Reborn ~an Alduin Love Story~

Ivarstead

Sizaa didn't feel the chill of the breeze nor the pain of her wound with each step that brought her further from her home. She didn't see the plethora of flora growing along the base of the mountain or the brilliance of the bright blue sky. She didn't hear the calls of the wildlife or the rustling of leaves. She didn't taste the melting of morning frost or sweetness of morning dew in the air. She didn't smell the earth stirred up beneath her boots or the needles of pine trees that had fallen to the ground. She didn't stop to admire the beauty of the world around her or notice as Alduin pulled her forward from a gentle grip on her wrist.

Somewhere along their journey downward Sizaa had simply stopped moving and wouldn't respond to any of his calls. Finding her unresponsive to reason he decided to try and lead her, she suddenly abnormally compliant to his guidance. He had brought her down the mountain and now to the bridge that lead to the village at its bottom in silence.

Sizaa's mind was empty, her heart devoid of all but a sense of hopelessness. In that moment she was nothing with nothing. A peasant girl with no home, family, steading or friends-no wait. Acyline. A spark of light in her darkened soul. She had Acyline, the last remaining person who hadn't abandoned her. Though as she thought about it she realized it has been quite sometime since Acyline had visited her. Maybe she too had abandoned her. Even if not Acyline was the leader of the thieves guild now. Despite Sizaa's basic skills in shadow work she wouldn't truly fit in such a world and there would certainly be no place for Alduin whom she was now duty bound to protect. Light extinguished. Acyline could provide her no refuge.

"This is the village of Ivarstead," Alduin began to describe how the village was originally known as Hillgrund's Steading, or Hillgrundhofkah. A small settlement created to harvest grain and honey to produce mead. According to him it hadn't grown much since it's original founding. Sizaa wasn't paying enough attention to hear him though, her mind now too focused on the strange new people at the edge of the bridge.

"On your way up the seven thousand steps again Klimmik?" A man, unlike any she had seen before, asked the person across from him. From what she had been told, and read from books, the man who had spoke was a wood elf or Bosmer based on his beige complexion and pointed ears. The man identified as Klimmek however seemed to be a nord, the common people of the land. As she looked closer she could have sworn she had seen him before.

"Not today. I'm just not ready to make the climb to High Hrothgar. The path isn't safe." 'That's it!' Klimmek was the man who delivered their supplies. Sizaa had caught a glance of him in her younger years before Arngier noticed her peaking through the front entry and made her go to her room. The memory almost brought tears to her eyes, still not having come to terms with her banishment. Not wanting to be further reminded of her recently lost home she pushed past the men, running directly into a guard.

"Staying safe I hope." His accent was so thick she almost couldn't understand what he had said. 'So many different kinds of people...' if she hadn't been so frazzled she would have been fascinated by the abundance of diversity the world seemed to hold. Alduin soon caught up go her, placing his hands on her shoulders and pulling Sizaa back against him. He glared furiously at the guard until they walked away in fear. Sizaa wasn't sure if she should read the gesture as protectiveness or possessiveness but either way it made her uncomfortable and angry.

"Don't touch me!" She yanked out of his grip and flipped around to face him, striking him across the face. "This is all your fault! Everything is your fault! You are evil incarnate you...you...vokul ved-viing vith! (Evil black-wing serpent)!"

Alduin was speechless, his hand lightly touching his reddened cheek. No one had ever spoken to him in such a way and lived to tell about it. He could feel that familiar fire his usual rage burning through the paper of his calm. He wanted to shout. To stop the fire from burning him and instead burn away all in his path. But he knew who lay in his path. Sizaan Kulass. The lost princess he had gotten banished from her adoptive kingdom. Such guilt.

But why? He had done much worse. He had torn husbands from wives, homes from families, mothers from children, livestock from dirt poor farmers with nothing else to give and felt nothing. But seeing this poor broken girl, a girl he had broken, made his heart ache. His silence only furthered her anger. Sizaa stormed into the tavern door they had stopped in front of but before she could make much progess inside a man, another nord with the sort of expression that screamed arrogance, stepped into her path.

"You don't look like a pilgrim. Why bother visiting Ivarstead?"

"Bassianus!" The man behind the counter yelled, "leave the couple alone." 'Couple?' It was only then she noticed Alduin had followed her inside. "They're probably weary enough from their travels and don't need to answer to the likes of you."

She wanted to shout they weren't a couple and that there was no they and that she would rather be with someone, ANYONE, else but she stopped herself. In the day of being with Alduin she had completely forgotten all of the lectures on the care of using ones voice, thu'um or otherwise, and the power of words. She had let her anger draft her speech for the first time since her childhood. It made her sick. Striking Alduin when he truly hadn't done anything wrong by her, made her sick.

The man named Bassianus scoffed but obeyed, sitting down at a bench across the inn. She walked to the counter, politely asked for a room which she payed for with a particularly potent healing potion she had crafted as she had no money, and threw herself onto the bed in the room she was given. She didn't care Alduin was there seated beside her, she didn't care there was no door to provide privacy from those in the inn, she didn't even care they could all hear her. Sizaan wept for hours upon all that had been lost that day.