Echoes of the Lost Voice

The Waylay

As the southern border of the Pale blended with that of Whiterun Hold, and as the mountainous pine forests melted into barren, yellow grass-tufted rocky plains, the terrain thawed out accordingly. Though Ariela experienced trading the shelter of trees for the vast open sky looming above as oppressive at first, she was glad her face no longer burned from the bitter wind, and that she was able to incrementally stop hunching against the weather. And once she got used to the feeling of being in plain sight for any potential predator lurking about, she came to realize that she herself would have a better chance of spotting any hostiles in the open country.

Then, not long after she had marveled at how peacefully the trip had gone overall, her attention was drawn to a figure on the road a couple hundred feet ahead of them. Somebody, presumably a man, armored from head to toe staggered from one side of the road to the other, as though drunk out of his mind. The figure had his sword out, waving it, it would appear, toward the approaching women. Ariela could hear him yelling something, but could not make out the words.

She gave Runa a worried glance, but the Nord's expression was unreadable. The woman's blue eyes followed the quickly nearing figure with an impassive readiness, but nothing about her indicated that she bothered to spare the whole scene much of a thought.

"What do you think?" Ariela asked.

Runa shrugged. "A random loon," she said, as if it were a matter of course.

"What should we do?"

Runa looked at Ariela, her face still not betraying any emotion. "You hang back and let me handle this."

Ariela nodded numbly, in full agreement.

The man closed in, and Runa positioned herself a horse length ahead of the Scholar. When he got close enough, they could hear the phrasal content of the madman's ranting. "Never should have come here!" he clamored. It was a particularly stupid thing to say, Ariela thought, as this was a public road.

"Good afternoon, brother!" Runa called diplomatically. "We're not looking for trouble."

The man carried a round iron shield which he banged on a couple times with his short and wide iron blade. "Skyrim belongs to the Nords!" he bellowed, showing no sign of having heeded, or even heard, Runa's appeasements. Clearly this one didn't have all of his marbles intact.

Runa sighed, hanging her head for a second. She then dismounted, started to slowly approach the armored bedlamite. She did still, however, keep her swords in their scabbards, though she had her hands tensed up by her sides.

"Is that the best you've got?" the man yelled.

"Look, friend," Runa said patiently. "Why don't you just walk away, and we'll be just like none of this ever happened."

"Coward!" came what might or might not have been a reply to what had actually been said.

"Here's the thing: you don't want to do this, alright?"

At that, the man merely roared, raising his sword. He then charged towards Runa, and Ariela's heart jumped into her throat. The Nord simply stepped out of the way with ease, as though giving way to a very slow moving elderly person.

The man took a moment to regain his impetus, then prepared for another offensive.

Runa raised her hands. "I'm willing to overlook that one," she said. "Just don't try it again."

The man tried again, missing just as clearly as with his first attempt. This time Runa added to her sidestep a push of her foot on the man's backside, sending him toppling onto his knees on the ground.
"Alright, last warning," she said, a shadow creeping into her voice. Her hands were now caressing the grips of her blades. "Do not get up and attempt another one."