[center][code]One of One Thousand Steps[/code][/center][hr]

A lone horse-led wagon dragged along one of many lonely cobbled roads that zigzagged across Skyrim's fields, crags, and bitter tundras. Roads with grass and brushes growing in the middle of them, sometimes forking off into the same road and a dirt path pounded flat by dozens of feet - you didn't want to follow those paths - and it was years upon years of travel that created wheel-dug indents in these roads with no one around to bother repairing them. As such, riding these roads had become something of an art. Turn wrong or spook your horse, and you run the risk of misaligning one of your wheels or ripping them off entirely. It took a considerably lucky sort for an amateur equestrian to hit these holes in the road repeatedly with little-to-no-consequences.

[i]Creeeaaak... thunk![/i]

The entire wagon slammed the ground as it rode the edge of the dip in the road and fell back into it, causing whatever that rode in the back to abruptly shift.

"Sorry!" Cried out the driver in a rural, Nordic accent. He turned his head around, showing off a wide toothy grin with a piece of wheat sticking out from between his smile. He wore a wide-brimmed hat made from straw and dried fronds and blades of grass. "These ol' roads have themselves quite the temper, yeah?"

The occupant groaned as she wearily rubbed the side of her head, apparently rising from a poorly had slumber with less-than-comfortable bedding (i.e. hard wood). The poor coordination of her driver didn't do her many favors by having her head dropped against said wood. She had spent a few days on this journey, sharing few words with her driver as she spent the majority of her time either resting or in silent prayer. As Wylendriel clutched her now aching head, she did her best to remain positive with a sense of humor. 

"You don't say..." She replied. "It practically jumped at you." She felt it was a good start. It was far better than the thoughts that kept insisting on treading where they did not belong. Thoughts such as, [i]'You think the road's temper is bad, you should see mine.'[/i] Thoughts of blood and pain. They were not her own. The driver, in response, just laughed and continue leading his horse with his reigns, and a repetitive "hip-hip" he seemed to blurt every minute or so. The horse was whining with irritation, but obediently treaded onward. Wylendriel sighed and let all of her tension escape with her breath. The temple encouraged such practice of breathing, for with each breath, you breathe in the wind, allowing Kynareth to heal you from the inside. The pain in her head began to subside and her tired body seemed to ease.

With the thought of her lady in her mind, she breathed in and relaxed her muscles and raised her face to the sky. She muttered a prayer under her breath: [i]"Come to me, Kynareth, for without you, I might not know the mysteries of the world, and so blind and in terror, I might consume and profane the abundance of your beautiful treasures."[/i]

There was but only silence again. Still, she remained faithful and continued on with the second half of her prayer.

"Song of night-tide canopy - stars woven between your leaves. Crow's watching eye; snake's empty belly - moving, dancing in every moment... forgetting what comes and what is gone." 

'Now [i]there's[/i] a pretty song!" The nosy driver chimed in.

"It's a prayer," Wylendriel corrected with a smile, "its recited by Bosmeri followers of Y'ffre. It reminds us of where we come from, and where we will one day go."

"You aren't one of 'em are ye?" The driver asked. "Them cannibals?"

Wylendriel shifted in her seat uncomfortably, but stifled a nervous laugh. "Ah, no." She told him. "I am also a priestess of Kynareth. No rules exist saying I cannot worship across pantheons, yes?"

The driver just laughed and tipped his hat to keep the sunlight out of his eyes as they crossed over a hill. He said, "No, I s'pose there are none."

As they rode over the wooded hilltop, sunlight finally broke through and touched Wylendriel's face, and she took the opportunity to relish in its warm rays. Even forsaken as she was, Kynareth still generously shared nature's gifts to all who breathed beneath the skies. In the distance was just as much a promising sign: the line where the ocean meets the sky, and in the distance, the small port town of Dawnstar. A ship was at rest at its docks, and the people who lived there out and about. This is where she was led, and then... she had to retrace her steps - whatever that meant. The gods often led their faithful on epic quests, but going from here and back to Eastmarch (or even as far back as Valenwood!) sounded like there were incredible odds stacked against her. Still, she imagined it took a lot to impress a Divine... and it was just as likely she may be interpreting the message wrong. No mortal, man nor mer, should be ridden with so much hubris that they would claim to fathom a god's intentions. That being said, this was just as much a test of her mind as it was a test of her faith.

The wagon rolled closer to the city and she could begin feeling the salty breeze. Even in dead of summer, it felt cold as it swept across the northern ocean. As a traveler from Valenwood, used to the cozy tropics and humidity, she just pulled her robes around herself tighter. Northern Skyrim was uncomfortable in summer, and she could only imagine how inhospitable it must be by year's end. The wagon suddenly stopped at the outskirts of Dawnstar and the driver swung around in his seat. "Alrighty, little lady! Dawnstar!"

Wylendriel hesitated. "Um...?" She leaned her head out to still see the gates ahead of them. The driver redirected her attention to the refugee camp full of argonians just outside.

"Thieving wretches, they are, got to see plenty of 'em myself down in the Rift."

"Charming." Wylendriel commented in reference to him, but he seemed to have taken it in reference to the argonians.

"I'll say! Watch your pockets on your way in! And your back too, you never know what they might be up to..."

Without further word to the driver, Wylendriel collected her belongings and climbed out the back of the wagon and marched on without making contact with the [i]racist moron--[/i] Gods, just make it [i]stop[/i]. Not her thoughts, not her thoughts... Not. Her. Thoughts. Still, why did it have to feel so... [i]right?[/i] Insanity notwithstanding, she trudged on, but towards the camp of argonians refugees. The nagging suggestions in the back of her mind insisted her to ignore them and continue on her pilgrimage, to focus on Dawnstar - but she concluded to ignore those thoughts. Yes, her journey was important, but it wasn't worth it if she lost herself in the process. Her identity as a healer helped her to distinguish herself from her curse. Still, she had to wonder sometimes which thought was really her. Was it the corruption that told her to continue the pilgrimage, or was it telling her to help these folks in order to drive her off-course? She elected to focus on helping these wounded in lieu of this disturbing pondering.

The argonians, wrapped in bandages and smelled of anti-septic, look cautiously to the robed Bosmer woman. One of them, an older looking lizard with feathers growing from the sides of his face, raised a hand that prompted her to halt.

"Come further if you wish to help," he said cautiously, "otherwise we do not want any trouble."

"I'm a healer." Wylendriel explained. Many argonians whispered to each other, and although it was very rare Wy ever got to meet an argonian, their faces seemed to gleam with excitement and anticipation. "What happened to all of you? This doesn't have to do with... with the akaviri... does it?"

The camp fell quiet at the mention of the name, and the elder slowly stood up. He measured her carefully and spoke, "I'll assume you must be very new to Skyrim, since you don't look to me as to swim in the river of fools. Forced to age, yes? You've a weathered look."

Wylendriel simply answered, "I am on pilgrimage. News travels where there are people."

"I am not one to cast the Hist's blessing back into the river. My name is Tzinasha, stranger. The worst of our ailing sleep in their tents. Please help them if you can."

Led through the camp, she caught a number of stares. Many of them had their arms in slings, but at least they were standing. Some of them were even missing parts of their tails. She was invited into their largest tent and she was instantly treated with the smell of blood, medicine, and septic wounds. One of their worst cases seemed to be one that was coughing blood and missing an eye. Their tail was stumped and the dressings across his belly were still bleeding through. She grimaced. A missing eye and tail was something she couldn't do. Resetting a broken bone? Easy. But she couldn't create new limbs and organs.

"Many of them have high fevers," Tzinasha said, "this one is Vijan-Nim, one of our warriors. He personally evacuated dozens of hatchlings in the Kamal's seige... but I fear we may lose him as early as tomorrow."

Wylendriel sighed as she sat down on her knees and pulled out ingredients from her pouches and the mortar and pestle from her satchel. She took a piece of mudcrab chitin, a pinch of bonemeal, and strands of a hawk feather and gave the ingredients to the elder with specific instructions: "Mix them well with water and give them to anyone running a fever. It should bring down their temperature and kill any infections."

Tzinasha nodded and immediately went to work - they had their own medicine, but what they had was limited and they were still dying. There was very little they had to lose in hoping that her treatment would be any better. Meanwhile, Wylendriel pulled out a book, [i]"Notes on Racial Phylogeny."[/i] She didn't have the opportunity to work with argonians very often, so the book's input will undoubtedly be of some help. What she did know, however, was that there was a general technique used across species. The trick was to capitalize on that method. Unfortunately, the book was pretty useless. It just suggested the possibility of argonians being similar to dreughs - pro-tip, there aren't many dreughs in either Skyrim or in Valenwood. The only dreugh she has seen was one next to the lake in Cyrodill, and she was far too preoccupied with running to look behind her to get a good medical inspection of its hungry, frothing mouth. This meant she just had to work under the assumption that, "Hey, we're all mortals. What could go wrong?"

She casted the most powerful healing spell that she knew and focused it on Vija-Nim's belly and closed her eyes as she whispered a prayer to herself. The tent illuminated with a bright light, causing looks of awe and muttering to spread - when the light faded, the argonians shifted in his bedroll and his good eye fluttered open. "Wha... what happened to me? Sun on my scales; my pain... my pain is nearly gone!"

The previously hushed voices, the head poking curiously in the tent, erupted this time with victorious uproar. This caused Wylendriel to shrink slightly, humbled by the gratitude they all exhibited - but also she felt fulfilled in some way. These people were hurting for so long with no real healer to take care for them that they must've given hope. Now she was here. It was in Dominions camps, almost like these, where she learned how to hone her craft. Was this what the Divines meant when she was told to retrace her steps? Regardless, she had to get her mind out of the clouds. She has work to do.