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ehlnofay · 1 year

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Summerfest Day 1 - BEAST

Brelyna very seldom invites them into her room, and Efri can kind of see why.

She’s got a nice room. Well, it’s the same room as everyone else, of course, same desk and bed and wardrobe, but it’s decorated very nicely, with a purple bedspread and the nicest little knick-knacks all over, an inky emblem hanging over the worst of the scorch marks on the door. There’s even a rug on the floor so it isn’t freezing to walk on. And the thing is that Efri and Sissel aren’t always the best in nice places.

Tell a lie, actually; Efri isn’t always the best in nice places. Sissel’s as polite as anything – she’s sitting at the desk poring over Brelyna’s papers, while Efri marches in circles over the rug, wetting it with her snow-damp shoes and knocking her stick against the flagstones. It helps her think. It doesn’t help her not knock Brelyna’s nice things off her tables and shelves – which she hasn’t done, not yet, but it’s been a narrow thing.

She’s doing her best not to, but she can never seem to make herself sit still; if she’s moving around on purpose, she’s more aware of what she’s doing than if she’s moving around on accident.

It’s very nice of Brelyna to invite them into her room, when she does it so rarely. Of everyone they’ve made friends with Brelyna seems the least sure of what to make of them. Sometimes Sissel worries that she doesn’t like them, though Efri is pretty confident she does. And now Efri’s pretty sure she’s been proved right – Brelyna’s been spending more time with them lately, and she offered to teach Sissel an easy conjuration spell since she doesn’t know any, and that’s not the behaviour of someone who finds them annoying.

(Truthfully – though Efri doesn’t tell Sissel because she’d just be nervous about it – Efri thinks that Brelyna does find her a bit annoying, sometimes. When she’s loud or disruptive or barges in and interrupts things. But that’s okay; sometimes Brelyna gets tetchy and superior and then Efri gets annoyed at her. Everyone annoys everyone else a bit. And Brelyna never looks annoyed at Sissel, so there’s no reason to fuss.)

Sissel is sitting at the desk, looking over all the notes Brelyna wrote, diagrams and things, or whatever it is they look at to learn spells – Efri tried to look once but she just felt confused. Brelyna is leaning over her chair, pointing to certain bits and pieces and explaining them. (It’s nice of her. Efri knows Sissel learns quicker when she’s just shown the spell – too quick, apparently, the teachers always get surprised about it – but she knows, too, that Sissel likes it when people bother to explain the ins and outs anyway.) Efri is marching a groove into the woven rug, banging out an unsteady beat on the stone floor, half-watching, half-thinking.

(She’s thinking about swords, mostly. In a pretty abstract sense, but also the hypotheticals of learning swordplay from the books in the Arcaeneum. She’d need to learn to read first, of course, and locate a sword, but still, it could be fun. A goal for later down the line.)

(She could find the caravan again. Show Khasir and Taz and J’matha that she doesn’t need to borrow their stupid heavy weaponry anymore, she’s got her own.)

Brelyna finishes her explanation of some symbol or something – Efri wasn’t really listening, because she didn’t really understand it. Sissel nods gravely, then stays with her head bowed, hair parting neatly down the middle of her neck and falling to curtain either side of her face.

After a moment, she says, “Thanks for showing me all this.”

Brelyna stands up straighter, a hand going to pick at the skirt of her robe. “You’re welcome,” she replies, looking a bit self-conscious at the gratitude. “It’s no trouble. Since you said you didn’t know any spells from Conjuration…”

Sissel’s hair ripples, smooth as glacier sheets, as she nods again; she pauses, very suddenly still, as she seems to consider something. “They felt scary,” she admits. “They’re all – dead people and daedra and stuff. But this one is easier.”

Sissel can’t see it from where she sits with her head bent over the reading material on the desk, but Efri, watching them from across the rug, sees the face Brelyna makes at that, like she’s bitten into some sweet thing and found it bitter. It’s a lemon-rind face. Efri tries to catch her eye, but Brelyna is focused on the back of Sissel’s head.

“Sissel,” she says carefully – a half-smile that Efri can’t pinpoint as concerned or amused pulling at the side of her mouth – “you do know that conjured familiars are daedra?”

The fun thing about the College is that they learn something new every day.

“What?” Sissel says, in a very high-pitched almost-whisper, head jerking up. Whispering isn’t a good thing, so Efri crosses the rug in two very long steps to stand at her back.

“But they’re animals,” Efri points out. She doesn’t know very much about magic, but she’s certain she’s not wrong about that.

Brelyna’s still wearing that uncertain little almost-smile in the corners of her lips. “They’re in the forms of animals. But they are daedra.” When Sissel stays still and silent, she adds, “Most summoned things are, in a sense. Even bound weapons, arguably, though there isn’t a lot of academic consensus on what constitutes –”

“A weapon?” Efri asks. “But that’s a thing. It’s not alive.”

“Neither are daedra,” Brelyna says patiently, “at least not the same way that we are.”

Efri is looking up at her face – narrow features and blood-red eyes – so she doesn’t see Sissel move, is startled by the sound of the chair scraping against stone and the way Sissel stands so quickly that she almost headbutts her in the chin. “I don’t –” she starts, stops; voice tremulous, she mumbles, “I don’t want to do this anymore.”

“No,” Brelyna says, quick and sudden. She looks alarmed, a bit, and very concerned; her brow furrows so it meets in a mess of lines. Sissel’s hand fists in the wool of Efri’s sleeve.

Efri pats her sharp knuckles. “Woah. You’re going to learn to summon daedra,” she says appreciatively. “Like one of those mages from the stories. That’s so cool.”

She’s trying to be relaxed about it, make it fun, but it’s the wrong thing to say; the stories about mages are very rarely nice ones, and the stories about demon-summoners never. “I don’t want to,” Sissel repeats, higher-pitched, frantic. Her nails bite hard into Efri’s wrist through the fabric.

“I’m sorry,” Brelyna says. She looks very sorry. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Efri prises Sissel’s hand away long enough to tangle their fingers together. (Her stick, which she forgot she was holding, clatters loudly to the floor, making all of them jump.) Sissel’s still looking afraid, her eyes blown wide and rimmed with red; Efri squeezes her hand and says, “You don’t have to if you don’t want to. No-one’s going to make you.”

Brelyna offers hasty assent. “Of course,” she says.

Sissel takes a breath. She squeezes Efri’s hand back. “I don’t want to,” she repeats, less desperate this time. “It’s – isn’t it dangerous?”

Brelyna pauses, seeming to seriously think it over. (Efri likes that about her, that she does that. That she actually thinks and tells them the truth instead of hurried platitudes and trite answers.) Efri takes the moment’s pause to pull Sissel back and sit them both on the bed, her free hand running over the silky purple counterpane.

“Only as much as any magic,” Brelyna answers eventually. Her eyes refocus and she looks at Sissel steadily. “I think I understand your fear. Summoning spells can go very wrong if you don’t know what you’re doing – if you bind it incorrectly or try to do something too advanced for your skill. But that’s a risk with everything. My cousin once miscast an Alteration spell and broke a family heirloom. There was – I knew someone, a while ago, who used fire magic without training and permanently injured her hands.” She’s picking at the uneven skin on her neck. “Magic is always a little dangerous. But as long as you’re clever and careful, you shouldn’t make any mistakes too big to fix.”

Sissel stares at the boot-damp rug. “But it’s daedra,” she says, and Brelyna blinks.

“They’re not –” she begins, trails off; stares distant-eyed at the wall behind them and shakes her head. “Hm. This is very strange for me.”

Efri doesn’t think it’s that strange. Sissel has gotten nervous about much lesser things than the prospect of conjuring extraplanar creatures bound to her will, and no-one’s batted an eye. “Is nobody scared about daedra where you come from?” she asks, because she knows Brelyna comes from a family with a lot of magic and weird things. It seems like a safe bet.

Brelyna’s lips tip up at the edges. “I grew up in Morrowind,” she says, like that’s answer enough. To Sissel, she says, “You don’t need to be afraid. I wouldn’t be trying to help you with this if I didn’t know you can handle it. And as the summoner, you have nothing to worry about, as long as you can do the spell correctly.” She thinks. “And as long as you’re respectful. That never hurts.”

Sissel’s bitten-down nails scrape against the back of Efri’s hand. “I still don’t want to.”

“All right,” Brelyna says. “You don’t have to.”

But she’s looking at them both with her head canted, thoughtful.

Efri asks, “What?”

“I could show you,” Brelyna offers. Her hands are tucked behind her back. “A simple summoning. If you like.”

Sissel tenses. Efri nudges her with her shoulder. (She’s a bit interested in seeing a simple summoning.)

(She’s not sure what kind of summoning counts as simple. Brelyna did say that conjured weapons were kind of daedra – maybe she’ll magic up a carving knife. Even so, it would be cool to see; Efri doesn’t think she’s seen much conjuring spells before. They haven’t often gone to that class.)

The apprehension is writ clear across Sissel’s face – Brelyna presses her lips tight together. “I promise,” she says, “it will be completely safe. You can put up a ward, if you’d feel better that way. Or I could ward you.”

Efri’s stick is still laid out lonely on the rug; she sticks out her leg as far as it will go to try to slide it back over. “And I’d have my stick,” she adds. Brelyna nudges the stick over to her. “I could hit it away if it came close.”

The look Sissel gives her is plagued. She’s visibly struggling not to say that a stick won’t do anything for this, Efri! but Efri can tell that it’s made her feel a bit better even so. After a moment, the look passes and Sissel tilts her head. “You want to see it,” she says.

Efri shrugs. “We don’t have to.”

“No…” Sissel’s face scrunches. “No, we can. If, um,” and she looks back up at Brelyna, “if you can help me ward?”

When Brelyna smiles – a proper smile, with teeth – her gums look very pink. “Of course.”

She does. She steps back, too, to give them room; plenty of space to sit on the bed clutching each other’s hands so tight they’re probably mutually breaking each other’s bones. Sissel casts a shield spell with her free hand (it’s blue and glimmery and makes Efri’s finger fizz when she pokes it) and then Brelyna casts another one, fitting over Sissel’s like a second skin, and then Brelyna takes another step back and gets ready to cast her spell for real.

When Brelyna casts, she looks relaxed, graceful; her movements are tight and elegant and her face is more easy and even than carefully composed. Magic coils plum-purple and slithery around her fingers. Sissel holds Efri’s hand so tight she can feel the knuckles grinding against each other.

With a motion like a serpent darting to snatch something up in its jaws, she lets the spell go.

All of the air is sucked out of the room – no, not out, further in, inhaled to a bright, spiralling point just over the rug. It builds over itself, layer over layer over layer, friction and sparks, and then there’s a crackle and a flash and there’s one of the things – what are they called, Efri knows she’s heard of them, the conjurer’s ice and fire and thunder – roiling in the middle of the room, eddying around itself, made of wind and darkness and the spit of lightning between its joints. The vague shape of its head, turbulent and shadow-eyed, whips around the room and comes to rest on Brelyna, who bows slightly.

She bows to it.

Just slightly.

She rises, face still clear, not smiling, and says a couple quick, low words that Efri can’t make out – they might not be in a language she knows, but the thing is also just very loud. Then – Efri can hear the next bit – she says, “My friends – just here – have never met a daedroth.”

It turns, hollow-eyed and squalling, to face them, and Sissel turns so still she could be a mountain stone. Efri can’t breathe. She regrets, a bit, not taking more of her cues from Sissel’s obvious fear; even through the dim glister of the warding spells she feels so very strongly that this is something that is not safe.

(It is not safe. But being not safe and being dangerous are not entirely the same thing. And danger is good, sometimes; it makes her blood sing.) Brelyna’s summon, maw gaping, gives such an impassionedly beleaguered sigh that the force of it sends something tumbling off a shelf. Efri chokes on a wonderstruck laugh, and Sissel, so startled that her grip on Efri’s hand slackens, laughs too.

#full disclosure this one was written a bit before summerfest... but the prompt made me think of it!!#and I think it's cute and wanted to share!! sue me!!!!#oc tag #efri #skyrim #tesblr #tes #the elder scrolls #my writing #fay writes #tesfest23 #college of winterhold thoughts if you must know #brelyna maryon #sissel #ft. STORM ATRONACH. most important character #and of course. stick

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