Farewell, Last Seed! It’s Morndas, the first day of Heartfire, and despite the beautiful clear weather I decide to stay within Whiterun’s walls--I’m still a little shaken after yesterday’s narrow escape. Jade and I walk around the city, therefore, looking for new people to pester. A Redguard couple argues about a lost heirloom that the husband wants to retrieve and the wife would rather he gave up on; a little girl bullies a little boy. The sunlight casts an aura of warm benevolence over everything, and these squabbles seem as slight as the chirping of birds in the background. I find myself noticing instead how many little memorials for fallen warriors there are around Whiterun: each stone attended by candles, with its former owner’s shield leaning upon it. The things you notice when you never move above walking speed. I run into Danica Pure-Spring, priestess of Kynareth, and talk to her about the Gildegreen, a magical tree in the center of Whiterun that apparently used to be rather splendid. It is dry and dying now, and she tells me that restoring it would require securing a drop of sap from the parent tree by piercing its otherwise impenetrable bark with a vile dagger that is guarded by hagravens. Danica says she would have attempted to do this herself, were she not terrified of such monsters. They terrify me no less, I’m sure. (In fact I start laughing--I actually burst into laughter as I try to picture timid, ineffectual Nona attempting this elaborate task.) Unfortunately, a quest update has already wormed its way into my journal, forever to remind me of my inadequacy. And I realize that, limited as Nona’s ambitions are, and no matter how successful she eventually may become in her own small way, there is one small accomplishment that she craves but never will achieve--to be treated by other NPCs as one of their own. No matter how modest, how humble, how ordinary she may be, they will always see her as Other. In the Hall of the Dead--it’s not the obvious place to go to for lively conversation, but the memorials have piqued my curiosity, and talking to Danica has left me feeling sober and pensive--I meet Iria, who speaks in a dispassionate monotone about her extensive researches into the arts of healing and the causes of death. Fortunately she enlivens this dreary disquisition with the occasional joke (delivered with no more affect than her lectures on morbidity). She describes how efforts to study healing led her at one point to experiment on animals, but the distress she was causing them (and especially the noises they made) eventually induced her to give up the practice. (“It’s as if they don’t understand the concept of research,” she tells me impassively. “Another jest.”) She now experiments exclusively on herself, she informs me. But medical research does not consume her attention entirely: she has also developed a lively admiration for Jon Battle-Born, although she refuses to go into detail about her feelings. (And what a shame! I should very much have enjoyed hearing her express her girlish hopes and doubts in that same dull monotone.) I also talk to Andurs, the priest of Arkay, who has left his amulet somewhere in the catacombs and wants me to retrieve it. I tell him with some alarm that I won’t do this, and he declares with an air of stern disappointment that Arkay may forgive me ... eventually. That my refusal should excite the god’s displeasure strikes me as grossly unfair; after all, Andurs is the one who was careless enough to lose his holy amulet, not I. Nevertheless I am made uneasy by the words of this priest, and I make sure to offer a prayer to the god before leaving. Nothing seems amiss, though; Arkay grants me his blessing. My wanderings next bring me to Jorrvaskr, where Jade and I and several of the Companions participate in the traditional Nord pastime of watching two people engage in a vicious fistfight, complete with shouted insults and death threats. After it’s over, I try to talk to the participants and to those who have gathered around to watch, but nobody is especially friendly. (Perhaps I have seriously violated local custom by turning up to an important fistfight without being invited or bringing a gift.) Returning to the marketplace, I find Jon Battle-Born leaning on a post. I’m reminded of Iria, and it occurs to me that Jon could do far worse--she may be a little severe, and somewhat lacking in vocal expression, but she’s not unattractive in her gaunt-faced way, and she seems like a conscientious person. I’m trying to decide how best to drop a few gentle hints when Jon suddenly opines that the problem with Skyrim these days is that everyone is obsessed with death. Poor Iria! This doesn’t bode at all well for her prospects with him. Carlotta Valentia complains that Mikael the bard’s attentions are getting obnoxious, and that men in general won’t leave her alone. For some reason, I don’t envy her, perhaps because I haven’t yet met any man in Whiterun whose attentions would please me (except for Jon Battle-Born, but he doesn’t seem interested in anyone). There is perhaps the possibility of Carlotta herself: I could offer to talk to Mikael for her, not that she really seems to need the help--because you never know when a little favor might be rewarded with a marriage proposal. (This is Skyrim, after all.) Carlotta insists that no man is going to come between her and her daughter. I wonder how she might feel about a woman coming between--well, never mind; let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I don’t feel like going into the Bannered Mare to talk--or listen--to Mikael right now. It’s too nice outside. Continuing generally upward, I explore to Dragonsreach, where I find the Jarl in conference with his advisors; his Dunmer housecarl tells me that he isn’t receiving visitors, and I’m more than happy to go unreceived. I enter a side-chamber to speak with Farengar, the court wizard, who does not seem to be a part of the deliberations. I buy a Healing Hands spellbook from him--now I’ll be able to heal Jade, should I ever have the presence of mind to do so when she really needs it. Farengar asks me to take some frost salts to Arcadia for him, and I cheerfully head down to her shop. Arcadia, upon receiving the salts, says something about a love brew, perhaps to be tested on Farengar; I pretend to be too absorbed in my own potionmaking to hear this. Speaking of which, my Alchemy skill has climbed to 30--it’s really coming along. I emerge from Arcadia’s to find that time has really slipped by--I could have sworn it was not so late in the day, but it sure got dark all of a sudden. There’s so much more to do in and around Whiterun, but it’s time to head back to the Bannered Mare. I see no new faces, but the regulars are all there when I arrive, including Carlotta and Mikael. I stay in the common room for a while, acting on a prurient desire to see some sort of juicy altercation happen between them, but none occurs. Something is in the air in Whiterun: Carlotta and Mikael, Iria and Jon, Arcadia and Farengar, Larkspur and anything female with a pulse--there’s unhealthy or doomed romance everywhere you look. But for me, there is only dinner, bad music, and bed.
1 Comment
Vacua
5/13/2013 02:23:27 pm
Dear Nona,
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201 And All That
Nona Plaia may well be the most boring person in Skyrim. Below are links to her "adventures" in chronological order.
A Life More Ordinary Mods An NPC is Born The Lady in the Lake Adrift in the Rift Opportunity Chops Studying Abroad Witches, Wolves Footwear is Not Enough A Modest Proposal Scales of Love Dances with Beers Five Rules to Live By Plain and Pusillanimous Watery Woes How Not to Stage a Murder Hot Heads and Cold Graves Run Nona Run Interlude A Fool Suffers Gladly The Markarth Discomfiture In Search of the Unknown It's Raining Bandits Down and Out No Holds Barred Beyond the Pale The Slippery Slope Mission Implausible The Nord in the Next Room The Only Living Girl Victory is a Gateway Drug Continuity Break Wherever You Go Archives
August 2014
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