Banished they said. Unsuited for training they said. Never had I imagined this would be my lot in life, but here I am, hitching a ride on the back of a cheese wagon into Skyrim.
I had travelled to Jehanna as a rebellious teen. In my head were dreams of becoming a legendary Iceblade. I always over romanticized gladiatorial combat, oftentimes I'd find myself strolling down the Statuary of Champions admiring those former combatants forever memorialized along the pathway. Men and women of such brutal efficiency, masters in both the art of killing as well as the art of survival. These hallowed grounds is where I wanted my life to end.
Sadly, that was not to be. Betrayed by my own body, I could not handle the physical toll that this type of training required. My mind was there, my heart was there, but my body simply could not put into motion what I urged on with thought. My failures brought about depression... and rage.
I don't know how many times I got my ass handed to me out on the streets of Jehanna. Once a week? Sometimes more than once a day really. I always lived by the creed, "whatever doesn't kill you only makes you stronger." But did it really? Was I just being foolish? My body, so badly broken and healed over and over again, I knew that each time I picked myself up out of the dust, I'd become weaker, more fragile. That the next beating would only end faster, while my time healing in the temple, longer. I live to fight, but I just can't.
Eventually, my body was so beaten, so broken that I could no longer even pay for training. I tried to work it off, offered to clean the training hall, offered to clean up after the horses, but I was never really suited for menial work like this. I often argued with the hallmaster, he thought my quality of work was poor. I thought otherwise. It of course was poor, I was just too prideful, too pissed off to see it. One day, I snapped, I whipped my water filled mop bucket at the hallmaster and knocked him out cold. One of the combat instructors heard the shattering of my bucket and came to see what was going on. He broke my jaw in three places. I was left half-drowning face down in the mud outside the training hall.
I had no money, no contacts, no hope. My body felt four times its actual age and worsening. There was nothing left for me here. Where was my salvation? That's when I met Lokir.
Lokir is a Nord from a place in Skyrim called Rorikstead. He had a day job running cheese from his village into Jehanna. We had a lot of similarities in life. Both of us left home early, thought we knew more than our parents did. Rebellious youths, full of pride, lacking in sense. He was trying to get into the Thieves Guild in Skyrim's Riften, but he didn't have the skill for it it seems. He was caught far too often, but he never learned. Once a thief, always a thief.
He suggested that I come along with him into Skyrim, he could use the company and we'd never know what kinds of mischief the two of us could encounter, so I figured why not. I was leaving nothing here in Jehanna.
As we set off, we conversed about everything under the twin moons. Our hopes, our loves, everything. Lokir said I should try and make my way up to the College of Winterhold. I could learn Magick there. With all of my failures in hand-to-hand combat, it wasn't a bad idea. Bretons by nature are very much intuned with the mystical world. As before, my mind and heart were never the problem, just my frail body. Magick offered a solution.
We finally crossed the High Rock border into Skyrim. I swear I felt a chill run down my spine, but I think I'm just being overly dramatic. Lokir warned me about the Forsworn, he mentioned they were Bretons, but didn't go into much detail about it. It's something I'll look into later.
We set up camp a day's ride outside of Rorikstead. We found shelter under a rocky ledge, tied the horse up and brought the more expensive products out of the elements. Skyrim's weather was really unpredictable, thunder crashed for a time, followed by hours of calm. The twin moons brightly illuminating our campsite.
We woke the next day to find our horse dead, a dozen arrows impaling the body. Lokir removed one of the arrows and inspected it. He confirmed that it was the Forsworn. He immediately began to panic. He rambled on about the cheese, the dead horse, and his boss Rorik and his head on a pike. The cart itself was untouched, odd, I thought. That's when we both heard the clopping of another carriage making it's way down the road.
As the carriage approached, Lokir flagged them down, a family of three, man, woman, young son. He told me to wait, he said he knew them. I thought it weird that he would approach them with a dagger hiding behind his back. Lokir talked quietly to the man then drew his blade. The man held his hands up pleading with Lokir. Too bad for Lokir that it was the man's wife that he should have been wary of. With a crackle of lightning, Lokir flew twenty feet in the air and landed amid some Snowberry bushes. The couple never left the carriage, they continued along their way, glaring at me as they passed. That show of Magick left me awestruck. It was settled, the Mage's College it would be.
Lokir finally awakened about twenty minutes later, just as an Imperial patrol stopped alongside our dead horse. Apparently the family reported us. I guess the College of Winterhold will have to wait, these Imperial soldiers are seeing to that.
Oh well, I'm sure I'll be detained a day or two tops. No big deal, standard Imperial protocol says they have to feed us at least. We waited for an hour until another carriage arrived, the Imperial driver mentioned something about a town called Helgen. I guess I'll start my new life there. Can't wait.
