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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
4-202-03-02 14:59
Proudspire Manor, Solitud, Haafingar, Skyrim
Looks like I'm kind of late getting up today. I'm not even entirely sure we can make it to Morpork tonight. Not during business hours, that's for sure.
No time to go looking for Jaree-Ra either, obviously.
Bathing and eating and such takes me about an hour and then we can leave. There are many people on the streets. I'd love to stick around and socialize some, but I don't want to waste any more time. Jarl Igmund will be traveling along main roads and at leisurely pace, but we still have to arrive in Morpork well before him (in other words, before tomorrow morning) to make sure there'll be no trouble.
With the sky partially cloudy but the weather very nice regardless, we run to Dragonbridge.
I wonder what that guard on the left is doing. Guess I'd better not get too close. ;-)
A few minutes after we've arrived, a dragon attacks. He flies around a lot and I'm having severe difficulties getting a good shot at him, especially because I, my followers and the guards get a bit in each other's way running back and forth in a relatively narrow space between the houses. Oh well, I've seen much worse.
As we cross the river and trot southwestwards, it begins to drizzle. A little farther, we get a few minutes of sunshine and then the rain starts anew and grows heavier by the time we reach The Reach. We arrive in Karthwasten at a quarter past seven, still in halfway decent light, but the weather is pretty much as joyless as can be.
I want to pay a visit to that place where Elle, the former sweetheart of that insane fire mage Uthor, is expected to dwell. Lady Stone or Lover Stone or what was it called? It's quite close to the Karthwasten–Morpork road, but presumably up the mountains. That's why I don't want to descend to the riverside just yet. Instead, we leave Karthwasten over the hills, moving almost parallelly to the road, only on higher ground.
We end up killing a mysterious creature called a wispmother who conjures several flying magical things during the battle. A little later, we witness a traveling mage fighting several bandits. We have an excellent observation point at elevation and quite a safe distance. However, they are taking their time and we're too impatient to wait (okay, I am), and it's practically dark now, so we'd better get a move on. That's why we shoot them dead without finding out who would have won.
Approaching Lover Stone, we can see a glowing figure from far away.
Don't tell me that lunatic fell in love with a spriggan!
No silly, my girls tell me, it's a flame atronach.
Right. Whom else would a pyromaniac fall in love with? [Rolling my eyes]
So let's go over and say hello.
Yes, its name is Elle all right. She warns us not to approach, because she's in a foul mood. When I bring up Uthor, I'm shocked to learn he brought her here from Oblivion against her will and bound her to this Lover Stone. (That's how he knew she would be here!) Elle feels utterly miserable in our world. I promise her I'll make the bastard cancel the spell he cast on her.
I almost turn to go, but then I ask, on an odd chance:
"Do you know why there aren't any female dragons?"
She shrugs (or maybe I imagine she does): "They all lost their lives in The Dragon Wars. What of it?"
"Just curious. What about the dragon eggs?"
"Well, what about them?" Elle seems to be at the end of her patience.
"Could they be hatched?"
"I suppose they could, but how do you expect a baby dragon to survive without its mother taking care of him? And will you finally get out of my sight?"
Sure. Thanks.
We reach Morpork without any further incidents and go to bed a little after ten.
I'm not too sleepy, but Lydia and Jenassa are tired (not Jordis, for obvious reasons) and I don't fancy sitting in the taproom without them, so I'm going to bed as well.
Looking towards the ceiling invisible in the darkness, I believe to vaguely remember having visited various paternal relatives with my parents, sometimes even in other towns. Now I'm beginning to see the actual ceiling as my eyes adjust to the lack of light. I imagine looking past the ceiling and seeing streets and houses from my childhood. I had a best friend Petrille. She was a Breton, born and raised in Camlorn and knew every broken fence where a child could crawl through and every hidden spot one could comfortably climb up to when one felt like watching people unobserved. The sounds of the Silver-Blood Inn taproom are fading away as I try to recall her birthday, but I can't. I remember how Petrille and I always hung around Cortoran and his friends, but at some point they began to avoid us and we couldn't understand what was wrong, and at the same time they became interested in girls about their own age who were so pompous and self-important and looked down on us.
I suddenly recall a scene where I sat with my brother in his room and asked why he had become different and he told me that in five years or so some things would change in my body and then I would understand what would be very difficult for him to explain to me now. It has something to do with the reasons why grown-up men and women want to be together and live together like our parents do, he said. Cortoran assured me he will always be my brother and he'll protect me and help me, and whenever I want to ask him something – about boys, for example – I can come to him, but we can't be together all the time. A boy of his age will inevitably need some privacy from his younger sister. Especially when he's sitting and talking to a girl, they want to be left alone.
Yes, dear brother, I've come to understand it all by now...
next awakening
