The sight was enough to make anyone on the Solitude harbor bridge do a double-take.
A Nord, standing at the stone railing, clad in full, travel-worn steel plate that showed the dents and scars of hard use. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and had the settled, watchful stillness of a veteran twice his apparent age.
Leaning against the bridge wall beside him, looking for all the world like a bored, furry statue, was a fully-grown cave bear. The bear's head was nearly level with the man's shoulder, and she gazed out at the view with a lazy, disinterested air.
Together, they made a tableau of quiet, intimidating power that brought the bustling flow of traffic to a hesitant, parting stream.
Travelers fresh off ships from High Rock or Hamrfell would stop, point, and whisper in hushed, uncertain tones. Dockworkers hauling crates would pause, wipe their brows, and nod in recognition—so at the bear, a legend in its own right, others at the distinctive, silvery axe slung across the man's back.
In the end, the whispers followed the sa pattern:
"...that's the Storm-Caller..."
"..panion from Whiterun..."
"...what's he doing here?..."
Then, with a nervous glance or a shake of the head, they'd hurry on, suddenly finding a new, urgent topic to discuss with their companions.
Torin paid them no mind. Echo didn't even flick an ear.
Both were absorbed by the staggering vista before them.
Straight ahead, beyond the forest of masts and the noisy, fish-slling chaos of the docks below, lay the vast, mist-shrouded expanse of Hjaalmarch. From this height, the wetlands were a tapestry of muted greens, greys, and blues, dotted with skeletal trees and pools of still, dark water that reflected the brooding sky.
It exuded an aura of deep, primordial mystery—and a faint, chilling dread that could be felt even from miles away.
From here, it was beautiful. Hauntingly so.
Probably loses its charm once you're up to your neck in swamp water, getting sward by giant spiders and mudcrabs, Torin mused, his boot unconsciously tapping the clean, dry stone of the bridge. And your boots would never be clean again.
He decided then and there to appreciate Hjaalmarch's bleak beauty strictly from a distance.
His gaze lifted, drawn north. There, casting a literal and taphorical shadow over everything, was the city of Solitude itself.
It wasn't just a city built on a hill. It was a natural fortress of impossible scale, a colossal arch of stone that seed to have been sculpted by the gods in a mont of divine whimsy, just to host a mortal settlent.
The city was perched atop it, its towers and spires clinging to the rock, connected to the mainland by the very bridge he stood on. It was audacious. It was arrogant. It was stunning.
For a long mont, Torin simply stood there, the salt wind tugging at his hair, the cries of gulls and the distant din of the city in his ears. Whiterun was ho, solid and welcoming. Markarth was a marvel of lost engineering.
But Solitude… Solitude felt like the capital of an empire. It felt like an ending, or maybe a beginning, written in stone and sea spray.
Once again, the capital of Skyrim had earned a spot on Torin's ntal list of places best appreciated from a safe distance.
And this ti, the reason was far more practical—and terrifying—than a simple aversion to mud, giant spiders, or whatever the clinical term for an unreasonable fear of hostile crustaceans was (carcinophobia, a useless corner of his mind supplied).
That reason had many nas. The Mad God, the Skooma Cat, Prince of Cheese, or even Anne Marie, depending on the occasion and what mood he was in.
Torin distinctly rembered that Sheogorath had a fondness for haunting the Blue Palace. A Daedric Prince of pure, unpredictable chaos didn't just visit; he took up residence in the minds of the dead royalty and warped reality for his own amusent.
And if Torin could help it—and he very much intended to—he would do absolutely everything in his power to avoid even the faintest whiff of association with that walking, talking catastrophe, however finely dressed the Mad God was.
Sheogorath was the kind of entity who might flay you alive and replace your skin with aged Cyrodiilic cheese for sneezing too loudly in his presence… or reward you with a god-slaying artifact for telling a particularly bad knock-knock joke.
There was no logic. No pattern. Only madness.
In the ga, the Prince's whimsy and cruelty were heavily implied, but very much sanitized for entertainnt. The reality, according to the fragnted, often-censored records Torin had hunted down, was infinitely worse.
The occasional lunatic flinging boogers at passersby was a mild Tuesday. Simple, common variety madness. There were, however, accounts of entire villages suffering catastrophic, simultaneous bouts of mania. Visions of horrors that drove people to tear out their own eyes, or to lovingly arrange their neighbors' entrails into beautiful, intricate patterns on the cobblestones.
True, unfiltered Sheogorath wasn't funny. He was a taphysical plague.
For Torin's purposes, the shadow of Solitude would have to do. He'd admire the city's grandeur from down here, spend the night in the dockside town, and be on the first ship out tomorrow morning before the universe decided to make him part of so insane punchline.
He turned his gaze away from the awe-inspiring arch of the city and looked down at the bustling, ramshackle settlent that had grown like moss around the base of the docks. There was no such place in the ga, but its existence made perfect, logical sense.
The docks of Solitude were so of the busiest in Tamriel. The city on the arch, for all its grandeur, could only accommodate so many rchants, sailors, and travelers.
A town had naturally spilled out onto the shore below—a labyrinth of warehouses, chandleries, taverns, and cheap lodging, all living perpetually in the cool, deep shadow of the capital above.
It was noisy, slled of fish, tar, and unwashed humanity, and was probably crawling with cutpurses. It was also, Torin hoped fervently, completely beneath the notice of any bored, reality-warping Daedric Princes.
"Co on, Echo," he said, giving the bear a nudge. "Let's find an inn that won't mind a four-legged guest and doesn't have any mysterious patrons in jester hats. My treat."
...
Torin paused at the foot of the stairs, taking one final, sweeping glance over the inn's common room. The air was thick with the sll of cheap ale, stew, and unspoken sches.
Every table seed occupied by a particular type: rcenaries with too-clean armor and watchful eyes, traders with the lean, hungry look of n who dealt in grey-market goods, and a few outright criminal types trying (and failing) to look inconspicuous.
He couldn't help but sigh and shake his head. The mont his gaze passed over them, every shifty eye in the place instantly darted away, finding sudden, profound interest in tankards, dice, or the grain of the wooden tables.
He'd never been to this dockside town before, but he should have expected it. Scum like this flocked to places where coin and goods flowed freely, and no place in Skyrim had a bigger, richer flow than Solitude.
The city cast a long shadow—both the literal, mountainous one, and the taphorical one of corruption and opportunity that pooled in its foothills.
With a final, dismissive grunt, he turned and continued up the narrow staircase, the old wood creaking under his weight. Echo padded silently behind him, her bulk making the stairs groan in protest.
This had been one of the more expensive inns he could find on short notice, and paying the hefty 'animal surcharge' had two benefits: Echo didn't have to suffer the indignity (and the panicked screams of early-risers) of the stables, and the clientele, while shady, was at least smart enough not to try to rob a man with a bear in his room.
He reached his door, unlocked it, and ushered Echo inside before closing it firmly. The room was fairly spacious, as promised, with a large bed, a worn rug, and a washstand in the corner. It would do.
First, security. He moved to the window, then the door, tracing a simple, glowing rune in the air before each. A basic alarm spell. It wouldn't stop a determined thief, but it would trigger with a flash of blinding light and an ear-splitting crack at the slightest unauthorized movent—more than enough to wake him from a dead sleep and hopefully make any intruder reconsider their life choices.
Satisfied, he sat on the edge of the bed with a groan and began unbuckling his armor, piece by heavy piece, letting it drop to the floor with solid thunks. The familiar ache of travel settled into his muscles. In just his tunic and breeches, he padded over to the washstand. A ceramic basin held cold, clean water.
He picked up the rough piece of linen beside it, dunked it, and began thodically wiping the gri of the road from his face, neck, and arms. The water turned grey almost instantly.
Echo had already claid a large section of the rug, circling twice before flopping down with a world-weary sigh that shook the floorboards.
As he scrubbed, his mind wandered to impracticalities. I really should have learned so alchemy, he mused, wringing out the cloth.
Maybe then he could have concocted a version of soap that wasn't made from rendered Sload blubber and had to be imported from the other side of Tamriel at astronomical prices.
The stuff was effective, but the sll alone was a cri.
Then a better thought struck him. The College… They had libraries on every obscure branch of magic. Surely, sowhere in those frost-covered towers, there was a spell for cleaning.
A simple, elegant cantrip to banish dirt and gri. No soap, no water, just a wave of the hand and you were fresh. Now that would be worth the tuition. The re idea brought a faint, tired smile to his face.
He finished his rudintary bath, tossed the dirty cloth aside, and blew out the single candle on the nightstand. In the darkness, broken only by the faint, blue glow of his alarm runes, he collapsed onto the bed.
Across the room, Echo's deep, rhythmic breathing was already a steady, comforting rumble.
Tomorrow, the sea. Tonight, a bed that didn't sll of troll. It was enough.
...
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