A changeling's visit to Skyrim

Once the three reached the bottom of the mountain, and into the warmer night air, they decided to head to the inn and rent a room for the night. Well… Stross and Lydia did anyway. Fenora was still unconscious. But before they crossed the bridge into Ivarstead, they were stopped by a man who jumped out at them from the bushes. He wore a set of ratty old clothes, and had a look in his eyes like he wasn’t all there.

“Reyda! Have you seen Narfi’s sister Reyda?” he asked them, his eyes quickly jumping all around.

“Umm… no?” Stross answered nervously while Lydia gripped the hilt of her sword, unsure about the man before them.

“Oh, that’s too bad.” Narfi deflated “Reyda left a year ago, but Narfi never said goodbye like mother and father. Now mother and father are dead, killed by the bad men. But Wilhelm says Reyda will be back, Narfi just has to wait. But waiting’s so hard!” he told them before running off, screaming about his sister.

Stross and Lydia gave each other a glance of ‘What-in-Oblivion-was-that-all-about?” before continuing onward.

At the Vilemyr inn, Stross paid for a room and gently set Fenora down on one of the beds, thankfully with two of them this time. He pulled the blanket over her and brushed a few strands of hair out of her face. Sighing, he wondered how he was ever going to get her to forgive him for nearly choking her to death with his resin.

Sitting on the chair next to her bed, he thought about his life before that spell brought him here. In the past, he’d never had a romance or a friendship that wasn’t fake, one that he couldn’t just walk out on the second it hit a bump or snag. And often, that’s just what he’d do. Instead of facing the music and trying to keep the relationship afloat, he’d simply leave and start all over again with someone different. That was what many changelings did, or so he’d always believed.

But Fenora was different, she wasn’t just the first friend he’d had since coming to Tamriel, she was the first real friend he’d ever had, period. She knew what he was and kept him with her anyway. She’d trusted him to watch her back and to be there when she needed him. Even now that she’d had a massive destiny thrown onto her, she’d let him come along, saying that having him by her side made it bearable. Stross didn’t want to lose that. He didn’t want to lose her.

“Lydia,” he asked “how can I fix this?”

“You mean other than letting her punch you in the face until her anger subsides?”

“Preferably.” Stross grimaced.

“Well, food and music often work to calm the soul.” Lydia suggested.

“Food and music, huh?”

The next morning, Fenora groggily got out of bed. Holding her aching head she spit out a bit of resin that remained in her mouth before looking around. The last thing she remembered was collapsing on the floor of the monastery. Before that, she was angry about something and then Stross spit some goop into her mouth and-

Stross. That bug was going to pay when she got her hands on him, but first she had to figure out where she was. Stepping out of the door, Fenora found that she was inside the local inn.

“Great, now I just need to find- Whoa!”

She was interrupted by a woman with a lute that just randomly appeared from nowhere.

“Pardon me mi’lady, but I have a message to deliver from your little bug friend… in song.” she said happily.

“Oh, I didn’t mean to choke thee

So please don’t revoke me

I truly didn’t want to offend.

I’m currently on a quest

But I got you some breakfast

and I wish to remain your friend.”

The bard sang out Stross’s message as she plucked the strings of her lute.

Fenora just sat there trying to comprehend what she just heard.

Fenora sat at one of the tables eating through another salmon steak; her fourth one that morning. Stross had put down a good amount of gold for her, which was good. Getting your face mauled off by trolls and forest creatures wherever you traveled really worked up an appetite.

“So I hear you’re the new dragonborn.” Wilhelm said as he got Fenora a refill on her drink. “First one since old Tiber Septim himself. Must be very excitin’ for ya’.”

“Yeah, well that’s one way of putting it.” Fenora told him in an annoyed tone.

“Oh? Bein’ a legendary hero not all it’s cracked up to be?” Wilhelm took on a jovial tone.

“You can say that again.”

“Bein’ a legendary hero not all it’s cracked up to be?” he smiled.

Fenora just glared at him for a moment before slamming back her ale. “It. Sucks.” she told him “In just the last few days I’ve had to fight more monsters than the rest of my life combined. Just yesterday I was beaten up by a freaking frost troll on the way up to see the Greybeards, and before we make our way back down Stross fills my throat with his sticky slime!”

“Oh, congratulations?” Wilhelm said unsurely averted his eyes “I’m glad you two are so close, but I didn’t think you’d be so open about that kind of thing.”

Fenora stared at him in confusion until the pieces clicked in her brain, causing her to blush furiously. “No no no. Not like that, he’s a changeling.” she frantically explained “The resin in his stomach works like a defense mechanism or something.”

“Suuure it does.”

“Ugh, where is he anyway, I want to punch him in the face for this. No amount of food or singing telegrams will make up for it.” Fenora said into her mug.

“Well, after you and your housecarl turned in for the night, he came to talk to me.”

*flashback time* *harp strum* *screen ripple* *also Wilhelm first-person*

I was standin’ behind the counter cleanin’ mugs when your bug friend Stross walked up and put a big bag of septims the counter. “What’s this for?” I asked him

“It’s for Fenora when she wakes up. Can you tell her I paid for breakfast?” he asked “She’s probably going to be really mad at me.” So I told him I’d be sure to do that. Then he just happened to ask what was wrong with Narfi, the poor fella. He said he wanted to help if he could, so I told him the story.

“Narfi and his family lived here for long time, his sister Reyda would go to the island to the east of here to gather plants.” I told him “But one day while she was gone, thieves broke into Narfi’s home and killed his parents right in front of him while he hid. I’ll never forget the day we found out.

“Tings only got worse for the kid from there. Reyda, the only family he had left hadn’t been seen for weeks. That is, until we found her body in the river downstream from Geirmund's Hall." I could barely stop myself from tearin’ up as I told Stross what happened "We could hardly believe it. Ever since then we’ve decided to keep it a secret from Narfi, we just couldn’t bring ourselves to tell him, so we told him she’d be back someday.”

Your friend got real tense when I told him, said it was wrong to lie like that. He said he’d tell Narfi for us and asked for a bone or piece of clothin’ from her, so he could prove she was really gone. Naturally I refused at first, but the little bug had quite a strong reasoning to him, so I gave him the necklace Reyda always wore.

He left after that, I still haven’t heard how it turned out.

==(Well thanks to third-person omniscience, all of us can)==

Stross walked across the cold stream to Narfi’s broken down home. Narfi was sitting outside, and jumped up as Stross approached.

“You again!” Narfi greeted “Have you seen Reyda now?”

Stross took a deep breath and looked Narfi straight in the eyes. “Narfi, I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news.”

“What is it; did Reyda say she wasn’t coming back? Did you tell her Narfi misses her?”

“She’s not coming back, but it wasn’t her choice.” Stross putted Narfi on the shoulder “She’s been dead for a long time now, Wilhelm and the others found her in the river.”

“W- wh- what? No. You’re lying, Wilhelm said she’d be back.” Narfi stuttered, denying what Stross had told him.

“Narfi, I’m sorry but it’s true.” he held out the necklace for Narfi to take “They didn’t know how to tell you the truth, so they told you she’d be back. But the truth is that she’s gone now.”

Tears welled up in Narfi’s eyes as he took his sister’s necklace into his palms. Clicking it open revealed a picture of his family together, before they were taken from him. It had been magically preserved inside its tiny frame so that it would never fade or smear.

“No…” he whispered “No no no! Narfi never got to say goodbye! Now Narfi’s all alone.” he wailed as the tears spilled down his face.

“Don’t say that!” Stross Yelled as he grabbed hold of Narfi and shook him “You’re never alone. You’ll always have them in your memories, and they’re not the only family you have. Wilhelm and the others, they lied to you because they cared about you too much to see you in pain! They’re your family too!”

Narfi sniffed as he tried to clear his eyes. “Narfi knows, but the truth still hurts. Still… better than not knowing, thank you for telling Narfi, now Narfi has to sleep.” he sobbed before going back into the wreck of his house and falling asleep on a pile of straw.

==Back in the present==

“But as I was sayin’. Not an hour had passed before he was back, askin’ about a weird glowin’ person he saw by the barrow.” Wilhelm explained “My blood froze up when I heard those words, that tomb is cursed. There’s been strange goings on in that place; just a little while back an adventurer named Wyndelius went in there and never came back out. It’s been keeping us up at night, people are afraid to even go near the place. I told him this, and he took off into the barrow despite my warnings. Your housecarl saw him leave and followed him. They haven’t been back all morning.” he finished solemnly.

Just then, the door to the Vilemyr inn was kicked inwards. What entered seemed to draw the warmth from the room and everyone in it. It even made Wilhelm scream.

The translucent form of Stross entered through the door. Slowly walking around the room, waving his arms back and forth.

“Whoooo-ooo-oo!” he made stereotypical (and possibly racist) ghost noises, drawing out his words into long quivering sounds “I’m a ghost now. You will fear the dead of- OW! OW stop hitting me in the- OW!”

Fenora had interrupted his ghostly charade and was now beating him unmercifully.

“You can’t be dead yet, I need to kill you first!” she steamed.

“OW, the side of my face! OW, my lower torso! OW, my arms and legs!” Stross named off the parts of his body as they were struck and/or chewed on. “Ack, mupth winpth phi umpth folcu korth! (OW, my wind pipe and vocal chords!)”

“My thane, stop! You’re killing him!” Lydia intervened as she entered as well “One or two more hits should suffice.”

“(Lydia I thought you were on my side!)” Stross garbled out.

“I am.” she stated “I am also sworn to carry your burdens, but this..." she let her pack fall to the floor, the room shaking as it did "is more than I signed up for. So for that, three more hits. If you wouldn’t mind, my thane.”

“With pleasure, and call me Fenora.”

“As you wish, my thane.”

“Ugh”

So after Fenora got a satisfying revenge beat-down on Stross, Lydia handed Wyndelius’s journal to Wilhelm. As the innkeeper feverously read through the contents, Stross drank down a health potion; he didn’t care if they barely had any effect on him, with amount of damage he just took, he’d need to heal quick before his other healing factor took over and drained his ‘love’ reserves.

“I can’t believe it!” Wilhelm announced as he finished reading the journal “It was all just a fabrication of that Wyndelius character. I can’t believe we were so stupid. Thank you for all your help, here take this as a reward.” he produced a metal dragon hand with sapphire claws “This must be the claw he was talking about in the journal. All the years I’ve lived here I’ve never known what it was for; you might be able to make better use of it that I can.”

“That’s it!” Stross exclaimed happily now that he could speak normally again. Well… normal for a changeling anyways. “That’s the key that opens the puzzle door in the barrow; just like the gold one at Bleak Falls!”

“Oh no!” Fenora cut him off “You remember what happened last time we went into an ancient tomb. Give me one good reason to go in there.”

“There might be treasure, a word of power the Greybeards didn’t have, and more of those ancient weapons you like.”

…

“Stross… do you know what one means?”

*Bump*

*Crash**Shatter*

Okay guys, Erised here again. I’m gonna level with you all, narrating the entire trek through the barrow is going to be really tedious and uninteresting for all of us.

So skipping that, I bring you “Just the good parts!” where we skip right to the highlights of the adventure.

Here we go! *patches up fourth wall*

The trio made it into the barrow. Finding the combination to the door “Moth-Owl-Wolf” wasn’t hard as it was printed on the claw like the last one. Reaching a room filled with sarcophagi, Stross noticed an orange spellbook sitting on a pedestal in the center.

“Well,” he thought out loud in a sarcastic tone “a single, solitary book in the middle of a room on a pedestal, surrounded by coffins no less. What could possibly go wrong if I pick it up and- Okay, let’s do this. You gals get ready and I’ll grab it.”

Fenora and Lydia readied their weapons and stood back to back, ready to face the undead warriors that would surely come bursting forth from their tombs.

Stross quickly swiped the book off its resting place and leapt over to join them, fire spells at the ready. Several seconds passed and nothing happened. Listening carefully, none of them heard a thing save for their own breathing.

“I don’t mean to jinx this, but that was kind of a letdown.” Fenora said as she sheathed her axes. “What was that book anyway.”

“Oakflesh” Stross read the cover “That’s stupid, why would anyone want flesh made of- AHHH!” A drauger fell from the ceiling onto Stross, hitting him repeatedly with a mace.

“AAHHHH! I know the answer now; for times like THIIISSSS!”

Climbing a wooden spiral staircase, they found the way deeper into the barrow. Further at the top Stross found a locked door and luckily, he had some lockpicks on him. However, every time he tried to get the lock open, the pick would break and he’d have to try again. The others told him to abandon his attempts, but he wouldn’t listen. After a few more minutes of this, Stross broke his last lockpick (man, those master doors are brutal).

“Screw this stupid door!” he yelled in frustration.

“Indeed, but when you ‘screw it’ use this.” M’aiq appeared beside him somehow, handing him an ornate looking key.

Slightly dumbfounded at the appearance of the khajiit, Stross took the key and inserted it into the slot. In a few short second the door was unlocked and the key had vanished along with M’aiq. Reveling in triumph, Stross opened the door to reval… a locked chest.

Stross felt himself sag into defeat again until Fenora jammed one of her swords under the lid and forced it open. Smiling at the addition of more loot, the three continued on their way.

After fighting through a legion of awakened dead, getting past more traps and annoying puzzles than they cared to remember, and nearly getting crushed, impaled, or incinerated even more times than that, the group finally made it to the final burial chamber. The room was huge, the floor flooded with water, a pyramid of stone steps leading to the exit. The bridge to the pyramid was lined with metal coffins, as was the pyramid itself.

“Thirteen graves,” Lydia observed “I’ve got a baaad feeling about this.”

“Ready for this?” Fenora asked as she drew her bow.

“Get behind me, my thane, I’ll protect you!” Lydia readied her sword and shield and took a defensive stance in front of them.

“You could learn a thing or two from her, Stross.” Fenora smirked as the first undead rose from their graves to attack them.

The fight actually turned out to be quite easy, the skeletons and drauger only coming at them one or two at a time. They now exited the barrow, having collected a rather large number of new weapons, a significant amount of miscellaneous loot, and Fenora receiving a better understanding of the “Kynareth’s harmony” shout from the word wall.

“Let’s see… Here lies the body of Helg, a friend to all beasts and servant of Kyne. May she find eternal rest in the forest of dreams.”

Stross copied down the inscription from the word wall onto paper and stowed it in the book of dragon shouts. “That sound about right?”

“More or less.” Fenora answered “Why are you copying that down anyway?”

“The words of power were used in those… poems, I guess? Anyway, they were used to signify a certain aspect of someone’s life. Knowing how the words fit into those lives could be important for learning the true meaning of the words themselves, like Master Arngeir said.” Stross explained.

“Wow, are you always this deep?”

“Most of the time.” Stross slowed his pace for a second “That reminds me, I need to do something before we leave.”

Narfi sat alone in his house, looking at the tiny picture of his family. He didn’t want to sleep anymore, he didn’t want to eat either. All he wanted was to be with his family again. Clenching the necklace in his hand he went outside.

Narfi walked to the cliff he’d go to as a child, where he’d sit and gaze out at the valley below. He remembered the picnics he’d have with his family, and how much he missed them. But now he’d finally be with them again. Walking towards the edge of the cliff he looked out at the setting sun, knowing it would be the last time he saw it from this world. Leaning forward, he fell to greet the jagged rocks of the river below.

But something stopped his fall, a pair of hands had grabbed his leg as he dangled over the edge of the cliff. Looking up, Narfi couldn’t believe his eyes. There before him, stopping his demise was the ghostly form of his sister, smiling back at him.

“Don’t give up on your life, brother. We’ll all meet again in time, but for now, there is still far too much to leave behind.” she told him before pulling him up to solid ground.

Quickly getting to his feet, Narfi looked everywhere for his sister’s ghost, but she had vanished. Something else drew his attention though, as shouts came his way from several of the townspeople running towards him.

“Oh thank the gods.” Wilhelm said as he arrived ahead of the others “Don’t ever do that again, you hear me? We’re not ready to lose you yet.”

“Narfi you crazy fool,” Klimmek put an arm around him “where did you get a dumb idea like that?”

“Indeed,” Bassianus chimed in “life here in Ivarstead is dull enough as it is. We don’t need you gone too.”

Narfi was taken aback by all of them coming to make sure he was alright. He thought that he had no one left that cared about him.

“Come to the inn my friend. What say we get you something to eat?” Gwilin, the abnormally cheerful elf joined in.

“Thank you… Narfi would… I would like that.” he told them, speaking in the first person for the first time in months “And I’m sorry I tried to jump.”

“That’s alright,” Wilhelm told him “Just remember from now on, we’re your family too. Don’t even try to leave us like that again.”

…

Further down the mountain on the road leading back to Whiterun, a changeling dropped his disguise and his invisibility, the Philter of the phantom finally wearing off as well.

“Are you sure that was the right thing to do?” Lydia asked “I mean, it was his choice to make, and because of this he’ll technically be living because of a lie all over again, won’t he?”

“I know all that, but come on. He was literally about to kill himself.” Stoss defended his choice “And besides, did you see all those people back there? There was no way I’d let him die.”

“I suppose that’s all true, do the ends really justify the means like that?”

“Well whatever happens, I think you did good today Stross.” Fenora gave him a pat on the back.

“Does that mean you’re not mad about the whole ‘throwing-up-in-your-mouth-and-almost-killing-you’ thing anymore?”

Fenora answered by throwing Stross one of the heavier bags of treasure to carry as they made the long walk back to Whiterun.