Having looked through Elgrim’s inventory, dully inattentive to the possibilities, I’m now staring listlessly at his alchemy table. I feel as though my chosen profession is losing its luster; I can’t seem to focus. Elgrim’s irritable, vaguely mean-spirited chatter isn’t helping. Was he always this annoying? Did I really come here every day to practice, back when I first stayed in Riften, and not notice? Somehow I thought there’d be more to do here, but in my alchemy funk, there’s really very little. Jade and I visit the Bee and Barb, of course, but apart from an odd little colloquy taking place between Sapphire and Wander-Lust, everything is just as I remember it--Vulwulf Snow-Shod and the Black-Briars are as unpleasant as ever. I ask Keerava for news, and she hands me a note that she’s been passing out to travelers: I put the thing away. I don’t need yet another notice of derring-do to be done poisoning my mood. It’s not difficult to figure out the reason for my aimlessness, of course: it’s been a hard journey, a journey that I barely survived, and now, having done nothing but work toward its completion for several days, I am faced with the fulfillment of its purpose--to see Jade safely home, and say goodbye, and let her remain here within the relative safety of Riften’s walls when I finally depart. I’m trying, I suppose, to postpone that moment for as long as possible, but its imminence hangs over everything I do. But Jade seems cheerful, and her chatter keeps me smiling despite these sad reflections. “What about Peragorn and Valindor?” she asks as we amble around the marketplace, and I spend a few moments in bewildered incomprehension before realizing that she has turned to matchmaking again. “What, you don’t think they like each other? Or you think they don’t like other males?” As I’m pondering this dilemma, never having considered the romantic preferences of either of them before, a courier comes running up and, to my dismay, delivers another note: This is quite simply the weirdest missive I have seen yet. The Jarl of Falkreath wants to see me--because of the “fame of my exploits across Skyrim”? What could he possibly mean? Have I become known for gathering more armloads of purple mountain flowers than any one alchemist or interior decorator could possibly make use of within a normal lifetime? For occasionally delivering small packages to nearby recipients and being grossly overpaid for that service? For strutting back and forth in front of Jarl Elisif the Fair like a costumed chicken? Wait--is this a standard form letter that Jarl Siddgeir sends to anyone he wants see, for whatever reason? But it wouldn’t do to ignore such a message, would it? It’s from a Jarl, and there’s that tantalizing mention of a “choice parcel of land”--doubtless I would have to do something adventurous to earn it, but you never know; after all, I can’t possibly be famous for doing such things, so maybe I’m wanted for some purpose better suited to my limited capacities--perhaps the Jarl intends that I should dress up like a Penitus Oculatus agent and follow Dengeir around while scribbling meaningless notes and surreptitiously handing them to passers-by. At dusk we head to Haelga’s Bunkhouse to visit Kjoli and Inari, the lovers we met in Shor’s Stone. As fate would have it, we find them in the middle of an argument--Inari, it seems, is not pleased to learn of Kjoli’s intention to adopt a child. She runs up the stairs in a temper, and Kjoli, clearly confused by her vehemence, asks me to talk to her. I do, and at first her objections seem natural enough--she and Kjoli aren’t actually married, it turns out, and she wonders how he could possibly have thought it appropriate for an unmarried couple to adopt. But then she goes on to relate a surpassingly weird tale of meeting him at a temple where she had gone with the intention of committing suicide. He was praying, and as she plunged her dagger into her heart, he tried to save her. Something passed between them, and she has somehow, despite being dead, continued to exist on love alone. Kjoli overhears this, and tells her that she isn’t dead--a healer told him that the dagger missed her heart and she made a full recovery--and that he would gladly marry her in any case: the only reason that he never asked is that his own parents were unmarried and perfectly happy, so it never struck him as being terribly important. Inari is so moved by his words that she agrees to marry him immediately, and they ask me to help with the arrangements. Jade has been silent during the entire exchange. As we enter the temple of Mara, I decide to ask her to perform the ceremony. She tries earnestly to persuade me to ask Maramal instead, for the couple’s own good. I don’t know--I think it’s silly for her to be so worried about this curse; I would hope that she sees that any weirdness in Inari and Kjoli’s relationship was there long before she met them and has nothing to do with her. So I tell her to go ahead with it, and it actually goes off rather well. (You can watch the entire scene on YouTube.) I’m not sure I understand this stuff about Inari’s being dead or not being dead, but she’s happy, and Kjoli is happy, and that’s what counts, not some trivial detail about whether one is married to a corpse. The following morning, I say goodbye to Jade. Delaying the inevitable is just making me feel worse, and I don’t want to keep the Jarl of Falkreath waiting. It’s impossible for us to say anything adequate to the occasion--our hearts are too full, and the dialog options too limited. To protect me on my journey, I hire an arrogant young wizard named Marcurio. He promises to be a tedious companion, full of his own importance, but he’s eager to take my money and confident that he can blow my enemies to smithereens. Outside the tavern, I meet someone new--her name is Caylene, and she is either a beggar who does street performances or a very low-paid bard, depending on your perspective. For the price of a single septim, she performs a one-woman play for me called “The Jarl and the Jarless.” It’s truly dreadful; I feel thoroughly guilty for being so vastly entertained by it. I turn to Marcurio to learn his opinion, but he only observes slyly that I’m wearing an Amulet of Mara, and wonders that someone like me isn’t taken. I am grossly offended--someone like me, indeed! Someone who paid him five hundred septims not ten minutes ago and clearly has more where that came from--is that it? Does he really have no better sense than to propose to a woman he has just started working for? Is this his idea of professionalism? I tell him flatly that I’m not interested, and he says he’s sorry he brought it up. I should hope so! We depart Riften in mutual dissatisfaction, start heading north, and soon hear the tiresome noise of a bear up ahead. Then I notice another bear off to the side. I jump on my horse and gallop away in vexation, leaving Marcurio to deal with the angry wildlife as he chooses. He catches up with me at around lunchtime, as I’m devouring an experimental new dish that I think I’ll call Nona’s Rabbity Reagent Salad (I’ve recently picked up the Experimenter perk, which allows me to figure out two properties of any alchemy ingredient I swallow instead of just one, and I have a lot of ingredients to get through, as well as a nice bit of rabbit). Once my vision has cleared and I’m well enough to walk again, we go on with our journey, and I’m just starting to think that it might not be so bad traveling with Marcurio after all--he’s annoying, but that and the fact that he’s a hired mercenary combine refreshingly to remove any sense of responsibility I might otherwise feel for his welfare--when disaster strikes. It starts with a couple of wolves--nothing to worry about, as Vigilance and I are perfectly capable of killing such beasts as these without assistance. But Marcurio insists on showing off his skills, and his dodging this way and that while projecting bolts of flame from his fingers would make for a fine display if his aim weren’t so terrible. He fails to hit any appropriate target, and an errant blast finally catches Vigilance, whose fur bursts into flame. Vigilance turns on his attacker, Marcurio hits him with yet another firebolt, and I watch helplessly as my two companions, the animal understandably panicked by being set on fire, and the man who ought to know better than to torment such an animal, have at each other relentlessly, ignoring my attempts to calm them, until Vigilance, thoroughly outmatched, burns to death. I’m horrified--utterly dumbstruck. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. I almost dismiss Marcurio on the spot, a mere four hours or so after paying his fee up front. And yet I know I can’t do without him--the roads are simply too dangerous, now, for me to travel alone. I’m trapped. I need protection, and being forced to receive it from the odious man who killed my dog makes me want to weep. Poor Vigilance! I hate leaving him here like this, his sad, furry corpse stretched out on the road, but I can’t pick him up and carry him, I can’t bury him--so here he will have to stay. I move on, numbly, with Marcurio following and at least having the decency to keep his ugly stupid mouth shut. The sun goes down, and although I was hoping to pass Valtheim Towers before making camp--the road leading up to them is so steep that I can’t find a clear, flat camping spot of any size--I tire of walking through the dark and set up my fire and my tent in the limited space available, leaving Marcurio to shift for himself. He knows where I keep the camping gear. Let him put up his own damn tent. The following morning, we pass the Towers and the turnoff to Whitrerun, taking the road that runs through Riverwood and along Lake Ilinalta. This is one of the most beautiful travel routes I know, but it brings me no joy; I feel stupid and miserable without my loyal, brave, incessantly-barking dog and my timid, self-doubting friend. And it’s a shame, because Marcurio is an astonishingly effective bodyguard--hostile beings are frequently burned to a crisp before I’m fully aware of their presence. (At least, I hope they’re hostile beings, and not just innocent passers-by or their pets.) With the security he affords me, I can walk all day without ever having to stop brooding about how much I loathe him. We arrive in Falkreath before 6 pm--not a bad time to present myself to the Jarl. I step behind a cart and change into my best clothes, the outfit that Taarie gave me to show to Jarl Elisif. We pass the general store and I can’t resist buying a couple of those scrumptious wheels of cheese. (Perhaps it is not the best idea to see Jarl Siddgeir while smelling strongly of cheese, but that thought only occurs to me after I’ve handed over my money.) Siddgeir turns out to be a pampered, self-satisfied young man, little more than a youth; any hope I might have entertained of his having a task for me that accords with my inclinations and competencies is quickly blown. “We’ll see if the stories about you are true,” he says, before describing his problem: there’s a group of bandits in his hold that he wants killed--not because of their crimes, but because they’re no longer paying him a cut of their proceeds. I don’t have any good way to respond. I can accept, I can flatly refuse, or I can turn away without answering. The latter options strike me not only as rude but as potentially risky: Siddgeir may be too great a coxcomb to think anything of telling a stranger about his chummy relationships with bandits, but there might be others looking out for his interests who have a grain of sense. I tell him I’ll do it. And not, I’m sorry to say, with the intention of appeasing him so that I can quietly leave Falkreath and forget the whole thing--I actually want to do it. I know how bad that is; I’ve willingly accepted a quest that goes against the basic principle under which I live my life: I am not a hero. I don’t kill bandits. (Well, I do, but only if they insist on attacking me as I’m going about my non-adventuring-related business.) But I want that land--that parcel of land that I can receive only through service to this silly young man. I thought I could marry my way into homeownership, but I’m too picky--I simply cannot find the house I want attached to the spouse I want. I would never have predicted that my dreams of domesticity would lead me down the slippery slope of adventure, but there it is; Nona Plaia will be a fallen woman. Best not to dwell on it--there will be plenty of time for self-recrimination when I’m done, if I survive. I need to focus on planning. I’m going to want some help, and not from Marcurio: the bandits are based in Embershard Mine, and narrow mine tunnels will make it difficult for a wizard to get clear shots at the enemy; plus there’s the more pressing fact that I absolutely detest the smug, soul-patch-sporting little creep. I want someone who will take the lead--someone with armor and weapons and courage and bulk. Someone like--just to pick an entirely random example that has nothing to do with my personal inclinations--that big, handsome fellow in Markarth with the goat on his shoulder. Vorstag? This needs to happen soon, before I can talk myself out of it. First thing tomorrow, I start breaking the rules.
3 Comments
Tjhom
10/3/2013 12:58:06 am
Poor Vigilance...
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Mewness
10/3/2013 01:44:49 am
Lady Mara is forgiving, fortunately. But I think Inari found his barking very distracting.
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Cousin Vacua
10/8/2013 01:39:31 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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