#nyenna

She tried to keep her voice even, but it was on the verge of breaking. She’d worked so hard to leave that part of her past behind. Odd how she’d mentioned Niruin in passing to Teldryn, only for the man to show up here hours later. Maybe one never did escape the ghosts of their pasts.

“It’s so good to see you,” Niruin said. He lurched forward as if he, too, was disbelieving a mirage — or couldn’t otherwise trust his own eyes. His voice hitched with emotion in a way he’d only ever allowed to happen with her when they were younger. Otherwise, he had to put on a strong face — as did she.

That said, his eyes sparked with joy. He didn’t look stressed. There wasn’t a trace of exhaustion. He didn’t curl in on himself as she was prone to do. There was a confidence that wasn’t manufactured — this was something natural to him now.

Gods, and his hair. The coppery curls were gorgeous. No wax to weigh them down and tame them as was the expected for noblemen back in Haven. It was sort of symbolic, wasn’t it? Even though he’d been forced to leave, he’d found some kind of freedom. He looked so different from the way he existed in her memories — but this version felt right, somehow.

She let the barest hint of a smile cross her face, but it faltered. Too much of her own anxiety crept up her throat and the joy felt wrong as it escaped her heart.

She didn’t know him anymore, really. And he had no idea of the hell she’d been through. They had been damaged as children, but had they ever recovered from all of that? Was it right to ask?

“It’s good to see you, too,” she whispered. Something was cracking inside her as tears welled up in the corners of her eyes. She’d thought she’d been done crying. She didn’t think this phantom from lifetimes ago would prompt such a reaction.

“Oh!” Niruin said. “Please — I didn’t mean to upset you, Nyenna.”

There was a strangeness in the way the other thieves shifted uncomfortably, glancing sidelong at him. Nyenna had noticed.

She dragged in a difficult breath and scrubbed away the errant tears.

Her thoughts were racing as if she’d encountered some grand danger, not just the anger and hurt of her husband. The words he’d shouted seemed to glance right off her like water from the backs of ducks. Her mind couldn’t hold them and she wasn’t sure if that was due to how heavy the conversation was or her own confusion.

“Athis, please!” she said, voice carrying over the settled snow and ice that spread itself thin over the side of the mountain. She’d kept her power from the words, and did not let them shake the earth beneath her feet.

He’d made it pretty far before he started shivering. He wheeled on her and trudged back a few paced, face twisted in a scowl.

“I asked you why and you had no good answer for me,” Athis said, voice low and dangerous. “No. You — you refused to answer.”

“It’s not — Athis, I didn’t refuse to answer, you just didn’t like what you were hearing!”

He crossed his arms over his chest, but Nyenna didn’t miss the way his arms were shaking, or how his fists were clenched tight enough to leave marks in his palms.

It was a moment again before he spoke, and when he did, his voice was low with a rage burning in the background. “Why would you forgive him? Forgive that? Why would you allow yourself back into the same chaos you’d left behind?”

“I told you this already. We have to work together. We don’t have a choice.”

“We do have a choice, Nyenna! That’s what you’re not seeing.” He paused and let out a sigh. She watched as shivers began overtaking him. Her own budding rage prevented her from moving to his side to keep him warm as she normally would have. “You don’t need to treat him like some kind of friend — or more. His presence has a purpose, and when that is done, he can go. We can be rid of him and go about our lives as we intended.”

Nyenna ground her teeth and flexed her fingers. Something primal screamed in her head, or deeper still within her bones. Somehow, she managed to ignore it. Her own heart beat furiously in her chest, as if it was itself a dragon, wings beating to help it escape the confines of her ribs. And she was angry. She was, but she knew the reason: Athis was right. She hated to be called foolish in not so many words. He had a point. His pain was valid. But that didn’t mean he knew everything.

He couldn’t know everything. No matter how much she explained the situation, or the danger, he would never grasp it. Not in its entirety.

Teldryn adjusted the edge of his scarf and made sure it was tucked in enough to prevent himself from breathing in more of the ash than he had to. Pressing a hand to his throat, he swallowed hard against another wave of nausea. He’d been wrestling with his decisions — and the resulting sour stomach — for a week now. At the time, all he had done had felt like the right course of action — to let Nyenna go meant he’d be free to do whatever he wanted, and free to simply let her fade into the background of his awareness.

But no. There was the damned echo, for one, which was almost painful at points, especially when he tried to sleep sober. It was like hooks had been forced into the muscles of his chest and were being tugged by some invisible giant. Sometimes it felt like his sternum would snap clean in half. Times like that, it was as hard to breathe as if she were still here.

He hated that.

What a s’wit you are, Teldryn Sero. You know better.

He should have never accepted the job, even if she turned out to be the Empress of all Tamriel. It was stupid. He was stupid. That hadn’t changed in centuries. He was still the shell of a man stepping off the boat at Seyda Neen in rags with a chip on his shoulder.

Not that he needed forgiveness — Gods knew he didn’t deserve it — but he knew no matter what he did next, he’d likely never earn hers. That stung in ways he couldn’t quite articulate. More than the echo did, that was for sure, and that hurt damn bad.

What have you done?

His feet itched as he glanced out over the ocean. A week ago now, he’d stood on the top level of the Bulwark, much to Hlas’s chagrin, and watched Nyenna’s ship leave, sailing out into the night toward Windhelm. He knew where she was going, of course, but the chances of catching up with her after this long were few and far between. For him to simply show up in Whiterun uninvited would only cause more problems. Not that he couldn’t handle himself. He snorted at the thought of having to fight her husband. It wasn’t the first time he’d imagined the situation.

Though it was playing exactly into his hands, I leapt for the thing, twisting the copper chain through my fingers so he would have no choice but to let go, or it would break. The room exploded into a cacophony of laughter. Once I had the amulet, I left in a huff and let him and the others cackle and chortle like the fools they were.

“Come on, Athis! We were just messing with you!” Farkas called. His voice, as usual, echoed through the long hallway of the sleeping quarters. When I didn’t respond—because it didn’t require more of my time—his thought concluded with the opening of a bottle of mead and a giant sigh.

“I give him two weeks, if that,” Ria said, her voice sharp and laced with a challenge.

“Nah. Six or eight days at most. He’s smitten,” Farkas laughed. “Plus it’s Nyenna.”

The sentence cut off before I could parse what exactly that last bit was supposed to mean, but it wasn’t worth it to turn around and find out. In spite of myself, I grinned and slipped the chain over my head. This amulet was the real deal. The warm, soft buzz of its enchantment felt strange on my skin as I settled it under my tunic. It was different from the enchantments on Nyenna’s armor or the shock of her own magic. This one felt somehow…comforting. Hers felt more like an invitation to fight, but such things seemed practical for battlemages.

As Nyenna made to move toward the shop, she found herself enveloped in a crushing hug and lifted straight up off of her feet. She shouted, terrified, even as a roar of a laugh escaped the person who had apprehended her. The ground shook with the sound of her voice, throwing patrons off balance, and wares in Ysolda’s shop flying in every which direction. Nobody in the throng of people seemed to be able to pinpoint exactly where the blast came from—she didn’t fit the picture of a legendary hero, after all, who could shout down dragons. The confused murmuring was, in hindsight, a little bit funny.

“Farkas! You idiot! Put her down!” Athis yelled. Farkas, still chuckling to himself, did as he was told. Nyenna caught her breath and turned to face him. 

“Hello,” she said, settling on a mildly unnerved, but neutral response. “We didn’t know you and Ysolda were coming to Solitude. We’d have traveled together.” 

“We didn’t leave when you did, I don’t think,” Farkas said. He stretched, looking strange without his customary steel armor. He was dressed in layers of thick, warm clothing, with a heavy blue cloak wrapped over his shoulders and pinned with bone and gold. Ysolda’s touch. “We’re gonna stay here through the holiday. I haven’t had a real vacation in ages! But I had better help Ysolda pick up her wares here…sorry about scaring you, Nyenna.”

“It’s okay,” Nyenna answered with a small smile. She glanced over at Athis. “Mind helping him? I have an errand really fast.” Her voice lilted purposefully as she folded her hands behind her back.

Athis grinned. “Yeah, I’ll stick around and catch up. Try not to Shout more merchandise off the shelves wherever you’re going, love.”

He would rather have decomposed and become part of the loam under the banks of fog and mess of swamp water. Only, that had ceased to be an option long ago. That was the burden of running; one never could stay in place long enough to procure a potion to cure the diseases one picked up from fighting vermin. Or see a healer. A priest. Anything. At the moment, his hunger was gone, and that was something.

When he was freed from the prison of his blood-starved body, he wandered, the world shifting beneath his feet to become less and less recognizable. It was as if the realm was trying to become that which he would normally be terrified of—but the stasis had pulled fear from him, too. The nightmares had, at first, been of tearing flesh from bone, of skin and veins split wide open, blood running in rivulets, his own hands unrecognizable under vast amounts of viscera. Eris supposed that was the way of things, vampires being what they are, and after a time, even this ceased to affect him. After that, he stood idly by and watched a thousand iterations of Nyenna’s death. Oddly, mostly these ended in dragonfire. He was not sure why, but could not muster the energy to enquire. Nor could he figure out exactly who to ask.

It was rare to see the old bastard set aside everything for one person — especially for someone who could, for all he cared, have been anyone, a nobody. Nyenna was powerful, though. Any mage could tell. Neloth had said something similar. The old wizard would respect that, even if he never directly acknowledged her skill or talent. And Teldryn knew her strength now, more than most, and likely would never be allowed to forget. He cleared his throat, disquiet settling over him before he had a chance to shove the thought away.

The Healing spell had been far too taxing. Each attempt they’d made to pull Nyenna out of her state drained everyone involved down to the dregs. Neloth had been at this game a long time — that he had struggled still sat sideways. What was it about the situation that pulled him out of his routine? Was it the challenge of fixing a problem he’d never encountered before? Teldryn wasn’t sure, and didn’t have the words to ask. Especially after the events of the past half hour. Everything ached worse than it had in the last two weeks.

He rubbed a sore spot just left of his sternum. A Stalhrim scar crossed there, raised and angry. He’d taken that, and would again, for her. To save her. But she wouldn’t have needed —

Focus, you s’wit, he thought. You can’t afford to dwell.

He shook his head with a sigh. She was already at the front his mind, and that wasn’t changing, no matter how he berated himself for it. She might have blamed herself for everything that happened, but the truth was he should have known better than to reach. He wasn’t thinking of anything at all during the fight. His mind had been a blank slate; the only goal was to get out of the situation in one piece. Her voice had pierced through the silence, somehow, as pervasive as all that had been. It was all he could hear. All he wanted to hear, if he was being honest. And it still was, regardless of his better judgment and wiser advice.

He closed his eyes and tilted his head back against the mushroom wall and crossed his arms over his chest. Not that magic was useless, exactly, but he’d never been so aware of it before. After he put in the work to get a spell down, it became second nature. He knew a few good ones, and that had always been enough for him. And now — this. This fucking echo. He could feel where she was, like he was bits of rusted iron and she was a lodestone. She clearly did not expect or want this, but — where would he go, really, where he would not be drawn back to her side?

He let out a long sigh and unfolded from the wall. The arguments had ceased and Talvas had ended up pouring the tea. Varona had left, likely to steal more sleep before Neloth realized they’d not taken to his new schedule easily. Disarray brought out the worst in him once his focus became less all-consuming. Teldryn sighed and waved Talvas away. He needed the distraction of something menial to do, and he’d centuries more experience putting up with Neloth’s attitude, anyway.

When the image, such as it was, shifted, she was floating, lifted from the depths. The heavens were like water wrapping around her limbs. Then, the familiar smell of lavender soap, a strange comfort. Where she had been numb, warmth crept through her skin. Her neck felt too weak to hold her head up and she could not open her eyes. Instead, she tilted her head back until she breathed in the sky; if any stars were hidden underneath, they now lived in her lungs, tiny sparks like diamonds uncovered from ashes.

That was the other smell — mushrooms, lavender and now ashes. This time, she’d almost opened her eyes. Almost, if not for the pain. Her mind was flooded with questions in languages she couldn’t understand. Figures clad in shadow pulled at her arms, her hair. The words were soothing, but she could not be calmed. The shadows cast their spells, and still she could not find her own words to answer them. A screech tore through her throat and echoed in her skull. The voices became frantic, the figures skittering around her in the haze. The sky-turned-water pulled her under. There was no air. Her half-consciousness was torn from her, and she returned swiftly to the crushing darkness. Familiar — but why? And again that chiming was louder than the waves.

She did not know how long it lasted. This time, she heard the wind before she felt the morning mist on her skin. Different. She opened her eyes, not having realized they’d been closed before. She could feel her hands and feet where they’d only been vague concepts previously, and liminal ones at that. She sighed, flexed her fingers, and looked out at the edge of the horizon, if that’s what it was at all. Things were slowly greying, like a bloom of watercolor touched to sodden paper. As if light was crawling pigment, the sun, maybe, lit the field she was standing in — though she couldn’t recall when last she’d felt its warmth. Whatever this was, with how quickly the image changed, she was thrown off balance at best. So long she had floated in nothingness, unable to order anything at all. And yet here she stood on solid ground. Beneath the whisper of the wind, chiming faded. She could still hear it, barely.

But the mist — yes. This felt familiar in a different way. Something like Whiterun, out by the river. The tundra cotton. She could see it now in tufted bunches dotting the landscape. Grasses, too, dried in places but bright green by the water. She’d never seen Skyrim in the height of summer, but she’d always imagined it like this — warm, plenty of flowers. Mudcrabs chittering in shallow ponds. Red foxes running across open fields. Elk grazing in the distance. Even bees buzzing, working as if all was exactly as it had always been and not this odd dream-version of things. Beautiful regardless of the weather, the rain, the mist, the surreality. She didn’t feel misplaced here.

Nyenna turned her face to the sun, let herself bask in its warmth as if she was one of the scraggly trees which dotted the landscape. She reached her arms toward the light, the clouds, and a dusty blanket fell from her shoulders with a strange, muffled, heavy sound. She hadn’t figured out where it came from, and didn’t care. She felt strangely present in a way she’d forgotten she was able to feel. She kept her arms raised and sighed, content. The bees still buzzed around her.

“What are you doing?” came a voice. Smooth, with a heavy New Balmora accent, tinged with just the barest hint of Nordic brogue. Familiar, but distant. Like he was too far away. Something ached in her chest at the sound.