As Masser Circles Nirn, 1/?
Title: As Masser Circles Nirn (So I Step into Your Orbit) Chapter Title: The Stranger Word Count: 1,197 Summary: Do you know the way to Helgen? the stranger asks, as if he had not spoken. Dread, Marcurio is coming to understand, is a slow, chilling smog coiling inside one’s lungs, permeating one’s entire being, weighty enough to be felt in one’s bones. I must go to Helgen. (Or: Marcurio meets a lost, white-haired Dunmer.)
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Marcurio’s life is a relatively peaceful one. So maybe money is a bit tight sometimes (all the time). So maybe he doesn’t get to do as much as he would like with his life (there aren’t many options for mages in Skyrim, especially foreign mages). So maybe he’s not quite willing to trek across Skyrim’s wilds all on his own (not again, not yet). But. Keerava has pity and gives him a discount on his room as long as he rents it every night (his room, he’s been renting it for two years straight). But. He can find enough interesting materials within sight of Riften’s walls to fill his days (always within sight of the walls—even turning his back to them can be enough to spark a panic). But. He doesn’t need to leave Riften to be happy (if he tells himself the lie one million times, maybe he will finally believe it).
Sometimes, when he’s gathering materials, he even finds something useful enough to sell at the market—those are the good days (the nights he falls asleep quick and easy, no need to try in vain to ignore an aching arm or empty stomach). Today happens to be one of those days, having sold the pelts of the three wolves that attacked him while he was searching for blue mountain flowers, and Marcurio returns to the Bee and Barb with a new pot of his usual topical numbing agent tucked into his bag. In fact, the day is so good he can afford a small meal on top of the cream, since the moment he walked into the apothecary Elgrim had declared him in a pitiful state and sold him the cream at a discount (a discount that conveniently matches the cost of a bowl of stew and a loaf of bread at the Barb).
(Sometimes Marcurio thinks back to a time when the citizens of Riften conspiring to watch over him would have bothered him—a time when he still had pride—but these days he’s too tired and hungry and sore to be anything but grateful.)
His arm aches as he sits in the Barb eating his first evening meal in a fortnight, a biting chill creeping out from the bone (bringing with it such stinging pain he compares it to the thought of a beehive under his skin); he is eager to retire to his room and treat it but not so eager he fails to notice the unfamiliar Dunmer woman in the corner, wearing unusual clothes and a lost expression.
(It’s startlingly familiar, like looking into his own past, and he can’t not talk to her, can’t leave her to flounder alone.) (He will come to regret this choice, briefly, but soon consider it the best choice he ever made.)
He finishes his meal and returns his bowl to Keerava, but does not return to his table. Instead he makes his way over to the woman in the corner, who looks up at his approach, and asks if she is well.
Do you know the way to Helgen? the stranger asks, as if he had not spoken. Dread, Marcurio is coming to understand, is a slow, chilling smog coiling inside one’s lungs, permeating one’s entire being, weighty enough to be felt in one’s bones. I must go to Helgen.
I do, he says, and the stranger’s eyes light up.
Be my guide? she asks. I can pay you for your trouble.
And Marcurio does not want to leave Riften. He doesn’t, he tells himself sternly. And he will lose his discount in the Barb. And he will have to buy an obnoxious amount of numbing cream to ensure he won’t run out before his return. And he will have to leave this safe haven and put himself at the non-existent mercy of Skyrim’s temperamental wilds and inhabitants. But. Today is good, but money continues to get tighter, and the mercy of Riften’s inhabitants can only stretch so far. But. He has lived in a state of anxious avoidance for two years, the city walls as stifling as they are reassuring. But. The wilderness is in his blood, and he yearns to travel it again.
As the silence stretches on, the woman’s eyes dim. Her expression falls. I can make my own way, she says, a peace offering laid at his feet, but please, tell me the route.
Space shatters and time ceases to exist. For a moment that stretches into eternity, Marcurio cannot think—only feel, a visceral submersion in a moment he never wants to live again, and his subjective reality narrows until the only remaining truth is cold and hurt and fear, blood in the leaves, a lone figure stumbling into Riften when a pair had set out from Solitude, a body that was never buried and a truth that must never be forgotten: the wilds do not care for you.
A moment or an eternity later, with no way of knowing which was true, Marcurio comes back to himself. The quiet chatter that is an ever-present ambiance in the Barb fades back into his awareness, the deathly chill drains from his limbs (and steals every drop of energy he had left), and all he knows is this woman will walk Skyrim’s wilds on her own. All he can think is, I can’t let her go alone.
How much can you pay? he hears himself ask, but his body is so numb he cannot feel his mouth move. His hands are trembling, ever so slightly, and he tucks them into his pockets.
The woman smiles, bright and happy and open, and her ears tilt up and forward in delight. Five hundred, she says, and passes him a heavy pouch of septims with no hesitation whatsoever. Can you be ready to leave by morning?
He agrees, still in a daze, and the woman grins, pats him on the shoulder, and darts out of the Barb. He doesn’t know how long he stands in the center of the room, staring after her, before Balimund pats his shoulder to get his attention.
I have a job, he tells the blacksmith, still startlingly numb.
You sure you’re up for it, lad? Balimund asks. You don’t much like leaving the city.
He stares ahead without seeing, looking through Balimund more than at him. She’ll go alone if I don’t go with her. He doesn’t even know her name, but the idea of watching her walk out the gates alone steals all breath from his lungs.
Just like that, Balimund’s cautions cut off. He knows now he’ll never convince Marcurio not to take the job. Instead he sighs. Get yourself to bed, lad; you’ve got a busy day tomorrow.
Marcurio stumbles up the stairs to his room, but it’s not until he’s treating his aching arm that sensation deigns return to his right side. And tomorrow he will leave Riften, the city he has called home for the last two years, and tomorrow he will throw himself back on the non-existent mercy of Skyrim’s wilds, but for tonight, his stomach is full and his arm does not hurt and sleep comes swift and easy.
