Northbound Pilgrimage II

Chapter XLVII - Three Is a Crowd

"Why are we stopping?"

Darren folded his arms across his chest as he threw the two of them a suspicious look.

Their journey through the Winterhold Hold and Eastmarch had taken the rest of the day and it had been decidedly uncomfortable. Darren was rather unresponsive to any attempts at small-talk from Aeyrin and he seemed angry at the company that he had found himself in the entire time. After a while, they just settled for traveling with him in silence and the two of them only talked to each other, trying to pretend that he wasn't there. He didn't seem interested in them anyway. He only ever spoke to complain about the length of the journey, the cold or the lack of properly paved roads. He even managed to appear abrasive towards Karnwyr – every time the wolf got anywhere near the Breton, he scrunched up his nose in disgust and walked a few paces away to avoid him.

Finally they reached the vicinity of the ruins of Mzulft, but it was dark already and they needed to rest before they delved inside.

"We need to make camp and rest up. The ruins are right over there. We'll head out tomorrow," Aeyrin explained while she pointed towards the faintly visible stone structures in the distance behind a canopy of trees.

"What? Those are the ruins? Why are we stopping now then? We can just go in right now and find the Staff!" Darren protested instantly.

"It takes fucking hours at best to go through Dwemer ruins, even if they were empty by some fucking miracle. We need rest. And since I'm assuming that you'll be doing sweet fuck-all to help us in combat, apprentice, you don't get a say," Bishop snarled at him.

"Watch your mouth, dog! First of all, a mage of my caliber will dispose of any enemy in a matter of a second. And I told you already, the Synod mages have already explored the ruins! The place is empty," Darren retorted again. Sometimes it just felt like he was arguing for the sake of arguing. Or maybe he really was worried about what was happening at the College in the meantime. Who knew with him? He was nothing but closed off and abrasively defensive the entire time.

"You don't fucking know that! You said yourself that they could be dead already! We're either resting here or inside the ruins where anything could be lurking about, can you get that through your thick skull?!" Bishop was losing patience with him. Every time that mage opened his mouth, it pissed him off more and more. He was just constantly whining and poking holes into their well-established routines. It was infuriating.

"You seriously expect me to sleep... in the mud?" Darren scoffed with unbridled indignation.

"Are you serious?" Aeyrin couldn't help but giggle. What did he expect? They were clearly going to travel for some time. Did he think that they could make it to the ruins and back without resting somewhere? And there wasn't even any mud around! Well... not much of it anyway.

"Unlike you, I'm actually used to sleeping inside, not in filth and dog-pens," Darren shook his head in disgust.

"You can just stand there... all night. Not like we give a fuck what you do," Bishop smirked at him. "You don't have to touch the filthy mud at all."

Darren only grumbled in annoyance, but before they pulled out their camping equipment, Aeyrin noticed something in the distance in the opposite direction from the ruins.

"Hey, is that an Orcish stronghold there, behind the trees?" she squinted to see the wooden battlements properly. She'd seen some of these strongholds from a distance before during their travels and this one looked very similar. "Is that Nar... Narulzulur?" She was pretty sure that she got the name completely wrong.

"I don't know. There's a stronghold there, but I don't remember the names," Bishop chuckled.

"Well... are there more of them in Eastmarch? Because if not, that must be the place. Do you remember those Orcs I'd met when I was with... with Faldaen? They told me that I should stop by their stronghold sometime. Maybe they would let us rest there," she beamed at Bishop excitedly.