A Stranger in Skyrim 7

Chapter Seven: Restful Sleep

In which she goes to sleep.

She spent the next several hours – until well after dark – reading the spellbook by the firelight. She had been delighted to discover that she could read the strange language as well as she could understand it and speak it. She would have stayed up even later; after all, she was a night person. However, before long, she found herself yawning as the foreign letters blurred together in a jumble.

She couldn't wait to practice the principles she'd learned. The book had started off with a primer on destruction magic in general, before delving into the specifics.

Her mind was whirring as she finally set aside the book. She curled up in the bedroll Sigrid had set out for her by the fire and closed her eyes, but she knew she'd never get to sleep.

She opened her eyes, and she realized with some alarm that she was driving, had been driving, and the car jerked sharply to the right, swerving dangerously close to the blue pickup beside her. The owner of said pickup swerved to avoid her, honking loudly. She saw a middle finger go up in her direction, not that she could blame him.

How had she gotten here?

She overcompensated for her initial error, letting the vehicle pull to the left. Her tires rolled up onto the curb, and back off of it, thumping loudly both times, before she finally managed to steady the car. That would totally help the already-shot alignment, she was sure.

She clutched the wheel with both hands, pulling slightly to the right and staring at the stupid, cheesy, cheetah-print wheel-cover.

Okay, okay. She could handle this. She was driving to work. Mom wasn't in the car. She glanced to the right, confirming that yes, she'd bought burgers again, her guilty pleasure.

The dream had felt so real, she would swear she could still feel the warmth of the fire –

And, suddenly, she was back, opening her itchy, watery eyes. Feather pillow, of course she was allergic. She sneezed, then sneezed again, scrubbing at her face. She shoved the pillow away, under the bed next to her. Resting her head on her arms, she let her eyes drift shut again. She was exhausted.

She'd made it safely to work. She was walking in the front door when she dropped back in. She stumbled for a moment, pressing her palm to her face. Something was seriously wrong here.

Collecting herself, she pressed her badge against the electronic lock, letting herself into the building.

It was eerily normal. She passed someone she knew, waved a greeting. Her locker, number fifty-four, where she knelt, opened the lock, and deposited her phone. Everything in the locker was exactly where she remembered it, including the three boxes of energy bars from back when she was still eating those, and the instant rice dinner that had been in there for a week. Fortunately, neither item was particularly perishable. She rested her forehead against the cool, ridged metal of the locker above hers.

What was wrong with her?

She'd finally lost it. That was the only possible explanation. She'd gone completely and totally mad.

Well, at least it had been interesting so far ….

What had happened while she was 'gone,' though? She racked her brain, and found the information was just there. Eat, sleep, work, video games. She'd started up a new playthrough of Vampire on a whim last night, after installing it on the new computer, and stayed up until four again.

More worrying, she still remembered the foreign tongue. Every detail about the other world still shone clear and bright in her mind.

She shook her head. She didn't have time to think about that, not if she wanted to get into work on time. Bad enough she'd nearly killed herself in the car earlier, but she couldn't afford to even be late at this point, or they'd have grounds to fire her. It was just … her real life, her job, none of it interested her as much as her games.

She made the short trip to her mom's desk. It was relatively close to her own. She dropped off the two remaining burgers, then paused. Dream or not, it had felt pretty real. If she died – really died – what would happen to her mom? The thought unsettled her, and she hugged her mom tightly around the shoulders, resting her chin on her head. Suddenly, tears welled up, and she swallowed heavily, trying not to cry. She felt herself shaking. It was just too much.

Her mom hit the mute button on the phone, turning in her chair to look up at her. “What's wrong?”

She shook her head, unable to speak at first. Pushing her glasses back up on her forehead, she rubbed at her eyes. “Nothing – it's nothing.” She offered a watery smile, and her mom stood up, giving her a real hug. That was exactly what she needed. “I love you.” She squeezed back. She sniffled, loudly, then pulled away. “I – I've got to get to my desk.”

She sat down in her chair, stared at her computer, and wondered how the hell she was going to make it through the day.

She woke right as she was sitting down for the night to play; therefore, she woke disgruntled. It probably didn't help that she hadn't really expected to come back. Her other dreams abandoned her after a single night, so why should this one continue to invade her thoughts?

Still …

She looked up at the ceiling, thoughtfully. She could still see perfectly, that hadn't gone away. She reached up to feel at her eyes, but she knew she wouldn't find any contacts there. By now, they would have become dry and scratchy, and her eyes felt fine. She took stock of her situation, of how she was feeling. She'd missed three doses of her meds so far, and yet, nothing. No withdrawal symptoms, no crushing depressions, nothing.

She was worried, a little bit. Of course she was.

She was clearly going mad, and that generally wasn't a good thing. Popping back into the real world just reinforced the fact that this one was nothing more than a vivid hallucination. She felt her arms, wincing as she found the burns there. They'd been throbbing a little, but she'd been ignoring that.

So, the dream had a sense of continuity about it. Wonderful.

She sat up, looking around. The room was exactly as she remembered it, although the table had been cleaned off. It was some kind of one-room affair, with chairs, beds, a table, and a kitchen, all rolled up into one place. Very cozy, though.

She got out of the bedroll, which had, surprisingly, survived the night in one piece. Apparently she'd been too tired to really toss and turn as she normally did. That done, she carefully folded the blankets up. Fishing under the bed, she found the feather pillow. This, she set neatly atop the covers.

Her stomach growled loudly, neatly coinciding with Sigrid walking up the stairs from the basement. “Ah, you're finally awake.”

She nodded. “I don't suppose you have anything for me to eat before I head out?” Standing, she smoothed out the rumpled robe she'd slept in. The wrinkles fell away, leaving it flawless. Like magic. She shook her head. Hopefully it had better enchantments than that. She'd take a wrinkly, stained, old robe, as long as it did something useful for her.

Ha. She was already getting used to the idea of magic, to the point where she was really thinking about how useful an enchantment was. Apparently that was a side effect of playing video games so much ….

“Of course, of course. What did you want to eat?” Sigrid smiled warmly.

She thought for a moment. “Scrambled eggs? With, maybe, some cheese?”

A nod. Sigrid went about gathering the supplies to make the dish. Mariah sat down to continue reading her book. Apparently the idea was simple. That fizzy feeling, like carbonation in her veins, was magic. She had to draw that power out, while focusing on the idea of lightning. Other than that, it was supposed to be fairly basic. Point in the right direction, and let loose the power of the gods.

Setting the book aside, she looked down at her hands. Draw the power out – she wasn't sure how to do that. She focused on the fizzy feeling, imagined it flowing from her core into her hands. There came a tingle in her fingertips, and she focused on just a tiny seed of lightning, holding her hands slightly apart.

She thought she saw something flicker between them, a moment before Sigrid interrupted her meditation. “Breakfast is ready.” The woman proceeded to set her plate on the table, a knife and an odd, two-pronged fork beside it. She also poured some kind of hot liquid into a mug, next to that. “I made you some tea, I hope that's all right. I imagine you must be thirsty by now.”

Mariah nodded, smiling warmly as she stood, walking to the table and sitting down again. She dug in, eagerly, finding herself famished. Her hunger made the rather average plate of eggs into a gourmet feast fit for a king – no, a Jarl, she reminded herself. If she was stuck here, she'd have to learn the slang. The tea was good, some kind of herbal mix with just a little honey in it. She debated on whether or not to drink it at first, but then, she didn't figure it likely she'd encounter Montezuma's Revenge when the water had obviously been boiled – at least, she hoped she wouldn't. She had no interest in any kind of stomach irritation on top of her other problems.

Besides, she reminded herself. It was a dream. People didn't get sick in dreams.

“We didn't think you'd ever wake up.” Sigrid smiled, teasing. “How late were you up reading?”

She shook her head. “I don't really know, to be honest. The book is fascinating, though. Magic doesn't exist, where I'm from, so to see it discussed like a science is really interesting. It makes me feel like I could probably master it, even.”

“Really? No magic, at all?” Sigrid looked curious. “I can't imagine that,” she confessed.

She nodded. “I mean, we have stories about magic, monsters, and the like, but none of it's real. Right now there's this huge vampire craze going on. People think they're sexy, but … well. People aren't very smart, in general.”

“There's been talk of vampire attacks lately,” Sigrid said it grimly. “Young women with their throats ripped out, things like that. I doubt your people would find that … 'sexy.'”

Another nod. “I know, I know. I wouldn't know what to do if I met one in real life, if I knew what it was, I mean. Probably, it'd try to eat me, and not in the good way, and then I'd have to try and kill it, and it just wouldn't go over well.”

“They say,” Sigrid said, her voice serious, “that if a vampire so much as scratches you, you'll turn into one, yourself.”

She shook her head, this time. “See, and I don't buy that. It's probably some kind of blood-borne disease, since they're all about blood. I'd imagine you'd have to bite the vampire to catch vampirism.” She grinned a bit at the irony. In Soviet Russia, you bite vampire.

“Well, that's beside the point anyway. There aren't any vampires in Riverwood.”

Mariah nodded. “I'm sure you'd know if there were.”

“Exactly.”

After that, there wasn't much discussion left. She finished eating quickly. Finger-combing her hair, she managed to get it into some kind of order – probably, anyway. Sigrid loaned her a pair of shoes that fit much better than the oversized Imperial boots. Then, it was time to leave. She collected her things, heading out the door and to the right, where the forge was.

The men were talking about something or other, she didn't quite catch it, and they fell silent when she approached. Odd, but not worth worrying about.

“Hey, Alvor,” she said with a slightly-uncertain smile. “I was wondering if I could sell you the armor I'd brought with me. I'm kind of new to Skyrim and I don't actually have any money. I figure I'm going to need some, for the road.”

He nodded once. “I would have given you some gold to get started without the need for that, but I'll take the armor off of your hands if you're not going to use it, sure.” He had her sit the armor down on a workbench nearby, then handed her a small coinpurse. Her loose gold went into the coinpurse, then the coinpurse went into her backpack.

“Thank you.”

Hadvar walked over to her then, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Listen, I'm going to lay up here for a while. You can make your own way to Solitude from here. After you meet up with the Jarl, hire the carriage to take you to north, all right?” She nodded.

“We'll see each other again soon.” He smiled down at her. “Now, get going.”

So, she did.