The Rose River
Loading Screen… The Rose River is said to be comprised from the tears of the goddess Mara after her imprisonment at the hands of Lorkhan in mythic times…
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In front of him, towering in front of the door was the figure from his dream, the entity from the snow with a creepy smile. Its eyes were hungrily wide now however, and its grin was stretched to the corners of its eyes. The monster's hand went into its leg just like in the dream and it pulled out a scrap of paper. It set the paper down on the floor and walked over to the window, pulling it up, allowing the frigid air to creep in like a thief in the night as it clambered out. When Krest was sure it wouldn't return he tossed aside his blanket and shut the window, drawing the curtains over it.
He reached down and obtained the folded paper it left. It was mauve and had some Daedric runes inscribed on it. He set it down on his bedside table and laid down again, yawning.
The following morning, he found himself in the library of the temple on the second floor after having woken up, trained, and bathed. Akatosh and Dibella were there discussing something and reading over tomes for one reason or another. "That's why it is imperative we find the Elder Scroll of Dragons; it will go into more detail. I simply ask you keep your mood up until then, Dibella."
"What do you want, Krest?" Dibella inclined a brow, crossing her arms and balancing on one hip as he shamefully approached.
"A little kindness goes a long way, Dibella." Akatosh wagged a finger at her. "What do you need, my son?"
He handed over the piece of parchment the kludge had left him. Krest pushed a hand between his dangling locks to scratch the back of his neck. "A kludge gave me this."
"Kludges or Dream-Hallows. They leave fortunes for people after entering their dreams." Akatosh narrowed his eyes, reading the Daedric words, "from hell's quiet depths, a shadow stirs. It wished to be born."
A chill ran down Krest's spine.
"How ominous." Akatosh turned the page over, analyzing it further.
"Dream-Hallows, they can project messages into your dreams," Dibella intervened. "Harmless mostly, they just like to sneak into rooms and feed off the chaos in people's minds. Particularly your insecurities. They have great fun feeding you lies about something you fear and try to confirm your worst and most irrational fears. They're Daedra from Vaermina's realm."
Akatosh put back his stack of tomes and massaged his temples. "Krest, go take Saadia to Ocearan. Underwater city in eastern Skyrim. Take her there for training. It isn't safe here anymore."
Krest briefly met Dibella's eyes. She stared at him for a few seconds then both of them glanced away.
Krest got Saadia, Idrasa, and Ancano to follow him into the Dizzy Spoon, a nearby tavern embedded near the boundary of Nordenbjörg, a view of the seascape surrounding them.
The place was lowly lit, a goat-horned chandelier the only source of light, bear skin rugs on the floor and crude wooden levels that gave rise to a second floor situated with tanning rack-stands to separate the beds from each other. A cybernetic, Dwarven factotum was working the counter, and a curious selection of patrons resided in the inn. A Redguard was strumming his sitar in the corner while members of a chess club were seated near the fireplace. Krest sat down in a corner. There were sacks of flour, jars of olive oil, and barrels of tares around them.
Maybe I should eat one. Krest stared at the tares.
"Hey, Amren!" Saadia waved to the Redguard bard.
"Four hot cocoas please," Idrasa ordered from the robot who set to work on making them.
Saadia sat beside Krest, patting his back in soothing strokes. "It's Lady Dibella, isn't it?"
"For a Divine, she is a bit odd sometimes," Ancano verbally noted.
"Guys, I don't like anyone. Drop it." Krest twitched.
Idrasa paid the Dwemer bar-bot and handed each of them their hot chocolates. It smelled divine and warmed his insides, a watery but chocolatey taste covering his mouth. He felt a bit better after that.
Akatosh entered soon after, a cloak drawn over his head. He spotted them and sat down nearby. "What? No cocoa for me?" He jested to nobody's amusement. "Sorry."
Krest leveled a stare at the embers of the fireplace, entranced in how the raging flames consumed the wood until it was nothing but a blackened ashpit. Krest thought back to his dream and the frightening revelation that had dawned on him… His stomach overturned, and he couldn't breathe, tears tearing at the corners of his eye sockets. The bard guitar strummed away in the corner of the room, musically personifying his dilemma. Krest stared at life by the thread, it was the only thing he could see. Everything else didn't matter. Nothing did anymore.
A high-pitched laugh escaped his mouth, cackling through the bar and attracting the attention of the other residents. It stopped. A grim grin grew up his chin.
"You really found my joke that funny?" Akatosh clapped a hand to Krest's. "Here's another one: I found out my friend was secretly a storm atronach… I was shocked."
Krest espied the clean-cut Amren playing a beautiful number as the fire roared deeper and the humanoid dwemeri creation swept up after the chess club who were leaving. Fumes of baked bread billowed from the oven and a famous author, who Krest recognized, Adonato Leotelli dipped his quill within his inkwell of red ink, perfectly penning the prose of his slanted script over a piece of parchment. A few locals poured in, pouring white wine into ceramic cups and containers. In the center of a table was a roast goat's skull, surrounded by fish sticks, broccoli, black pudding, some sort of orange gruel, and a few other oddities he dare not recount.
If I'm a Shezarrine I'll just kill myself. Problem solved.
Akatosh sighed, drawing lines on the floury floor with his feet. "Lorkhan, Sep, Shezarr, Shor, so and so forth. Different names for the same deity as different cultures view him differently. The Hero to the Nords, a villain to the elves."
"His sins in Nordic culture are glossed over or outright celebrated. And you can see how it has shaped their society." Krest took a sip of his cocoa. "They mirror him."
"You're unfortunately right," Saadia exclaimed. "People like Lorkhan are idolized here, not demonized."
Ancano butt in, "Konahrik and Talos. Only the Hero can stop the Devil. Only a Saint can defy a Tyrant. Depends on the culture."
"Konahrik, the dragon who appeared from nowhere in the Dawn Era, slaughtered thousands of men and disappeared, never to be seen again." Saadia stroked her chin.
"Konahrik was who stopped the ehlnofey wars." Akatosh nodded with a sigh. "Because of him, Dibella and Kynareth brought us Lorkhan's unconscious body and that was when we held him on trial in the Adamantine tower. Let me show you…"
Krest was suddenly in ancient Skyrim, expect it wasn't all snowy like it normally was. Large, golden wheatfields decorated the Hearthlands, the ruins of a city called Drakefell surrounding him. He saw Lorkhan, Talos, grappling with a massive black dragon – Konahrik. Though Lorkhan's hair and goatee were longer here, and he looked younger.
Lorkhan sunk his sword into the black dragon's neck. Konahrik, on the verge of death, transformed back into an elf and landed on both feet. He pulled a large roll of paper from his back. "I unleash hordes of monsters onto your land. So, your people may always live in fear!" Then the Elven Devil opened the roll and disappeared.
Lorkhan collapsed onto his knees. The god of men stared around at the sea of of proto-men stitched together. All killed in the genocide commit by Konahrik in his dragon form.
Flames crept up Lorkhan's face."Whoever that elven devil was, I'll find him, some day. Until then, every elf will know its deserved pain. I'll get my revenge for every man and woman he slew. Even if it's the last thing I do. And if the world stands in my way."
"I'll make this whole world bleed."
Krest shuddered.
Talos crawled and laid onto his back, the newborn sun eddying above him. His chest swelled and expelled with the tempo of his breathing until sleep fell upon him.
Next, they sat in the council chambers of the Adamantine Tower with the other Aedra.
Kynareth and Dibella, Lorkhan's now ex-wives, stood opposite him. Dibella looked different too, her hair longer and she seemed younger. The other gods studied Shor, the glint of hatred and malice reflected in their stares. Dibella Y'ffre, Kynareth Tava, Mara Nir, Xarxes Arkay, Julianos Syrabane. Tsun Zenithar and his twin Stuhn Stendarr, Lorkhan's shield-thanes were chained up beside him, mouths bound.
Akatosh Bormahu, the Father and Lord of the Divines, strode in and shut the doors. He didn't say anything.
"Kill me, and mankind will forever demonize you." Grinned Lorkhan at the then younger, beardless Akatosh.
The top of the tower was a plain, harrowing, stygian sight. A lockbox. A contraption of damnation.
"Lorkhan, many in the northern lands call you a hero. But a hero doesn't use his power to wage war, subjugate, and colonize." Akatosh ran a hand through his long golden locks, shifting the position of the pristine, gilt bow on his back. "You started this war! Plunged Mundus into chaos! And now we're going to put you down and restore the peace! Give him his last rites."
"Okay," Lorkhan affirmed. "But why the dragon, Konahrik?"
Akatosh's brows jaunted upward. "The one that attacked your people?"
"Don't play stupid. I know you sent that dragon to massacre my people," Lorkhan growled. "Didn't think you, the holiest holy man of all to stoop so low."
"Verily, I didn't instruct anyone to kill your people. That is a true and terrible tragedy, and I will do everything in my power to stop the one responsible. I value the lives of every being on Nirn, not just elves or men. Now, hold him down." Akatosh and his Shield-Thane, Trinimac approached Lorkhan. "You really lied to us all, and now we're weaker because of it. You've trapped the mortals in this prison you call a world, slaughtered anyone who's not a human."
Lorkhan's jaw clenched. "Who cares. We can tug at the very fabrics of existence; learn things no one has learned. Reality is at our fingertips, think of what we could achieve. Those fools owe us everything, brother!"
"You are no brother of mine." Akatosh seemed disgusted.
"Do not speak of our children like that," Kynareth reprimanded Shor. "Elves and men are no different from one another. It is an illusion, and now because of you, they will always hate one another."
Lorkhan spat at her feet. "What're you going to do to me anyway?"
Akatosh shifted through some scrolls on the desk and opened one up. He nodded at his wife.
Mara stood up to him. "As we demote your soul to the nothingness you have earned, we send you eternal damnation. For you will become the salt and earth of Nirn."
Lorkhan's rage twisted like the inferno of a furnace. "My people will never forget me! To them, I'm the Hero. They'll always venerate me and abhor you, Auriel. And their worship will provide me with the strength to return!"
"Just like your allies, your people will eventually learn the truth." Akatosh looked tired.
Trinimac unsheathed his blade and skewered Lorkhan's heart onto it, ripping his body in two. Akatosh then attached Lorkhan's heart to his bow and sent it spiraling over the horizon to the east. The god of man's soul excised, and body parts thrown into the sky. His blood painted the grounds of the heartland before his heart landed in the centermost area of the eastern lands.
The memory ended and Krest found himself back inside the tavern, scratching his head.
"Now, I'm sending you four to the city of Ocearan temporarily. You can work with Orgnum at the Ocearan College of Reason there to try and discover the location of the Elder Scroll while Dibella and I plan our next move with the Greybeards. A peace council must be held," elucidated Akatosh.
So, Skyrim truly does have no real magical institutes. Interesting. Must be because the Nords abhor magic.
"There is no peace without justice," Krest muttered. "How does somebody cease to exist and never go to any afterlife"
"Rupture the soul enough." Akatosh frowned. "Destroy your soul and not even the gods can save you from zero-summing, nonexistence. Krosis."
Krest gawked at the swirls of milk and water in his cocoa. The thought of nonexistence nauseated him, and he stood up and went to the washrooms. Tucked away in the side, away from prying eyes was a nordic bathtub in a gloomy, wooden sauna with a bucket full of clean water to the side. Krest splashed the liquid over himself. He then dry-washed his hands, chucking the towel away and slamming the door open with his knuckles.
Krest took a long, deep breath and walked on.
The Dragon god's voice built up to a crescendo, "not like that." He adjusted Saadia's fit. Akatosh was holding up various sets of light armor for them. "I thought elven would suit you, Idrasa and Ancano, seeing as you're elves. Saadia, glass armor for you. Aah, and Krest, I got you a small-size set of stalhrim-light armour."
Krest spoke colloquially, "thank you, Father Akatosh."
The armor was snug, wrapped around his body tightly and accentuated the muscle he had. Krest had no helmet, instead a white-fur cloak, and a matching hood which he kept off. Saadia, Idrasa, and Ancano wore similar sets with no helmets and also with capes and hoods, though different colors than his.
"I figured you all should have something light weight but protective. The chainmail embedded in the glass armor is mithril for you, Saadia, stronger and lighter than steel. Krest, yours has fur-underlining with anti-frost enchantments. Moonstone make for you Idrasa and Ancano with fireproof ebony-cloaks." Akatosh stood back and beheld the quartet like he was sending his children off to school for the first time, his gold eyes shining with parental pride, arms folded in front of him.
Fifteen minutes later the four of them were coming up upon a wayshrine located in the center of the terra-firma that would transport them to any of the five settlements in the province.
"Damn, it was destroyed in the last battle. Trains are all canceled too because of Numinex," Idrasa uttered when they saw the crushed rubble and demolition surrounding the marble cloister. The Dark Elf led the three of them behind a high wall and they poked their heads around it in towering succession to see what was ahead.
"Poor Erikur, looks like he didn't make it." Saadia gestured to a dead Nord man buried in the stones. "Probably better off without him, he always struck me as the treacherous sort." She examined the broken teleportation station.
Ancano articulated, "there's been discussion of making Tamriel a republic, the idea of Emperors seems archaic, and well, there hasn't been one since the Third Era. Not since Martin Septim died and the Elder Council has been in charge."
"But thanks to Ocato, the Thalmor have been running around unchecked," Saadia said.
Idrasa scrutinized the wreckage. "When the Divines fixed the city, they overlooked the fact you can't magically repair enchanted devices like this without enchanting them again. I shall have to get someone to do it." She brushed a hand over her long nose. Krest sunk back behind the ruined enclosure, still paying astute attention as Idrasa spoke, "Tamriel being a republic is a great idea, you ask me. No more childish power grabs for the ruby throne."
Saadia kissed Ancano on the shoulder. "As Dragonborn, I have no desire to be Emperor. I never even desired to be the Dragonborn or the Sibyl!"
Ancano held her face in his hands, kissing her deeply before speaking, "that, my love, is precisely why you are the Dragonborn."
Krest's shoulders slumped, and he remembered his vivid daydreams of possessing power. Maybe that's why it wasn't me. Idrasa dropped something, as a shattering noise visited his ears.
Saadia stooped around, brown cloak billowing out behind her while she mused aloud, "Skyrim is quite big, it'll take us days if not weeks to cross all the way over to Ocearan. A regular horse is too slow. Maybe Akatosh could turn into a dragon or Tsun could get Stuhn to summon a flying whale?" She then pointed in the direction of the main gate. "Wait, why don't we just ask the sphinx?"
"Would she even agree?" Idrasa leaned back.
"It's worth a try, isn't it? Plus, she knows I'm the Dragonborn," Saadia affixed with an uncertain grin. "Come on, we can abuse my power just this one time…" The Redguard grinned cheekily.
Krest shook his head. "The world would be worse off without you, my friend."
Soon enough they were outside the main entrance, facing the beast. Skyrim crept more towards deep winter, the marble landscape deepening into a silver, moonlike hue. White and pink cherry-blossom trees blushed through the countryside. The world flushed in winter colors and radiant tones. It started raining... but not water... small diamonds hailed from the sky, not dense enough to be deadly though. Icicles hung from the city gates and firelight shined through the way.
"Miss uhh, sphinx... Could we ask a favor of you?" Saadia tucked in her lips and made an expression which suggested just how likely she thought their odds were.
The large blue, white, and golden creature regarded them with orange eyes. "What would that be, Dovahkiin?" Diamonds spattered off her.
"Can you take us to the city of Ocearan?" Saadia's forehead wrinkled.
"No." She moved her head side to side. "However, I can take you halfway. How does that sound?"
"Just one moment." Saadia turned inwards and they discussed, "if we're halfway there, we're more likely to get attacked by monsters."
The monsters of Skyrim… The Devil's henchmen…
"It's worth the risk, I mean what other options do we have?" Ancano grimaced, dodging a jewel. "The four of us together should stand a fair chance against any beast."
"Famous last words." Idrasa giggled. "I've heard horror stories of people who've tried adventuring out in Skyrim."
Krest gulped as a crystal hit him smack in the nose. "Ancano and I managed just fine."
"Fine, though if we die it'll be both of your faults." Saadia returned to the sphinx. "We agree."
"Good, though you'll have to answer another riddle for me." The sphinx beamed.
"Very well, so long as you don't kill us." Saadia egged her on with the circular motion of fingers.
"It separates the ordinary from the unique. Doing it provides great satisfaction. Though you may not always live to see other people's reaction. What is it?"
Krest prodded at the information roaming around in his noggin. Being chosen like Saadia? No, doing it implies normal people can as well. He paced back and forth a bit as the others shot their theories between one another. Doing what gives us fulfillment, is potentially risky, and makes us unique?
"Fighting a lion?" Saadia whispered to Idrasa. "Battling a dragon?"
Krest clenched his teeth. "Taking action."
Making our own fate, taking matters into our own hands, choosing to matter.
"Correct," congratulated the sphinx.
Krest gesticulated to the raining diamonds twinkling gleams of clear hue the same as Dibella's eyes.
"I think diamonds are worthless." Saadia rapped her fingers against her elbow. "They're just shiny rocks."
"There go my plans for a diamond ring." Ancano put a hand to his forehead and huffed jokingly.
Saadia laughed, kissing him on the cheek.
The sphinx plodded down the alabaster countryside for a short while before taking flight and streaking through the sky at an insane speed. Saadia held the reigns as Ancano and Idrasa sat behind her, Krest in the front. The wind rushed through his hair, cold stabs blow-drying his face. He saw a Dwemer ruin entrance out in the middle of the ocean inside an enclosure of ice. I wonder what's in there. An octopus guardian sitting on top. Sea Dragons swum through the icy waters.
The snowy, glossy granite hold transformed into fifty-feet tall glacial walls of verglas in snow deserts and endless icefields. The odd nordic barrow buried under mounds of sleet stuck up from here or there, undead zombies or draugr trotting their way through the fluff. They zipped past Direnni ghost-towns and ruins of ancient, walled snow-elven settlements with spirits such as wisps and wispmothers floating around, haunting the landscape of Skyrim. The creepiest part was the abandoned dwemer ruins that still managed to churn out automatons that gawked at them eerily from the ground with lifeless metallic optics.
Then Krest saw it: what looked to be a… Knev skyscraper?! It stood solitarily among the sludge terrain they were now in. Shattered windows and ruined paint. A type of architecture that was completely futuristic and foreign to Tamriel. But there it stood alone. Hmm, this particular piece of land must've avoided the flooding that happened in the previous kalpa. And Lorkhan had likely created the rest of Skyrim around it.
"I'm dying to see what's in there." Krest pointed it out.
The sludge playscape gave way into a small countryside made from Dwarven metal, stone, and white granite. Dwemer pipes and other forms of machinery including airships and monorails surrounded the area. Nordic train-tracks were embedded through tunnels into the mountainside with lampposts structured on the sides on the outskirts of the Dwarven metropolis. The large city was devoid of nature, save for the cherry blossom trees planted on the cornerstone of every sidewalk. The mote of water that surrounded the ruins was a dark-blue shade and seemed to house giant eels. Huge golden walls with spires serving as watchtowers protecting it. A Dwarven colosseum in the corner.
"This is the ancient Dwemer city of New Dwemereth," explained Ancano.
Mechanical dragons stomped over the grounds and soared over groves of giant mushrooms while waterfalls fell from the skies themselves, from sentient clouds that flushed the land with giant snowflakes and raining pink lilies. Flower-ladened magenta hills. They flew up in the clouds, even passing by a few flying whales, snow-rays, and four-flippered dolphins. - The scenery was overwhelmingly intoxicating, something right out of a Bravilian skooma dream.
Skyrim's overworld was otherworldly.
They crossed through thick ivory steam of hot sauna-like fog that stemmed from the snowy volcano mountaintop called Mount Athor which heated them up immensely. Saadia swallowed a few thunderclouds with her elemental thu'um over an abandoned fort.
"According to our map, that's Fort Noctarian!" Ancano stated as if they should all be as excited as him.
"What about nectarines?" Idrasa asked in clear confusion.
A few aspen trees with leaves of a lustrous yellow hue were rooted in odd spots. Krest shivered into the freezing, swirling wastes of white all around him as they passed through bleached clouds full of life. The landscape transitioned from a floral daydream into a snowy tundra with lichen plants and thick, blooming flowers. Nordic structures and the rare statue dotted the scene with a dungeon here or there, a dilapidated mead-hall sitting on top of a cliffside. They happened upon a hillside which included steep boulders in the very heart of Skyrim.The Hearthlands. Resting like a nature-made hamlet beneath the looming figure of the Throat of the World, outside snowy plains and a basin of giant stone henges. A statue of Talos, stabbing a snake at the very top of the cliff-face. Wintery winds threatened to freeze them, so they hid in an alcove in the rock-face. The quartet set up a tent and started a fire, cooking their preserved food. The tattered dregs of Drakefell was above them near an eagle shaped Skyforge and an overturned boathouse.
The last warmth of autumn rippled away on the winter wind.
"Winter is co…" Idrasa was cut off.
"Finish that sentence and I may just kill you," warned Saadia, stoking the crudely made campfire with a stick she procured from Anu knew where. Frost mirriam, juniper berries, and blood blossoms all growing in groves nearby.
"Winter is here." Ancano clenched his jaw.
Krest sunk into his hammock, attached to both ends of the diminutive cave's wall, rubbing his fingernails with his thumb.
Idrasa cleared her throat and pointed to the colossal mountain known as the Throat of the World. "The city of Hrothgar rests towards the peak of that mountain. It is said that the High King that governs it has been alive since the Merethic Era, however he only became High King after the fall of Wulfharth after the moot elected him. Can you believe that?"
"Hitting the skooma now, are we?" Saadia teased, stirring a pot of soup.
"Don't be silly," Idrasa snapped.
Krest threw his blanket over himself and shifted in the opposite direction.
The next day they were on the road again. Dread had woke him up. They were on foot right now as the sphinx had left earlier in the morning after resting the night with them, having kept watch simultaneously. The kingdom they were in was called The Hearthlands, a play off of the Cyrodiilic equivalent: Heartlands since it was the centermost region. This kingdom held an icy tundra, and rows upon rows of thick, large flowers the size of which Krest had never seen before with big bees buzzing about. Mountainous terrain loomed behind dense foggy mists like observant guardians on the perimeter. Here and there enormous bent pine trees were deeply rooted in the ground, giving an epic, grandiose sense to the whole place. The ginormous mountain, the biggest in the world called the Throat of the World, held a sea of snowy trees likened to the hairs on an Imga's back.
This is Skyrim, it dawned on Krest.
He squinted, something was prowling in the distance behind the fog.
"It looks like a... were-vulture." Ancano glanced at Saadia for confirmation, and she nodded.
"Just do that shouty-thing, it'll persuade it to let us pass!" Idrasa bumped Saadia rearwards with her hip.
Saadia chimed in, "hey, what's that?"
A battered old house, missing a roof and frosted with icicles sat beside a quiet river the color of pink roses. It filtered itself through the gorge. The shack was marked with a happy looking snowman, smiling with buttons and a carrot nose.
"FUS RO DAH!" Saadia's thu'um thundered through the wind like a striking viper, blasting the gelid creation into pieces. Its carrot nose flew into the air and bonked Idrasa on her tied-back auburn strands.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Idrasa rubbed her head.
"The last time I saw a snowman it tried to attack me!" Saadia relaxed her arms by her sides.
Ancano and Krest shared a look. The latter blew into the wind. It coalesced like smoke in the cold air. Idrasa curled up a snowball and tossed it at Saadia. Saadia deflected the ball of ice back at the Dark Elf with a shout. Krest rolled up a ball of snow and sent it hurdling towards Idrasa. She dodged it by mere inches, but it hit something else...
The mist dissipated and a thick purple wing scraped against the floor. The werevulture was foaming at the teeth and its violent yellow eyes were twitching, foam precipitating from its fanged maw. Ancano turned around to look at the beast, backing away slowly as it probed him. The High Elf brought up two hands crackling with fire magic. The vrock's breath iced over as it rubbed its tongue together. Krest heard a distinct neigh in the distance, something was coming from the sky.
A pegasus.
Idrasa pumped her fists, ice freezing into her palms. She shot two ice spikes towards the vulture. The pegasus lunged from the air and sunk its squared teeth into the werevulture, shooting it into the banks of snow nearby. The pegasus was about the size of a baby mammoth, pudgy tail, grey fur, and large wings. The white horse beat the werebeast to a pulp with its hooves and turned to the group of four who edged away. - The majestic animal went back to beating down the vrock when it must have assumed they posed no threat to it.
"Pegasus," whispered Idrasa, bouncing on the balls of her feet, features moulding giddily.
"Let's sneak over there." Saadia's lips tightened, one eye on the pegasus as it smashed the predator's skull.
Idrasa threw the Dragonborn a pair of crimson eyes and drawn in teeth.
Whispers resonated from the nearby pink river and Krest knelt beside the magenta-hued stream. Saadia and Idrasa didn't wait for him, heading inside the rundown shack. The fragrance of roses emanated from the water. Krest saw pairs of cherry-blossom trees on either side of the colored fixture along with floating petals and lily pads. Koi fish swam around contently as well. Moreover, the most interesting part was the fact that the tributary seemed to be speaking to him, reaching out to him in promising whispers beneath the surface.
Krest lowered his ear to the veil and heard murmurs coming from beneath the pink water. Mist rolled off it and he felt a sense of calm.
Maybe just a dip.
Krest lowered his head inside the aesthetic tincture, a charming chill tickling the roots of his hair. It wasn't freezing cold as expected, rather invitingly cool. The whispers morphed to voices and fuzziness tingled his now fully submerged likeness.
"Krest", he heard the Rose River tease him in Dibella's voice,"I love you, my beautiful baby boy."
Bubbles vibrated from his mouth. Soon his need for air became too great and he lashed out, his hair whipping over him as he hurdled backwards into the snow, taking in an inhalation of the icy atmosphere. More globules of soap and vapor misted off the river. A few air-nymphs were floating in the air, doing flips and tricks a way away down the snow-filled and tulip-infested tundra.
His hand fell on something hard and metallic. Krest held up a rectangular device in his hand, a cracked black screen. It's one of those Knev talking devices. He turned it over, a symbol of a circle on its back. The buttons on the rectangle didn't work and he tossed it into the brook. He glimpsed around as Ancano approached him. Krest shivered, squeezing the pink water out of his hair, and sauntering up towards the decimated house.
The pegasus trundled up to them and bowed. Ancano pet its head. "I shall name you, Herus."
Crystalline ice-covered caverns lodged in hillocks, lakes shimmering like glass with frozen surfaces smooth enough to skate on. Ice-Coursers skated across the frosty underbelly towards them. Crystalized men who bladed fast across the land, death in their wake. Sometimes the thralled ones were used as couriers.
"Ice-Coursers… In that lodging, come on." Ancano gestured him over. "Herus will take care of them if they try anything."
Maybe I should just let them kill me… If I am a Shezarrine, I have no right to be alive.
Krest's mind throbbed, a momentary urge to fall face-first into the snow. He saw a few mammoths and giants toiling away in the distance as he and the elf clambered onto the platform and opened the trap door that Idrasa and Saadia had gone through. The rest of the wooden abode was empty, save a small statue to Dibella that resided there.
You have to haunt me everywhere I go?Krest's eyes pulsed with bloodshot ire at the statuette.
He was in a maple-stilted lobby, a Nord standing as a doorman. "Your friends went down just now. Keep your nose clean while you're here." The doorman inspected them from afar, his gaze roving over the two. "This is Rose-River Lodge. I'm sure you noticed the beauty of a river outside. Its waters have an acute magical effect on the bather or drinker. This here place is a secret den, betting grounds for our underground arena, bathhouse, board, and room. I'm Gloth Olavson."
"This is the only location like this in Skyrim?" Ancano's gold eyes peered around curiously.
"Yeah." Gloth nodded. "Not many people you'll find outside the walls. But this place is of a more secretive nature. Suffice it to say, you won't find the most reputable members of society here."
They filed down a janky set of steps which poured out into the main chamber, Krest's white-fur cloak dragging behind him. - Hidden behind a shabby exterior, Rose-River Lodge was a location of noteworthiness; a fancy stone bathhouse that led to various other rooms.
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A/N: This fic is on Fanfiction Net, Archive, and Fandom. Be sure to check out my other Skyrim fic, The Old Kingdom, while you wait for this one to update! Also, please leave a review.