Interlude – Dropping Eaves

• Posted by Kyrielle Atrinati December 21, 2012 - 411 views

  "Where you runnin' off to?"

  "Just goin' out.  I'll be back by supper."

  "Don't go up to that house on the lake, boy."

  "Why not, ma?"

  "'S' haunted.  'S' dangerous."

  "Tsh.  No, it's not.  Mathies says there's a woman living up there.  I want to meet her."

  "Aye.  A witch woman is what.  You stay 'way from that place.  She'll steal your soul and leave me without a son."

  "No, she won't.  She's just a newcomer is all."

  "I'm tellin' you.  Stay 'way from that house!  Understand?"

  "Yes, ma."

  Freidal left the house at a jog, heading up the streets of Falkreath.  It was early enough in the evening, and, true to form, the city was covered in a dense fog.  Shouldering his bow, he trotted off into the hills, wanting to get a bit of hunting in before full dark.

  The boy headed north into the forest, savoring the sounds of chirping crickets and insects in the spring night.  He passed a beehive and made a mental note to smoke the bees out later so he could bring his ma' some honey.  On the whole, he was a decent enough lad a few years out of his rites of passage, young and hot-blooded.  Given another year, he would go on to join the Imperial Legion and maybe even give his life for his country.

  Ahead, he spotted a deer, grazing on the dewy ground among the new sprouts and shoots.  The stag was in his sights and he had an arrow ready to fly when the antlered beast darted away into the brush.  As he turned to give chase, he paused, seeing a slight figure emerging into the clearing.  Early moonlight shone on her face, for it was a frail elf who stood looking with sorrow and dismay after the fleeing deer.  A mark of blood red glowed upon her brow like the foot of a bird.

  "Excuse me, miss.  What are you doing out here in the dark?" he asked.

  "Oh, I'm a little lost, you see."  Her voice was airy and dreamlike.

  "Lost?"

  "Yes.  I was on my way home, and I just--the forest is so big and the trees are so tall.  I just lost my way!"  She came close to Freidal, placing a hand on his chest, and looking up at him with bright green eyes like light through leaves.  The lad, seeing a lovely lady in distress felt he had no choice but to answer the call.  That she possessed a wild kind of beauty that set his blood on fire didn't hurt, either.

  "I know this forest like the back of my hand," he said proudly.

  "You do?  Then could a knowledgeable, strong young man like you lead me home?"  Her voice was almost too much for the young man, and he swallowed, trying to gather his wits.  Freidal took her hand, which was warm, though slightly calloused, and the elf rewarded him with a smile that shone with light.  It wasn't until he had taken her most of the way to her house that he noticed the vague emptiness of her eyes, or the way they wandered about, never quite looking at him directly.  They saw through him as if she viewed someone or something else.

  Yet, he continued on, and entered her house when she bade him inside.  He never learned her name, he realized, but with that came the thought that he didn't care.  The door closed and his mother saw him not for two days.

  When he returned to his home, something in him had changed.

  "Least ways, that's the way I heard it," said a gruff Nord with a broad nose and shaved hair.  I paid for his mead and gazed thoughtfully across the inn known as Dead Man's Drink.

  "What happened to him?" I asked, at last.

  "That all depends on who you're asking," he grinned sardonically.

  "Beg pardon?"

  "Ask his mother, and she'll holler up and down that woman's a witch and a vampire to boot.  Same with most of the married women in town."

  "I see, and the other half of the town says otherwise?"

  "Aye.  We knowed what happened to that lad second he stepped into town with that dazed look on his face," the Nord paused to take a long swig from his mead, extending the dramatic effect as much as possible.  "Every man 'round here remembers his first lay with a woman.  That's all that happened."

  "Has he gone up there since?" I inquired, worried this woman was exactly who I was dreading.

  "Nah.  Said she was too strange for him."  The look on my face must have betrayed my thoughts.  "That ain't your wife living on that lake, is it?"

  "No, but..." I sighed, fighting the urge to put my face in my hands.  Has she already forgotten me?

  "Ah.  Well, if you want to have a go at her, all you need to go is follow the north road up to the small house on the hill.  Then hang a left towards the lake."  He returned to drinking his mead pensively.

  Have a go at her.  If this was my love, it certainly didn't sound like her usual behavior.  Visions of males of all shapes and sizes making the pilgrimage to her home filled my head.  I clenched my fists in rage.  "Yes, I'll...have a go at her," I replied, smiling crookedly.  The Nord shifted, appearing suddenly uncomfortable.

  He later found his bed filled with spiders.

  I loped north along the road leading away from Falkreath.  Verses from the man's story played in my head endlessly, and dread crowded my chest with every step towards the place where the "woman" lived.  Had the location of the house not matched the deed's description, I would have moved on.  But it didn't.  And my beloved was still out there, hiding and leaving clues.

  Along the way, I ensnared a butterfly in a small jar, intending to give it to her as a gift upon my arrival.  As I crested the hill, I came to the small house perched above the lake.  Strange cries were coming from the yard, though a stand of trees stood in the way.

  "Gwaihen!  It's me!" I cried, worries momentarily forgotten.