, and now their was so little left to say. The hunter eventually broke the silence with basic pleasantries. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I challenged a mountain goat to headbutting contest."

"And lost?"

"Would it make a difference."

"Only to the goat I suppose."

"Sleep did more for you it seems." Bracknel looked at him evenly, "By Talos you look bright and driven."

"I feel it." the hunter said rolling his shoulder experimentally. "this is the best I've felt in years."

The old Nord shook his head, "Youth."

The hunter chuckled as he hoisted his pack onto his back and checked all his armaments. Then he said with a tone that did not carry the weight of his question. "Do you remember?"

"Aye I do. The spell is lifted."

"Then you know where we're going..."

Bracknel sighed, ran his fingers through his thinning hair and stood shouldering his pack as well. "The first thing we were made to forget was the fact that the salmon are missing from the river, but the slaughterfish in the lake are fine."

The hunter nodded. "Which, assuming downhill flow indicates a point source somewhere along the river, not above the lake. The putrefaction was never the cause, it was only ever another symptom. Of who? The person who told us to climb the mountain in the first place."

"Anise."

"Yeah... I think it's safe to say our warning never maid it back to Riverwood."

"Aye, I'd say so."

The two of them climbed the slope out of the hollow and into the woods. The fog had gone and was replaced by a far more natural morning haze. The hunter looked around remembering counting the nearby trunks the previous night. They looks much kinder now in the cool light even with the blackened edges.

"Why do you think she did this?"

"I don't know and I don't rightly care. She needs to go."

"Right..." said the hunter, a bit distracted as he looked at the trees. 1... 2... 3... 4... He blinked recount, looked up, then shrugged. "Ok. Lets crack on then."

With that two took off, low and quiet in the early morning. Finally now, to find an end to this wicked ordeal. To find revenge for all the former denizens, savory or otherwise, who once dwelled in these woods on the far side of the lake. Fears had been met, surpassed and pushed far beyond recall. They moved watchful but unwavering. Resting in their hearts was purpose, waiting in their hands was death.