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 Hammerfell would stop, point, and whisper in hushed, uncertain tones. Dockworkers hauling crates would pause, wipe their brows, and nod in recognition—some 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 same pattern:
"...that's the Storm-Caller..."
"...Companion 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-smelling 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 swarmed 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 metaphorical 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 seemed to have been sculpted by the gods in a moment of divine whimsy, just to host a mortal settlement.
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 moment, 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 home, 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 mental list of places best appreciated from a safe distance.
And this time, 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 names. 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 remembered 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 amusement.
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 game, the Prince's whimsy and cruelty were heavily implied, but very much sanitized for entertainment. The reality, according to the fragmented, 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 metaphysical 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 some insane punchline.
He turned his gaze away from the awe-inspiring arch of the city and looked down at the bustling, ramshackle settlement that had grown like moss around the base of the docks. There was no such place in the game, but its existence made perfect, logical sense.
The docks of Solitude were some of the busiest in Tamriel. The city on the arch, for all its grandeur, could only accommodate so many merchants, 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, smelled 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.
"Come 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 smell of cheap ale, stew, and unspoken schemes.
Every table seemed occupied by a particular type: mercenaries with too-clean armor and watchful eyes, traders with the lean, hungry look of men 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 moment 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 metaphorical 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 movement—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 methodically wiping the grime of the road from his face, neck, and arms. The water turned grey almost instantly.
Echo had already claimed 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 some 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 smell alone was a crime.
Then a better thought struck him. The College… They had libraries on every obscure branch of magic. Surely, somewhere in those frost-covered towers, there was a spell for cleaning.
A simple, elegant cantrip to banish dirt and grime. No soap, no water, just a wave of the hand and you were fresh. Now that would be worth the tuition. The mere idea brought a faint, tired smile to his face.
He finished his rudimentary 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 smell of troll. It was enough.
...
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