As we emerged from the caves north of Helgen, Ralof suggested we split up, but meet at his sister’s house in Riverwood. “It’s easy,” Ralof insisted. “Keep going north and downhill on this road. The forks are marked.”
“No!” I exclaimed before I could control myself. Embarrassed, I spoke more calmly, “Please, I don’t know the roads. Could we travel together?”
As we ran easily side by side down the mountain, he spoke. “You fought well in the keep. You should consider going to Windhelm to join Ulfric’s struggle.”
“I just came from Windhelm for that very purpose,” I told him, proudly.
“Ah, really?” he asked. “I apologize, my friend. I assumed you were a refugee. The way you were dressed…”
“I was the victim of bandits!” I exclaimed in shame.
“Oh I should have known,” Ralof said. “I hear Jarl Balgruuf neglects his patrols here in the mountains.”
I was left speechless and staring to hear the jarl’s policies criticized so bluntly by a commoner! For a moment, I was tempted to grab him by the collar and demand he meet me on the field of honor. Then it occurred to me that it was the sort of thing I had often imagined myself saying to my father, and Ralof felt free to say it to me now because he had no idea who I was. I could never have imagined how invigorating it would feel to be… to be… well, not me!
“Tell me something,” I started. “How are the new tax policies affecting businesses in Riverwood?”
“You should ask my sister questions about Riverwood,” Ralof answered. “I’ve never lived there. See that ruin on the mountainside? That’s Bleak Falls Barrow. I don’t know how she can stand to live in the shadow of that thing.”
We slowed our pace as we approached the town. “Do you see those three stones, set in a triangle?” There was no way I could miss what he was referring to. It sat directly in front of us at a bend in the trail. “Those are three of the thirteen Standing Stones that dot Skyrim’s landscape. You should take a look at them.”
The Stones were carved with figures representing the constellations of the Thief, the Mage, and the Warrior. The Warrior held his weapon raised in a pose suggesting imminent glory. I ran my hand across the pictograph, and felt a thrill of energy fill me. I felt ready for my doom.
“The Warrior—good!” Ralof approved. “Those stars will bring you success in battle.” The trail now ran alongside a merry river. “I’m glad you decided to stay with me,” Ralof told me. “We’re almost to Riverwood now.” His approval and his easy friendship made me feel as though we’d been comrades for years, rather than having just met. This was part of what I had sought when I left home to find the Stormcloaks, and I knew then I had made the right choice.
Ralof led me across a wooden bridge to the mill, where he called to his sister, Gerdur. “Ralof?” she asked. “What a surprise.”
“We just escaped from Helgen,” he explained. “This was the first place I thought to come.”
“Helgen? What has happened at Helgen?” she asked in alarm.
“You mean we are the first to come this way?” he questioned in return. “Can we talk someplace quieter?”
She looked at me then. An expression of shock washed over her face and for a second, I thought she had recognized me, but then she said, “By Talos, you could be my brother’s twin!”
Ralof and I looked at each other and, with a laugh, recognized the truth of it. We had the same build and we both wore our hair and beards the same way, though my hair was somewhat the redder. Our Stormcloak uniforms only heightened the impression.
Gerdur called to her husband, Hod, and led us all to a secluded and pretty spot next to the river. As we walked, I told her about the dragon. At first, she was incredulous, but when I assured her that Ralof would back me up, she accepted the story and told me of a dark shadow she’d seen flying over the barrow on the mountainside. Then I asked her what she thought of the war. Her feelings echoed my own, which led us to the subject of Jarl Balgruuf’s neutrality—a subject on which we seemed to agree with equal passion. I tell you that if this woman had not been married already, I might have courted her.
Ralof sat down on a log, put his elbows to his knees and bowed his head as though the events of the day had finally caught up with him. This was his affect as he related his story to his sister and brother-in-law. I, on the other hand, could not sit down. I paced nervously, jumped up on the stump behind him, and took in the scenery as though I had never seen anything like it before. I had been saved from execution that very day by a dragon, and I stood here in a Stormcloak uniform, keeping company with a Stormcloak “brother”, among people who saw me as one of them, and I had never felt more alive.
“The jarl needs to know there is a dragon on the loose,” Gerdur said, when Ralof was done. “Riverwood is defenseless. Will you take word to him?”
With a start, I realized her question was directed at me. Without knowing it, she was asking me to return to the smothering blanket of responsibilities and expectations that was my father’s hall. What’s more, there was no way I could honorably refuse. Ralof could not go—the Imperials knew his face and name. Hod and Gerdur had their business to run. I owed my life to her brother and had nothing better to do, so I was the logical choice.
The twilight was deepening as I agreed to this, and Hod offered to lead us back to the house and get us settled in. Gerdur grinned at him and said, “You mean you’ll settle into our mead with them.”
In the house—their tiny, one room home--they offered me food, and I ate as though I’d been starving in the mountains for a week. And I drank anything they offered me, and then I slept in the bed they offered. I awoke rested before dawn and set on my way.
Comments
Beginning to like these backstories, perhaps i will one day take to the quill!