[b]Thought Static[/b] [i]With the fantabulous Stormy[/i] [hr] The fading afternoon sun spilled through the wide windows of the keep, washing over the old wooden boards with orange and red, mottled with grey shadows that moved in an imperfect harmony with the howling wind that was forming. The music of the mountains, the rhythm of wild nature. They were in the thick of it now. Sat upon one foot, the other leg dangling from the alcove set into the stone wall, Joy held a crust of bread in her hand, topped with cheese. The woman ate it thoughtfully, as dainty as a bird might as she gazed out upon the sprawling mountains that sheltered Ken Muhyr. The sky seemed less bright today, as if each cloud was heaving a great sorrow inside, floating along and on by their very last strings. There was only one other time that Joy had witnessed such a dolorous sky. It was the thick black shadow of a flame in flight that parted those clouds and ripped them open to bleed rain. Alone, in the vast emptiness of the hallway, Joy let free a sigh, tucking that hanging leg beneath herself as if fear and sadness had made a river over the floorboards, and she was desperately avoiding being carried away by the current.[i]How did I get here?[/i] she thought to herself, away from Henry, away from Janus. The first moment of solitude that she had carved out since that fateful night. It was so beautifully quiet here. Too quiet for Sihava, as she slipped through the stone corridors with her habitual silence. On one hand, it was...nice. The fewer people there were, the lesser the chance of her confusing someone with her strange method of communication. No people meant no reason to miss her speech. But on the other hand, she always found herself missing people in places like this. Not just for the sake of her service to Nocturnal--not much for her to do if there were no people to steal from--but simply by her nature. She was a surprisingly social person--more so than her profession and her silence might suggest--and the quiet grated on her a bit. She was exploring the old fort, searching for a place to stay for the night. Perhaps it was a consequence of her itinerant lifestyle, perhaps it was her own proclivity, perhaps it was both. But since she’d left home, she’d always found it difficult to stay in one place for any length of time. In that regard, Ken Muhyr suited her just fine, with no dearth of empty rooms that she could set up her bedroll in one day at a time, connected by a spiderweb of interlocking stone hallways that seemed to blend into each other as she walked. It was down one of those hallways where she saw Joy, sitting in a small nook in the wall and eating some bread and cheese, and her heart leapt at the prospect of finally getting to talk to her, especially in the service of alleviating the crushing silence of this derelict grandeur. Taking specific care to scuff the floor a bit with her feet--she’d been smacked more than once for catching people off guard by her habitually quiet movement--she moved into the other woman’s line of sight, and slid down the wall, sitting with a soft sigh. It was just as well the Dunmer made sound in her footsteps, Joy [i]would[/i] have been caught off guard. Probably enough to send the bread flying free from her hand, to land cheese-side down on the floor. Joy’s heart was happy to see Sihava too. Especially after the previous days. It had felt like whole stretches of time had drawn on, with nothing for anyone to fill the silence with, not to mention the fact that the nord woman had been incredibly worried about Sihava while she had been whiling away the hours at Bruno’s cabin. It had seemed that the events at The Loyal Hound, and the discoveries to follow had sewn a bond through these people, and Joy felt tethered to them. Not just for her own safety, but for theirs too. Their wellbeing sat at the forefront of her mind, and her eyes said as much now that she was alone with the Dunmer. As always, she displayed an almost unflinching expression of happiness on her face - bright eyed and grinning. “Sihava,” she said -- not too loud, and with a similarly graceful motion of her hand in a wave as she had done the first time they’d… [i]Communicated[/i]. For a moment, Sihava wondered how she would reply to Joy simply saying her name. The typical response, in her experience, would be to respond in kind, but she didn’t precisely know [i]how[/i] to do that. Then, with a little smirk of realization on her face, she closed her eyes for a moment and imagined an emotion: pure, unrestrained happiness. She let it fly to Joy, her smirk turning into a pleased smile and a silent chuckle as she appreciated her pun, and how appropriate it was: she really was genuinely happy to see the other woman. She was surprised at how well she’d been holding up; just a cook and bard, it seemed, but as far as Sihava could tell, she’d been a consistent wellspring of...well, joy...despite the circumstances that she found herself in. She paused for a moment, wondering how to continue, before motioning to the little nook in the wall where Joy sat, down the hallway, then out the window at the burning sunset before meeting her eyes and thinking the emotional equivalent of a question mark at her, as though to ask: [i]what are you doing all the way up here?[/i] It was a thing of wonder, to Joy, how Sihava used her magic to create her language. A large smile bloomed over her face as she felt the tingle, warmth, and gleeful aura of the greeting. She had always been an astute listener, but with Sihava, it was as much letting go of sound and tapping into intuition to be around her. Had the woman been born a mute? Joy wondered as she watched her gentle movements. It took a moment to process, but she nodded eventually. “Looking for a room… Well, there are so many that I’ve found already. Now I’m looking for the right one.” She gave a sigh and shrugged, before leaning forward, placing her fingertips curiously on the Dunmer’s lap. “Did [i]you[/i] find a room yet?” A grin spread across Sihava’s face and she held her arms up in an exaggerated shrug, letting a rapidfire series of images go across the divide between her and Joy: images of her sleeping under trees in the pouring rain, in dank, drafty caves, in the dim blue light of Ayleid ruins. Her smile widened, and dozens more followed, running the gamut from Elsweyr to Winterhold and everywhere in between. With them came a warm feeling of contentedness. A more complicated emotion came after it, and with it, a tightening of the smile into a grim rictus. It was a similar warmth, but almost a...stifling one. A feeling of boredom, of returning to the same place night after night, of stability, of stagnancy; and leaking through her composure, a bitter draft of Windhelm’s frigid salt air. And finally, connected to that emotion, a single word of surprising vehemence as she grabbed Joy's hand: [i]NEVER.[/i] The nord took note of each of them -- wondering for herself what it would be like to sleep in a cave, or under the stars like that. To be as free as Sihava. It gave her a sense of longing, but Joy knew all too well what she wanted for herself. The very safety, stability, and even the stagnancy that her friend did not. “You have to find a spot of your own here though,” Joy remarked. “I bet you could have a different room or space every night if you wanted,” she chuckled. “It’d be like a game trying to find you each time.” Her cheer restored, Sihava grinned and nodded, gesturing around at the lonely hallway. A feeling of coy confirmation, then a rapid series of images, no more than a blink each: all the different rooms she'd explored already. She patted the bedroll that was slung beneath her backpack, then gave another exaggerated shrug as if to say, [i]who knows?[/i] Joy watched each and every image as it materialised in front of her, a grin on her face each time something slid past. It was nice just to enjoy something as simple and mundane as this - even if it was dressed in beautiful magic. It was easy enough to forget the present. “I think I’ll stay close to the kitchen,” she said with a slight shrug. “There was a side door with a staircase and a room at the top. It’s not a tower like Solomon’s, but it’s tower enough,” she chuckled. “Do you like flowers?” Joy asked, turning to meet Sihava’s gaze with her own, an excited sparkle ran across the blue of her irises. “There are lots of flowers here. Wild ones. Everywhere,” she explained with a smile. Nodding emphatically, Sihava sent an image over the air to Joy: deathbell and nightshade flowers, batbloom, blue poppies, bugloss, lavender, and many more, including some that mightn’t exist outside of her own mind. Tons of flowers in every shadow of violet, purple, blue, indigo, black, all overflowing from pots in an imaginary greenhouse as she walked between the rows, tending each one individually. Her mind-self--and so Joy as well--smelled the heady perfume in the air, felt the warm humidity. She took a deep breath to inhale the scent, and then she opened up the eyes she hadn’t realized she’d closed, finding her once again in the cool stone hallways of Ken Muhyr. Of course, she’d never actually had that greenhouse, or anything like it, and she never would; she traveled far too much for something like that. But that didn’t mean she’d never thought about it. Once again, Joy held out her hands as if to feel her way through the projected illusion. She knew of spells, vaguely. She knew that people could command lightning and fire -- and heal deep wounds. But [i]this?[/i] This felt like real magic. The Nord smiled happily as it melted away. “Don’t get flowers like that in Windhelm…” The words were quiet, but there was a flicker of knowing in her tone as she glanced sidelong at Sihava. “None that I ever seen, anyway.” The left corner of Sihava’s mouth turned up slightly in a sad smile, and she shook her head. A few more flowers flashed across the space between them; the nameless red mountain flowers of Skyrim, a sprig of dragon’s tongue. The traditional Dunmer vase they were in was beautiful, but cracked, and markedly out of place on the old wooden table that it sat upon. Within the vision, an image of Sihava frowned sternly at a much smaller, younger version of herself--perhaps twelve or thirteen--as it sat in a nearby chair, glaring hatefully at the flowers. Within Ken Muhyr, she laughed silently at the looks on both of her faces. Galerus had always told her she looked angry at rest. Once the image faded, she tilted her head, a questioning look coming over her face as she peered at Joy, trying to remember if she’d ever seen her back in Windhelm. She didn’t think so. She gave an internal scornful laugh that perhaps showed on her face as a pained rictus of a smile: as much as she liked Joy, she was still a Nord from Windhelm. If Joy had interacted with her before, it probably would’ve been to mock her. Still, no harm in asking. Clamping back down on the darker emotions, she pulled out a stone that had managed to find its way into her pocket, and scratched into the floor from where she sat: [i]where?[/i] That image of Sihava in her younger years had brought the redhead back to her own. Joy was trying to put herself back to where she had also been at that formative age, and her expression turned to focus mid-thought until the scratching of the stone in the wood floor pulled her from it. “Where?” She asked aloud, “oh! [i]where[/i]!” She brought a smile to her face again, blinking slowly. “Here and there… I cooked in a lot of places. Around,” Joy answered evasively, waving a hand this way and that. “Inns, taverns… Around.” With a sigh her moving hands found their way to her lap. “Unimportant, really… I went all around and ended up… Here, with you!” Bah. She’d been misinterpreted again. But, Sihava reflected, she really didn’t need to know where in Windhelm Joy had lived. The more information she acquired, the more likely Joy would want to know about her. And the less she had to tell, the better. Still, they were talking about the past, and she had plenty of harmless memories to show. With some difficulty, she fought down the painful ones before she threw a smile up on her face, hopefully quickly enough to mask the previous expression. Holding up a finger, she dug through her backpack, clearly searching for something specific. After a few seconds, she surfaced, bearing in her hand a small, beaten-up book scrawled with the name [i]Demivah Rallaron[/i] in broad, looping letters. She handled it like it would fall apart any second. Holding it out to Joy, she opened it to a random page, revealing it to be a beautifully-crafted, hand-drawn field guide. The narrow, bladelike petals of a nightshade flower presented themselves. A wave of nostalgia poured out of her, and the flickering image of an older, severe-looking Dunmer woman handing her the book followed it: one of her few purely positive memories from home. As careful as Sihava had been, Joy was too — running her finger over the sketched lines with an emotional appreciation of each stroke and every detail. “Beautiful,” she said with a sigh. As the image of a woman appeared, the Nord raised a curious brow and looked to Sihava again. It still gave her an unfamiliar sense of wonder to experience Sihava’s language. “Your… Mother?” She asked quietly, as if she didn’t want her words to intrude on the melancholic silence that the woman could create. A nod. Unable or unwilling to talk about this further through mysticism--perhaps not trusting herself to remain level-headed--Sihava pulled out the roll of vellum and quill, rapidly scratching out a message: [i]She was a traveling merchant who came to Windhelm before the Great War did. Seems the city was friendlier once upon a time. Met my da there.[/i] Her flickering eyes caught Joy’s emotional response to the field guide, and she smiled internally. It never hurt to curry more favor and gain more trust, and Joy seemed the type to trust easily and carry her heart on her sleeve. If things somehow went belly-up with the group, it would be nice to have someone on her side. “That’s a lovely story,” Joy smiled, nodding at Sihava. It made her think of the woman’s parents, and again of her upbringing. “I just think of the cold,” she said suddenly. “Snow piling around the windows, the way the cold air blew through any crack in the wall.” She dared not ask the Dunmer if her parents were still alive. “We’re both so far from there now, and suddenly everything around us feels… Less friendly.” Sihava breathed slowly out of her nose, and her jaw tightened as her grip on her emotions wavered. She couldn’t help but wonder; such a lovely-looking human girl. What had happened to her in Windhelm? Her mouth twisted up, and she wished that she could read minds as easily as she projected her own thoughts. She stood up and stretched with a grimace, pacing up and down the hallway a few steps each way. With each step, her thoughts darkened, and measure by measure, she grew less controlled: [i]What does[/i] she [i]know about Windhelm’s cold? Who does she think she is?[/i] Then, with a sudden piercing stare, she crammed more memory into Joy’s head: all of the bigotry that had been directed her way during her childhood, condensed. Flashes of insults, pushes, punches, glares, backhanded comments from the guards; the little things she’d gotten from her parents, stolen. For just a moment, her mind ignited with a burning, vindictive glee: it felt good to show a Nord what it was like. To [i]force[/i] a Nord to know what it was like. It felt right. It felt [i]powerful.[/i] A half-moment later, she cut off the barrage of memories with a snap, her face a perfect mask of apology. She plopped herself to the ground, taking out the stone again, and wrote out in small letters: [i]I’m sorry. That is Windhelm to me.[/i] And though her face was drawn and penitent, she nursed a tiny, hidden, knifelike smile. Whatever it was that Sihava had done to conjure and create such a rapidly vicious storm of magic struck Joy like thunder, as if in a monsoon she became drenched in it. Her innocent mind, that had been so free of the touches of magic drew in all of it, all at once.Unwilling. At first, her face fell as she felt the raw emotions as if they were her own, and then… She was there, somewhere in her own memories. The wooden walls of a building from her past, and the red and tear-stained face of a young boy, black of hair, whimpering and squawking, bent over a table with the flesh of his back exposed in a hideous firelight. A tall and scornful woman stood behind him with a belt in hand, as she moved to bring down the belt again—the memory dissolved around Joy, and the walls moved away as the bitter cold alleyways of Windhelm encased her instead. Where there had been a boy, there was now the same pouting Dunmer girl from before. It was real, she was there. Watching. Watching as it happened until she couldn’t watch any more of it. “Leave her alone!” she barked out assertively — her own words dispelling the illusion as she found herself standing away from the nook with a fist clenched. “I…” Joy said, her hardened expression softened in confusion. On the ground, Sihava was sat with an apology spelled out in her recognisable cursive. “Did I… Did I know you?” Joy asked, her eyes wide with bewilderment. It didn’t feel right, she [i]knew[/i] she hadn’t been there. She [i]knew[/i] it… But now she couldn’t be certain and she glanced at the wisps of magic that hung around like hypnotic perfume. Sihava’s eyes shot open, her mouth went dry, the smile fled, and she came back to herself. It had felt amazing, in that moment, to punish a Nord. But this wasn’t just ‘a Nord.’ This was Joy. This was the bartender who had defused the situation in the Loyal Hound. This was the bard that had been swept into a situation she was wholly unprepared to deal with. This was the joyous woman that had asked her about flowers. This was her companion in Windhelm, in a shared darkness from their pasts. And...something had gone wrong. She’d felt it. When she’d pressed her memories into Joy, Joy’s memories hadn’t pushed back. Instead, they’d [i]wrapped[/i] hers, pulling them in and internalizing them. Whatever had happened here, it had never happened before. She stared at Joy with an emotion triangulated somewhere between shock, horror, and revulsion. Immediately afterwards, the entire hallway was flooded with the warm scent of a hundred apologies, and before she really knew what was happening, she was on her feet, with Joy’s hands in hers and shaking her head. She couldn’t properly structure her mysticism, scattered as she was after that: all there was was an endless repetition of two desperate words: [i]...I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry…[/i] It took Joy a moment to come around enough to stand up too, holding Sihava’s hands tightly in her own. Her brow furrowed in confusion, eyes wide with disorientation but there was no anger there, not a drop of it. “I…” she began, trying to find the words amongst the deafening noise around her. She couldn’t. Instead she pinched down on Sihava’s palms, drawing circles with her thumbs on each. [i]It’s going to be alright,[/i] she expressed from within, that intention coming through in her touch. A swarm of hornets buzzed between her ears, disrupting her from forming a coherent word, a thought even… All that the bard could manage was a single and elongated “shhhhhhhhhhh.”