[centre][h3]Rorikstead I[/h3][/centre] [i]18th Sun’s Height, Evening On the road to Rorikstead…[/i] [hr] [indent]Their days of the road had so far felt long. They only had each other for company, and there were stretches of absolute silence, and then hours of conversation. Sleeping was hard. They had agreed to take it in turns, but Fjolte let Raelynn sleep while he sat and kept vigil over her. She needed it more than he did, and so he found time to sleep on Lady’s back here and there while Raelynn walked her. It was exhausting, but they both knew that Rorikstead was close by. It was exhausting, but it was temporary exhaustion. It was the crisp air of the province that kept them both refreshed too, that air that swept down over the peaks of the mountains, carrying with it serenity and the comfort of familiarity to those accustomed to Skyrim and its harshness. To Raelynn and Fjolte both, that wind was warmer than anything they could have found in the desert sands of the Alik’r. This evening was not one of those instances where silence would be found. The closer they came to Rorikstead, the more Fjolte deigned it appropriate to be jovial -- in ignorance of Raelynn’s pain perhaps, or just in his own unbridled elation. Home was on the horizon. “You’ll be our guest of honour you know,” he said, smiling at the side of his mouth - the other side filled with a large mouthful of a fresh apple, taken from a tree earlier that day. “Yeah! My good friend Raelynn, healer and hero!” he laughed, swallowing down the fruit, savouring the sweet taste. “I’m no hero,” she said quietly. It was always the evening, just after sunset that it hit her hardest. [i]Their[/i] hours were always the late ones. Midnight blue and hearthfires, dry red wine. Together, they were invincibly passionate by moonlight. Where had those flames gone? Fjolte scoffed, damn near choking on another bite. “Don’ be foo’ish,” he spoke through his food. “You sewed Mazrah’s arm back together with magic, tore Finnen out of the arms of death himself. That’s the work of a hero if I’ve ever heard of it.” He then glanced up at her, and was relieved to see that it had brought a semblance of a smile to her face, but it hadn’t lit the fire in her eyes. He didn't succeeded there yet, but he’d keep going until he did. It would only take one spark… Raelynn listened both to Fjolte’s voice and the breeze as it ran across the path, sprawling rugged mountains to the side of them, and forest to the other. Birds sat in their trees watching them move past. “If I’m a hero, so are you. I heard you punched an arm clean off one of those machines. That’s [i]real[/i] hero behaviour, hmm?” the Breton mused, watching the last of the sun sink into the horizon. That only made Fjolte laugh, it was true of course - he had helped to bring down the machines, in a theatrical way too - but he disagreed with his friend on that. “I don’t believe it, anyone with strength and muscle can fight a beast that fights them. Real heroics come from choices we make day by day, things we do for others, intent behind what we do.” He gave a relaxed shrug of his shoulders, moving ever forwards on the road - and those very words sat with Raelynn. Everything that Raelynn had done had been for the good of the party -- requesting Gregor to kill Zaveed, their attempt to assassinate Razlinc Rourken. Even hiding his true nature, had been to protect them just as much as it had been to protect she and Gregor. The party had been left fractured since the revelation, and that was only because he’d ascended to his Undeath, the very thing she had begged him not to do. Every which way that she looked at it, from every angle she turned and probed at her choices - they were always with good intent. Behind her was a string of failures, one right after the other, that all led them to the circle and trial in the Alik’r. If only she had done [i]better[/i]. If only she hadn’t accompanied Fjolte in the prison, Gregor would have been under her control - he may never have revealed himself… [i]”I should have been at your side,”[/i] she told herself - or him. He couldn’t hear her thoughts, not from this distance. [i]”Or I should never have stolen you from your own path… I should never have stepped onto it. Where would I be, Gregor? Where would I be without you?”[/i] Raelynn thought of the room that Zaveed had kept her in, that he had told her she’d bleed out and die there. Without Gregor, and without the confidence he gave her to stand up and deny Zaveed anything - would she have died there? Then, where would Gregor be without [i]her?[/i] Would he have collected the soul of N’Blec without her there to give [i]him[/i] confidence? He would never have been attacked and left for dead… Without what they had, he would have no need to chase down a Khajiit to avenge the death of some woman in their party. Would any of them have avenged her? If she had not of died, would she have left Gilane with her father and returned to High Rock without… Without everything she’d gained from the ashes of loss? Without Zaveed, would she feel so strongly for Finnen? He had become like a brother to her. She pictured him again, in all of his broken forms, every time he was broken she only saw his beauty, his eyes. [i]Oh his eyes…[/i]. If eyes were the window to the soul, she knew from his he was a good and strong man. Daro’Vasora. Her dear friend. Someone who saw the good in her just as Raelynn had seen it in Finnen. [i]”Daro’Vasora, I abandoned you. I left you when you needed me more than ever… You believed in me and I abandoned you…”[/i] She turned her eyes heavensward. Blinking back tears at the clouds above. Would her friend understand her choices? “But yeah, that’s just what I believe, Blondie. Enough about that, and more about home. Tomorrow we’ll make the Dhjarikson hog roast!” Fjolte exclaimed, it was enough to pull Raelynn away from her thoughts. She’d learned so much about her Nord companion in the two days. The most surprising of those things, was that he was something of a handy chef and forager. It made sense, Fjolte lived his life on the road for the most part - he was bound to have picked it up. The night before, he’d made a meal out of a wild hare that could have been served at a High Rock banquet. Raelynn did wonder if it was just the absolute hunger that made it taste that good, he clearly loved and respected food. He could teach Brynja a thing or two about providing meals on the road, that thought made her smirk. Raelynn decided that the two Nord’s would get on well with each other. “I’ve heard a lot about this since you joined us Fjolte, I hope it lives up to my expectations…” she teased, her eyes remained on the road but that same smirk quirked at her lips. “Oh aye it will,” he answered back, a hand steady on Lady’s shoulder as he walked the path. “I salt it, score it, season it…” his voice trailed off as he closed his eyes and kept on. All he could think about was walking through the threshold of his home, seeing his mother, sister, and nieces there. He hoped his arms were strong enough to hold a niece on each, he didn’t know how big they’d be by now. They were getting so close. “The best bit is the skin though, the way that it crisps up over the top, with the rendered fat underneath. Some of it gets charred but that’s even better… And the smell, oh the smell! You’ve never smelled anything til you’ve smelled my pig, kissed and caressed by fire!” he said, glancing at her again even if she wasn’t watching him. He found himself lifting his chin to take a deep sniff of the air around him, and since he’d conjured the image of it in his mind, it was as though he could smell it for real. “You’ll love it Raelynn, you really will…” For a while, nothing else was said - it was just the quiet sounds of Lady’s hooves and Fjolte’s feet on dirt. The Nord could sense a change in the atmosphere soon, the telltale sign that rain was coming. Maybe thunder too, but they’d be home soon - possibly even in time to miss the storm completely. Even if his impatience grew, it probably wasn’t good form to have Lady speed up and jostle Raelynn along the rest of the way. Nor was his next bright idea… “Do you miss him?” he asked rather frankly, tossing the finished apple away. Raelynn’s eyebrows furrowed and she clenched her fists. It had been unspoken, but his shadow had nonetheless hovered over them anyway. “Yes.” Was all that she said in response, feeling the darkness of approaching evening creep in when he came to her mind again. Fjolte felt awkward for it, but he knew she needed to address it sooner or later. It wasn’t healthy to bottle things like that, at least that’s what he believed. “You’re doing the right thing, he’ll understand that…” he sighed. “I know…” She breathed, going to reach at her chest but finding nothing. She’d left him her flowers, but hadn’t taken anything of his as a keepsake of her own. Just memories, and even they were blurred. So much had happened to them both that she couldn’t even picture his face. Not as it really was, or used to be. Now she could only imagine the lights of his eyes behind the steel prison. “They’ll all understand one day, when this is all over.” As they neared Rorikstead, the road became lined with scorch marks, and there was a light smell of burning in the air, being traced across the landscape in the wind. A fog had appeared, and the Breton knew it was too early in the year for snow or hail… But she was still taken aback to feel something touch her cheek. She brought her finger to touch it, rubbing at what she thought was a droplet of snow, or rain. As she observed her finger, she could see a smudge of grey... She squinted ahead, the growing dark obscuring much of her view until she looked down at the ground. A pair of shoes, child sized. Just a marker on the road now in a dry circle of blood, ground cracked beneath. Raelynn held tightly to Lady’s reins, stopping the loyal mare in her tracks. She couldn’t move her gaze from the shoes - and she instinctively placed a hand tenderly against her own stomach. Just a pair of empty shoes. There was a bitter breeze dancing through the canopy of the trees that howled, as if in mourning down below at the Breton and Nord. Fjolte saw the shoes too, his reaction was not as silent as Raelynn’s; “fuck,” he said sharply as his heart began to race in his chest, his entire body froze and tensed like it had never before. Lady dragged a hoof across the dirt of the road, her tail swished from left to right. She was keen to move forward, but waited for one of them to tell her. “Fjolte…” Raelynn said, reaching out to touch his shoulder. Rorikstead was in their vision. What remained of Rorikstead was in their vision. The rock formations that surrounded the town had not saved them from whatever had been through, barns and houses lay on the ground. Some wooden beams and foundations still standing, threatened by the wind to collapse and bring down what was left of the roofs. The walls had been taken by fire. The interiors had been engulfed by flame. And the people... Fjolte couldn’t have moved fast enough, the lines of scenery around him became blurred and his breath failed him as he sprinted only to collapse in the centre of what was once Rorikstead. It was now just ash drifting through smoke. In his eyeline, a pile of corpses, blackened husks of people - identities long burnt down but there were plenty of them. Bodies torn at and shredded by animals that had passed through since. Raelynn dared not move, Lady fidgeted and fussed beneath her for the first time. Fjolte’s distress had taken control of the mare too and she nickered and whinied. There was nothing the Breton could do as she watched Fjolte desperately work through the bodies. Prying them from each other, hot tears stinging his cheeks in between gasping screams. The rain came soon after, heavy. Streaking lines of silver that distorted her vision and soaked her through within seconds. Thunder turned the sky over above them, tumbling across the landscape in a growl, the clouds thick and dense with rain. What remained of Rorikstead began to succumb to it, the dirt quickly becoming a pool of thick mud. On his knees, Fjolte sank into it. His own town consuming him into the dark. Fjolte could not speak his words. His iron stomach betrayed him when he met the scent. The sound of a throat blocked by vomit, desperately trying to find the air to fuel cries of hoarse anguish and loud, choked sobs. It was the most disturbing sound that Raelynn had ever heard. Hope was lost. [/indent]