Song of the Warlord, part 3
Miraak set four short glasses on a carved wooden table, and poured about two ounces of a potent brown liquor into each.
"I never had the taste for mead that our kind all seem to share," he explained, "so when I came upon a few barrels of this during my sword-meetings with the Head Vampire, it was a consolation for my repeated failures to take his life."
The priest slid three glasses over to his three fellow Nords who had traveled across northeastern Skyrim to meet with him. Felldir stopped the sliding of his glass gently with the palm of his hand, while Gormlaith snatched her glass with a flash of her hand. Hakon, for his part, gripped his glass firmly and took a slow sip.
"I've heard he slew a thousand men to gain his disgusting powers. That he's the terror of that entire region," noted Hakon.
"Harkon. His name is similar enough to your own, boy, but he would suck out your soul and all your blood with ease and without remorse. His wealth is incalculable, as well. This is a whisky from Glenumbra, one of the western fiefdoms of Heiroc. It was distilled from the finest malted barley, peat-smoked, aged in oak barrels for two decades, and sold to that accursed demon by a manmeri merchant. I came across it by accident in a store room of his while leading a joint campaign between local Nords and my own warriors of the dragon cult. We drove the vampires out of the mainland... but they used their illusion magicks to hide their island castle from us."
"What's your point, old man?" asked Gormlaith. She knocked back her glass in one swig and set it down loudly. Felldir shot her a glance, but Miraak stared intently at Hakon through his betentacled mask.
"If I can't kill that one damned vampire... why do you expect me to kill a god?!?" he roared, slapping his own glass off the table. It shattered against the wall, its contents valued as much as ebony splashing everywhere.
"MUL QAH DIIV!" Shouted the priest in his rage. The use of this Shout had become a reflex from his battles with the Head Vampire and others, for without its armor his flesh could never withstand the night's claws. The aetherial dragon aspect formed around his body as he seethed at Hakon. Felldir and Gormlaith flinched, but Hakon stood from his chair, shaking in his own anger.
"Here you cower on this mountain, taking the aspect of a dovah even as you pretend they are beyond you. You disgust me," said the young heir as he glared back.
"Leave," Miraak replied.
"It isn't really fair that your sword is made from ebony while I use steel," teased Fjotra. One of the guards of Vahlok the Jailed in Skuldafn, she often practiced weapon play with him since Alduin himself ordered that his studies as a spellsword should continue.
Fjotra's fire-red hair shone in the cool autumn sunlight, her war axe gleaming with the passion of a Nordic warrior. Her eyes were the hue of the mountain pines, and she had the strength of Kyne despite her feminine frame. If Vahlok were not a prisoner he may have asked her to marry him by now. In this situation, all he could do was gloat to her and rush at her with an ebony longsword.
"Maybe I'm simply that skilled," Vahlok boasted as his sword met her axe.
"Like a round-eared Trinimac," Fjotra replied.
"Are you referring to my deicidal incident?"
"I didn't even find that impressive, speaking of it."
"Why not?"
"It got you here, didn't it?"
Vahlok placed his blade between the handle and blade of her axe and forced it to the side, and then swiftly pulled the blade to her neck.
"And what if I enjoy this place?"
Fjotra reflected for a moment.
"It is a change of pace guarding someone who can beat me," she admitted.
The two set down their weapons. Fjotra sat on the training grounds as Vahlok walked over to a small case containing six bottles of mead he had placed on a frost rune. Fjotra couldn't help but laugh at him as he approached the rune with a defensive ward up.
"You have the strangest way of studying restoration I've ever heard of," she said.
"Keeps our mead cold," the priest retorted. The rune burst in an icy explosion, breaking Vahlok's ward. Fjotra jolted up, but the exiled priest stopped her.
"I'm fine... most of the damage was soaked up."
He brought the case over to her, and sat with her looking out at Skyrim as the sun set.
"You need to work on your wards."
"I know. Restoration just doesn't come as naturally as destruction to me."
As the two gazed at the sun over Skyrim, they noticed a scaled silhouette flying towards them.
To the north, in Solstheim, Ahzidal spoke with Miraak on the nature of power.