Rowan felt sorry for her. Riding a horse was difficult work, hardly able to be enjoyed for someone of novice training. He should’ve helped her practice more, before all this. If it were safe, he’d have told her to take on her animal form when crossing the miles that would lead them to the Highland forests, but he wouldn’t risk her getting shot.
“Not too soon,” he chuckled at her, staring ahead with Shadowmere’s reigns held loosely in his grasp.
His hair was beginning to plaster to him, but the rain didn’t bother him. If anything, he welcomed it. It was another facet of home.
“Part of me questions whether I am truly here at last. I know it isn’t possible, but… I feel my heart. It stirs.” He turned, his glance subtle as his smile softened. His hand was on his chest where the dead organ lay. “A phantom beat, maybe.”
It was all the more thrilling that he was experiencing his return with her. He couldn’t think up a better way to revisit the place where he was born.
Evela’s awe-stricken proclamation filled him with amusement. She thought the land was green now. Bless her.
“Aye, you’ve the rain to thank for that,” he remarked in turn. “You’ll feel more at home when we reach the wooded territories, I think. The fortress of my upbringing is there, deep within.”
Rowan narrowed his eyes, then, as he started to grow more concerned for her health. His sash could only protect her so much. She seemed well, but he wanted that to last. Resolutely, he led his new wife and Shadowmere both to the closest outcropping of brown weathered stone, a tooth-like structure that jutted out from a mountain, just far enough over the ground for the two of them to take shelter beneath. He bid her there with a “come love, please,” and they were off again come the breaking of the storm.
They rode past some of the smaller Breton settlements on their way, leaving the frore, snowy mountains of Skyrim far behind them. Before it was too late, Rowan took care to don his complex disguise – the wedding gift of enchanted jewelry labored over for him, by Caesa, to deceive others into thinking he was as mortal as them – so as not to draw any suspicion before entering the clan lands.
It was as shadow and fog fell upon High Rock that the land grew most familiar to him, once the elevation increased dramatically. It wasn’t as simple as a stark dividing line separating Breton land from the Gaels; the trees dotting the landscape began to thicken, gradually, until the hills were covered in them. They were not coniferous like many in Skyrim were known to be, not yet. These were Elms, Elders, and Blackthorns. Rowan was partial to the third for their white blossoms in the Spring time.
There was a large sign pointing two ways, up a slope at the fork in the road they traveled. Rowan saw it and a breath caught in his throat.
Foremost, one had been painted in the language of the Eastern Gaels, with the common translation of the place the road headed. On the other, there lay a description in Rowan’s own tongue, the meaning “West Gael territories - enter at your own risk” below.
Rowan dismounted Shadowmere, sliding slowly to the ground. His eyes never left the sign post. His footsteps gravitated towards it, as did his hand, which came to lay flat upon the one pointing West. It was worn – more than he remembered, very worn – but it was still standing. The wars were over now, or so the messenger he’d sent here had informed him, but no one had bothered to paint over the warning note.
His mossy green eyes were wide.
His tongue could not form the words while he struggled to get a hold of his excitement. His jaw gave way to open, realization hitting him dead on.
“I suppose I didn’t understand fully, until now,” he said. A hum of light laughter bubbled up into a pronouncement positively ridden with glee. “Evela… I’m home!”
Rowan’s enthusiasm faded barely, if for a moment.
Back to her he went, his smile returning, full with all the warmth he was capable of. He took her hand from below the saddle, clasping it between his two.
She was of his clan, after all. This place was hers as much as it was his, though she’d yet to truly see it for its glory. He would have to remedy that come the following days.
He waited no longer to rejoin her atop his steed. Whistling, he nudged Shadowmere into gear, and they were gone again into the wilds. It was only a matter of time before Castle Forsair would be on the horizon.
“You belong here as much as I do, mo chridhe,” he murmured back to her as they rode. As the hour drew on, he permitted Shadowmere to walk. The path at the beast’s hooves was beginning to seem more constituted of leaf litter and damp dirt than stone. The moons’ lighting split through the trees like arrows heaven-sent, illuminating their way in brief but frequent flickers. “You may not think that yet… But I mean to have you feel at home before our time here is through. This, I promise you.”
It was ridiculous how his happiness and excitement alone was enough to make Evela feel the same. Her smile seemed to mirror his own when he returned to her, and when he took her hand in his own, she gave it a small encouraging squeeze. His entire face seemed to light up now that they had arrived—no, his entire soul. She could see it in his face, and in the way he moved as he quickly climbed onto the saddle to press forward. Her arms wound around his torso again and she rested her head on his back, smiling to herself.
“I don’t doubt that, husband.” She already felt as if she understood a small part of his world already. Between the occasional Gaelic he let slip into his sentences every so often and the stories he would tell her of his homeland, she was eager to finally see the place of his upbringing firsthand. She gave his waist a small squeeze, hugging him closer as she thought of everything he wanted to show her. “I can’t wait, Rowan. Really, I want to see everything we can before we return.”