Northbound Pilgrimage II

Chapter XXIV - Left Unsaid

Everything burned.

Everything hurt so much.

She tried to open her eyes. She tried to move. But no muscle in her body seemed to work.

Where was she?

It was so cold. The only thing she could feel were the shivers of her body, making her ache even more with all the rapid motions.

She remembered the pain... the lightning, the shocks coursing through her body. They hit her like a wave after wave of agony. What happened?

She tried to open her eyes once more with all the resolve and determination that she could muster at that moment. Though... for some reason, it didn't feel like she had much of those left. But still, this time it worked. She was so tired and her eyes threatened to close again promptly, but she kept forcing them open.

She could see stars in the night sky and the faint black outline of tall trees in her sights. She was... on the road. Near Helgen. And... there was that dragon. She recalled the fight again – the horrible pain from the Shout and then the even worse absorption. But she remembered nothing after that.

Was she still in the same spot? It... it wasn't nighttime before, right?

How long has she been there?!

Gods, she passed out. Again. She... she could have really died from this.

Before now it felt like the absorptions were getting worse, but... this was... so much worse than she had thought. She didn't even know how long she'd been lying there on the ground. It could have been days!

Everything was still burning and hurting, but she needed to get herself up. She was struck by lightning. She needed a healer as soon as possible, who knew what damage it had done to her?!

With a loud cry of pain, she tried to get up again. But that obviously wouldn't be possible with her on her back. Instead, she turned to her side, then onto her stomach along with numerous grunts of pain and effort. When she had finally managed to flip over, she propped herself on her achy arms and pushed herself off the ground with another loud cry.

Why did it hurt so much?

Aeyrin finally got up to her hands and knees and scurried back into a squat. Her arms flailed helplessly for balance for a second or two until she finally managed to get up on her feet.

With a heavy sigh, she looked around. There was a skeleton of a dragon right next to her as well as one corpse of a guard and another corpse of the merchant. The cloth cover of the wagon nearby was completely gone and there was a dead horse still attached to the wagon.

Well... at least she knew where she was.

She needed to find a temple and the city closest to her was likely Falkreath. She wasn't exactly eager to go back to that place, but... desperate times called for desperate measures. She would only get quickly healed and then she would get out of that place after all. She didn't want to linger in Falkreath for a second longer than she had to.

After another deep sigh, she finally began walking. She took one shaky step then another, continuing along the path leading towards the city.

It hurt. But she had to get through this. She had no choice.

There was no one there to help her.

...

Aeyrin lay on her side in her bedroll, trying to curl even closer to the fire.

She only got the necessary healing at the temple in Falkreath and she was ready to leave even before the morning came.

The old Altmer priest was not surprised to see her at all – apparently the caravan guards had visited him earlier already. Luckily, form what the priest told her, she only lost the afternoon. It was still disturbing, but at least she wasn't lying there for days. But... that couldn't have happened anyway – someone would come by, to reclaim or ransack the wagon or to harvest the dragon's bones for material. Someone would have found her there. Although... maybe it was a good thing that no one had found her there. Gods knew who could have found her there and what they would have done with her. It was really best not to think about these things.