Sigried unfurled a map of the island that she had packed in her bag, scrutinized it for a few minutes, nodded breifly and placed it
back into her bag.She trudged through the knee high snow and head north were the village was situated. On her way, she passed a
riekling cenampment, she proceeded quietly, crouching low as she walked so the inhabitants would not see her. When she exited the
camp she thought it would be safe from there on out, but she couldn't have been more wrong. A group of nords were huddled by a
fire a mere five feet from were she was standing.
When she approached, still in crouch mode, the nords turned their heads as one. She froze where she was; with nowhere to hide
she knew she was done for. The nords got up, unsheathed various weapons from the hip holstered shieathes some brandished heavy
two handers, others one handed swords. Upon inspection, she saw they were no normal weapons, they were silver. Her stomach
twisted and a lump formed in her throat. Oh Hircine, the silver hand...out here? I am dead for sure She thought. She got down on
all fours and began transforming into her wolf form, Fur grew over her fur armor and her eyes become more of a yellowish color.
Sunset charged at the silver hand, tossing tents this way and that as she ran. The silver hand prepared for a fight, they swung they
encirled the wolf as she got close.
One of them taunted the wolf,
"I will skin you and add your pelt to our already impression selection of pelt, wolf." As he said this, a wicked grin crossed over his
face.
The wolf snarled, showing white, pointy teeth, crouched down on her haunches and threw herself at the nord. She clawed and bit at
every inch of the nord she could reach. The nord screamed in agony as her aim was not to infect but to kill. Revenge was clearly
seen in her eyes. Hatred was there too not only hatred for the silver hand, but also hatred for them kill so many of her blood
relatives just so they could make money. Sunset sank her teeth into his neck, thrashed her head about wildly. There was a sickening
crack sound as the bones in the man's neck broke. Sunset throat the dead nord to the side as she focused on the rest oof them.
The nords encircled her now, aiming their silver weapons at her. She ran at them, but they only tightened their circles. Silver split
the sky and the weapons arced through the air and bit into her. Sunset yelped in pain as the silver was like a red hot poker. The
wolf's muscles were straining to hld her up at this point, yet the silvver hand did not stop their assault. Shee looked up even though
her body told her not to, and she saw murderous hatred in their eyes. With one final pitiful yelp, she collapsed into the snow. Her
once shiny coat was now coated with silver from the swords and longswords.
Rugrud heard a pitiful yelp on the air and he knew his wife was in danger, he transformed into his wolf form and Sky sniffed the
ground, howled out in ager and ran towards the scent of his wife. When he got there, he sniffed her and yelped in pain as he
accidentally brushed the silver with his nose. He circled around to find six nords, five of which were still standing and were laser
focused on this new threat. Sky and the silver hand ran at each other, the wolf used his powerful paws to crack skull, bashing them
against rocks. The ones who hit the rocks died instantaneously frrom the blunt force tauned. Some of the nord were lucky enough to
miss the rocks, though this was a big misttake on their parts because the wolf leapt at them from a ledge a few feet away and
slashed one nord's chest open and then another, he repeated this two more times. When all the nords were deaad, he went back
and munched on three of the five nord bodies. He tore flesh from bone and sstomped on the nords chest cavity with his strong back
legs to eat their hearts.
When he was done, he padded over to the last two whole nord bodies, grabbed them with his teeth and dragged them over to where
Sunset lay, unconscious from all the silver that was in her. Sky tried to pull the silver out of her fur with his teeth, but even that
made him yelp in pain. He pushed the bodies towards her with his nose. To his surprise, the scent of fresh blood caused her to wake
up. She sniffed the meal before she saw it. She began greedily ripped meat for bone with her huge teeth and chewed it. Some color
return to her fur as she opened her eyes and began to stand up. Sky shook his head and pushed her down with one giant paw. She
closed her eyes once more and slept the meal off and her body was grateful for the rest too because it hurt all over after being
puctured so many times with the silver.
The gray wolf licked his mmate in the face and dozed off as well. TThe next morning, the sun was high on the horizon as its rays
shone down upoon two nords curled up against one another for warmth. Rugrud opened his eyes and stretched before turning to
Sigried, who, he noticed did not have the silver sheen to her fur, well, skin anymore, in fact, the body healed completely so their was
no indication of silver having been there at all. Sigried opened her eyes, which returned to their noral brown, and looked up at her
husband.
"Rugrud, when did you get here?" She tried to stand, but her body ached too much, she sank back into the snow. "The last thing I
remember is the sivleer hand attacking me with silver weapons."She took a deep breath, even that hurt.
Rugrud lent her a hand,, she took it as he her her to her feet,
"When I hurt your frantic yelps of pain, I iddemiately call my wolf spirit and he ran all the way from camp following your scent," He
then pinched his nose, "Man, you stink, when was the last time you had a bath?" He fell in the snow, laughing.
Sigried scowled at him,
"Oh sure, laugh it up,, you werent the one being struck by silver," She picked up a nearby silver sword, she yelped in pain as she
dropped the sword onto the snow. There was a red imprint of the hilted burned into her skin where the sword had been seconds
before.
She rounded on him, furious,
"You bastard, look what you have ddone," She showed him the burnt hand.
Rugrud scoffed at her,
"Big deal, we can heal instantly, don't let one scratch bring your whole world crashing down."
Sigried grabbed the nearest object, which in this case was a broken blade of a silver sword and threw it at him, he recoiled as it
burned his flesh,
"There, how does that fell Mr. 'only a scratch' how do that feel, hmmm?"
He apologized to her, saying he was careless and pleaded for her to be more careful as he said silver is harmful to werewolves.
Sigried apologized and helped Rugrud up and they went to Skaal village together. the rest of the way was clear of any interlopers.
They only saw snow, snow-covered trees and rocked blanketed in white.
They got to the village at around ten in the morning. Both Sigried and Rugrud saw a magnificent sight, wooden building nestled on
the edge of Hirstaang forest, neither of them had ever been to Skaal Village before. They walked up the hill to the village and was
greeted by a young nord who looked to be in his early thirties.
When they got within range, he called out to them,
Hey, I've never seen your faces around these parts before, are you new here?" He asked.
Rugrud smiled broadly,
"Yees in fact, we are here from Frostmoon Crag to hopefully find some more ansers to my wife's vision."
The young nord named Deor Woodcutter scratched his stubbly chin,
Visions huh? Hmmm...Storn Craigstrider handles matter like that. You will find him in his hut near the south exit of town."
Both nords thanked him and headed for the shaman's hut. Inside, they saw an old man sitting at a small wooden table, which was
situated in the center of the house, eating dinner with his daughter.
He acknowledged them with a wave of his hand,
"Come sit, pull up two chairs and dine with Frea and I." The two nords looked at the table which was laden with an assortment of
breads, meats, berries and had a jug of cold water off the one side. They each found the chairs stacked neatly in the corner and
extracted two chairs from the tower and placed them both at the table, one next to Frea, which Sigreid sat in and one next to Storn,
which Rugrud sat in.
Rugrud turned to Storn,
"Sorry if I sound forward, but, how did you know we were coming?"
"Deor stopped in after he met you two and informed me that your wife," He nodded in her direction, "wanted to talk to me about
something."
Sigried clearly her throat,
"I did indeed, Storn, two nights ago, I had a vision of my wolf hunting in Hircine's realm, but, when she got to the hare, your
daughter, she turned into my daughter Rakel. I communed with Hircine but he only provided me with half the information. I woulld
like to see if you can shed some more light on my situation."
Storn eyed her with a look of wonder and concern,
"hmm...yes, well, erm, I prayer at each of the standing stones on the island asking for a sign to further prove my stance. None of
the stones spoke to me until I prayer at the beast stone, which had shone with an ethereal blue light and blue symbols appeared on
the flat surface of the obelisk,"
Rugrud looked in awe at Storn, soaking in every juicy detail of the story,
"What did it say, anything useful?" He asked, his head cocked to one side.
Storn seemed lost in his own mind, but, in truth, the old man was trying to remember the message,
"The symbols were of an acient ongue, I made a rubbing of the message using charcoal and paper to decipher later, I have the
deciphered message, if you would like to here it." Rugrud nodded. Storn reached a hand into his trouser pockets and extracted a
rather worn piece of paper.
Storn cleared his throat noisily,
"The message reads as follows: The beast cannot run from the path that is laid out in front of it nor can it change its destiny. It is
destined to follow a straight line no matter how hard it wants to avoid its fate."
Rugrud looked sorrowful, He slammed his fist down on the table in rage, making the glasses and plates clatter,
"Damnit! I have not come all this way for cryptic messages I require answers." He demanded.
Upon hearing this outburst, The Skaal Village shaman shrugged,
"Well if you don't want to listen to reason, you can...always let the events unfold."
The Shaman got up fom the table, walked over to a a two tiered shelf five feet from the table with various jars that the shaman
usedd for his prayer rituals to the all maker and lesser gods. He lifted a jar down, walked back to the table and slid it across to
Sigried who looked at the jar, a puzzled expression etched onto her face, "What am I supposed to do with this junk?"
Sturn sat down and interlaced his fingers together and looked at her as if she was an insolent child,
"What you have there is not junk, it is called glow dust. What you do is sprinkle about five flecs of dust over every stone on the
island and the entire message will become clear." He cleared his throat, "The message I relayed to you a few minutes ago was just a
sliver of information that you would gather if you visit all six ritual stones. At each stone, you must complete whatever trial is put to
you. When this is done, return to the stone and sprinkle the glow dust on the stone and part of the Bloodmoon Prophecy will become
clear to you." Rugrud and Siegrid lleft the shaman's hunt and consulted the map that was given to them. It stated a very specifiic
order the stones must be down in:
1.Water Stone
2.Sun Stone
3. Tree Stone
4. Wind Stone
5. Earth Stone
6. Beast Stone - there was an X here denoting the ritual had been done
Siegrid sighed, "thanks for the map as if I need it. Storn glared at her, she rolled her eyes. Her wolf threatened to overwhelm her
and take dominance, she silenced her wolf by telling herself to keep control and don't get too emotional. Storn craned his neck and
looked at her in wonder. "Siegrid, how did you obtain your wolf form?" I thought the blood of the wolf were gifted to the skall?" He
hung his head in shame, "Sadly, however, I am the last Skaal werewolf as my pack was wiped out by werebears in a vicious attack
four years ago when the overran our village murdering everyone of my pack...except me." He covered his face with his hands and
sobbed.
Not wanting to intervene in whatever was going on inside Sturn's head, Sigried's eyes flicked between Sturn and the hut door ten
feet to her left and back again. She felt a twinge of sadness for his loss, but she also know that it was only a matter of time before
he found out what she was and went after her. She excused herself, picked up her bag and headed for the door, while Sturn looked
at her, confused as to why she would leave so soon. He had almost made her divulge the truth about her true nature and if she did
that, she would be breaking the number one rule of werrewolf society. That is why werrewolves have coexisted peacefully alongside
the 'outsiders' as they had no idea that those neighbors they share Nirn with were werewolves. If they did, than the gates of
Oblivion would be ripped wide open.
When Siegrid left the small hut, she left village, shifted into her wolf form and ran on all fours to the first stone on the map Sturn
had handed her, The water stone. Her canine mind thought the best way to get to the water stone was to go to the south of the
island and begin her search there.
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