the shaman of the karthspire, part 1
a/n: hi everyone i decided to cave and put my skyrim writings online!! they used to be on wattpad an age and a half ago, but i removed it bc that site is. yikes. i didnt touch it for years but i’m rewriting it here!! i’ll post chapter links to ao3 as they are completed :) anyway on to the writings
I wasn’t sure what I had been expecting - perhaps a wizened old Reachwoman, with a hooked nose, beady black eyes and a necklace of sabre cat teeth around her neck. Even a hagraven, like in the countless other Forsworn forts, would have been closer than the woman sitting before me.
The shaman draped herself across her throne, swirling a dark substance in a drinking horn. She wore a curious garment, seemingly made of one swathe of black fabric down over her chest and between her thighs, secured by a belt of bird skulls around her waist. Her legs, feet, hands and arms, although not covered by her dress, were covered with whorls and patterns, runes painted in deep indigo ink - power augmentations was my best guess.
She stopped swirling the horn, and with an elegant languidness straightened up in the chair. Her body paint stopped just below her collarbones, leaving her long neck and face bare and shining in the dim firelight. The same thick kohl rimmed eyes of pale, washed-out green, and her blonde hair was left mostly down, with hawk feathers sticking out from between the strands.
The shaman of the Karthspire was beautiful, so much so that I half-wondered whether she had cast a spell on me right there and then.
“We have brought you an intruder, shaman. He is not of our lands.”
She folded her legs in front of her. Her eyes narrowed.“He did not kill any of us, and instead claims he wishes to speak with you.”
One of the Forsworn grabbed my hair and yanked me up onto my knees. The shaman’s mouth tilted up and she leaned forward, looking directly at me. I felt my knees weaken.
“Is this true?” she said.
Her voice was higher than I expected, softer, cooler and more polished.
“Uh, yes, I-” my voice came out a guttural mumble. I coughed, and at that her grin only grew. “I wanted to-”
“Yet another adventurer seeking a wish, are you? Looking for me to call to the Old Gods and ask for a blessing, or give you a glimpse into your murky future?” She snorted, lapsing back into her throne and sipping from her drinking horn.
I noticed she was bored again, as she rolled her eyes and sighed. She traced the ivory rim of the horn and looked at me. Divines, she made me dizzy.
“Well,” her tone was deflated, “I must regretfully inform you that, as you’ve brought no payment I will have to take your eyes as an offering.”
A chill ran down my spine. The shaman was well-spoken, relaxed and youthful, but delivered such savage words with such ease and use that I wondered just how many men had met the same fate in this antechamber. How many different bloods stained these stone floors. No matter how many Forsworn I had dealt with, their ways still terrified me.
“I’m not here for a wish.” I said quickly.
The shaman was quiet for a moment. Her eyes had widened a little. “No?”
“I’m,” I pushed myself up off the floor onto my knees, dusting down my robes, “I’m a scholar. I have been travelling the Reach, visiting the clans in and around the mountains. I have been up to Druadach Redoubt, and all the way down to Lost Valley, gathering information about the Reachmen and your history.”
The shaman blinked and smiled again. “You’re here to interview me?”
“I’ve gathered a wealth of information about your past. I know a great deal about Red Eagle, and how Ulfric Stormcloak drove your people from the city after the Great War. There is, however, one gap in my knowledge - the conspiracy in Markarth.”
Just like that, her smile was gone.
“Before I left Druadach, one of your kinsmen told me to find you. He said you had a… unique perspective on the event. I wanted to ask you about that.”
For a split second, I could’ve sworn her jaw tensed. The shaman broke eye contact with me, looking instead to the two Forsworn that hauled me in here.
She didn’t say anything else until the door had closed behind them. Lifting her head high, the shaman braced her arms on the side of the throne and frowned.
“So, what would you ask of me?”
