Update

Hi all - just a quick update on posts. Sorry I've been behind - the computer that I had the story saved on finally died. I just need to get it fixed long enough to get my files off and I can continue updating as normal! I'll try to get to this as soon as I can. Just didn't want anyone to think I was giving up ;) The entire first part of the narrative is done and I'm eager to share it, just need to get it off the old computer.

Thanks for your patience! Keep checking back.
C

XXII - Gallus

“I got what I could,” Merill said as she met Karliah and Enthir in the cellar of Winterhold’s tavern. “It was a bit of a tight one.” She pulled Gallus’s journal and the charcoal rubbing from her bag, handing them both over to Enthir.

XXI - Markarth

Merill rose early the next morning and saddled Thelred for the ride to Markarth, almost on the opposite side of Skyrim. The predawn was grey and silent, and she was thankful to be out of the cold, blank snows of Winterhold and into the greener ranges of Hjaalmarch.

XX - Septimus Signus

Silronwe walked her back to the College’s front gates, her fur-lined hood low over her narrow brow as she pulled them open for Merill to pass through.

“You’re sure you don’t want me to go with you?” she asked Merill, worry in her voice. Merill glanced at her through the bars of the gate, her brows low over her brassy eyes. She found herself offering Silronwe a smile in spite of herself.

XIX - The College of Winterhold

Gradually, she began to feel again.

Cold seeped into her fingers and toes, and she could feel fur on her cheek. She heard wind overhead and the whisper of snow drifting across the hills.

XVIII - Snow Veil Sanctuary

Merill was still trying to wrap her head around Paarthurnax’s existence as she clambered down the mountain to Ivarstead once more. It was midday and cloudy when she shouldered open the door to the inn and found Silronwe and Nalimir, sitting quietly at a corner table. Silronwe had a small stone mortar and pestle before her and was grinding something wet and red while Nalimir leaned back in his seat, reading.

XVII - Paarthurnax

Hi all - I'm truly very sorry about the recent delay. This past month there was a death in my family followed almost immediately by a wedding and heaps of other work for me to finish. I'm expecting smoother sailing for this summer. Thanks for your patience. -C

Their journey to Ivarstead took them most of the day, and they reached the small mountainside village when the moon had risen high into the sky. Merill, not keen on climbing the precarious slopes of High Hrothgar in the blustery darkness, suggested they stay the night at the inn, and Nalimir and Silronwe agreed. They paid for two rooms, one with two beds, and Silronwe pleasantly suggested she and Merill share a room, pretending not to notice Merill’s grimace at the suggestion.

XVI - Alduin's Wall

They left the following morning, quietly slipping out of Riften before the sun rose. Merill lagged behind Silronwe and Nalimir, listening as their chatter filled the dark air around them. She pulled her fur hood low over her face, her breath floating in clouds from chapped lips as they moved steadily northward. She kept quiet, Nalimir’s words still ringing harshly in her ears. Not everybody’s out to get you.

XV - The Winking Skeever

Days passed, and the other thieves quickly stopped asking her about Mistveil when they realised she would try to crack her fist across their jaws when they did. The Jarl didn’t send any guards down to the Ratway, though, so they assumed they were safe for the time being. She did a few odd jobs on her own, still frustrated with Brynjolf, and spent the time in between hunting in the forests around the city, glad for a chance to take her mind off her anger – anger at Vex, Brynjolf, Nalimir, the lot of them. Nalimir, mercifully, didn’t try to breach the subject with her, but the mere sight of him made her fume. He’d always been the smarter one, she knew. But you always have to do things my way, he would be thinking.

XIV - Mistveil Keep

As time stretched on, Merill found herself feeling almost at home in the seedy underbelly of Riften. She grew to know all the thieves in the Cistern, friendly with most of them, and spent much of her time in the flagon or out on odd jobs. There was still a wall between her and everyone she spoke to, a wall she imagined she would never be able to breach, but she could at least offer a smile and a joke or share a drink with most of them. Nalimir was well-liked in the Guild, and by association, most of the thieves went out of their way to make Merill feel welcome. Vex only spoke to her to insult her and occasionally pick a fight, so most of the tasks she received were from Delvin Mallory.

XIII - Honningbrew Meadery

The Bee and the Barb was as rowdy as it had been when Merill had first come to Riften, and she noticed a number of Guild thieves in the bar dressed in street clothes. They didn’t seem to be talking to one another, though, and when Merill caught Niruin’s eye he shook his head just slightly, insinuating that they shouldn’t talk outside the Flagon. Nalimir had been relieved to learn of her mostly-safe flight from Goldenglow, though he had apologetically left for Falkreath earlier in the afternoon to do a job with Etienne, wishing her luck in her meeting.

XII - Goldenglow

It seemed Mercer had made it clear to the other thieves that they were not to welcome her unless she returned from Goldenglow with the loot, so Merill wasted no time in climbing out the back entrance of the Cistern and ducking through Riften’s alleys, following Nalimir’s hooded figure to the front gate. Mercer had said forcefully that Merill was to receive no help heisting Goldenglow, but grudgingly agreed to let Nalimir at least point the way to the estate from the shore. It was just before dusk now, the air cooling and stars beginning to peer out from behind the clouds, and Merill kept her new hood low over her face as they made their way beneath the dappled shade of the path that surrounded Lake Honrich.

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.

IV - High Hrothgar

It had grown dark by the time Merill had scrubbed the mud from her skin and hair and exchanged her rain-soaked cloth armour for a drier tunic she found in the wardrobe of her tiny attic room in The Bannered Mare. She’d spent the past two weeks living out of the dark, shadowy room, and while it was far away from the bustle of the bar and a bit drafty, it was exponentially warmer than outside. In the south it only rained, and in Markarth there was barely ever snow, just bitter wind. But here, nearing the end of the year, the wind carried in a dusting of snow that rattled the windowpane, the swirling flakes dancing past her window until she rose from the bed and yanked the faded curtains over it.