Northbound Pilgrimage II

Chapter XXVII - A Better Place

Aeyrin looked at the small mailbox with a frown, her hand that held the thick envelope hesitated.

She wrote it all down. All of it. Everything that happened with the bounty on her head, with Faldaen, everything that happened to her in Falkreath. Everything that she was going through, all her fears and all her stubbornness to run away from her past.

She wrote about everything that Bishop had done, what he had hidden from her and why and... she wrote about how much she regretted not trying to move on from it sooner. How much she missed him and how much she wished that things had turned out differently.

In his last letter, Master Therien was concerned about all the things she had left unsaid. She was insufferably vague – she only wanted to reassure him that she was alive and to apologize for disregarding his fears.

Now she just wanted someone to talk to. Someone to listen. And it was easier through a letter, she thought at first. She was wrong. Putting the words down on the paper was more painful than she had imagined. But she needed to do it. It didn't matter anymore if she was ready. She couldn't run anymore.

She needed to move on.

The world didn't wait for her, and her stubbornness only hurt those she loved the most.

She was so stupid. Always clinging to the idea that she would one day go back to the way things were.

There was no such thing.

There was only moving forward and learning to live with her past.

And somehow, it was comforting. Instead of retreating to her old comforts, instead of using people that she loved to hide away from her issues, she needed to face them. And she would. And she would come out stronger for it.

She did so before, she could do it again.

She'd been so afraid of everything. Scared of ruining her relationship with Bishop, even scared of facing dragons or some stupid rumors. She had always worked so hard on overcoming all this and she even succeeded at times. She couldn't go back to wallowing in self-pity. She needed to keep working on this, no matter what. That was the only way to move on.

Maybe at times she would be weak, maybe she would suffer, maybe things would get hard to overcome, but that was alright. It was part of life. She needed to learn to be alright with it, her fears, her weaknesses, they were all part of her and she needed to learn to live with them, not ignore them.

This was a good step. She had spent over a day in her camp near Dragon Bridge, wallowing in her regrets. But no more. Instead of that, she would try to fix her mistakes as best as she could. She had received a letter from Karliah this afternoon, after she had spent the night composing her words to Master Therien and then sleeping in to make up for the time spent agonizing over it, and it forced her to pack up her camp and get moving.

She would go back to the meadery soon. And after she found out what Karliah needed, there were other things to concentrate on.

Like reaching out to Bishop. She just hoped that he would listen to her after what happened.

With a determined sigh she stuffed the hefty envelope into the mailbox.

This was the right choice.

And it did feel a little better.

...

"Aeyrin. You made it just in time," Karliah inclined her head in greeting and motioned for her to join her in by the table in the familiar attic room at the meadery.

Raven was scurrying around the room quickly, rummaging through drawers and stuffing various things into his travel pack. His dark armor was laid out on his bed along with his bow and daggers. He was obviously preparing for a mission.