Mage (A Skyrim Fanfiction)

Chapter 22: Descent

Wow, it's been awhile, hasn't it? I'm terribly sorry for the wait; I've been rather uninspired lately, as well as regrettably busy. My summer did not turn out at all like I'd planned for it to, and honestly, I don't think I'll get back to a regular updating schedule until school starts back up for me. I'm not certain when I'll be able to update this again, or my other stories, but I'll try to update Glitch before posting another chapter to anything else, as, now that I've updated Mage, it's gone the longest without an update. 

Anyways, just wanted to give you all a heads-up that I might be doing some minor editing of Chapter 20 in the near future. I want to make it more of a 'history reveal' for Helgír than it currently is, as well as squash some minor errors here and there. Also, the rewrite of chapters two and three is nearly finished - I say is because I've managed to combine the content of two chapters into a larger, more logical one, and I look forward to 'updating' the existing chapters soon. c:

If you were curious about my music choice for this particular chapter, trust me, it fits the ending of the content above the first divider beautifully, as well as the actual ending. I hope you enjoy the chapter! ^^

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"If you're not careful, you're going to walk right off the side of the mountain, Miss Abgrall. Didn't anyone ever tell you not to read while you walk?"

"Nightbrook's right; that's not really a safe thing to be doing-"

"Oh come off it, you two. I can do two things at once, you know, and I've gotten quite good at this whole 'reading and walking' thing!" I replied indignantly, glancing up from my ancestor's journal to shoot my friends a faux-irritated look, though I couldn't suppress a slight smile as I responded to my friends' concerned remarks.

We were now making our descent from High Hrothgar, just roughly a week after the incident with my ancestor. During that time,  Helgír had spent his days meditating with the Greybeards - though I wasn't quite sure what all that entailed - while I'd been reading through Mélisande's journal in an attempt to learn more about my family's past, as well as to learn more about magic, as Mél had mentioned that she'd left some helpful pointers in there - though I also ended up having to fend off Nightbrook's many  - and very persistent - attempts to get a peek at the book himself, as, for some reason, I had a feeling she'd prefer that some parts in it go entirely unshared with a certain nosy elf. It had been a very pleasant week indeed, and leaving the monastery was bittersweet to me - it seemed that we'd all learned at least one valuable lesson during our time there, one way or another, but despite what we'd all been through together during such a short time, it seemed that our company's paths were destined to split, and that time was drawing near. Helgír had been tasked with retrieving the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller from some long abandoned barrow, Ustengrav, and said crypt was quite a ways off from Winterhold - and I couldn't keep putting off going there, considering my ancestor's warnings - as well as the dreams I'd been having since.

As much as it pained me to think that I'd be leaving the company of the first friend I'd made in this strange land, I knew that it had to be done, as unfortunate and unpleasant as it was. I had a feeling it was going to be harder to say goodbye to him than it had been to part company with Toralf - mainly because he'd only traveled with us for a few days, and also partly because I'd been with Helgír for far longer now, and it felt almost wrong to think about going somewhere in this strange, harsh land without him. However, I wasn't going to allow myself to think about that too much at the present - after all, we were still all together currently, and I was not going to allow myself to waste a bit of the precious time we had left together.