It was snowing the day that Marcurio and I left for High Hrothgar, something it didn't do frequently in this area, it wouldn't stick to the ground here either, higher up it would. We headed up the road that lead to Helgen and to the Rift where High Hrothgar stood.
Some of the heavy timbers that made up the fort and other buildings in Helgen were still smoldering. We could see the thin lines of smoke from different part's of the town. To go around would take a good half a day, so I decided we should go through. I told Marcurio that we should be prepared, as it was likely that bandit's would have moved into the town to loot it if nothing else.
We cautiously walked into the gate, looking around warily for bandit's that might be hidden. It didn't take long before I saw movement on the top of one of the towers. I turned to Marcurio and said "archer, tower to our right", he nodded and kept looking around. Two bandit's came out of the bottom of the tower, just as the archer started shooting arrow's at us.
I cast a firebolt spell at the archer, while Marcurio caste a chain lightning spell at the two bandit's. I watched the archer topple over off the top of the tower and then turned looking for another target. Nothing moved, except a couple chicken's. We walked in the direction of the gate that lead to the Rift road, skirting some of the still smoldering homes. We ran into one more set of bandit's and both of us used fireballs to send them to their chosen Divine.
After weaving our way around to the gate, we got on the road, then it was merely watching for the normal dangers. The wolves seemed to be out in force and the bear's were in an eating frenzy trying to get the extra weight on they would need to carry them through the winter. I heard a couple dragon's in the distance but none ever came close to us.
It was a nice walk to Iverstead, the leaves were turning and the day was beautiful with just a hint in the breeze that winter would soon be here. We entered Iverstead in the early afternoon, to hear a woman complain about the bear attack's making it hard to get her order of lumber cut, let alone brought into the mill.I looked at Marcurio who shrugged his shoulders and said it was to late to start up the 7,000 step's.
So I asked the woman if she knew where the biggest threat from the bear's was comming from. She pointed out a bear lounging outside a cave on the other side of the river, right beside the bridge. So Marcurio went into the Inn and booked us room's and put our stuff in them. I walked to the end of the bridge and looked over at the bear, I noticed that it wasn't a full grown bear, but perhap's two or three years old. Mom and some sibling's could be in the cave, more than likely were according to what the woman had said about the attacks.
Marcurio came up beside me and asked what we were going to do about them, they were after all only hungry and more than likely the cutting of timber had disturbed them in their original home. I thought about it for a second and said year's ago their was a ruin a little down the river and on the other side, Spriggan's always seemed to like the area. I was pretty sure that I cold caste a calming spell and lure the bear's, one at a time, to the area. The Spriggan's would keep the bear's in that area to help them protect it.
And that is exactly what we did, one bear at a time, I caste a spell for calming and charming and the bear's followed me to the area near the Spriggan's. It was a good thing that Marcurio had come along to help, as their was a troll in the way. Everything went exactly as I planned. Well except the fact I really hadn't counted on mamma bear having four cub's, three was rare enough. We got up the hill that lead back into town shortly after a brilliant sunset.
The mill owner met us in the Inn, but wasn't really happy that we hadn't killed the bear's, but I explained that the area I had taken them to was off limit's to cutting down tree's or any type of settlement and had been for at least one hundred year's, it was a good place for the bear's and had always been a rather bad place for people.
Marcurio and I went and ordered dinner and took a bath while it was being fixed. We both had a bottle of mead with dinner and a sweat treat afterwards, Marcurio had picked up my bad habit of eating sweet's. Their actually was a really good reason that I ate the sweet's and I tended to honey and nut based treat's. We often missed meal's, I mean I supose we could ask the vampires or draugr to please stop while we eat, but somehow I doubt that they would listen. A little extra fat wouldn't hurt either one of us in the long run, though neither of us would ever keep weight on.
Marcurio found himself a pretty little farm girl to flirt with, I think on her part she was just doing it to upset the Inn's bard. Marcurio, just liked flirting, he said he liked to see the light shining in a woman's eyes when she was happy. It didn't matter to him if she was young or old, beautiful or not every woman liked to be made to feel beautiful. Being female myself I knew this to be true, I liked it when a handsome man payed me attention. He seemed to be happy so I got up and went into the room that my stuff was in.
The next morining the Inn keeper's wife woke us up when she got up at 3 am to bake the bread, she said she had some sweet rolls and milk we could have for breakfast. We ate them and then left to climb the step's to High Hrothgar.
I pointed out the 1st shrine to Marcurio, who seemed to have a facination with anything old. He asked if I knew how many there were and I told him I believed there were ten of them, the last being at a statue of Talos or near it. I explained to him that I had been hired as a guard for a pilgrim that wanted to climb the step's, but was in no way a warrior. I had been paying more attention to the ice wolves and frost troll's than the shrines. The woman had been old and kinda slow, so I carried a lot of food and had to make sure it would last for the trip both up and back down.
Marcurio asked if it really took that long, that I couldn't carry enough food on my back for the whole trip for two of us. I said yes, it had taken that long, ten days up and back down. She couldn't move fast and had I known exactly how slowly I might have brought her a horse. She might not have wanted to ride up the mountain, but she probably would have back down.
After fighting a couple ice wolves we made it to the half way point and met another traveler. She wished us well and then said to watch for the dangers on the way up. I told Marcurio that the next section, if I remembered correctly was rather rough, the step's themselves long since disappeared beneath a layer of snow and ice.
As we started up the last step's that we could see the wind kicked up and it started blowing snow. We got to a rocky area at the top of the step's and could only see a few feet up the fissure. I caste an armor spell and Marcurio did the same, then looked at me. I leaned toward him and told him that while I had't seen anything, I felt that something was here in the small canyon left by the cracking of the mountain.
I then caste a detect life spell and saw a large creature not to far in front of us. I pointed out the large life form ahead of use and said Ice troll, can't be anything else. Soon as it comes in to attack, conjure a flame Atronach and hit it with fire of one kind or the other, Marcurio nodded and we didn't have that much time before it came into attack us.
I conjured my flame atronach and Marcurio conjured another, though conjuring wasn't his greatest skill. we separated and kept the troll in a triangle, with it being one point. If the troll got to close to Marcurio, I caste another flame atronach in it's way, Marcurio did the same thing when it got to close to me. It took awhile, troll's being very sturdy beast's that had the inner ability to heal themselves, but if finally lay in the snow.
We kept going and both of us noticed that the sun was well down in the sky. We got to the next shrine in the Troll's canyon and I looked at the area and decided that we had best camp here, because at least we were out of the wind and snow. I took a really good look at the rocky outcropping next to the shrine and told Marcurio to step back.
I caste a flame spell, starting at the back of the outcrop, til the rocks their were almost glowing with heat. Then I melted the snow over the top of the outcrop, when the snow started flowing like water, I caste a frost spell with my other hand towards the bottom of the falling water. Freezing it from the ground up, in an almost solid sheet of ice. I then did the same thing on the other side, but made sure the sheet's of ice didn't meet, though it looked like they did, one was actually a couple feet infront of the other, enough so that we could walk through it.
The floor of the newly made cave was clear down to the rock and would be warm to the touch. Marcurio walked in an laughed, which cut off abruptly when I told him he would have to heat up our dinner or we would be eating it cold. I spread out my sleeping roll and then sat down on it, I was bone tired, my magic almost depleted. I should not have tried that after the fight with the troll.
I watched as Marcurio piled up a couple small rocks and put our camp pot in the middle with some clean snow and a packet of beef stew, then heat up the rock's until they were almost glowing with heat. He looked at me and I nodded. "Never heat the rock's to red hot it you can help it and never ever to white hot, they will explode". I repeated my mantra about those spell's to him, He nodded and stirred the pot witch was almost boiling. He put a bottle of apple cider on the rock's where it would warm the drink, but not cause the glass to crack or explode from the heat.
As we sat their eating, Marcurio said he had thought about what I had said about getting married and all, but he was thinking about going back to the Imperial City and becoming a teacher. I told him he could do that here in Skyrim and probably not have to worry as much about politic's, which he would have to worry about in the Imperial City. He said that was true and he would give it all some thought.
He told me he wanted to teach mages like himself a more practical magic, thing's like this cave or heating the rock's. Simple thing's that unless someone told you about it, you never really thought about it. "You do things that make a simple kind of sense without ever really thinking about it. I would have made a good court mage or battlemage in a large army, but the thing's you've taught me allow me to work by myself in the wilderness. I could not have done that without some of the thing's you have taught me, right down to having a dagger or sword or something as a back up. I know I could use a staff as backup, but the way you explained about having a back up, it makes more sense to have a non-magical back up than another magical one." I nodded at him and told him to get some sleep, he could think about it all over the next few week's, cause I had the feeling that he would have plenty of spare time. We both rolled up in our fur's and went to sleep.
We rolled up our bedding by light spell, as it was still dark out. When we rounded the boulder's and found the next rung of stair's, the dawn was a thin line on the horizon. We chatted about his idea for a practical magic school, were the adventurous could learn to survive. I had learned most of it the hard way, by needing something and having to make it up myself, usually by cobbling two spells together. It was true though that sometimes the spell's didn't happen til well after when I needed them and had had the time to think about them. Living a very long time meant I could take year's to develop one spell, if need be.
Stopping at the last couple of shrines along the way, we rounded the corner and Marcurio got his first look at High Hrothgar. He was impressed with the building, saying it was very imposing, not really Nordic in style at all really. I had thought my memory was right, it didn't look Nordic, but I had seen a building very recently that bore a striking resemblance. That meant it was old, very very old.
We walked up the step's and Marcurio looked around, then shrugged. I think he might have been planning on waiting outside. We walked through the door and the sound of the wind stopped, it was also very dim, which after the bright glare of the sun on the snow was rather refreshing. Marcurio hung back a couple step's behind me, as I walked towards the men I could see gathered in the first room.
I walked up to the man that came the closest to me and bowed, "You summoned me?" The man introduced himself as Arngeir one of the Greybeard's but he needed to know if I was Dragonborn and wanted me to "shout" at him so he could taste the power of my Thu'um, it took me a minute to realize he was asking me to gather power and speak a word in the Dragon language. I didn't really know many and most of them I wouldn't want shouted at me, so I did the only one I knew that wouldn't cook or freeze someone. After I shouted at him and he regained his balance, He greated me as Dragonborn. He said my thu'um was strong, but he wanted to see how fast I could learn, so had another of the Greybeard's show me some word's in the dragon language and then shared the essence of the word.
They then asked me to shout at a projection of one of the other Greybeards. When I passed that test we all went outside and I learned a completely new word. They were all very impressed with how quickly I had picked up a completely new shout. If they thought that was impressive, then what I had to say next would really blow there minds. I told them all to hold up and then explained to them that because I had been hearing dragon's my whole life, well recently I had started being able to understand them.
I shook my head and said maybe it'll just be easier to show you. So I shouted the word's for Frost/ice that I had learned from the dragon that had attacked me with it. Then I shouted fire at the same rock. The men all looked somewhat shocked, that I learned in that fashion, but then the one named Bori nodded his head, I heard what he said like a whisper in my head. " Basically that is the way I taught you, you learned frost/ice, by feeling it, tasting it and knowing it, from the dragon, I just gave you the essance along with the word." This time I nodded as I understood what he was saying.
Arngeir stayed with me as the others went back inside, he said he would answer any questions that I might have. Which was mainly about what it meant that I was Dragonborn. He wasn't sure what meaning it had, he just knew he and the other Greybeard's would help and guide me as much as they could, they would instruct me in the Way of the Voice, which he said was a peaceful and religious form. I asked specific questions and found out that they thought the dragon's were just coming back. That wasn't so, their hadn't been many and those had been in hiding, but I had heard dragon's speaking since I was a child, over three hundred year's ago.
I told him that and he looked at me rather sharply. Yes Durniviir was correct, they did have secret's they were hiding. Or well, thought they were hiding, I had heard the Dragon that was on top of this mountain a long time ago, his voice, though old and powerful, sounded lonely.
I took my leave of the man, saying that if we were to get down the mountain, by nightfall, we would have to hurry. I hurried to the door, where Marcurio was sitting on the floor using the wall as a back rest and reading a book. He stood when he heard my boot's clicking on the stone and asked where we were sleeping. I told him in the ice cave that I had formed, I didn't trust these men, respect yes, they were powerful and by all accounts peaceful or at least reclusive, which didn't really amount to the same thing.
We hurried to the ice cave, as it was already getting dark when we left High Hrothgar, this time I helped Marcurio with heating and cooking. Then we sat their and discussed what I had learned from the Greybeards. Marcurio was surprised that they thought the dragon's were just coming back, as they should also be able to hear them, if nothing else their power. I told him about the dragon I heard on top of this mountain and he said that maybe they were protecting a peace loving dragon.
The way he said it was just as suspicious to him as it was to me, but we both kind of figured that if they were protecting the dragon up the mountain, then they probably had a reason for saying things they way they did. We lay down to sleep and I closed my eye's and really thought hard, trying to remember the first time I had heard the voices.
The picture popped into my head, I had been ten or eleven year's old, usually an age that I would not have been around strangers. The family knew this woman, she was old, even for an Altmer, blind in both eyes, but had a great dog that guarded her and guided her on her journey. She rode a huge bull elk and a hawk circled the sky above her. I remember her well, as I was rebuked for staring at her.
My father had helped her down from the Elk, who wandered into a grassy area and started munching. One of my Aunts brought our best mixing bowl full of water for him, which rather shocked me at the time, I wasn't even allowed to touch that bowl. An Uncle brought out one of our best chairs for her and put it under a shade tree. My Mother told me to listen, but not to say anything unless I was asked a direct question and to be very polite. Refreshment's were brought for her and we all sat down and listened while my Mother and Father talked to her, my Aunt's and Uncles didn't say much, but did add a comment now and then. Most of what she had to say was about people and places I knew nothing about, alot was about the weather and how the land itself was fairing.
She sighed and rose to her feet, saying that she would need to get going as she still had a good distance to go. Then she walked strait over to me and laid a hand on my cheek and kissing me on the forehead. She said I had a long difficult and often sad life to live. Laying both hand's on my shoulders, she then kissed me on both cheek's, giving me a blessing, thought she said some would say it was a curse. She then took off a necklace that she was wearing and put it over my head.
I still wore that necklace, funny thing about it is most people didn't even notice I was wearing it. It was a Necklace of Kyne, for some odd reason my family had worshiped her for centuries. I did not know that the old woman was a Priestess of Kyne, who often walked the land taking on her semblance, albeit a much younger version.
Soon after the old Priestess left, that is when I started hearing the dragon's. It would have been really nice, if she was going to "gift" me with hearing the dragons or being dragonborn, she would have allowed me to understand them. It drove me crazy knowing that someone, or in this case something, was having a conversation that I couldn't understand.
I smiled and sent my nightly prayer to Kyne, for peace.
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