The Music of Life or What Lives in the Silence

For the aspiring zoologist there is much to learn. Tamriel, as a continent, is filled with dazzling and mysterious creatures. Many, such as faeries, are born from local superstition. All attempts to find these elusive ‘Fey Folk’ have always turned out to be fruitless. Of all the species of beasts that inhabit our world, there is much to discover and to marvel at. Therefore, it is prudent to ask the question: why when we are surrounded by fantastical flora and fauna do we strive to create our own through the telling of myths and legends? Is it because we covet the occult or the mysterious, often realising the hunt is more enjoyable than the capture? Or do we secretly know that the myths we tell are false and in knowing this do we master our own fear? I am no illusionist and so I cannot tell you the reason for our actions (if there even is one). But sometimes, very rarely, myth and legend can tell us of things which we had forgotten. I shall relate one such occurrence.

On a research trip through the Jerall Mountains in search of the elusive Uderfrykte, I had occasion to rest in the northern city of Bruma. The weather is cold and it snows often. There is little to do in the city discounting participation in the local Mages’ and Fighters’ Guild. I was then but a lowly student at the Arcane University, following up on the Magister’s theory. He had taken ill and was in no condition to travel. At the time, I was earning a meagre wage categorizing and indexing the university’s charters and correspondences. It was an unenviable task as many of the documents were so old that they could not be physically touched lest they disintegrate. Thus, I was hired to order the documents using telekinesis to move them. Seven hours each day was spent painstakingly and meticulously organizing everything at a snail’s pace in case I should make a disastrous (and costly!) mistake. Therefore, when the opportunity to finally do some fieldwork arose, I grasped it with both hands (a rare pleasure for me!). The other magisters were not pleased with my ‘abandoning’ my duties, but they thought it better that I went, failed to find anything, and disgraced my Magister. For they had never particularly liked either of us, me on account of my novice’s skill and he because of his ‘absurd and disgraceful’ theories. In any case, the Arch Mage signed my expedition papers and I was off. I heard they gave my old job to an aspiring Psijic who was trying to get funding for a trip to Artaeum. I don’t know if he ever got a chance, as when I returned he had gone: vanished into thin air some said!

The journey to Bruma was uneventful but my excitement filled me with joy at every foreign site I set my eyes upon. I had been given a small stipend to cover any travel expenses which I used to purchase a room at the local inn. It was here that everything changed. The inn was noisy with the hustle and bustle of its patrons, drunk Nords and rowdy Dunmer. Amidst the din, in a chair next to the fireplace, sat an old Nord man, a long white beard graced his chin. None of the patrons seemed to notice him or he them. As I made my way inside, shutting the heavy oaken doors after me, he beckoned me with a long, wrinkled finger to sit beside him in the empty chair opposite. He asked my name and I his, to which he replied “Olaf Forkbeard”, and I bought him a local favourite, a flagon of mead.

This done, he began to tell me a story of the local area, figuring me for a fur trapper or some other such hunter. When I told him I was a zoologist, he just laughed and made a strange gesture with his hand (what I later discovered was a sign to invoke Shor and Kyne’s protection against Herma Mora’s Evil Eye). I don’t think he really understood my profession but I listened intently as he told his tale. He spoke of ancient days, of gods known and unknown. He told me how the Nords came into being- how the First Mountain was that site. He said that Kyne had Breathed on that Mountain and that that act itself had created the Nords. He insisted that breath was the tool to create music and indeed the whole world was but a harmony of tones and musical notes.