XI - The Thieves Guild

They spent two days laying low in Whiterun, living out of the attic in the Bannered Mare and watching out the window as Thalmor scouts paraded up and down the streets. News trickled into the bar that there had been some sort of scuffle in the Ratway in Riften – a thing people normally wouldn’t take any notice of, but they were curious at the involvement of the Thalmor. As a rule, the Altmer legion wasn’t trusted in Skyrim, and Merill and Nalimir had no problem agreeing. All Merill had to do was remember the cold bite of Armion’s blade against her eye and her hard, cold days on Markarth’s streets after their cabin was burned and Brelin murdered. They didn’t talk about the cabin much – the memory was still fresh for them both. But they often spent the empty hours of the day on the rug in their dusty attic room, Merill straightening the fletching on her arrows or carving new patterns into the arms of her bow while Nalimir sprawled on his back, flipping through books he’d coerced Delphine into letting him borrow, their quiet punctuated by stories and reminisces of when they were children in the forest.

X - Riften

Merill and Nalimir traveled to Riften on foot, enjoying the rare sun that heralded them the whole way down. They met with little trouble during the walk to Skyrim’s southernmost city, though Merill was tempted by the plentiful game that moved silently through the shadows of the birch trees, their coppery leaves coating the cobbled road. Whatever silence had possessed them on the way to Whiterun was gone now, and the two spoke with ease as they went southward, remarking on nearly everything they saw and daring one another to shoot a distant bird or take out an approaching bandit from behind. It felt almost easy, almost the way things used to be. Almost.

IX - Stormcrown

Really sorry about the extreme delay - I had a lot going these past couple weeks! Should be back to normal now, thanks for your patience.

C

VIII - The Thalmor Embassy

A chilly afternoon several days later found Merill perched on a stone along the Karth River, holding her bow in her lap and staring up at the great cliff on which Solitude was built. She stared along its stone walls, absentmindedly whittling her way down the arms of her bow with her skinning dagger. It was too big and bulky to carve properly and she was nowhere near as skilled as Brelin had been, but the motions gave her comfort. For her thirteenth birthday he had given her a beautiful, pale-wooded longbow, its arms crisscrossed with carvings of lilies and vines that entwined one another. She felt a pang as she remembered that bow, stuck in the mud as she scrambled away from their burning cabin. Long gone by now, she figured.

VII - Delphine

Riverwood was a quiet, rainy village, but Merill drew her hood low over her face as she entered, not keen to have people remembering her face. She didn’t like being cornered, and she had every intent to make this friend well aware of that. The afternoon was overcast and thunder boomed in the clouds overhead as she made her way through the muddy streets of the dreary logging town. The road was quiet, occupied only by a few chickens, a dirt-smeared wolfhound that followed her about, and a few villagers watching the storm from the cover of their porches. Merill studied each one of their faces from beneath her hood, wondering which one had been spying on her all these weeks.

VI - The Horn of Jurgen Windcaller

Ustengrav was in the northern reaches of Skyrim, somewhere between the holds of Morthal and Dawnstar. Merill stopped briefly in Morthal for a quick meal, but the village was quiet and sad in its snowy marshes, and she did not linger long. In some places, a break in the trees would give way to the wide stretch of icy water that was the Karth River, dominated by the great cliff on which the great city of Solitude sprawled. She paused once or twice to stare up at the palace’s rounded arches, the wolfs-head flags that fluttered from its walls before she pushed onward.

V - The Greybeards

Sorry about the delay for this one - had a lot going on this past month! Updates should be more regular from here on out.