Serene of Cyrodiil, chapter 2 "A New Start" Options

[minque]

Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you.
Jean-Paul Sartre

Chapter 2, A New Start

I am an incurable landlubber; boats are not my cup ´o tea, not in the least! I remember once when I was a child back home in Cyrodiil and my father and I went out on the quite calm Nibenay River in a small wooden boat just to take a pleasure trip……I was hanging over the side trying to get rid of whatever I had eaten the last couple of hours…the whole time.

I awoke with a terrible nausea, and honestly thought I was dying. The squeaking of wood against wood and the salty smell showed me I was on a ship somewhere at sea. I didn’t dare to move lest I have to empty an already empty stomach. The boat was tossing and turning and the sound of the heavy storm reached my ears as I tried to fall asleep again. A soothing hand was stroking my forehead, and I felt the bitter, yet refreshing taste of Hackle-Lo-tea on my lips.

“There now, lassie, drink this and you’ll soon feel better.”

A hoarse voice caused me to open my eyes and I caught a glimpse of the dark face of a man kneeling beside me. I drank the bitter fluid and my stomach slowly calmed down. When I opened my eyes I looked right into the red eyes of a young Dunmer with a gruesome scar across his left cheek. He wiped the cold sweat from my face and gave me a friendly smile.

“ Nah, feelin´better now? “

I nodded and he continued;

“Try to get some more sleep, we are far from our destination and the weather is getting even worse, so the best is if you sleep it through.”

I closed my eyes and drifted away, the last thought that came into my mind was a slight wonder what he had put in my tea………

It is sometimes hard to decide what is dream and what is reality. I was walking in a strange ash-covered landscape, no grass and the trees seemed all dead, no sign whatsoever of life. There was an eerie humming sound as the air thickened and went reddish. Then the humming sound grew stronger and the wind started to blow the ash from the ground. I tried to cover my mouth from the whirling red ashes and trudged forward, forward……Then Azura´s voice came to me as so many times before.

“Serene, Serene of Cyrodiil, they have taken you from the Imperial City’s Prison, first by carriage and now by boat, to the east, to Morrowind. You have been chosen, you are the first, and others will follow. Fear not, I will guide you….”

The landscape changed to a dark stormy night, rain pouring down; lightning crossed the sky in an outrageous tempest. I was running in the rain trying to escape from something yet unknown, when the world started to fall apart…..

A hand was shaking my shoulder; I tried to avoid it by turning aside but the shaking was persistent and I had to open my eyes. The Dunmer with the scar was bending over me with a friendly grin in his face.

“Hey wake up lassie, how are you? Here take my hand, you are shaking, did you have a bad dream?”

He took my hand and helped me to my feet; I was all shivery and felt nauseous with a terrible headache. The ship was slowly turning and I swallowed frantically to alleviate my obvious sea-sickness.

“Now there, take my hand, I’m Jiub, by the way, here, drink this.”

He held a pitcher to my lips and I downed the bitter liquid…..

“Thank you”, I said in a hoarse voice, “I’m Serene from Cyrodiil. What´s the matter, why are we not moving?”

Jiub told me we’d reached Morrowind, as he’d overheard from the guards. Morrowind….I closed my eyes for a second and remembered the words from the dream “……”to the east, to Morrowind”….

The sound of heavy footsteps approaching made the young Dunmer put his finger across his lips;

“Shhh, guard’s coming, better be quiet.”

The guard was a stout, heavy built Cyrodiil with sharp blue eyes. He looked emotionlessly at me and told me to follow him. I didn’t argue with him; there was no point in doing that from the look in his face. Besides, I wanted to feel solid ground under my feet again; the rolling of the ship didn’t agree at all with my stomach. I stumbled after him up on deck.

Bright daylight struck my face when I stepped out, and so did the smell of rotting fish, salt and the smoke from cooking-fires when using damp wood. My stomach turned and I swallowed…..As I looked around I saw a few buildings scattered along the shoreline, a lighthouse and a strange creature resembling a giant insect. I shrugged and approached the dark-skinned man standing on deck. He gave me a faint smile as he unlocked the bracers I had worn since I left the Imperial Prison and then pointed me down the gang plank.

“This way, m´am,” he said, “there will be an escort for ya.”

In full Imperial armour he came marching towards me, my escort for the day, sternly peering at me as he asked for my name. I gave him the requested information and was ordered to follow him up to the Excise and Census-office to complete my release. So apparently I was to be a free woman at last, after 7 years in custody. That was a strange, yet not unpleasant feeling.

An elderly man with a white beard greeted me as I entered the office. I felt uncomfortable; dirty and smelling from the mouldy ship where I’d been for such a long time, with no possibility to wash myself. My worn shirt was soaked with sweat and my hair was in terrible shape, being neither washed nor combed for more than 2 months. I looked into the eyes of the old man and remembered my grandfather back in Cyrodiil……Grandfather?? Do I even have a grandfather anymore? The memories made my eyes fill with tears and I turned away, taking a deep breath in order to compose myself.

“Ah! We’ve been expecting you!” The man presented himself as Socucius Ergalla and gave me a welcoming smile. Then he asked me quite a lot of intricate questions, who I was, who my parents were and about my skills and abilities. When I told him I was a foundling he looked at me very sternly and nodded.

“Ah, the letter that preceded you states you are a very skilled healer, now might that be a fact?”

Ergalla´s soft voice made me jerk, “Letter?” I sensed some kind of set-up, someone knew I was coming here, and that someone also had gathered information about me…..

I admitted I was fairly skilled in the noble art of healing, and I also had to tell about my other virtues, such as that I consider myself to be intelligent; I knew quite a lot about alchemy; and I’d learned a lot about how to manage a long blade, thanks to Telemachos; I can repair my weapons as well, when needed…

The final question was about my birth-sign; what relevance that had I don’t know but the man was satisfied when I told him I was born under The Ritual. I was also told to pay a visit to the captain in the adjacent building in order to get my orders and a release-fee. Being given orders didn´t appeal to me, but the word “release-fee” was another thing, I could certainly need something to get me started in this godforsaken place.

Then my papers were properly signed and stamped and I stepped out of the office as a free woman.

[minque]

I woke up that first morning in total freedom, with a joyful feeling in my heart. So this was how it felt, freedom, not having to do anything. I didn´t even had to get up if I didn´t want to! Then the dream and Azura´s words came back to me; I had obligations, I had to look up this man in Balmora, and it had to be done before the moons were full again! Still, it left me some days of total freedom to explore the surroundings of Seyda Neen, to get some supplies and even perhaps get some money, if Arille was willing to give me a fair price for the items in my sack.

Thavere was already up, sweeping the floor downstairs. We had breakfast together and then I went to the tradehouse to do some business with Arille.

It seemed as if the little Bosmer had kept his word. Arille greeted me with courtesy as I entered his domain. I also got quite a fair payment for my stolen items; about 150 septims and in addition to that a netch-leather satchel, and an almost complete set of chitin armour., No helmet, but I didn´t care so much about that at the moment. A nice chitin longbow with a bunch of arrows and a relatively used steel Katana also found their way to my inventory.

I also purchased some food for Thavere and myself; flour, saltrice, ash-yam, kwama-eggs, hackle-lo-leaves, and two bottles of sujamma. I reckoned I´d have to find out what prey there might be in these surroundings; we would likely need some animal-protein as well. I remembered last night´s delicious crab-meat-stew and decided to see if I could find the origin of that tasty kind of meat. That shouldn´t be any problem; crabs lived in or near water, Seyda Neen was situated close to the shore, thus there would certainly be a nice supply of crabs nearby.

Oh yes, I found crabs alright, or rather ONE crab found me, that was one scary moment as I suddenly stumbled across a crab, a huge crab, big as small rock, but with legs….and claws, which nearly cut off my right leg. But that´s another story which I´ll come back to.

First I unloaded my gear at the Lighthouse, equipped myself with the sword and the bow and off I went hunting. There wasn´t much to hunt close Seyda Neen, so after being out for approximately two hours with no luck at all, I decided to sit down on a nice round boulder for a while just enjoying the nice warm sun and have a rest. Suddenly the boulder started to MOVE, and before I´d grasped the situation, the boulder flung out a pincer-like claw and caught my right leg with it. A sharp intense pain shot up my spine and I screamed out loud as tears gushed from my eyes. I jumped up, the huge beast still clinging to my leg, and frantically slashed it with the sword. Finally I managed to damage the claws so that it let go of my leg, and immediately I drove the sword deep into it’s flesh just beneath it´s shell. The giant crab moaned and rolled over…..completely dead. I panted heavily from exhaustion, wiped my face with an edge of my shirt and then looked down on the dead beast. There would be a nice supply of meat here, if I could figure out how to cut it up properly.

The dull pain in my leg then caught my attention; there was a deep cut in the boot about three inches above the ankle and blood was pouring out of the wound. I felt a bit dizzy and had to sit down on the ground, head down between my knees.

“Nasty cut ye got there!” a nasal voice caught my attention, and I looked up and spotted a tall man in a very expensive-looking robe carrying a book. “You gotta get that treated real fast, lady, or else ye might end up with some disease”

I nodded, not exactly knowing how I was supposed to get proper treatment out here in the middle of nowhere.

“Here, let me help you,” the man put down his book and carefully removed my chitin-boot to uncover the wound. It was a deep cut, and it was rather dirty, so he squeezed it hard to let the streaming blood cleanse it. I gasped for air, tears started running again, and then I yelled in agony.

“Calm down lady, it´ll be OK,” he said, as he tied his belt around my leg just below the knee in order to stop the bleeding. Then he tore a strip from my ruined trousers to wrap up the wound. He embedded some, unknown (to me) herbs in the bandage and I felt the pain diminish a little bit. I knew I would have to deal with it later on but at the moment I was not focused enough to practise any healing-procedures, at least not on myself.

The man peered at me curiously and presented himself as Tarhiel, mage and researcher, at the moment occupied with the manufacturing of a scroll named “Icarian Flight.” He also told me that his fellow-mages at the Mage´s Guild in Balmora were making fun of him and would not permit him to do his research at the Guild-house.

“Balmora” there it was again………….

I presented myself and thanked him for his assistance, asking him if there was anything I could do for him.

“Well, if it hadn´t been that you´re injured I´d ask you to be my guinea-pig.” he stated. I shrugged; serving as guinea-pig did not appeal to me, so I was a bit satisfied that I in fact had a severe wound that prevented such things..

The look on Tarhiel´s face was an image of unhappiness, so I decided to show some interest in his research. I glanced at the mysterious words that were written on the parchment Tarhiel showed me, and whispered them out .....

“Now try to jump,” Tarhiel hissed at me, shivering with excitement……I barely made a slight effort to jump when SWOOSH… I lost contact with solid ground almost immediately and whirled up towards the clouds. I was terrified; something extremely important had struck me-

“ What about landing?!” I shouted as I was flying high up over the trees. I couldn´t hear his answer…if there was any at all, so I tried to turn towards the sea, deciding that if I was going to make a real crash-landing it´d better be in water, and not on solid rock, otherwise it would be the end of the story for me….

As I saw the water beneath me I felt the scroll wear off, and it wore off rather suddenly too- one moment I was flying high above the trees, the next moment I was free falling!

I hit the water with a huge splash, going all the way down to the bottom….shaken but not hurt. I made my way to the surface again, and then up on the shore, barely avoiding serving as a snack for a huge fish with knife-sharp teeth that came up from nowhere.

Lying on the beach, drenched, terrified and starting to get rather angry, I decided to have more than one word with that lunatic mage that fooled me into trying his outrageous scroll.

Naturally the man had disappeared, and I was in no shape to go chasing after him; my leg had started to bleed severely again, so I tore another strip from my trousers and wrapped it up in order to at least be able to get back to town again.

Two hours later I dragged myself up the stairs to the lighthouse and collapsed just in front of the door, sobbing desperately….

The next thing I remember was lying in front of the fireplace on Thavere´s own bedroll, wrapped in warm blankets, the pain diminished to a dull pounding, and the sweet Dunmer sitting beside me holding a pitcher to my lips.

“There, there Serene”, she said in her soft voice, “Drink this and you´ll soon feel better.”

So I downed the hot tea and then fell into a soothing dreamless sleep…..