A son of Skyrim sits on a log far, far away from the snowy shores of his birth. Beside him sit two fellow warriors, one from this land of dragons in the East, and the other from a land of swords even further East than that. When Njorri bellows out his explanation, the Yokudan cracks a small smile, while the Tsaesci's eyes bore into him.
"It's a lovely fine country you have here. It's hot! But not as hot as Morrowind, so it suits me more! And I ain't got any ash in my beard, like my cousin Holf is always complaining about."
"That's why you're interfering with our sacred hunt?" Siek-Shirue asks, eyes sharp like her tongue.
Njorri laughs and waves a massive hand. "Oh, nooo, I wouldn't say 'interfere!' I'm fit to help you! My da use to hunt dragons all the time."
A laugh bubbles up from Ensaf, the third who has merely played the spectator up til now. "Quite the name to live up to."
"Ain't nothin' special. Not like traveling all this way out East-- across that cursed ocean no less!"
The armored Akaviri turns to Ensaf now. "And why are you here?"
The trained fighter can recognize an itchiness about her 'host's sword-arm, the way her hand sits on her opposite thigh, inches from her scabbard; she knows that, even without any apparent weapon, Ensaf could produce one out of thin-air with only a breath.
"Me? Well, I'm looking for a story of my own." She adjusts herself on the log, easing up on her posture to try and relax the other woman. "You see, in the land where I come from, just about every swordsman's done something incredible. There's nothing left to make a name for yourself. But here... I can do something no one else has. At least no one from Yokuda." Leaning back, she tears her eyes away from her host and looks up at the clear skies of the steppe where the day is giving way to nightfall. "I'd heard rumors from sailors about an island full of dragons to the West... wasn't sure they were true until today."
"You've got no dragons back home?" Njorri asks, leaning over Siek to do so.
Ensaf shakes her head. "Afraid not. Plenty of serpents, but none that fly through the air like that... I would've picked a better opening if I had realized how fast they move."
"No dragons??? Skyrim used to be lousy with dragons, and so did this place, I hear, before Sek here and her pals--"
At this junction, Siek shoves the tall Nord back with a sudden burst of force, barking out a single syllable as the thrust of her hand sends him spilling across the grass of the camp. "Siek." She affirms, curling her lip up at the boisterous foreigner. Her fellow blades look over at the commotion, hands at their swords before she waves them off, assuring them things hadn't broken down... at least not yet.
Ensaf narrows her eyes in the split second it takes place, perking an ear and trying to tune in. As Njorri's dusting himself off, she leans forward again and looks to the Tsaesci. "That was the same technique you used to disarm my Shehai, wasn't it?"
Siek turns to face her, but defensive walls are clearly still up. After a moment of eyeing her up, she replies. "Yes. The Kiai is the greatest power we wield as Tsaesci."
"It's a lot like the Thu'um!" Njorri remarks, unbothered as he returns to his seat.
Siek whips her head around to him, riled up by that notion. "NO, it is not!
"You shout, things happen, sounds like Thu'um to me."
"You are a moron and an interloper! Your know nothing of what you say!"
Ensaf interjects. "Care to explain what it is then?"
"Ooh, please! I'd love to hear a story from a Tsaesci!" Njorri enthusiastically chimes in, the two warriors looking to their interrogator with inquisitive eyes.
She stops and takes a breath to center herself, finding it important to tell this story right, even if it's only for the benefit of two strangers who meddled with their hunt.
"Long ago... these lands were ruled by dragons. Our ancestors worshiped them as gods, fearful of their power, but in truth, their power came from the spirits of the world itself. Our arbitrary masters had stolen it with their domineering language. Our Mother, Tserida-Shak, learnt this from the Teacher, Boesha, who taught her the path of Tsaescence and the secret language of creation. Using the world's alphabet, Tserida-Shak spoke the first Kiai into the world, using it to kill the word in the dragon's throat. With our new martial art, we began our hunt to destroy all dragonkind and our duty to defend creation."
Njorri and Ensaf listen intently, poring over the words of this legend.
Predictably, the affable Nord replies first. "Not a bad story, but, it's a little tired, ain't it?"
"What?" Siek asks, disgusted.
Njorri waves his hands to and fro as he talks. "Men ruled by dragons, someone teaches them how to fight back, they do-- I mean, we Nords for example, we learned it from Paarthurnax, since Kyne told him so--"
"'Paarthurnax?'" Siek grows suddenly inquisitively, as well as revolted. "A dragon??? You were taught by a dragon???"
"Well, sure! How else do ya expect a man to learn dragonβs talk?"
Siek suddenly regards Njorri with an odd mixture of pity and loathing, wondering whether his people were still living under a different sort of tyranny, or if they were all-too willing servants who traded their dignity and humanity for power over other mortals.
Ensaf cuts through the tension. "It's actually not too different from how we learned sword-singing..." She offers, successfully distracting Siek from her disgust. With both of the other warriors looking at her, she elaborates. "Our people have always had many enemies, without and within, and many gods of the sword took pity on us. Onsi taught us how to make them, but it was Leki who sang us the secrets of mastery. She made the sword our soul. From there, we learned to make our souls to swords."
The Yokudan stretches out her open hand and begins to speak, or sing, her own language, belting out a few syncopated notes. A bright glow emanates from her whole body before beginning to coalesce, traveling down her arm and taking shape in her hand. With a flash, she now holds a long, curved sword that seems to shimmer like the surface of a pond. Even as Ensaf stops singing, Njorri and Siek can still hear the blade humming the tune.
"That's..." Siek begins, her voice fallen to a hush.
"Shor's Bones! You're doin' that all on your own???" Njorri interjects, leaning in closer to inspect the weapon. "That right there's some clever craft if I've ever seen it! Never thought of usin' the Thu'um for somethin' like that!"
Ensaf laughs, taking the Nord much more lightly. "I'm not sure it's all too similar to what you two do with your voices... I'm not communing with any spirits. Put simply, this is all me." She takes a moment to admire her Shehai, a great point of pride for her as a Sword Saint. Even if the battles she's won or the quests she's gone on pale in comparison to many of her illustrious peers, this sword still stands as her one grand accomplishment, totally unique to herself.
"You're right..." Siek is still quite amazed at the display. "We use our own spirits in the Kiai as well, but we don't... at least, I have never heard of a Blade who could call upon such a well of power from within." She manages to tear her eyes away from the still-singing sword and look Ensaf in the eye. "That aerial slash of yours-- I thought Ilni's winds had carried it for you, yet it was this 'Shehai' of yours?"
Ensaf nods. "Though now that you mention it, I suppose I could've used some help in landing it. Maybe next time I'll ask them." She offers Siek a smile along with this well-meaning jest. In all honesty, the woman's story had piqued her curiosity. It could be interesting to bring a few of her tricks back to Yokuda with her.
Njorri loudly concurs with Siek's observation. "I've heard rumors-- tall tales and all that, not so trustworthy as they are entertaining-- that some Tongues can use the Thu'um to change themselves, the way we can change the Qethsegolle by arguin' with 'em."
"Arguing?" Siek interjects, glancing back at Njorri as he once more leads her to question his morals.
"Aye, arguin'. Y'see, we Nords can't go about it exactly like dragons. With dragons, they just shout so great and loud that the Qethsegolle go 'alright, alright!' and do whatever it is they want. Blast this mountain over there, blow these clouds away, set that man on fire-- that sorta thing." The way he describes the interaction so simply, like a children's game, rubs her entirely the wrong way. Whether Njorri is blissfully ignorant of this or simply affords fellow men the same irreverence as he does the spirits, she does not know, but he continues speaking nonetheless. "We men ain't as loud as dragons by nature, so we've got to be a little more subtle, eh? Persuade the spirits! It's all about spinning the right words with the right tones, making this-do-that or you-go-here or whatever it is you're tryin' for! The Qethsegolle aren't a prickly sort-- 'least most of 'em aren't. They're busy keepin' the house Shor built standin' upright, so they're distracted most of the time. It's easy to slip things by 'em if you say 'em right."
It sounds like just another deceit to Siek, but Njorri, of course, views it all in good fun.
He turns back to Ensaf and guffaws. "Guess your sword-singin' cuts out the middle man, eh?" The Nord bellows out a laugh.
Ensaf joins him, but she also notices Siek still hasn't quite come around to the two strangers just yet, fascinated as she may be by her Shehai. If they were going to have any chance of sticking around and seeing this hunt through, they'd need to find some more common ground.
Her spirit sword still singing, Ensaf looks up at the stars above them. "We have a lot in common... but there's an old saying in Yokuda: 'you can't see the view from atop his feet.'" She gracefully turns the point of her blade down to the ground, resting it against the earth. "No two people can really, truly see the same thing the same way. Right now, we can't see the same stars, because I can't sit where you're sitting. I don't know anything about dragons or earthly spirits because we couldn't be farther apart when we were all children. We could spin yarns all night and we'd still be no closer to understanding it all."
Njorri easily accepts this treatise on subjectivity given his cultural proclivity towards tale-telling, though Siek waits to hear where the Yokudan is going with this.
"But different as we may be, I've always seen two things that all us folk have in common." Ensaf smiles. "We breathe, and we sing."
"Sing?" Siek raises a brow.
"Oh yes! We Nords love to sing! I s'pose I should've guessed Yokudans do, given the sword and all!" Njorri cranes his neck down to look at their captor. "What of you, Siek? Do the Tsaesci sing?"
"Well of course." She replies almost defensively. "But I don't see why that--"
"Go on, share a song with us." Ensaf urges. "All this talk of your great hunts and dragon-slaying, you must have some raucous ballads."
At the continued insistence of these two interlopers, Siek-Shirue relents. She begins to regale them, softly at first, with some anthems of war, rhythmic lyrics that sing to the glories of Tsae and the noble cause of the Tsaesci. Njorri begins to slap his knee to the beat, while Ensaf nods her head and taps her foot. The two even start to pick up some of the words.
Their impromptu and largely unintentional revelry does not escape the attention of the rest of Siek's unit, who become easily gripped by the infectious songs of their people. Before Siek knows what's happened to her, she's leading her whole company plus two foreigners in the devotional ballads of Boesha 1-13.
It's only natural that a Tongue and a Sword-Singer would take to song so easily, learning more, perhaps, from the joint fervor of this merry ritual than they ever could have through idle conversation. As the night wears on and tensions subside, they even share some of the songs of Skyrim and Yokuda with their new fellows, and just as they had learned, now the Tsaesci learn of their new companions through the most expedient method: their breath, and their songs.
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