Chapter 5: While You Were Away

The Volkihar Baths

Previously: Dearest Vingalmo

 

Katarinya speaks...

 

I know what you're thinking. I brought this on myself.

 

And I'm not denying that. My sins against Alythia robbed me of my freedom. My sins robbed Volkihar of a great mage, and Vingalmo of a dear friend. I am no innocent.

 

Simply hearing Vingalmo say her name unsettled me. I excused myself to roam the castle alone; there was no point in talking to anyone. No one wanted to talk to me; I was a pariah, a laughingstock in my imprisonment.

 

The baths were empty at this hour. I'd forgotten how beautiful they were. There was a Dibellan statue in the main pool, and the walls were lined with fountain faces. They spouted fresh seawater into a secondary pool.

 

It wasn't until now that I realized just how much I missed cold seawater baths. I had missed the tingle of the salt, the icy feeling of freshness, the very scent of the great Sea of Ghosts. I wondered, fleetingly, if I had misjudged Volkihar and fled too soon.

"I heard a certain vampire had returned."

The voice jolted Katarinya from her thoughts. She turned to see a face she hadn't glimpsed in centuries.

"Lady Serana," she gasped, blinking.

"Oh... 'Lady', is it?" the raven-haired vampire mocked, her red eyes twinkling. "Are we really back to that?"

 

"Are we really back to armor?" Katarinya countered, looking Lord Harkon's daughter over.

 

"I've been traveling," Serana protested playfully. "I couldn't very well do so in a proper gown."

 

"I thought you said you'd never come back to Volkihar," Katarinya reminded her, eyebrow raised.

 

"I say a lot of things when I'm angry," Serana replied, shrugging. "Besides, if I didn't come home once in a while, my mother would come find me." She shuddered. "I don't like it when my parents visit." She glanced down at Katarinya's bare hands. "At least, we know why you're here." 

"I got careless," Katarinya admitted. "I came back to Skyrim, to the Rift. Got mixed up with the Law-Giver boys."

 

Serana cackled. "Same old Katarinya. Always wedging yourself between brothers."

Katarinya suddenly frowned. I wonder why that is.

"I need to bathe from my travels before paying respects to my mother, otherwise she'll complain about my stench." Serana told her, sighing. "Meet me on the shore?"

***

 

They used to do this in the old days, walk about the island and sometimes cross onto the mainland. It was the best way to air their grievances to one another. They were both hostages back then; Katarinya stifled by Harkon while Serana was suffocated by Lady Valerica. It was how they first bonded back in the day.

Serana was still in armor, simple dark, leather armor with a black cowl. The only thing more baffling than her clothing choice was the simplicity of her hair. The last time Katarinya saw her, Serana had appeared every bit the princess she was, decked in silk and jewels.

 

This Serana, however, was more like the Serana she first met.

 

The ghostly moons were beautifully full above the dark island, and the chilly waves of the sea lapped against the rocky shore. Their shores crunched into the soil as they walked, first in silence for a time, and then finally speaking.

 

"Where have you been?" Katarinya asked. "I mean, everyone knows where I went when I left Volkihar. But what about you?"

 

"Lately?" Serana shrugged slightly. "Lately, I've been living in Rorikstead."

 

Katarinya blinked, visibly appalled. Rorikstead was not a place one "lived" in. It was where they stopped to water their horses and drink a villager on their way to Solitude.

 

"Doing what?" she asked, almost sounding offended.

 

Serana chuckled lightly, almost humorlessly. "Nothing I haven't done a thousand times before. I stole a ring of Alythia, just like you. Lets me go almost wherever I want. I find a small village somewhere, and get a job as a milkmaid, or farmer... tavern girl or shopkeeper. I've even been a blacksmith's apprentice." She shrugged again. "Sometimes, I even join a temple for a time."

 

Katarinya was briefly rendered speechless. "A... farmer?" she asked in halting disdain.

 

Serana nodded. "I rise early before the sun, tend my crops, feed my livestock, then I weave or sew or do carpentry for the rest of the day." She closed her eyes. "It's so calming."

 

Katarinya was suddenly hit with a flash of her mortal life. It was fleeting, but intensely vivid, so much she almost tripped. She was in a small desert village somewhere, feeding chickens just as the sun was rising. In the distance, two boys were calling her name, her real name.

 

Katarinya closed her eyes, steeling herself against the memory. She didn't want to see any more, or hear any more. She didn't want to remember who the boys were, even though she knew they were brothers. She didn't want to remember if they were her brothers or someone else's. And she definitely didn't want to hear her name again.

 

"Do your parents know?" she asked, eager to move on to something else.

 

"No," Serana said firmly. "And if they ever found out, they'd be even more insufferable than they are now."

 

It was strange, the more Katarinya thought about it. In life, she'd been a commoner, but in death, she moved as a princess. In life, Serana had actually been a princess, but in death, she played the peasant. 

The two walked on in silence, leaving Katarinya to wonder if mortals and immortals alike were cursed to forever seek what they never truly had. 

Next: Sting