Because this fic is crossposted on Tumblr ( nerevar-quote-and-star) and ao3 (A_Midwinter_Night_Dream86), I've been neglecting updating on this site. Hang tight: I have several chapters to upload to catch everyone up.

5—Moth

Leara shot daggers into the back of Bishop's head as the gatekeeper led them across the crumbling bridge to the College of Winterhold. Ice coated her fingers and palms and it wasn't from the cold. Karnwyr trotted alongside her, his tail limp and head bowed. The gatekeeper, an Altmer named Faralda, rattled on about the College's relationship with the local Nords, but Leara only gave her half an ear. Her focus was split between Bishop's actions back at the inn and on the task at hand: finding an Elder Scroll.

Naturally, Bishop was unaware of the ice shards digging into the back of his perfectly tussled hair. No, he was too busy rolling his eyes and mocking Faralda behind her back.

Leara half-wished the Altmer would notice and blast Bishop off the bridge. Maybe then Leara would be able to go somewhere without a fight breaking out around her. Over her.

"If you seek knowledge of the Scrolls, the Arcanaeum may offer up answers, but do not expect for them to come easily, if at all," Faralda explained as they approached the gate. With a whisper, the towering wrought iron doors swung open, revealing the frozen courtyard beyond. It was dominated by a statue of some ancient mage or another, his arms spread wide around a fount of sparkling magicka. The area was desolate; caged in by high stone walls and arches that led deeper into the college complex, but there was no one there. "You may speak to the librarian, but you do so at your own risk."

"What do you mean?" Leara asked absently, caught by the cold desolation of the courtyard.

"Urag gro-Shub guards his books like a dragon hoarding gold," Faralda's amber eyes glittered with mirth as she met Leara's. The Dragonborn lifted her chin, a faint frown tracing her face. Faralda only smiled, the thin almost smile of the Altmer, before her face smoothed over again. "While the College is willing to offer the Dragonborn assistance in the interest of bringing this Dragon Crisis to an end, I ask that you respect our institution's members and their research."

"Of course," Leara nodded, elbowing Bishop in the ribs before he could fire off a sarcastic comment about 'prissy' mages. A sinking feeling told Leara that Faralda already knew about the Incident at The Frozen Hearth the previous evening. She could not afford any more of Bishop's antagonism. She could only hope that they didn't run into Darren while there.

Faralda directed them into the main tower, pointing out a stairwell that led to the Arcanaeum. Then Leara and Bishop were alone as the mage returned to her post. Beyond the iron doors, a class of mages was covering ward spells in the lecture hall. Leara didn't realize she was staring until Bishop cleared his throat. Blinking, she glared at him.

"Hey, what's with the face?" he asked.

"You really have no idea, do you?" she hissed. Mindful of their public setting, she cast a Muffle spell between them, its soft light bubbling around them in a pale cascade before fading away.

She needn't have bothered. The ranger's face was as blank as new parchment. Leara scoffed, rounding to the stairs, only for Bishop to grab her wrist and pull her back. Karnwyr grunted at his master, but Bishop ignored him as he dragged Leara into a glaring contest. "Don't storm off without talking to me! What's your problem?"

Leara wrenched her hand from his – no small feat. Somehow, she knew her armor was the one thing standing between Bishop's iron grip and a patchwork of bruises stitching across her skin, She gritted her teeth. "I am not beholden to you." She raised a silencing finger when he made to retort. "But since you ask so nicely," – she punctuated this with an eye roll – "my problem is you!"

"Me?" Bishop let out an incredulous laugh. "That's rich, darling. You're no cakewalk!"

"I don't try to be," Leara said, dismissive, "but you should try to be nicer to the people I'm trying to talk to!"

"Wait, don't tell me this is about that whiny little mage baby from the inn?" This time, Bishop's laugh was real, deep. Then his hands were along her jawline, cradling her face, and Leara couldn't, didn't jerk back for the long, callused fingers slipping under her hood to curl against her ears. They snagged on thin wisps of hair too short for her bun, "Now, now, sweetness, don't tell me you were falling for his little 'woe is me, sweet rose' act, were you?"

Her entire body was stone. "No," she bit out, her jaw moving against the barrier of his hands like a gag. "But that doesn't mean you needed to break his nose!"

Bishop released her face – but not before giving an errant curl a sharp tug. "Boy needed to learn a lesson, sweetness, and Oblivion knows no one else was going to do it!"

"Except Casavir."

The snarl that twisted Bishop's face was so monstrous that Leara really did take a step back from him. "Casavir," he sneered, glare lost somewhere far away. The next moment he focused back on her, face softening so suddenly that Leara almost felt she imagined his previous hatred. "If you're going to insist on praying, you might as well pray we never have to go to Solitude."

"I take it you know each other," Leara said, her frosty temper consumed by Bishop's inferno.

Bishop closed his eyes as if pained, his fists clenching where they'd fallen at his side. "Too well."

The outer doors opened, shattering her Muffle spell as well as the bubble of tension surrounding them. A boy, wheat hair covered in a hood and a stack of scrolls under his arm, shuffled into the foyer. He eyed the class already in session in the lecture hall before catching sight of Leara and Bishop. His grey eyes bugged out of his head. "Uh."

"Are you going to class?" Leara asked, grateful for the distraction. The boy nodded. "I'll get the door for you."

"Thanks," the boy whispered into the collar of his robes. He scurried by Leara, head bowed. He gave her a tentative smile, which she returned, then nearly tripped on his hem when Bishop growled.

Leara shut the gate behind the fleeing apprentice. "That's what I'm talking about!"

"Pathetic," Bishop spat, dismissing her. "Boys in dresses. And they wonder what's wrong with Skyrim these days – hey, where're you going?"

"That Arcanaeum," Leara spat, already on the stairs. "Unlike you, I don't have time to stand around delivering unwanted commentary on the mages who so kindly allowed us into their college!"

Bishop wolf whistled behind her. The pressure tightened in Leara's jaw.


A map of Tamriel dominated the wall by the opposite staircase; the stairs likely led higher into the tower to council chambers and the Archmage's residence, The map was studded with white crystals, and Leara wondered about them for a moment before venturing into the library proper.

The sight stole her breath away.

The Arcanaeum was massive. The library took up two floors within the tower, the second accessible by two spiral staircases corkscrewing upward from the ends of the stone partitions cradling the center of the room. There were books everywhere, far more than the library of Cloud Ruler Temple held in the years before the Great War; many of the bookcases were locked, doors paned with enchanted malachite that promised nasty repercussions to anyone foolish enough to try getting in without the proper wards. Leara could smell the guardian runes like Wormwood and Bergamot, tempting and poisonous. Other bookcases were open, lined with neat rows of ancient leather tomes, bound in secrets and protective magics. The sheer amount of knowledge and magicka pulsing through the air brought the library to life. Leara knew she could spend a lifetime in the Arcanaeum, and even the centuries of a mongrel Altmer wouldn't be enough to learn everything hidden in this place!

"Wow, you haven't looked that taken with something since I – woah!"

A laugh burst from Leara as Bishop flailed backward, only just avoiding a collision course with a flock of books. They ruffled their pages at him, like a bird would its tailfeathers, before springing off, flying to the bookcases lining the second level.

"That wasn't funny," Bishop grunted, brushing off his dark leathers.

"Whatever you say." Leara met Karnwyr's gaze, and she shared an amused grin with the wolf.

Small tables were scattered around the perimeter of the room, each studded with haphazard stacks of books and lit by bright candles of white gold mage fire. The center of the library was dominated by a long table, settled under a trailing chandelier sparkling with the same mage fire held by the candles; studded on the chandelier, the lights illuminated the room with the vividity of a constellation. Then Leara gasped. It was a constellation! The Mage's form reflected by the chandelier, bestowing the knowledge of the arcane on its students!

"If I knew you'd get this turned on by a damn library, I would've brought you to one ages ago," Bishop laughed, shattering Leara's rapture over the room. "You're not secretly a Hermaeus Mora cultist, are you?"

"No," Leara whispered. She shuffled deeper into the library, a chuckling Bishop on her heels. Beside her, Karnwyr hung his head.

Passed the long table at the back of the library was a large desk, closed on all but its rear side. Neat stacks of books lined the two sides, interspersed with strange apparatuses of crystal and precious metals that Leara couldn't begin to guess the purpose of. The front of the desk was clear, and just behind it was the bowed head of a white-haired Orc. Her hands on the edge of the desk, Leara lightly cleared her throat. "Excuse me?"

The Orc – Leara was certain this was the Urag- gro-Shub Faralda spoke of – raised a mottled green hand, then marked his place in the tome he was reading, a thick book written in a foreign script. He took his time closing it and setting it carefully back into a box tucked down on the second, lower workplace inside the desk. It was only once the lid was shut and the box sealed with a nondescript gold key did Urag gro-Shub speak: "You are now in the Arcanaeum, of which I am in charge. It might as well be my own little plane of Oblivion. Disrupt my Arcanaeum, and I will have you torn apart by angry Atronachs." A smirk curled its way around his curved tusks, surrounded by withered green skin and brilliant white hair. His was a face that scared apprentices as a hobby. "Now, do you require assistance/"

Leara splayed her hands across the desk, a diplomatic little smile pulling at her face. "Good afternoon, sir. I was told you could help me. I'm searching for an Elder Scroll."

The look the librarian gave her spoke nothing less of how stupid he thought her statement to be. Honestly, she knew it wasn't the most elegant of inquiries, but how else was she supposed to ask about acquiring an Elder Scroll, of all things? If there was a better way, it wasn't covered in either her Blades or Dominion training.

"And what do you plan to do with it?" he asked, lifting a skeptical white eyebrow. "Do you even know what you're asking about, or are you just someone's errand girl?"

"Errand girl?" barked Bishop, pushing his way by Leara to lean over the desk. Bishop was nearly in Urag gro-Shub's face; the librarian looked anything but amused. "Do you have any idea who this woman is? She's the Divines' damned Dragonborn and the least you could do is hear her out without degrading her!"

Leara winced. Pot, meet kettle. "Bishop, calm down—"

"Listen, boy, I don't care if she's the reincarnation of Almalexia. If you're going to come into my Arcanaeum, expecting my help, you need to have the proper questions," spat the Orc. Bishop stumbled back from the desk – and Leara knew they had more to fear from the keeper of the Arcanaeum than just Atronachs. "You want an Elder Scroll, but do you have any idea what they are?" Urag gro-Shub looked at Leara, expectantly.

"I do," she nodded, throat dry. "They're divine artifacts of immense power. The only people with any right to try and read them belong to the Order of the Ancestor Moth. Reading an Elder Scroll is dangerous, but it's imperative that I find one," she fixed the smile back on her face. "You wouldn't happen to have one, would you?"

"You think that even if I did have one here, I would let you see it?" Urag gro-Shub's lip curled in derision, exposing his tusks. "It would be kept under the highest security. The greatest thief in the world wouldn't be able to lay a finger on it."

There was a snort. Leara glanced over her shoulder to see a golden-haired Dunmer pressing her hand over her mouth, amusement lining her face. The Dunmer was seated at the long table, surrounded by open books and scattered notes. She appeared quite settled in as if she'd been there a long time, and yet Leara was certain the Dunmer hadn't been there when she and Bishop entered the Arcanaeum. Leara turned back just in time to catch the librarian's eye roll.

"Something funny, Aren?"

The golden-haired Dunmer shook her head, her garnet eyes sparkling. "No, of course not, Urag. Only, I'm surprised at you!"

"That's new," the librarian snorted.

"Where'd she come from?" Bishop whispered, his hand on Leara's elbow.

She swallowed. "I've no idea."

Aren, the Dunmer, abandoned her work to dance up to the desk, patting Karnwyr on the head as she went. "You're baiting the Dragonborn," she whispered loudly from behind her hand.

"Am I now?" Urag gro-Shub was not amused.

"Why, yes. See, you and I both know the College doesn't have an Elder Scroll, and yet, rather than tell the Nords' legendary hero that, you lecture her on the dangers of Elder Scrolls. You're lucky I'm here or he would have gone on for months!" This last she directed to Leara.

"Thanks . . .?"

Aren waved her off, refocusing on the librarian. "Get to the point and tell her what you do have."

Urag gro-Shub got to his feet. "I take it your thesis on the properties of telekinetic summation is going well, then."

"Practically conjuring itself on the page!" Aren laughed.

"Mages," Bishop grumbled.

"As Jolinar said, we don't currently have an Elder Scroll." Urag gro-Shub looked wistful, then, "What we do have here is plenty of books." He went to one of the malachite-paned bookcases. With a wave of his hand, the intensity of the guardian runes faded and he opened the case. Without the protective enchantment, Leara could taste the power seeping into the air from the books, chaotic and dark, full of confusion. The librarian withdrew two books and closed the door. Just like that, with the reactivation of the guardian runes, the power wafting through the air fizzled out, burnt away in the pale magelight from the chandelier. "This is everything we have on them, but it's not much. so don't get your hopes up. It's mostly lies, leavened with rumor and conjecture," he said, placing two books on the desk. "Here you go. Try not to spill anything on them."

Gently, Leara pulled them closer and traced their covers. Effects of the Elder Scrolls she'd seen once in the lorekeeper's collection at Cloud Ruler Temple, but the second, Ruminations on the Elder Scrolls, was completely new to her. Paging through it, her brow furrowed. None of it made sense! It was a patchwork of loosely connected metaphors. Chapters and chapters of comparisons between – humans and Elder Scrolls?

She didn't realize Bishop was reading over her shoulder until he swore in her ear. "What the Hell is this? It makes no sense!"

"Aye, that's the work of Septimus Signus," Urag gro-Shub nodded with a frown of his own. "He's the world's master of the nature of Elder Scrolls, but . . . well. He's been gone for a long while."

"Too long," murmured Jolinar Aren.

The master on the nature of Elder Scrolls? If he was alive, he could point her in the direction of an Elder Scroll. Leara drummed her fingers against the book's cover. Something told her that it was the best lead she'd get. "Where is he?"

"Is he dead?" asked Bishop.

"Oh no, I hope not! Old Septimus was a riot!" Jolinar cried, dismayed.

Urag gro-Shub shook his head, sighing. "Even I haven't seen him in years, and we were close. Became obsessed with the Dwemer. Took off north saying he had found some old artifact. Haven't seen him since." He stared off, deep in thought. "He's somewhere in the ice fields if you want to try and find him."

"And believe me, I tried," Jolinar nodded.

This didn't instill much hope in Leara. What would—

"Now who's lying?" scoffed the librarian. "You went as far as the ruins of Old Winterhold before you came back complaining of the cold!"

Jolinar Aren merely smiled.


The library was silent when she returned. It was after midnight and long since the faculty retired and the apprentices went to bed. She left Bishop and Karnwyr snoring in a dogpile in their guest chamber. Jolinar Aren was apologetic when she showed them to the room, saying they didn't usually have many visitors and weren't used to accommodating large numbers of guests to the College. "We used to," she said, "But that was before the Great Collapse. Now a lot of it's just storage."

There was another guest room, but the Dunmer seemed reluctant to talk about its occupant, save to say that he was there for the foreseeable future. Leara didn't press.

She knew she should get some sleep. They were setting out for the ice fields in the morning, and it would be a while before she'd get to sleep inside a warm building again. And yet . . . something drew her back to the Arcanaeum, the hum of unknown knowledge resonating deep inside her. Whether it was her dragon soul or something else, she wasn't sure, but she'd always had a taste for knowledge. Nothing that ever drew her into the cults of any Daedra – she could probably thank the Blades for that – but the promise of knowledge called to her nonetheless.

It was her dogged pursuit and retention of it that made her the ideal agent to infiltrate the Dominion. It's what saw her placement in the interrogator's squad during the war.

A metallic taste settled on her tongue as she traced her fingers over the spines of books not sealed behind runes and wards. Her hand stilled over a thin book, a deep navy blue, and she drew it off the shelf. The Imperial Dragon winked up at her, inlaid with silver filigree on the cover. Leara ran a golden finger over it, a strange longing twisting in her chest.

"Rather late for a stroll through the bookshelves, isn't it?"

Her grip on the book tightened.

The owner of the voice slipped from the shadows shrouding the Arcanaeum in the cold midnight and Leara came face to face with an Altmer. He cut a dark figure in jet robes lined with gold – the uniform of the Thalmor.

"If you thought so, you wouldn't be here now, would you?" Leara said, sliding the book back on the shelf. One never knew when they needed their hands free.

"It's my business to know what happens here at the College, especially at night," the Thalmor said, his lip curling. "And yet I don't know you."

"I'm not from here."

He eyed her, his burning gold eyes analyzing her face, her features and how they were shaped – the markers of her heritage. "Clearly not. I wonder that you belong anywhere." Half-blood went unsaid in the air, but Leara felt it as electricity through her veins, into her hands. Her black band burned.

She knew what the Dominion did to people like her.

"I could say the same about you," she said, voice even and light. "What's a Thalmor agent doing here at the College of Winterhold?"

The pale-haired Altmer drew himself up. He wasn't the tallest of their kind she'd met – she attended Lord Naarfin during a private dinner once; even Elenwen appeared small beside the Lord General – but his face carried all the same superior contempt. "I am here on behalf of the Aldmeri Dominion to serve as an advisor to the Archmage," he lifted his chin, staring down his long nose at her. Then, very much to her surprise, his thin mouth twisted in a smirk. "Ancano."

Ah. An exchange. "Leara," she replied. He would know who – what she was soon enough without her name. It was worth very little to him.

Ancano inclined his head, an invitation to walk, and Leara followed him, thankful her katana was back in the guest room with the rest of her belongings. Every Thalmor agent knew the Akaviri blade on sight. There was no reason to antagonize this one when she was otherwise uninteresting to him. At least, as uninteresting as a guest to the College of Winterhold usually was. She suddenly hoped he'd heard nothing of the farce she made of the soiree at the Embassy. She didn't recognize his face, but she wouldn't put it past some of Elenwen's underlings to spread word of her embarrassment back and forth between each other.

They strolled along the bookshelves, making a circuit of the library. The appearance of ease that hung over them was for appearance only: Leara could almost hear the burning embers crackling under his skin, just as he no doubt felt the chill coming off hers. Two coils ready to spring at a moment's notice. "What business brings you to the College, Leara, and to the Arcanaeum so late at night?" he asked.

"A question," was her reply. "Now that I've received my answer, I will be setting off again in the morning."

He studied her, trying to read her, but Leara was used to remaining impassive under scrutiny. The sheer amount of danger she was in, being within arm's reach of a Thalmor-trained wizard, was not lost on her, but after all Bishop's aggressive coddling, the urge to dance with fire was strong. That she would blame on her dragon blood.

They passed under the Mage's chandelier, its pale starlight glinting off their hair: his was the white shroud of Secunda and hers the tarnished blush of Masser. Ancano drifted by the long table, picking up a stray book as he went. It was a gilt copy of The Firmament, and he perused it with disinterest. Leara closed her fist, her thumb pressing into the mithril and diamond band encircling her finger with cool familiarity. "What question could you possibly find an answer for in this backwater excuse for an arcane archive?"

Bait? No, just the usual Thalmor derision for anything not of Aldmeri origin. And even then, she reflected with some quiet amusement, they often disdained the institutions of Summerset behind closed doors, too. "An answer to the dragons," she said, which wasn't a lie. The Elder Scroll was her key to learning Dragonrend and stopping Alduin, but this Ancano didn't need to know that.

He set the book down, gently despite his remarks. It seemed Urag gro-Shub's could intimidate even a Thalmor wizard. Or two, Leara thought sardonically. "I find it hard to believe you uncovered an answer to this damnable crisis during such a short stay."

Leara simply smiled, light and serene. "Answers come to those who seek after them, if they have but the patience to look."

Ancano frowned, a good and proper frown that no amount of good breeding could erase. He was quiet, his golden eyes fixed on her face as if he hoped to dissect her with his stare alone. "Answer me this, Leara, and don't lie to me, because I can sense the power in you as surely as I can feel the magic in the stonework. Who trained you?"

Her smile twisted into a golden smirk, reminiscent of another's pointed features, slight in its knowing. "Why do you ask?"

Ancano's mouth pressed into a tight line, drawing down in a slight curve that did not flatter his fine features at all. No amount of good breeding could ever make a perturbed expression pleasant. "Humor a curious mind, my dear."

"Curiosity is a dangerous temptation to give in to," she said, her smirk curling. They were very close now, less than aa a stride between them.

Somewhere in the tower, a door creaked, but the two Altmer were locked in a stalemate. "I find myself tempted anyway," Ancano replied. He leaned toward, almost too close, but Leara didn't move. The heat of his magicka seeped through the air, warming her skin. "I would very much like to know who taught you." His golden eyes were molten, not heated with antagonism but a challenge, nonetheless.

"I knew I'd find you in – what the Hell is this?"

The voice struck Leara like a plunge into icy water. Ancano leaned back, his head quirked to the side as he got a look at the intruder. Leara didn't need to look to know Bishop had found her.

Ancano's lip curled. "And this must be your savage pet."

The ranger was at her side in moments, his face twisted into a wolfish scowl as he met the Thalmor wizard eye to eye. Bishop's hand was on her arm, scorching through the chainmail and wool at her elbow. Leara's skin was burning; she couldn't move. "I close my eyes for five minutes and you swan off to a damn midnight rendezvous with a Thalmor bastard?" He jarred her arm, yanking at her elbow.

"Bishop," she hissed. "You're hurting me!"

"I knew Nords were a savage race, but to see one willfully abuse a woman in front of another party, with my own eyes!" Ancano barked a dry laugh. "Barbaric creatures. Unhand her, savage."

Bishop growled at Ancano, his hand still fastened to Leara's arm. "Savage, am I? Barbaric? Your kind are the monsters hunting her high and low across the province! You're just like every other damn idiot in Skyrim that she insists on saving!"
Ancano sniffed, his nose upturned. "I haven't an idea of what you are talking about, but that is no excuse for your disgusting behavior. Stop this and then maybe we can proceed with some level of civility!"

Bishop spat in Ancano's face.

Leara stumbled back into the table as Bishop released her to block a swing from a furious Ancano, fire in the wizard's hand. Bishop struck Ancano's wrist with his bracer and the flames whispered into smoke. He followed this with a swing of his own, right at Ancano's jaw, only to yowl in pain as electricity rattled up his arm.

"You'll pay for attacking a member of the Aldmeri Dominion!"

"With what, my life?" Bishop laughed. "I'll be yours instead!"

Bile bubbled up Leara's throat. They were going to kill each other in the middle of the Arcanaeum! Urag gro-Shub would raise them from the dead, just to kill them again while one of his Atronachs obliterated her!

Her hands darted through the air, an icy mist swirling into being under her palms. The mist expanded forward, creeping over the two stupid men. Neither noticed as Bishop raised his dagger and Ancano produced a fireball, both readying their aim as the icy mist surrounded them.

Leara jerked her hands up and the flurry of angry emotion froze. Bishop's dagger stopped just short of Ancano's face. The fireball withered away, leaving the Thalmor wizard's palms smoking. All motion was arrested, save for two sets of burning eyes cutting at her.

"Now, this is a very difficult spell to maintain, but I'll hold it for a moment," Leara said, her fists aligned with her puppets' hearts. "Bishop, for the love of Akatosh, stop attacking every man who speaks to me! Did we not go over this just a few hours ago?" He glared at her. "Ah, yes, you can't talk, can you? That's just as well. You'll get enough yelling in later, I'm sure."

Bishop's eyes narrowed.

"Thank you for telling Bishop off," she said, addressing Ancano. His glare wasn't quite as intense, eyes full of surprise. Ah, yes. The spell. "Where I learned it doesn't matter." It sure as Oblivion did. "Just be glad I stopped him before he broke your nose. You should've seen the last guy." By the Nine, she was talking to a pair of irate, enchanted blockheads! She thrust her right fist forward, drawing her forefinger in a circular motion. Ancano spun around and collapsed into a chair with all the grace of a troll. "All right, gentlemen, I'm going to release Ancano and then Bishop and I are going to leave. Got it?"

Silence. Because they were frozen.

"Don't worry. The effects fade quickly with a thick blanket and warm drink," she said with a reassuring smile. This was the mildest form of the façade spell craft. Bone-chilling, but that was the worst of it. She'd seen the disfigurements born by other varieties. Electricity had always been a favorite in the torture chamber. Leara swallowed. "By the time you regain motion, we will be gone. You will not follow us. I'm sure none of us fancy a repeat performance."

Her right hand splayed open, fingers spread, and ice evaporated from Ancano like steam.

By the time he regained his feet, Leara and Bishop were gone.


She released her spell once they entered the guest room. The next moment Bishop was on her, his hands clasping her upper arms and his face near hers. Her throat was dry. Her heart hammered the doom drum in her chest.

"I don't know whether to throttle you or kiss you right now," Bishop said, his mouth angled just over hers.

Her throat bobbed. "What, what do you mean?"

"You worked that Thalmor bastard like a puppet on a string!" He laughed – then, "But you worked me too!" His grip tightened. "What was that?"

"If I didn't stop both of you at once, neither of you would have stopped, and then we'd all be dead." At his blank look, she rolled her eyes. "Did you want the librarian to kill us?"

Again, Bishop laughed, his head thrown back. At least he wasn't throttling her. If he actually did . . .

"As if I'm scared of a wrinkled old Orc! But if it makes you feel better, sweetness, I won't murder people in libraries." Bishop frowned.

Here it comes.

"Why were you in the library, anyway? What was that bastard even doing there?"

"I was looking for some light reading before bed," she said, staring at Karnwyr, fast asleep on the bed. Lucky wolf got to sleep through the chaos every time, didn't he? "He cornered me in there."

"Stupid girl, can't help but play with fire, can you?"

"Yeah, that's me," she said, voice thin.

She was so, so tired that she didn't protest when Bishop pulled her to the bed, armor and all. The exhaustion took her before she heard him suggest removing her armor, so that was how she slept: a silver sliver covered by black, black stone.


"That man was as incomprehensible as his damn book," Bishop scoffed as Leara secured the hatch to Septimus Signus' outpost. As mad as the old man was, he didn't deserve a draft in his home because of their negligence. "Something's touched him in the head, and I bet you anything it was one of those blasted Daedra."

Leara shrugged, lost in her thoughts.

Magnus brought a frigid dawn to the College too soon after the confrontation in the Arcanaeum. She saw Ancano when she and Bishop departed: he was pale and his gait stiff as he shuffled through the courtyard. He had enough fire in him to glare at them as she and Bishop set off through the gates. She was thankful Bishop didn't notice. Akatosh knew he would try to instigate another fight, and she wouldn't help him again.

The incident at the College fell to the back of her mind as she and Bishop set off across the ice fields, laden down with supplies from the fishmonger in Winterhold. Their packs were loaded with dry horker jerky and salted fish, enough rations for several weeks. Whatever Septimus Signus said, Leara knew they would be on the road for a while before returning to civilization.

Once they found him, buried deep in a glacier a day and a half's hard trek north across splintered ice sheets and deadly undercurrents, it became painfully obvious that the man was mad. What Septimus Signus did say made no sense, as he fluttered about his little hole between water-damaged books and a large dwarven lockbox. It was huge, as large as a house, and made of bronze twisted around opaque blue crystal. An artifact like that would make members of the Arcane University salivate with desire. Leara steered clear of it. Though she couldn't quite put her finger on it, something was very off about the lockbox. Karnwyr bristled at it and didn't relax until after they climbed out of the cave. Even Bishop, mundane as he was, gave it a wary eye.

Of course, Septimus Signus wanted her help in opening it in exchange for the location of the Elder Scroll.

"You see this masterwork of the Dwemer. Deep inside their greatest knowings. Septimus is clever among men, but he is but an idiot child compared to the dullest of the Dwemer. Lucky then they left behind their own way of reading the Elder Scrolls. In the depths of Blackreach one yet lies. Under deep. Below the dark. The hidden keep. Tower Mzark. Alftand. The point of puncture, of first entry, of the tapping. Delve to its limits, and Blackreach lies just beyond. But not all can enter there. Only Septimus knows the hidden key to loose the lock to jump beneath the deathly rock."

He spoke in rhymes and riddles, but Leara got the gist of what he meant. If she found the Elder Scroll in a dwarven tower, she was to inscribe its secrets on a lexicon and bring the cube back to him. Accepting the dwarven tools, she and Bishop left the sad madman to his mutterings and whispers.

"Do you know where this Alftand is?" she asked, standing beside Bishop on the edge of the Sea of Ghosts. Through her gloves, her hands were almost as cold as they were when she cast magic, but far more uncomfortable.

Bishop frowned at the bleak landscape, his hair stirred by the blistering wind cutting across the ice fields. "Yeah, I know it. It's a dwarven ruin in the Winterhold Mountains. Waited out a blizzard there once, though I never ventured deeper than the entrance." His pale eyes found hers through the snow starting to fall. "You really mean to go through with this whole Dragonborn hero thing, don't you?"

Her jaw set, Leara nodded. If she didn't, who would? Who could? "Yes, yes I do."


The climb up to the snowcapped Dwemer towers was long, freezing work. By the time they made it to the top of the glacier, Leara was already tired. Her limbs her freezing, despite the thermal underclothes she wore beneath her armor. Her eyes stung from the ice. Of course, Bishop seemed unbothered, his hair swept in a hundred directions by the winds. Standing on the ledge overlooking the glacial mountains and the Sea of Ghosts beyond, Leara felt incredibly small. The view went on for miles, startling white and brilliant blue as far as the eye could see. To the east she could see the College of Winterhold, small and grey against the great blue sky.

Is this what dragons saw?

"This wasn't here before."

Leara tore her gaze from the infinite horizon. Further along the shelf, Bishop stood by a ramshackle shack, broken and black against the snow. Karnwyr had his nose to the ground, his ears up. "Do you think it's from the College?" Leara asked. There were piles of crushed ice and snow across the shelf, remnants of some recent avalanche.

Wait. Was that an arm—?

"Could be, could be bandits," Bishop shrugged. "We'll see once we're inside. Don't get your hopes up for a bunch of pretty boy mages with magic fire and arms wide open."

"Of course not," Leara sighed, following him to the bridge. "Was this here before or did you fly to the tower?"

"Ha, no. I climbed."

Leara hadn't known what to expect from a Dwemer ruin. She'd traversed a few Ayleid and Nedic ruins over the years; since coming to Skyrim, she was becoming woefully familiar with Nordic tombs. Alftand, cradled and penetrated by the glacial ice, was unlike any of them. Ice dominated the upper halls where time and water wore through the stone, sealing it in ice as surely as it shattered it before. There were markers from previous camps made near the door – some were recent. Wooden beams were wedged against the walls as supports against the encroaching ice. Leara eyed the splintering wood with distrust.

"We have company," Bishop whispered over his shoulder. Karnwyr's neck bristled. He jabbed his thumb at the remains of a fire. "Still hot."

"Lovely," Leara sighed, her hand on her katana.

They crept further in, silent as the chill permeating the air. Ahead they heard whispers, but no matter how deep into the ruin they went, they never found the people with hissing voices. Soon the frozen walls gave way to hard, unbroken stone and Leara got her first eyeful of Dwemer architecture. Walking the desolate halls of a race that simply vanished felt wildly different than seeing the towers from beyond. She felt like a ghost.

The deeper they went, the more agitated Karnwyr became. It quickly became apparent why: one of the ruined campsites was covered in blood. They left the campsite behind and entered a large room. Two passages led off the room, one barred by heavy metal beams. While there was no blood to be seen, the air in the room was heavy.

Near a lone bedroll was a single stone table. Leara wandered over, drawn by its contents. Spider-like contraptions of bronze and wire were strewn across the surface in broken piles interspersed with heavy tomes and soul gems. Beside one spider was a bundle of notes, set aside as if its owner only stepped away for a moment. Leara picked it up and skimmed through the last page.

Huh, that was strange. I thought I just saw something moving beyond the barred door. It looked vaguely humanoid . . .

"Bishop!" she called. "I've found something."

"If it's those dwarven spiders, best leave them alone. Annoying contraptions."

Leara pinched her nose. "No, not the spiders! I think there's something else here – look!" She thrust the page under Bishop's nose. He reeled back and then snatched the page from her, reading it over with a frown.

"What an idiot! Moving his bedroll away from the safety of their camp. Ten septims says he's dead!"

"Bishop! This is serious!" Leara said, taking back the page and stuffing it and the other notes into her bag. "There may be something else down here beside Dwemer automatons!"

"Is my lady afraid of a shadow in the dark?" Bishop smirked, leaning close.

"Hardly, I merely think we should be cautious."

"Oh, trust me, I'll take extra caution with you, ladyship."

Leara brushed by Bishop, their shoulders bumping. Whatever. She would keep an eye out – two, if he wouldn't.

Down a ramp and through a long hall they continued. Eerie lights shown out of bronze cages set high on the wall and ceilings. There was a melancholic air about them, and Leara wondered what powered them. The lights didn't feel quite like magicka, perhaps more primeval?

She drew her katana in time to cut through a spider automaton as it leaped at her from a ledge high above. Bishop whistled as Leara's blade sang through the bronze, severing it with a clang.

"I hope you're enjoying yourself," Bishop said. "Me? I don't get enough satisfaction from killing these dwarven creations. Where's the fun in killing something that doesn't even bleed?"

Where's the fun in killing something that does? Leara pondered, kneeling beside the spider. She cut it at the right angle to leave the soul gem inside undamaged. Lovely.

Prying the gem out of its setting, she and Bishop continued through the ruin, Karnwyr sniffed at corners branching off the main hall, though he never ventured too far. The stone gave way to ice again, then became stone again as they wound further down, dismantling the occasional spider as they went. Leara wondered if they'd passed underground yet and if she would know when they did.

"What? Who is this, Brother? Another of the smooth skins looking for food?"

At the voice, Leara grabbed at Bishop's arm, pulling him back. "What—"

Out of the twilight of ice and dwarven lights skulked a thin ball of fur – a Khajiit, his face thin and limbs wasted. There was a hungry, mad look in his eyes as he barred his yellowed fangs at them. "But these ones weren't trapped with us . . . No, no! You must be the one who took my skooma!"

The starved Khajiit lunged.

Bishop yelled, leaping back as the Khajiit centered Leara. She stumbled back, winded.

The Khajiit crumbled to the floor, jarred from the collision with her silver breastplate. He was up again the next moment, Karnwyr snapping at his heels. Leara's katana was out then, and soon through the Khajiit. The sickened cat coughed, his chest rattling around the Akaviri steel skewering his chest. He stilled.

Leara slid her katana out with a grimace, the dead Khajiit crumpling to the ground. It was only then that she noticed the second Khajiit on a pallet of furs damp with water and blood. "Thanks for the help," she shot at Bishop, wiping her blade and sheathing it.

"I know you can handle yourself in a fight," he said. "I might as well just watch." He pushed the dead Khajiit over with his boot. "Skooma addict. Think there are any more down here?"

"Maybe." Maybe skooma addicts would be their biggest worry down here.

She doubted it.


They barricaded themselves in a small apartment for the night. Or whatever counted as night in the dark of a ruined city. Despite his scoffing at her caution, Bishop helped her roll loose rubble into the small room to stack against the door. Once the rubble was pushed into place, they were sealed in, and even then Leara insisted on keeping watches. There was something else down here. It picked off the expedition and if they weren't careful, it would pick them off too.

Dinner was cold horker jerky and a few snowberries picked along the cliffs during their climb. There was no fuel for a fire and no sure way to vent it even if they could light one. They ate by the light of a thin magelight; once Bishop laid down, Leara dismissed it, sealing them in blackness.

Leara took the first watch, her back pressed into the far wall and Karnwyr's warm body beside her. The entire time, she half imagined pale figures drifting through the door, their hands reaching passed the barrier to grab her and drag her into the fathomless dark underground. Deep dark, far underground where there is no sun and sound is sealed within the earth like a tomb. As the hours stretched on. her mind continued to whirl with phantoms in the shadows long after she woke Bishop for the second watch and settled into her bedroll.

She awoke with a start, Bishop's hand on her shoulder. "Shh," he whispered, just above her ear. "Listen." His voice was quiet, the barest whisper.

Her breath caught in her throat.

Scratching. Just outside the door. Just beyond the wall of rubble they'd built as a barrier. Something was scratching. Something wanted inside.

Leara felt Karnwyr bristling beside her though she couldn't see him. She didn't dare cast a magelight. She hardly dared to breathe.

She and Bishop were frozen, her in her bedroll and him beside her, his head angled just over hers. It was a long time before the scratching stopped and longer still before either of them moved.

With one hand she cast a magelight, as small and dim as the starlight. In the gray light, she saw Bishop only inches away from her, a frown cutting across his face.

"I told you something was down here," Leara whispered.

"Yeah, yeah, you've got your 'I told you so,' happy?"

Leara pulled her blanket around her shoulders. She was so cold. "No, I'm worried. What was that?"

Bishop sat back on his heels, his hand on his chin and his eyes distant, impossibly pale in the half-light. "I have an idea," he said at length. "But it seems farfetched."

Leara held her breath. "What is it?

"There are stories, I thought they were just folk tales, really. Stories of white ghosts that lurk in the deepest reaches of caves and ruins. I've never seen them, didn't believe in them, to be honest, but between those sorry idiots who were camped here and then that scratching . . . those ghosts are doing a lot more than haunting." Bishop shifted, uneasy. Was he – he was actually unsettled by these ghost stories! Well, Leara mused to herself, when ghosts become corporeal, anything could change. Even rangers puffed up with bravado.

Soon after that, they packed up their small camp. Karnwyr was antsy, pacing around and sniffing at the corners. Leara slipped him a little extra jerky, but though he wagged his tail, the wolf's ears were still erect, bent toward the slightest sound beyond the shelter of the little room.

Once the rubble was moved to the side, they emerged into the distant light of the Dwemer light fixtures. Between those and Leara's magelight, a scene quickly unfolded before the travelers' eyes: scratches, not deep but long and jagged, carved through the geometric pattern decorating the bronze door like gouges across a farmer's field. Leara's heart squeezed in her chest. What was she doing? She was down near the bottom of the earth searching for an Elder Scroll with a man who did nothing but impose himself on her company while some sort of monster lurked around in the shadows, waiting to pick them off!

"I feel ill," she gasped.

"It's this musty air," Bishop said, a supportive arm around her bag. "A delicate woman like you was never meant for a place like this."

Inhale slowly. Hold. Exhale even slower. Repeat.

"C'mon," Bishop said, leading her forward. "Sooner we get moving, the sooner we can get back to some clear wilderness air."

Hours passed as they crept through the silent halls. Karnwyr wasn't the only one whose ears were alert: Leara kept a bubble of Muffle around them at all times, her ears straining against the silence. Occasionally they met with an automaton, but they were all easily dealt with. Leara stopped long enough to retrieve the intact soul gems before they pressed on. She could feel her blood pounding against her eardrums, beating out a tattoo of anxiety in time with their footfalls. The fish she'd nibbled for dinner sat heavily on her stomach and she wondered if she would be ill.

What if she died down here? Did Akatosh have another Dragonborn in place should she fail? Would they reach this point and find her dead body? Would they know how much of a failure their predecessor was?

Or would Alduin continue unchecked, consuming the world and ending life as everyone knew it?

Without warning, Karnwyr darted through an open door into a side passage, giving a low woof in the shadows.

"Get back here, you mutt!" Bishop hissed. He chased after him, leaving Leara standing alone in the wide hallway. The fine hairs on her neck stood on end and she rushed after them, her hands raised with unfocused magicka.

It was a cavernous room, full of hissing pipes portioned by metal panels. Leara quickly found Karnwyr and Bishop behind one of these, the wolf standing over a body pierced with a dark barbed arrow. Bishop was crouched beside it, his finger to his nose. It was coated in black.

"Poison," whispered the elf.

"Yeah," he said, wiping his finger on his pants. "Not one I recognize, but . . ."

Leara knelt beside him, her magicka pooling into an Alteration spell. It glimmered a soft blue. Bishop stared. "He died sometime in the night – well, in the last ten hours," Leara explained, the spell fading as she dropped her hands. Karnwyr grunted, and Leara's attention was drawn to the wolf. Under his front paws was a tattered, bloodstained journal. Leaning over the body, she slipped the book from Karnwyr and, settling back on her heels, skimmed it. A lot of it wasn't legible, some of it was torn, but the last entry was intact, and this she examined closely.

"What's it say?" Bishop asked, noticing her frown.

"He was a member of the Expedition. He and three others got pulled down here by, ah, eyeless creatures." She cleared her throat, her every nerve on end. "Do your ghost stories mention them being eyeless?"

"Some, yeah."

Lovely.

"We need to keep our eyes out," she said, sighing. "Two of the others escaped. A third is dead back the way he came."

"And we don't want to go that way," Bishop murmured. He eyed the upper levels of the room, crisscrossed with pipes. "We should get a move on."

"Yes, let's go."

Miles of darkness and danger yet lay between her and the Elder Scroll. Sitting beside a cold corpse and dwarfed by still-steaming Dwemer machinery, Leara wondered if she was even able to cross the distance.

Note from ao3: I originally planned to include the scene with Darren, but could never get myself to just begin the chapter with that. Then Ancano wanted to be included, so I decided a scene with him could be used as a replacement while still getting Bishop's jealousy across. Leara is learning to keep his temper down — at her own expense.

Don't you think she looks tired?

Also: two other OCs of mine appear here! First, Pheobus Apollus, an Imperial mage who struggles with ice based magic and has a crush on Brelyna. Second — and my personal favorite (don't tell Leara) — Jolinar Aren, the Archmage's daughter, who is far too clever with magic for her own good. So clever, she became a thief. She may appear again later.