Torin shouldered open the heavy door of Jorrvaskr and walked into a wall of sound. It wasn't the usual low rumble of conversation and clinking tankards. This was a full-throated roar, a chorus of cheers, jeers, and shouted encouragement that bounced off the ancient timber walls.
His own arrival, usually enough to turn a few heads, went completely unnoticed.
Every single person in the mead hall—and there were a lot of them, maybe thirty warriors packed shoulder-to-shoulder—was riveted to the open space before the great hearth. Their collective attention was fixed on a sight far rarer than Torin: a brawl between two elves.
But not with swords or axes.
Two elves were going at it with nothing but their bare hands. One was a Dunmer male, his grey-blue skin sheened with sweat, his movements quick and precise.
The other was a Bosmer female, smaller and wiry, darting around him like a furious hornet.
The crowd surrounding them was a testament to how much Jorrvaskr had changed: burly Nords stood next to hulking Orcs, a couple of sharp-eyed Redguards were placing bets, and a Imperials watched with interest.
They were all Companions now, though Torin's practiced eye could pick out the fresh-faced whelps from the few scarred veterans.
The elves were the only ones of their kind here. The Dunmer was Athis. Torin remembered the name, a flicker of recognition from a now barely half-remembered life playing a game. He'd shown up about two years back, quiet but tough, and ambitious. He earned his place without much fuss.
The Bosmer was the real surprise. Her name was Auri. She'd arrived a few months after Athis, and the story of how she got here was enough to raise a few brows.
Aela the Huntress, of all people, had brought her in. The tale went that Aela had been on a contract to cull a wolf pack near the border of Falkreath.
She'd found the wolves already being harassed by this tiny, furious Wood Elf who was trying to track down and exterminate the beasts because they were "disturbing the soil's song" in a spot where she wanted to "plant her house"—a phrase no one fully understood but everyone accepted as Bosmer weirdness.
At first, they'd nearly come to blows over the contract and the debate on wolf extermination. Then, realizing there was a wild werewolf behind the pack, they'd formed a temporary, grudging alliance.
By the end of it, covered in wolf blood and gore, they'd developed something of a mutual respect.
Aela, impressed by the elf's preternatural tracking skill and her wild, unpredictable fighting style, had done the unthinkable: she'd looked at the strange little woman and asked, "You ever think about a proper roof and a steady supply of mead?"
Auri had shrugged, said something about "roots needing to stretch," and hadn't refused.
Now, here she was, in the heart of Jorrvaskr, ducking under a hook from Athis and driving a fist into his ribs with a sharp thwack that drew a collective "Ooof!" from the crowd.
Torin couldn't help but smile. This wasn't the Jorrvaskr he'd grown up in.
The memory of those quiet afternoons felt like something from another lifetime. Sitting on the porch steps with a weathered book, the steady thwack-thwack of the twins practicing with their greatswords, Aela's arrows thudding into a distant target... that peace was gone, buried under the roar of this new, vibrant chaos.
Maybe that's why the decision to 'leave' had come so easily. Though 'leave' wasn't quite the right word.
He hadn't torn the wolf from his armor. He still came back, still drank the mead, still answered when they called for a tough job. But the days when he spent more time inside these timber walls than outside them were a faded memory.
He couldn't even recall the last time he'd bunked here for a full week straight. His bed in Markarth, his hidden workshop in the cave, even the dusty inns of the different holds—they were his anchors now.
A flicker of something—nostalgia, maybe—touched him, but it wasn't sadness. How could he be sad?
Kodlak, with his bottomless patience and quiet wisdom, would always be his father. Ulf's gruff teasing, Eorlund's grumbling as he worked the forge at his request, the twins' brotherly roughhousing, Aela's deeply hidden brotherly affection, even Skjor's, well, Skjorness… they were his family.
That hadn't changed. It never will.
The bonds were forged in steel and blood, and no amount of distance would rust them.
But Jorrvaskr itself… it was never meant to be a quiet library or a permanent 'safe-space' for a boy with too many secrets and scars.
It was supposed to be this: a roaring fire in the hearth, the air thick with the smell of sweat, blood, and spilled mead. A place where warriors, still stinking of the wilds, boasted of their kills while counting their coin. A gathering point for the strongest, the bravest, the most restless souls in Skyrim. A living, breathing forge where legends were smelted and molded.
And by the Nine, that's exactly what it was becoming again. It was loud, crowded, messy, and absolutely alive.
Watching the mixed crowd roar as Auri landed another punch, a slow smile spread across Torin's face. No, he wasn't sad. You don't mourn an old oak sprouting leaves after years of wilting.
You just step back and admire it.
And speaking of stepping back…
Torin let out a long, weary sigh as his gaze swept across the hall and landed on a familiar, and unwelcome, sight. At the far end of the long table, separate from the roaring crowd around the sparring elves, sat a Redguard.
He was methodically working his way through a piece of hardtack, washing it down with plain water as if it were a solemn ritual.
Qasim.
The Redguard glanced up, his sharp, dark eyes meeting Torin's. He offered a single, curt nod of acknowledgment, then returned to his sparse meal, his expression unreadable.
Torin fought the urge to grimace. The years had sanded down some of Qasim's roughest edges. The wide-eyed, preachy pilgrim who'd talked of spirit-swords and holy quests was gone, replaced by a harder, quieter man with new scars and a gaze that had seen a fair share of failiures.
He wasn't as naive. He wasn't as preachy. But the man still loved metaphors and sticking his nose in other people's business like a drunk loved his next bottle.
Even so, Torin wanted as little to do with him as possible. It wasn't personal, not really. It was practical.
Trouble didn't just follow Qasim; it ran ahead of him, laid out a welcome mat, and put the kettle on. Looking back, that entire chaotic, contract-packed, ghost-inn-visiting month they'd traveled together?
That was almost certainly Qasim's default setting.
As for what he was doing in Jorrvaskr of all places… that was its own story. About a year after they'd parted ways in Markarth, the Redguard had shown up at the doors of the mead hall.
He'd been a mess: fresh, poorly-tended wounds, his clothes stained with blood and bog mud, but with a fire in his eyes that hadn't dimmed.
He'd tried to take the Sundered Towers by himself. Multiple times. According to the story he reluctantly told, he'd left a respectable pile of Forsworn corpses in his wake each attempt, but the Towers had left their own marks on him.
A few close shaves with poisoned blades and crushing boulders had finally hammered a lesson into his thick skull: he needed to be better. Or, at the very least, he needed someone to watch his back.
The Companions, always on the lookout for capable fighters, had been taken aback by his sheer, refined skill with a blade. They let him in, though the novelty of his preaching about the Shehai and the teachings of the gods wore off for everyone within a week, and thankfully, he'd mostly stopped.
But the moment the others realized he and Torin had history, the questions started pouring in. It was exhausting.
The others had been extremely interested in the tale of the ghost at Old Hroldan. The idea of a weapon lost by Tiber Septim himself, just waiting in some dank ruin? That was the kind of legendary loot that made even the most stoic Companion's eyes gleam.
Qasim's quest for his "Spirit Sword," on the other hand, was met with polite bafflement. It sounded like mystical nonsense, and they barely tolerated that brand of weirdness from Torin.
Farkas, ever eager for a good fight, had even slapped the table and boomed, "Why wait? Let's go clear those towers right now! Smash the Forsworn, find the swords, split the treasure!"
Kodlak had shut it down with the quiet, immovable force of a mountain. "The threads were laid before these two," the old Harbinger had said, his voice leaving no room for argument.
"The gods, or fate, or simple strange chance, put this path at their feet. It is for them to walk it. We do not share a destiny like it's a bandit camp."
The twins and Aela had grumbled, but they didn't challenge Kodlak's wisdom. They knew the sound of finality.
Qasim, of course, had just nodded solemnly, as if hearing a divine confirmation. And Torin? He wasn't much for believing in pre-ordained paths. He still carried the old, silver hawk amulet from Falkreath with Kyne's mark, more out of habit and a vague sense of connection than piety.
But even he had to admit... the signs were a little too on the nose.
The ghost, the amulet, all that trouble, Qasim's relentless quest—it all pointed toward the Sundered Towers like a crooked, ominous signpost.
He just hadn't felt like dealing with it.
Clearing out a fortified Forsworn nest was a major operation, and he'd had other priorities: his enchantments, his Dwarven tinkering, his own contracts.
It was easier to let it sit on the back burner, a piece of unfinished business he'd get to "eventually."
And well, "eventually" had finally arrived. It was time to dig out that old pot and see what was left to cook. Even if it meant stirring the pot alongside the walking headache that was Qasim.
But first, there was someone he needed to see. He turned away from the noise of the main hall and headed for the stairs leading down to the living quarters.
He needed to offer a proper greeting and bid a proper farewell to the old man. Because after this Forsworn business, his path was leading north, to Winterhold and the College.
Learning was only one item on a long list of reasons to go there, and he had a feeling he wouldn't be swinging by Jorrvaskr for mead and gossip for a good, long while.
...
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