A Dreamer in a Dream (chapter 16)

Despite being the one to strongarm me into meeting her parents, Skadi still took her sweet time leaving Whiterun behind. Or more accurately, the Skyforge.

Something about going home had lit a fire under her dumptruck of an ass, and it wasn’t like Earland Gray-Dane or whatever his name was could tell the Dragonborn no. It made my occasionally nagging Farengar with questions about how magic actually worked look downright harmless.

Also ultimately pointless as Lydia had already given up on learning magic.

It wasn’t even me being the worst teacher to ever teach. Well, not entirely that. Magic just wasn’t something you picked up on a whim unless you were a cheating cheater like yours truly. Clavicus Vile’s own words.

Anyway, it wasn’t long before Skadi dragged me into it as well, and she had been perfectly happy to use all the tools in her arsenal to convince me. It didn’t help that her new housecarl was such a suck-up, always trying to one-up me on anything and everything.

Skadi found it funny. I found it annoying, and I was trying to be nice. I didn’t make fun of him looking like a girl once!

At least it was always funny seeing him pout whenever Skadi made eyes at me or pulled me away.

It was after a few days of slaving away at the forge that she finally showed off her new armor. Even did a spin. “What do you think?”

With that look in her eyes, I could tell this meant a lot to her.

“It is magnificent,” her housecarl breathed out with stars in his eyes. “I wonder if you have not surpassed Old Gray-Mane already, Thane.”

You see what I mean? Total suck-up.

Still, for all she drank his words in happily, she was still staring at me expectantly. Hmm…

It was still very… messy, but a dramatic improvement. Though the bits of Mirmulnir over the ebony seemed more like decoration.

I told her as much.

“Old Gray-Mane says it will be months before he rediscovers how to make proper use of the bones,” she admitted, scratching at her cheek with some embarrassment.

“It’s not a bad touch,” I added. “Makes you look even more fearsome.” The way the ebony contrasted with her thunder thighs was also divine, even if her new armor hid more of them.

Skadi gave a grin as she struck a heroic pose. “Then it’s perfect.”

Perfect was a strong word, but I didn’t say that. Instead I asked for another spin, which she did much more sensually, her smile turning coy.

The pout it put on the suck-up alone was worth it.

“His infatuation with what is yours is written all over him,” a spider whispered in my ear. “Take her right in front of him, Abomination. Have her mock him. Then bed his mother as well. Turn her against…”

Another whispered in my other ear in a voice like honey. “Ravish him instead, Abomination. Imagine it, turning his infatuation upon you. Mmm, or at least take your satisfaction. Sanguine can tell you see…”

Alright, that’s enough from the peanut gallery.

I took Skadi’s hands. “So, Ivarstead? I’ve been dying to hear some old stories from your parents.”

Instead of panicking like any normal person would, she just shrugged. “I haven’t changed.”

“Parents have a way of surprising you.”

That put the tiniest chink in her confidence, which I counted as a win. Though now she was staring at the chest we hauled back from Bleak Falls Barrow.

“I still have some ebony left.”

I was about to suggest selling it for a small fortune, if not a rich one, when a very familiar twinkle appeared in her eyes. I was too late.

It was another few days until I even figured out what we were making a legion of tiny links for. That being a cloak.

“It won’t burn as easily,” was her explanation.

I was expecting a fashion statement straight out of kindergarten, but I was pleasantly surprised instead.

The ebony had been turned into layered chainmail, over which she put some of Mirmulnir’s scales polished to a shine. It looked badass, honestly. And it didn’t look like it would try and smother me if I wasn’t careful.

It was also much lighter. I didn’t have a single complaint.

Then I found out she made a twin for herself. Which meant matching cloaks. We were going to be traveling in style.

I knew that when it came to Skadi that she preferred action to words, so it wasn’t long until I pulled her somewhere quiet and my head found its way between her thighs.

While I’ll admit Sanguine gave some solid advice, it was still me that left her a mewling and out-of-breath mess several times over with my magnificent tongue as she called it. And something told me that I was only scratching the surface of what I could do with this body of mine.

She also started babbling about enchanting them when she came down from her high, but I not so subtly led her away from that idea.

Somehow I don’t think she’d have forgiven me eating her hard work. Even after all that.

With her all tuckered out, it was the first time in some time that we slept in a bed we hadn’t broken. Much more comfortable. Who would have thought?

To my surprise, it wasn’t Lydia who barged in on us in the morning, but Jarl Balgruuf. Though he was much more polite about it, knocking and everything.

I was even more surprised when he asked to speak with me alone.

Skadi snatched the comb I was using to brush her hair from my hands, shooing me away with a funny smile.

Joining the guy outside, he decided we should go on a bit of a stroll through Dragonsreach. “You still intend to make for Winterhold?”

I wasn’t against lying through my teeth, but I never tried to pretend I was a politician. “I do.”

He pulled at his beard. “I cannot convince you otherwise?”

“I think Farengar might threaten to leave if I stayed.” Well, maybe half a politician.

He gave a laugh at that. “Yes, he has complained more than once at you interrupting his work. Also something about you misplacing one of his books?”

Yeah, I ate it. I made the decision as soon as he mentioned it being one of his favorites on the ‘finicky’ school of Restoration.

Maybe it was a dick move, but I just didn’t have time to go around learning magic the old-fashioned way. It wasn’t even about impressing the girl anymore, but survival. It was why I kept mucking around in Oblivion despite the dangers, and it was why I needed to get my ass to the College of Winterhold. They had an entire library for me to devour.

I just had to complete the questline and become the Arch-Mage first. Otherwise they were more likely to throw me out.

Piece of cake, right?

He must have seen something on my face as he nodded. “I see I will not convince you. Then I can only ask that you do not forget Whiterun in these troubled times.”

I did like the guy, so that was an easy promise to make. He then gave me what looked like tightly rolled parchment.

“Jarl Korir is no friend to mages, but he still cares for his people.” A letter.

“I’ll make sure it reaches his hands.”

Lydia immediately went to my side as we entered the great hall. Though there was something different about her, and it didn’t take me long to figure out what. She was practically smothered in enchantment.

I would just have to be very careful. With how she was practically brimming with confidence again, the last thing I wanted to do was fuck that up by taking a bite.

Skadi meanwhile was throwing an exasperated look at her own housecarl being fussed over by his mother. Her eyes brightened when she saw me approach, a sweetroll in her hand.

“I saved you one.”

She gracefully accepted the kiss I gave her for it. As I swallowed it in a few bites, I saw those three at another table, but no tiny Argonian.

Still, I didn’t worry. Somehow she always knew when to pop back in.

Even after what happened that morning and again some nights after, she was still the same goofball with a black hole for a stomach. At most she was more touchy-feely now.

It was Skadi that was the most changed, if anything. Maybe it was because I didn’t make a fuss when she put Bright-Like-Dawn to work between her legs, but she admitted to having a thing for girls. Even if it wasn’t in those exact words.

Apparently, she had only just held back from bringing Aela into our bed because she wasn’t sure how I would take it.

And in retrospect, maybe that wasn’t the worst thing. Skadi was not the biggest fan of Daedra, and I didn’t think she was the type to give werewolves a pass if she found out…

“Keep my fool son safe. Dragonborn or no, I’ll find a way to return the favor if he comes back to me a corpse.”

Her son groaned, and honestly, even I felt some pity for him.

“He’s a Nord,” Skadi told her simply. “Sovngarde awaits us all.”

That had him standing straighter, while his mother just sent Skadi another miserable look before she sauntered off. I had been wondering what kind of guy decided to hit that, but now I understood. A fat ass can make a guy overlook a lot.

Anyway, like clockwork, Bright-Like-Dawn had reappeared just as Balgruuf was making a show of wishing us good luck.

He also gifted us some horses to speed our journey, supposedly the crème of the crop of Whiterun’s royal stables. There were a few gasps after that from the assembled nobles. Apparently horses were expensive?

Skadi immediately commandeered the biggest and baddest of them for herself, a pitch black stallion with a mane the color of straw.

I wisely picked the gentlest one for Bright-Like-Dawn and myself instead. I didn’t know the first things about horses, and I doubted the tiny Argonian did either with how she was giving them some shifty eyes. Hopefully she wouldn’t eat them.

We must have looked resplendent under the sun as we left Whiterun behind. An hour later we were already making good progress to Ivarstead.

It would still take a few days to get there, but that was an improvement over a week or two.

The only downside was the tiny lizard digging her claws into my sides as she hid under my shiny new cloak, but that was nothing some magic couldn’t fix. And without the Companions always picking fights, it was nice and peaceful as well.

At least until we encountered a toll.

We had only found out as we were maybe halfway across a bridge between two towers. It was actually a really clever ambush if not for their choice of target. Apparently they wanted our fine horses.

Walking up to a mountain of a woman on top of a monster of a horse also took some balls of steel. He was definitely a shoe-in for Sovngarde.

I could tell because he was suddenly missing a head.

That got us pelted by archers, but it didn’t seem they expected me to give them something in return. After the first guy caught fire and threw himself from one of the towers screaming the whole time, the others quickly beat a run for it, scaling down the rocky cliffs where it would be a pain to follow.

So we shrugged and moved on.

The fight, short as it was, must have left Skadi unsatisfied. Almost as soon as we made camp somewhere in Eastmarch Hold, she was dragging me off into the woods. The whole place kind of stank like rotten eggs. Probably all the volcanic activity in the area.

Though it couldn’t hold a candle to what lay further east. Morrowind, and the smoking supervolcano at the heart of it. You know, just the kind of thing anyone would want to be near.

“I promised many more spars,” she reminded me.

Yeah, fair. I smashed a fist into my chest, all stone now. “And if I win?” I asked her cheekily. I had come a long way since last time.

She snorted softly. “I’d be more worried about giving me a good fight.” Her eyes suddenly smoldered. “If you truly have me dead to rights, I’ll let you have what I’ve never given any man.” Her smile was not unlike a dragon’s now. “Let that put some fire in your veins.”

Well, she wasn’t wrong there. That did put some fire in me. Maybe too much.

Seriously, I said it before, but she really knew how to motivate a man. How could I not want to put a ring on that?

“On three?” she asked.

“On three.”

I was already bleeding magicka as she got to one, waiting for her to come at me like the walking freight train she was. Except that didn’t happen.

“FUS!” The word left her throat just as violently as last time, a word of pure force headed my way.

I figured she would keep it in reserve to surprise me, but, yeah, that’s on me for expecting patience from a dragon.

I would have been hard-pressed to dodge it even if I cheated. Which against her just felt wrong to me. If I was going to win, it was going to be because I was awesome.

I smiled right into the onrushing shout instead, conjuring my crime against nature on the other side of it.

It didn’t hit me as hard as the Tongue’s shout did, but it still put me through a tree, the other half of it falling on top of me. It took me some time climbing out of the nest of leaves and branches, enough that my crime against nature was probably history.

Instead I found Skadi pelting something in the sky with arrows, while it in turn was vomiting what looked like slime down on her.

That was… new.

It was some kind of grotesque mix between a slug and a dragonfly. Maybe some bat as well? Whatever it was, it was doing great, zooming around on those dragonfly wings and avoiding her arrows with ease.

I didn’t look this gift horse in the mouth anymore than I did Jarl Balgruuf’s, immediately marshaling my magicka to try and freeze her in place. Or that was the plan until she just… you know, turned her head and shouted at me again. This time she also ignored my new crime against nature to barrel down on me after it.

Meaning I was about to get hit by two freight trains, one after another. And she even turned my own ice into a weapon against me.

At least she couldn’t spam it. I knew the damage it did to her throat.

My eyes went to my monstrosity in the sky. I had an idea. I’d done something similar with the Flame Atronach earlier, shoving more magicka into her so Mirmulnir couldn’t just banish her back to Oblivion.

Though seeing as I soon found myself ragdolled again, I only got to see what shoving all that magicka into it accomplished after I climbed out of the debris of another tree, and just in time to catch Skadi’s axe across my cheek.

I felt it even through all the stone, bits of my cheek going flying, but I still found it in me to laugh. My monster was locked in, and it was a fucking unit now, as big as a truck, maybe.

With equally ironic timing, she turned around just in time to get slimed. Hard. It absolutely reeked as it stuck to her and rubbed her skin raw.

I still had magicka to spare, healing the accumulated damage that’s cracked even the stone. Being used as a bowling ball really did a number on you.

I was wondering how I would actually force her to concede when someone tall stomped into the moonlit woods, the sound of their steps as heavy as they were surprisingly graceful.

“Don’t stop on my account,” she boomed, the voice very girlish despite how loudly it echoed from her monstrous helmet.

When Skadi and I exchanged glances instead, she suddenly charged at us, a high laugh ringing out from her helmet. And fuck, she was fast. There was no weapon in her hands because she didn’t need one, an inferno of flames springing from her blurring form.

Skadi even shouted at her, but all it did was slow her down.

Now that she was close, I could actually make out her armor. Her very Daedric armor. The ebony mixing with something very red was a dead giveaway.

Yeah, I was already shoving potion after potion down my throat as I sicced my monster on her.

Skadi went straight for her head, but she couldn’t even dent the armor. I could only watch as she was punched through a tree.

If it weren’t for the seriousness of the situation, I might have cracked a joke about her getting a taste of her own medicine.

Seriously, where were these overpowered fuckers even coming from? At least the cranky old grandpa had the excuse of us barging into his retirement home.

My wife-to-be did buy me enough time to produce an iceberg the size of Big Momma, and now I threw it, choking down a third potion as I did so. But the Daedric armor-wearing maniac only laughed.

“Yes, Abomination! Come at me with everything you have!”

Abomination? I didn’t have any time to think about it as she proceeded to waltz right through my iceberg instead. Then she made an even bigger hunk of ice in a fraction of the time and threw it right back at me, laughing again like she just told the funniest joke of all time.

I wasn’t dodging that, so I tried to take a leaf out of her book and melt through it. Yeah, that didn’t work. I took a ride through the woods on it instead.

This was some bullshit.

When I eventually managed to get off Mr. Cold’s Wide Ride, freezing and wet all over, I dragged my miserable self back into the fight. Skadi was getting her ass handed to her almost as bad as me, and my monster was even more useless, the slime burned to nothing before it could even touch her armor.

Right. With the spar over, I let some magicka escape my breath, healing Skadi’s throat with my fancy new Restoration spell and blunting another punch with a ward. And with her smile, I could tell she knew exactly what to do.

While the first shout went wide thanks to Daedra Girl’s monstrous speed, the second hit her, and the third sent her flying. At least until she simply stopped in midair, levitating lazily.

She then struck a pose in the air as we both gawked. “I dedicate this combat to Mehrunes Dagon!”

Taking that as a cue that she was about to do some bullshit, I raised up as many wards as I could to blunt whatever apocalypse she was about to unleash, only for her to gracefully descend upon the ground again.

She then clapped her hands together. “Thank you for indulging me, Abomination.”

Skadi moved in again, but she just pulled herself into the air again as well, wagging her finger like she was a naughty child. “Dragons,” she complained. “No manners.”

“Are you afraid, Daedra whore? This isn’t finished!”

Daedra Girl gasped dramatically. And me? Well, I was just hoping Skadi didn’t put two and two together.

“That’s no way to talk to friends! Abomination, tell her!”

Oh come on! The worst part was that I already had a time and place and everything to tell her. Fucking Mehrunes Dagon…

All I could do now was give my best shit-eating grin as Skadi turned her very blue eyes on me.

Where did I even begin?