Northbound Pilgrimage II

Chapter LXV - The Departed

"So... Calixto."

Ulfric grumbled mostly to himself.

When Aeyrin had regained her voice, she quickly tried to explain to Bishop and the helpful guard what happened, but she was ushered away all too soon by the other men and rushed into the burning house to help the wizard douse the flames with her icy Shouts and his magic.

She didn't want to return to that place at all. She could still see those flames in front of her eyes all the time, but really seeing them again was much worse. Besides, she was still only 'dressed' in the guard's cape wrapped around her body haphazardly. It was very uncomfortable. But Ulfric's men did not care in the slightest. She briefly wondered why Ulfric would actually let her Shout in front of his men, cementing the fact that she was the real Dragonborn, but she realized quickly that the rumors of the opposite were likely already put to rest after her outburst at the Palace. Now Ulfric was right back to using her skills.

Then again... he had a point. She did cause that fire.

When the flames were subdued and the house was mostly preserved, Aeyrin and Bishop were both chained and led back into the Palace while most of the guards began exploring the house in order to investigate the entire incident.

They were led into one of the offices in the barracks section of the Palace and thoroughly interrogated by the guard captain. Aeyrin was quite shocked when Bishop reported something about a hired thug who held him at knifepoint, but she couldn't really get more information out of the interrogation. Bishop was very vague, as usual, and she already knew that there was a lot of information that he had about this that he wasn't sharing with the captain. It could only mean the involvement of the Guild or the Brotherhood. She kind of hoped that it was the former, but she had her doubts.

The important thing was that he was alright though, and he even managed to escape his predicament and save her from the burning house.

Aeyrin, on the other hand, spared no detail in her report. She told the man everything about Calixto. How he tricked her into coming into the streets, how he kidnapped her from there and then had her on that table and how she had to wait for those spells to dissipate before she could act on nothing but quick instinct. She told the man about Susanna too, and about how she must have been tricked into going wherever he wanted her to. All of this only absolved her of the damage she had done to the house after all. And now that the Butcher was dead, the truth needed to come out. Otherwise Ulfric would just sweep it all under a rug and pin the blame on the elves again.

As glad as she was that the women of Windhelm were safe from that freak, she really worried about Ulfric's reaction. What would he do now when his horrid orders had no right to stay upheld? Free-Winter would chew him out for that for certain. He had no reason to claim that the elves were 'suspects' anymore, but... she was sure that he would find another way to torment them soon.

But for now, those concerns were the thing of the future.

After they had given their statements to the guard captain, they were promptly ushered to Ulfric's war room. They were still in chains and Aeyrin was still only draped in the guard's cloak, wrapped around her like a strapless dress. That was the only way she could figure out how to wear it properly with her hands bound. None of the guards seemed to be concerned over her comfort and Bishop wasn't exactly in any position to offer at least his shirt with his arms tied; although that would probably provide less coverage than the large cloak anyway. Instead, the two of them were just made to wait under guard in the war room until Ulfric came in and ushered every one of his men away.

Now it was just the three of them and Ulfric did not spare them the exasperated looks.

"You claim that Calixto was the Butcher," he scowled at Aeyrin. "All in order to 'assemble' his dead lover and a sister from the body parts of the killed women."