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SPOILER INFO
This fanfic novel is largely based on the events that occurred in an actual game of Skyrim I played. Therefore, it's inevitably a spoiler.
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previous day
4-201-11-06 10:00
The Frozen Hearth, Winterhold, Winterhold, Skyrim
Ranmir – the barfly I promised I'll talk to – is already in the taproom. He's defiant at first, but I manage to persuade him to pay his debt to the innkeeper. I'm not sure his sister will be happy with more money leaving the family, but, well... yeah, it's too confusing and maybe I shouldn't have stuck my nose into it at all, but I already did.
Then I overhear Nelacar, the resident rogue mage cautiously enquiring of Dagur if he heard something like explosion noises last night. Apparently another one of his experiments didn't quite go as planned. Dagur didn't notice anything and neither must I say did I, but I figure I'd better sleep at the College from now on, and try to find a way to somehow accommodate my followers there as well. I'm sure it can be arranged as soon as my prestige in the College has risen high enough, and for that to happen, I must make myself useful. From this, my mind jumps onto the thought that if I'll be able to make myself useful enough to the College, then it's well possible that eventually my status there will reach the point when I'll be able to gather up enough courage to make a pass at Ertzebet, or even Mirabelle. Then again, I shouldn't lose my head like this over a couple of women, should I?
It's all so complicated, so I just bury myself in alchemy and smithing. Then I make my very first attempts at enchanting. The enchantments I've learned so far are few and not exactly spectacular. I mean, to improve something by 19 points or 16 percent is hardly worth wasting a grand soul on. More to get my feet wet than for real gain, I put enchantments to increase Carryweight and Sneaking on a few items I often wear. After that, I walk around a bit in the College, exchanging a word or two with a number of teachers I encounter, as well as take a few pictures with my followers:
Back at the inn, I strike up a conversation with Dagur. Apparently, I'm now a sight familiar enough for him to confide me in something that's been bothering him. It's about that drunkard Ranmir again. Dagur knows why he began drinking – the woman he loved ran away with another guy. Dagur asks me to do him a favor and try to find out somehow who that girl was and what happened to her. It breaks Dagur's heart to see a good man destroy himself like Ranmir is doing. I feel the same way, although I doubt very much that anything I might find out would make Ranmir feel any better. There's no doubt in my mind that the woman had a good reason to leave him and there's nothing Ranmir, let alone I, can do to make her change her mind back. Women don't work that way. Unfortunately, there's little hope of making a man understand it.
And I should cut down on philosophizing, shouldn't I? Well, after I've promised Dagur to do what I can, I turn my head and am taken aback by the sight of a man sitting at the bar counter wearing fine clothes and an expensive circlet. It's none other than Jarl Korir. Don't tell me his sweetheart ran away too.
I step up to him and greet politely. He asks me what brings me to Winterhold, and warns me to stay away from the College:
Winterhold must be really badly off when even the jarl spends his time drinking in a bar. Or maybe he's simply a people person? At any rate, I think I'll stick around a little while longer. Surely there's something I can do to help. They're all basically good people around here, just a little confused with misunderstandings. Harsh climate doesn't mean everyone has to be depressed. Look at Dånstar. For that matter, when Winterhold prospered before that disaster 80 years ago, they had, I'm sure, exactly the same climate as now.
I'm not sure how I could be of benefit to Winterhold right now, though. Reluctant to leave Korir just yet, I ask him what Winterhold's like, as if I had just arrived. Aided by an occasional encouraging smile from me, he tells me he actually has great ambitions of putting Winterhold, as it were, back on the world map. He asks me to find the Helm of Winterhold , a legendary item of great symbolical value. Sure. I keep a serious mien, because I know by now that such things can indeed carry a lot of weight among Nords. And that helm stems from the 1st Era (we're now having the 4th), so it sounds like a really huge deal.
As you may know, hardly anything excites a woman more than a man who instead of meekly submitting to his fate strives to become great. I'll be happy to give all of my modest assistance to Jarl Korir. I'd do something to make him feel better right now, but I don't want to risk him getting a shock from something that might happen with me any moment now. In fact, I wonder why it hasn't. It's already gotten dark outside, as I notice with some surprise. How the hours have flown by!
Just about to leave the inn, I happen to pass by Dagur's wife Haran and ask her if she knows anything about Ranmir's unhappy love. Oh yes she does, and how! She tells me all about it – her name is Isabelle Rolaine and the guy she ran away with was a thief named Vex from Bitchen, and in fact Ranmir traveled to Bitchen to find them. Haran insists most vehemently that I stay out of it. Those thieves in Bitchen are supposed to be a really bad lot.
I try my best to make it look like I was never really interested to begin with. The truth is, of course, that the name Vex is not new to me. It's the Lockpicking trainer down at the Ratway inn. And Vex is a woman. That seems to be just about the only thing Haran doesn't know, and I'm not going to enlighten her. I have no problem talking to Vex, but there's no point in giving Haran more food for worried thoughts.
Walking back to the College, I'm finally relieved of my fear that I may have somehow managed to get pregnant. It would have been most embarrassing, as Contraception is pretty much the simplest of all spells.
Before turning in, I have some casual conversations, cast one more longing glance at the enthralling Ertzebet, and go to sleep in my cozy dormitory room a little after 11 o'clock.
My fellow students Siryn and Alessa enjoying their rest after an, as I presume, studious day.
next awakening
