Better Than The Night Mother

Chapter 3

"What... Is the music... Of life?" A raspy voice asked me slowly, and would have startled me, had I not been expecting something of the sort.

"Silence, my brother." I spoke back, and for a moment, I worried that, perhaps, I had somehow misheard the Assassin (whose name, I realised while on my way here, I still did not know), or perhaps she had just been toying with me, taunting me. It would seem, however, that my fears were in vain.

"Welcome... Home..." The same raspy, ancient voice replied, and large door with the skull carved into it slowly cracked open enough for me to pull it the rest of the way open. Freezing air flooded out of the foreboding entryway and washed over my body, replacing the slightly over-heated sensation that I had been experiencing for nearly since I had left Falkenreath- I think this may be the only area in Skyrim where it can, at it's highest temperature, nearly cook meat without any fire being necessary. Luckily, today was not nearly at it's highest, but after getting used to the normally below freezing climate of the rest of Skyrim, even the lowest temperature in this heated area felt uncomfortable.

I stepped hesitantly into the pleasantly cool passageway. I'm honestly pretty glad that no one had a view of me from where I was, because, when the door slammed closed behind me after I had stepped forward enough for me to do so, I jumped and let out an embarrassingly high-pitched, though soft, shriek of surprise that I really hoped no one heard.

I really need to stop being so jumpy all of the freaking time.

The whole passageway that I was standing in looked to be carved out of the stones that it was hidden under, and, as I walked down the cold, slightly steep stone steps, I suddenly realised that I had, literally, just walked into the den of murderers with barely a thought to this being, somehow, a trick of some sort- though why they would need to trick me into coming to them when they could have easily ended my life when I was unconcious after the legend-worthy battle between the draugrs, bandits and I, I had no idea. Well, too late to go back now, either way.

The small passage ended and turned into a larger room. There was a book case immediately in fron tof me. On my left there was another room, and I could tell by what I could see through the partially open door that it was a bedroom of some sort. As far as I could tell, the room was currently empty of whoever lived in it, but then, I could only see part of the room from this angle, so for all that I know, there could be twenty people in there waiting to ambush anyone who was stupid enough to go in there.

Next to the room was a large stone table. On it was a map, as well as a few place markers. As I stepped closer, curiously, I could tell that the map was definitely the most detailed map of Skyrim that I had ever come across, which said something compared to all of the map that I've seen in my many months here since I escaped Helgen. I was almost tempted to pull out my own rather detailed map and copy a few of the locations on there to check out later, but then decided against it (for now).

I had no more time to admire the expansive map, though, as a familiar voice that had been the topic of most of my thoughts spoke. "You came."

I whirled to the right to face the owner of the voice, and nearly jumped back as I noticed that she was only a few feet away from where I was standing by the map table, looking at me with a very pleased expression not unlike a cat who just got the cream.

"Of course." I mumbled offhandedly, taking in her looks- I don't know how I expected her to look, but regardless, I wasn't disappointed.

She was obviously of Nordic decent, from the way her face and features were shaped and arranged and from her body structure, now that I actually though about it. She had a round face. Her eyes were a deep brown, almost black, and very sweet looking, and her lips were smooth, plump and lightly pink. Her hair, which was a darker shade of strawberry blonde, went about to her lower shoulders and was held out of her face by two braids, which more than likely connected in the back in a common style in Skyrim. She was sort of short as far as Nordic women went, but since I'm short as far as elves go... Well, she's still taller than me by a good few inches. Damn, I'm short.