"Hear me, Kirstia."

 

The words shook me, snapping me out of the warm haze of the glowing embers. I'd spent my last copper Septim the night before buying a meager loaf of bread, and now I was well and truly destitute. The lord's bannermen had evicted me from my father's home weeks ago now, and without the coin to rent a room at the inn, I was reduced to passing the night behind the blacksmith's forge, borrowing what meager heat it had to offer.

 

 

"Hear me, Kirstia, and obey."

 

Again, the voice whispered to me on the air. I looked side to side, but the first light of dawn revealed I was alone. I shook my head again, trying to cut through the fatigue of the restless night. 

 

"Who...?" I asked.

 

I more felt than heard the response. Warmth returned to my body, and I felt the tense cords of muscles in my neck and back unwind bit by bit. It wasn't the warmth of the coals, but the warmth of a human body; soft, pulsing, relaxing, arousing. 

 

I shook my head again. The depths of my mind shouted that this was the hand of Dibella, that the Queen of Heaven commanded me. But now awakened, my thinking mind told me this was impossible. I was outcast, the daughter of an oathbreaker and an apostate, condemned to penury in this frozen waste far from home. And yet...

 

"Kirstia, I have not forgotten you," the sultry whispers reassured me. "The time is almost upon you to leave this place. Come, follow and I shall reveal."

 

As if I'd been taken hand in hand, was walked - I was led - away from the blacksmith's yard and towards the docks. Through the town square, past the School of Julianos, shuttered and sealed by the lord's orders, out the fisherman's gate and along the boardwalk until I could see down to the ocean.

 

 

"The time has come for you to leave this place," I heard. "Long have you waited, but now your time has arrived."

 

"I... don't understand," I gasped, the air leaving my body in a billowing cloud.

 

"Know then that your native land lies in the grip of madness and war. The blood of man waters the earth, and dark shadows descend from the depths of forgotten history."

 

"My native land? Skyrim? But I am exiled, commanded to bear the shame of my father's crimes. If I return, I will be outlawed."

 

Again, invisible, massaging hands warmed me and comforted me. And gently nudged me forward.

 

"And are you any more than that here? Homeless, penniless, reduced to sleeping on your neighbor's doorstep? You were but an infant when your father brought you to this place. Now you are your own woman, and it is time for you to return home. And you shall do so as my servant."

 

"Your... servant?"

 

"My servant in this world, my Sybil, has passed from this life. Now a new heart has opened to my word, ready to take her place in my temple."

 

I considered that for a moment. Surely she didn't mean...

 

"No, Kirstia, you are not my new Sybil. But you will find her, and this will only be the beginning of your story. Go, go forth and sail for Skyrim. There is nothing for you here." 

 

"But I have nothing. How can I pay for the passage?"

 

"Trust in your Lady, Kirstia, and you will be delivered."

 

I'm not sure why, but I trusted those words. Carefully, mindful of the snow and ice, I descended to the docks, pressing past piles of barrels, spools of fishing nets, and all the other detritus of a working dock. At last, I reached the end of the pier, staring up the gangplank of the large ship I'd seen earlier. From above, a man waved down to me.

 

"Are you Kirstia? Kirstia Bjissen?"

 

I nodded my assent slowly.

 

"Good! We've been awaiting you. An hour more and we'd have cast off and left you here. Come aboard quick - your friend paid well, but not enough for us to miss the tide."

 

I almost paused, questioned, doubted, but something deep within me told me to press on. I mounted the gangplank step by step, until I found myself aboard, standing on a gently rocking deck. 

 

"I don't know why you'd want to go back to Skyrim. It's a cursed land, and getting worse by the day. But that's your business, I suppose," the sailor opined.

 

I turned to him and mustered a sad smile. "It's my father's land. And I've been away too long."

 

"Perhaps," he conceded, "but brace yourself when you arrive. It's not the same land it was before the Great War."

 

I looked back at Northpoint, my home for the last twenty-five years, the only home I had ever truly known, and silently bid it farewell.

 

 

The days at sea drifted by, one blending into the next. I couldn't fault my conditions aboard the ship - I had a warm hammock and warm food, as long as I helped out in the kitchen and stayed on the sailors' good side. A week or more passed, before I finally found myself rowing ashore with a hunting party seeking horker meat to refill the vessel's salted stores. It was a bountiful hunt, and I put my father's bow to good use, but when we returned to the boat the first mate held up his hand to stop me.

 

"This is where we part ways, Kirsti."

 

"But... I'm to accompany you to Windhelm."

 

He shook his head slowly, a sad look coming over his face. "Your friend told me about your predicament. If you walked onto the Windhelm docks, you'd either be turned away as an outsider, or clapped in irons as a returned exile. This is where we part company. May the eight watch over you, kid."

 

I almost argued, almost tried to push my way onto the boat, but he was right. There was no point in me pressing on to Windhelm. If I'd read the charts right, I wasn't far from Dawnstar, and from there roads leading south. The way to Markarth and the Temple of Dibella was a long one, but that was true from here or from Windhelm alike. So under a red moon, I left the beach behind me and started my long trek south.