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R.I.P. neildarkstar. Haven will miss you dearly.
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Gremlaith Ulfricsdottar and the Lay of the Black Mask
Topic Started: Nov 17 2017, 12:03 AM (627 Views)
Serethil
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Et'Ada
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Well.... I did mention that the vibes I was getting to begin with weren't what she's giving off now! I seem to be better equipped to handle it than she does so far....
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Areial
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Et'Ada
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yep... sometimes our the people in our stories surprise us!
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Serethil
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Heh. So true - and it happens to me so often I shouldn't be surprised!
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Areial
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It's not a bad thing.. that's for sure!
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neildarkstar
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It's all about discovery, eh? :)
:thumb:
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Serethil
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It is. Though it's easier for the "deus ex machina" (me in this case) than it is for Grem....
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Serethil
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Chapter 8: A bandit's last ride

So here I sit behind a tree atop a boulder across the road from the old farmhouse. There are at least four people in there - one man wearing iron armor, a mage in a fur kilt, an archer in hide, and a woman in full fur, with some sort of two-handed weapon (from the hilt poking above her shoulder).

Now.... I’m not much good with a bow - I mostly miss the broad side of the barn and so on. Daggers I’m excellent with. But you have to get close without being seen. So that meant of course, after dark. Hopefully these bandits or whatever didn’t bother with sentries.... I slipped off my perch to the back of the boulder, and settled as comfortably as I could in the snow to wait out the day. I hadn’t seen any indication that Arivanya was there - but she might be tied. Or dead.

I was thoroughly bored by the time full night fell; if I was going to do this sort of thing, I’d best be improving my marksmanship - because it was seriously annoying waiting around for hours and hours so I could sneak up on and hopefully kill four people without getting hurt myself. I wasn’t at all sure why I would even think I might keep doing something like this either!

Near middle-night, I slithered up to the old ramshackle house, and taking my time so I made as little noise as possible, I slipped into the open door frame. I could hear two different male snores; a woman muttering in her sleep; and a man and woman doing what people do in a bed. So - either Arivanya was here and alive: sleeping, or banging the bandit; or there were five of them and no Arivanya.

While the lovers were making their racket - which only pointed up my own state of aloneness - I snuck into the first tumble-down room on the left. It held one of the snoring men. I slit his throat, slapping my hand over his mouth so he couldn’t make any other noise. Of course this was messy.... blood everywhere. I’d have to hope I could find something else to wear once this was done.

Next I crept around the corner into another partially-walled room, which contained the second snorer. How they could sleep over the noise the rutters were making, I had no idea, but at least all that covered any small sounds I made. I gave him the throat-smile too, and then went on. The couple were in the most-intact room in the place - the one with the only real bed - so one of the others must be near the fire on a bedroll. That’s where I headed next.

There was a woman there - not Arivanya. So. Once she was dead, that left the possibilities at: first, Arivanya was dead; second, Arivanya had taken to the head bandit and the life, and was enjoying the banging; or third, that she wasn’t here at all. There could have been a fourth option, though the sounds from the bed didn’t have the tenor of rape....

I slithered to the opening into the room just as the woman shrieked in climax, and the man plunged more deeply into her and followed her with his own bellow. Hmm. I watched them slump into relaxation which changed quickly to sleep. Creeping closer, I could see the woman was not Arivanya, so that was good - unless Ulundil’s wife was dead and buried somewhere.

Well, now I had to figure out which to kill first. If I killed the man, it would wake the woman - and vice versa. Now, the woman was quite fit by the muscles of her body, so she wasn’t just some town whore. She was likely a fighter of quality too. If I killed the man though - he would slump as - literally - dead weight onto her. Well, it would have to do. Besides, she was naked - well, so was he - neither had any protection at all at this point.

No sooner said than done. I ran my long-dirk between his ribs, sticking his heart; he gurgled and sank dead on top of her. She woke screaming, and before I sliced her, I asked “So, what did you do with the stable master’s wife?”

She was startled enough to start to say something, but then just screamed more. “No one comes to help you. They’re dead by my hand. So, where’s the woman?”

She went still, then began trying to buck the body of the bandit off to the side. I sighed. “No. You’re going to die too. You might as well tell me.” She looked up, pale in the little light of the moons.

“She’s.... we sold her to one of the shipmen Klarjr knew - pirates. They were going to take her to a slaver they deal with, he said.”

“The name of the ship?”

“The Black Mask.” She narrowed her eyes. “So kill me and be done with it!”

“If I let you live, are you going to come after me?”

A tear dripped down the side of her face. “No. But will you believe me?”

“Well. I’ll believe you until you try for me, how’s that?”

She finally managed to eel out from under Klarjr’s dead weight. “I’ll be gone in the morning. I’m not following you.”

“We’ll see, won’t we?”
Edited by Serethil, Jan 6 2018, 10:33 PM.
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neildarkstar
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Good one! hey, I got a title for you for this segment. How about "Bandit's Last Ride"... ;)
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Serethil
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Et'Ada
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*laughing so hard I can't see through the tears*

Works for me! I'ma just edit that RIGHT NOW! Thanks, neil!
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Areial
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Nice....er both! LoL.. got a good laugh!
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Serethil
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Thanks Sis! Yup. Still grinning here....
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Serethil
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Chapter 9: Finding sign of that ship isn’t easy

Well, why would it be? No one wants to admit to knowing about pirates or their ships of course! The bandit fem didn’t follow, at least as far as I could tell - and since I knew nearly everyone about the Windhelm docks, I was pretty sure she was either gone, or at least laying low hereabouts until I got out of the area.

On further thought, it had occurred to me that I should have probably “cultivated” her a bit. She might have had more information - and might even have been able to get me in with the pirates once I found them. Well.... more water under bridges. It was obvious that in future, I needed to think more deeply - and faster!

So I wandered around the docks, talking to a few of the ship-folk, trying to insert questions in a nonthreatening manner. Pretty sure I wasn’t very good at that. Finally, late in the afternoon - just before sunsfall in fact - I slumped near the huge old metal doors that led from the docks up into the Gray Quarter, and settled to grumpily watching the Argonians finishing their daily work. They were even more despised than I had been, and I felt some fellow-feeling for them. In fact, they were far more despicable in Windhelm’s eyes than even the Dunmer.

I thought about that. What was it with the Nords here? Well, I supposed it was relict of Ulfric, git that he had been. Just too bad that “the Dragonborn” had killed him before I had the chance. And at that thought, I felt the first poke from Talos in a while.

‘Well then. Where in the Hells have YOU been lately?’

Surprised hell out of me when he answered! ‘Trying to figure out why you are so bent on ignoring me.’

‘All you had to do was ask. I’m mostly ignoring you because you want me to be someone I’m not, and to - I think - take you as role-model.’

‘Gremlaith Ulfricsdottar, you have much to offer Skyrim - even Tamriel. You - concentrate your energy on hating a man long-dead. And you don’t even know that Ulfric WAS your father. In my diggings... I think he’s not.’

‘So. You’re saying Ma lied? Do you really want to go there with me?’

‘Lady. Your ma was ill for many more years than you knew. What I could discover.... she wanted to leave you with something “better” than a no-name-nothing of a brigand for a father. It’s.... unlikely - in the extreme - that Ulfric was your birth-father. At the time your ma got pregnant with you, Ulfric was at High Hrothgar involved in brokering a truce to get Balgruuf to allow the Dragonborn to use Dragonsreach to trap a dragon who knew how to reach Alduin.’

Oh. I’m still not sure why I immediately believed him. I thought... perhaps his calling me “lady” might have something to do with it.

‘But.... no. I see. Poor Ma. So then. Who IS my father?’

‘Do you really want to know? I can tell you he’s long dead, having followed the wrong road all his brief life.’

‘Nah then. I suppose I should give up the “Ulfricsdottar”. Seem strange to call myself something else.’

‘Do as you like with that. It hurts no one now. In any case, that is not primarily why I’ve come here tonight to you.’

‘Ah? Why then, though I do - I think - thank you for the information you’ve provided.’

‘Because you won’t find anything about your current target unless you talk to Hides-in-Weeds.’ And that was the last I heard from Talos for a while. Not to mention I didn’t know one of the Argonians named “Hides-in-Weeds”....
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neildarkstar
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She took that rather calmly, eh? This is neither a complaint nor criticism, but I can tell you from experience that, all evidence to the contrary, learning that your father isn't your father is one of the most unsettling things you can learn in life. It has something to do with the roots of your self-identity, eh? :)

I'm minded of something I read once (but I don't recall where)... "Seek not the attentions of the Gods, for they will send you dooms rather than blessings."

Nicely told, Sere. :)
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Serethil
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Well.... I have to say that learning that my father wasn't would have made me very happy. Different strokes for different folks....

I honor my father for what he accomplished with his life (which was.... difficult in the extreme). But - he never felt like.... my father. Finding out my mother had been married and divorced prior to her marriage to him left me wondering if her first husband was actually my father. They of course never addressed the circumstance.... divorce in the years of WWII was pretty much still anathema.

I did a lot of research in the 90s, digging into the early genealogy sites. The truth is - my father is most likely my father. But I'd honestly prefer he wasn't....

And the other truth is - I'd accept he's my father.... if I could disown my mother.

Again, different strokes. I don't - actually have any interest in who my parents were or are. My life was - dismal - with those two. I doubt it could have been much worse with others.
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neildarkstar
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Yeah, there are at least a hundred logical reasons why parentage should not be earth shaking... that doesn't prevent it from being such however. It's not about how you feel about your father or mother, nor about your preferences on the matter.

It's really hard to describe the effect, but it 's all about who you are, rather than who they are. You can say different strokes, but if you haven't been there, you really just don't know. Like many things, the reality is far different than any imagined scenario.
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Areial
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Very nice read...

I think I'm going to agree with Neil.. Even though I never met my Birth-father, I have always had his name, but if I learned that say.. my Step-father, was my actual father.. I'd probably have had a slight melt-down.
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Serethil
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Thanks guys - we'll see what happens no doubt.
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Serethil
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Interlude: I really hate nightmares....

Now, since I’d fallen asleep on a heap of rags in the prow of a derelict longboat, it maybe wasn’t a surprise that I dreamed - or that the dreams were fraught with fire, fury, and the fulminations of my mother.

When I finally jerked myself awake, the last thing I remembered was her screaming “He IS your father!” I wiped cold tears off my face, and sighed. It had made sense to me when Talos was talking.... and now it made sense that my dream-Ma was violently unhappy with me.

If Ulfric wasn’t my father, I’d wasted over half my life hating a man now long dead. If he was my father.... well.... I’d done the same anyway, hadn’t I? So I grumbled at my dead mother, ‘Give over - I’m not going to change my name that you gave me. But I’m not going hate Ulfric any more. It’s a useless waste of my time, energy and emotions.’

Dream-Ma sniffled a bit and then faded. Well, of course she did - she hadn’t been there anyway, being only a figment of my dreamstuff. Too bad my dreams hadn’t provide any insight into finding Hides-in-Weeds.... I needed to figure out some way to make the Argonians more interested in giving me information. That would take some thought.
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Areial
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Spooky!
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Serethil
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Well, see.... there seems to be more to Grem than she thinks there is, herself. I'm really interested to find out just where this is headed.

Thanks Sis!
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