A Dreamer in a Dream (chapter 15)

       AE ALDMERIS I

Reia bit down an exasperated sigh as yet another Nord attempted to engage her in conversation. No, this one was a Breton. The slight hint of mer stuck out like a sore thumb the more she looked.

She quickly returned a dull smile and some empty words, already missing her uniform that kept the locals at a distance, just as her history kept her compatriots at a distance. No doubt what happened to Anchuunimer would only invigorate those whispers.

Not that she was opposed to those whispers herself. She had encouraged them once or thrice when they had grown too dull or too quiet.

The Breton had left to annoy someone else, and as often happened, her thoughts returned to the war. If she closed her eyes, she could still see Selormunya’s guileless smile and Rinafwe’s competitiveness and queer sense of humor.

All their heads had been filled with dreams of bringing the shining light of Auri-El and the Aldmeri Dominion to even the darkest corners of Tamriel, and instead all that met them was the infernal call of the Doom Drum.

Her heart seized as she remembered standing beneath the White-Gold Tower. They were supposed to have won a great victory, but the tower told a different story. Perhaps it had once been a shining beacon of Ayleidoon, but no longer.

Now it beat like the land, proclaiming their doom.

Yet it hadn’t taken her. It only took everything else from her. Her smile. Her friends. Even her beloved sister.

Sometimes she envied men for how easily they made peace with their own mortality. They cared not that they lived as long as the beasts of the forest, and the Nords even went so far as to yearn for the Doom Drum’s nauseating sound.

How they could still be so blind escaped her. It must be a willful blindness, for knowing that they were all doomed to diminish with every generation, all of them prey to those that dwelled in Oblivion, it was not what she would consider a comfort.

Reia shook her head of those thoughts. She could not afford to be so distracted. Ondolemar was already annoyed with her after Anchuunimer’s unfortunate demise. Though it could hardly be laid at her feet, for she had only rightfully assumed that he could handle a neophyte Daedra conjurer.

And that had certainly piqued Ondolemar’s curiosity. Her own as well.

Anchuunimer for all his flaws had a skill at the more calamitous magics that she would struggle to match, and yet he had still been torn apart in as long as it took to show Skadi of Ivarstead that she was her superior.

Reia had just passed Whiterun’s gates and neared an inn when she felt the earth shake and with it a word that echoed across the world, pressing against her skull uncomfortably.

“DOV… AH… KIIN.”

Her eyes immediately found its source. Snow Throat. She could just barely see its peak from where she stood.

Her heart seized as she heard it again. The Doom Drum.

Badump.

Badump.

Badump.

Reia turned away from it, the crowds all around her turning wondrous instead of horrified, with shouts of Greybeards and Dragonborn drowning out her thoughts.

They were all walking to their doom with joy in their hearts, their eyes torn out.

She turned away from those thoughts for a second time. She was not someone who would be driven to despair so easily.

The implications were even interesting, but it was not her headache to deal with. She would leave that to Ondolemar and the First Emissary. Or that was her thinking until she saw her quarry walking ahead of the procession of men and giants.

Reia stared at the oversized Nord woman as she drank in the cheers and adulation like a drunkard did spirits. Skadi of Ivarstead had been known to them for some time, but so were many other Nords with more brawn than sense, a nuisance every one.

Her eyes trailed to the Daedra conjurer beside her, still smothered in the same cloak and still just as plain and uninteresting as she remembered.

She still followed them as they made their way through the city, and the longer she looked, the more that proved to be a lie. He was cloaked in not just the skin of a bear, but in the colors of Aetherius. And they were hiding something.

Reia stalked down an alleyway as she carefully weaved the fabric of Aetherius around herself as well. It bore a heavy price, but the spellwork would last through the night, and she did not believe even Balgruuf’s pet wizard would be able to see through it.

She followed them up the weathered stairs to Dragonsreach, eyeing the bones upon the backs of the giants curiously. Perhaps she could spirit a few of them away before she returned to Markarth. Breaking bad news with something sweet was a trick every soldier in Lord Naarifin’s army learned quickly.

It was no surprise then that few had mourned him when their enemies went on to hang him after their humiliating rout.

When the two separated from the throng of petty nobles, she followed again. Reia would wait until they slept to satisfy her curiosity.

Though perhaps she should have expected them to act like wild beasts they hoped to become, as they rutted with such wild abandon that they destroyed several beds. They would have been censored for such disrespect for a crafter’s work were they in Alinor.

And by Auri-El, it went on for an uncomfortably long time as well.

Reia made to wait until they… finished, ferreting out less valuable information as she listened in on quiet conversations in the night. There were maybe a few threads Ondolemar might care for. Their ability to act in Whiterun had been diminished as she had heard, but not entirely.

It was deep into the night when she returned, another having joined them in her absence. Another that she well remembered as she stalked into the quiet room.

The Argonian had curled up on top of his sleeping form, implying a certain degeneracy she did want to think upon long. The presence of two artefacts of Daedric origin only added to her disgust, for even Nords had the sense to shy away from the ruin Mephala brought with her every breath.

She tore her eyes away as she neared, peering instead at the colors of Aetherius stretching across his naked form as he slept. It was not any spellwork she was familiar with. Layering a lens of magicka over her eyes, she attempted to see more when Skadi of Ivarstead stirred, the leg she had thrown over him shifting slightly.

Yet the snores continued, so she put it out of mind, trying to make sense of the mass of contradictory colors she saw. They were not just crossing the breadth of his skin as she first thought. They went so much deeper.

Deep enough that she began to doubt he was a man at all.

Was he not a Daedra conjurer but a Daedroth himself? She had seen no shortage of the clever tricks that Daedra used to disguise themselves, though this was…

Her breath caught in her throat as she noticed the Argonian’s eyes watching her, head turned unnaturally. Reia drew on more and more of her reserves, preparing for the inevitable, but those lips curved into a smile instead.

She watched as the Argonian slowly turned her head back around, rubbing her cheek against his false skin, her tail shifting to the other side.

The confidence annoyed her, but it was not unearned. In the heart of Whiterun, the odds were not in her favor. That she had seen through her spellwork was similarly, and singularly, worrying, considering her skill at illusions was rivaled only by her skill at transmutations.

Reia left the room quickly, and soon she was descending down the tall hill that Dragonsreach stood upon. Only once her feet touched the dirt did she let herself breathe again.

What she had gleaned was valuable information, and yet…

She shook her head. There was one more task left to do before she could recall back to Markarth.

Making use of the rivers of Aetherius she had already called upon to make her escape, she sped across the plains to where Anchuunimer had perished. South.

Most of his bones were still there, though many had been gnawed upon. Nothing she saw told her more than she already knew.

Still, she would collect the bones to send back to Alinor. Anchuunimer was not someone she would call a friend, but he had still been a comrade-in-arms. That merited some respect, and a prayer for his soul to reach Aetherius safely.

Her duty complete, she spent what scraps she had left to step through the world to Markarth.

She took some amusement in waking Ondolemar up in the dead of the night, but he had quickly forgiven her as the information she had collected left her lips.

Her previous thoughts had turned out prophetic, as he was already suffering what appeared to be a headache. “Your success is acknowledged, Reiarenya. It is unfortunate you were compromised, but it seems it was unavoidable.”

She simply nodded. For all they clashed sometimes, he was still one of the more sensible superiors she had served under.

“If this Leman Russ is headed to the College of Winterhold as you say,” he continued more softly, “then you will as well. I trust you will be more careful.”

“And Snow Throat?”

“Those atop it will not take kindly to our interfering. I will have to speak to Elenwen on how we wish to proceed.” He picked up one of the dragon bones she had spirited away, examining it with a careful eye. “Likely Alinor will make the final decision.”

Reia made to leave when Ondolemar spoke again. “Do keep an eye on Ancano while you’re there. Elenwen was rather displeased when he went over her head.”

She nodded more dully. Ancano was not the most pompous mer she had ever met, but that was not praise. “Understood.”

Retreating to one of the empty rooms, she quickly fell under Vaermina’s sway. And there she heard it again. That nauseating sound.

Badump.

Badump.

Badump.