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whispersafterdusk · 4 years

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The Master’s Apprentice - ch 22

The weather over Windhelm was overcast and gloomy; Onmund hoped it wasn't a sign of the sort of "welcome" they were going to receive as they (himself, Gormir, and Kestrel hanging around his neck) crossed the bridge that led to the city. They were met just inside the city gates by a group of guards who ushered them quickly and quietly toward the Palace of the Kings where they deposited them in a side room and then took up positions to either side of the doorway, both inside the room and just outside of it.

Onmund wasn't exactly confident about this meeting - mostly because he didn't have a full grasp on why Kestrel had wanted it in the first place. Guessing at her intentions was difficult but he had a suspicion she was going to ask Ulfric for safe haven somewhere within Eastmarch, or maybe ask for permission to leave Skyrim by way of his port. As for how the Jarl would respond to any such request that too was hard to guess; after their talks at Winterhold Onmund knew Ulfric didn't see them as a direct threat, not like Korir did, and that he at least shouldn't be outright hostile to them, but that didn't necessarily mean he saw them in strictly a good light either... Though, now that there were fewer of them maybe that would erase any illusion of posing a threat, either to Eastmarch or anywhere in Skyrim in general -- after they'd emptied the College of everything they could carry and destroyed what they couldn't they'd finally had a moment to sort out who was going and who was staying. ((Continued below cut))

J'zargo and Brelyna had decided to stay, of course - they'd both seen how advanced Onmund was in his studies after his year with Kestrel and had pledged themselves as apprentices. Nirya and Urag had made themselves near-permanent residents of the library (and thankfully they'd taken it upon themselves, once he'd had taught them how, to enlarge the library to fit what books they'd retrieved from the College -- Onmund was very tired of digging dirt and moving rocks to make space for the rest of the College's contents and members, and the little underground home felt cramped even with all the new rooms so he was definitely glad they were handling this particular part). Gormir had stayed for lack of anywhere else to go and had fallen into a role of hunting and gathering to help keep them all fed (with J'zargo's help -- the two of them seemed to get along rather well, in fact).

But then, after emptying the College, Enthir had been the first to leave followed a few days later by Sergius. Drevis was still undecided but Phinis and Nelacar both had announced they intended to stay but pursue independent studies, and did not intend to take any part in any sort of rebuilt or reformed college of mages. Onmund privately believed Drevis was going to leave too but decided not to mention it to anyone but Kestrel, and overall she hadn't been surprised to see the others leave and wouldn't be surprised if Drevis did in fact decide to go as well.

"It is, after all, their choice," had been her constant response to any speculation prior to the departures. "I won't force anyone to remain."

And he did understand that it was their choice but Onmund had quietly hoped everyone would remain -- they'd lost the physical College but could have rebuilt elsewhere if they'd all just stayed together. A part of him suspected that they didn't trust Kestrel despite all she'd done to save them and there was a small voice in his head that constantly grumbled over how it seemed like near everyone they'd helped had ultimately turned on them in the end... It wasn't very fair to think that way though, and because of that it was easy enough to silence that little voice when it grew a bit too loud.

Oh well. Perhaps it was for the best -- anything they attempted to rebuild, IF they rebuilt, wouldn't be the same. And he doubted that even Ulfric would allow a new college to be built under the guidance of an ancient mage from another era that had willfully disregarded the orders of a Jarl because she'd disagreed with him. Whatever was to happen in the future he imagined it would remain a small thing: a place somewhere for them to live and study, out of sight of the rest of the world, with no effort put into attracting new students to the fold.

He did make a mental note to request that, wherever they moved next, they took steps to ensure any new apprentices couldn't literally fall into the role as Onmund had. Maybe they could find a nice, abandoned mountaintop somewhere...

The room was completely silent as they waited save for the soft sound of the chain rattling as Gormir took off the necklace housing Kestrel and silently handed it over to Onmund; rather than hang her from his neck Onmund settled for placing her in clear view on top of the stone-topped table they waited around -- it was covered in maps and scrolls, with writing tools and also tiny carved wooden pieces meant to mark out troop movements left in small piles here and there. It didn't look like anything here had been touched in awhile and there wasn't anything especially interesting to look at either; it left him wondering if this was some sort of test to see if they'd look at or tamper with the table's contents.

Finally from the other room he could hear the heavy footfalls of men heading their way; Onmund straightened his posture and clasped his hands behind his back, turning to the doorway to see if this was Ulfric arriving or someone sent in his stead.

A man dressed in furs, hides, and sporting a headdress made of a bear's head with the arms hanging over his shoulders strode in, his gaze falling immediately on Onmund.

Onmund felt a small twinge of awkwardness at the man's look -- he'd left the 'battle robes' he'd worn at Winterhold behind and was instead wearing a spare set of robes they'd found in Arch-Mage Selos's quarters. He hadn't dared go so far as to actually wear the Arch-Mage's robes of office, so to speak, but this particular set looked formal (while also possessing fairly potent enchantments for defensive purposes) and the formal look was all he'd really cared about at the time. Whatever the man thought Onmund couldn't tell from facial expression alone but based on the grunt the man let out after a moment or two of sizing him up he assumed the man didn't find him too impressive, formal clothing or not.

Ulfric thankfully entered moments later and offered Onmund and Gormir the briefest of nods before gesturing for everyone to sit around the stone table; the bear-mantled man must have taken some other unspoken order from the gesture as he quickly swept the scrolls aside and rolled up a few of the various maps before moving to stand at Ulfric's elbow.

"Does your master mage puppet you again?"

Onmund shook his head at Ulfric. "No - I'm myself. She's right there, actually--" he pointed to the black-gemmed pendant on its chain that still lay on the table in front of him.

Ulfric's gaze dropped to the necklace then returned to Onmund, accompanied with a raised eyebrow only for both eyebrows to raise in surprise when Kestrel's voice projected out of the pendant.

"I assure you my apprentice speaks truthfully, Jarl Ulfric."

The bear-man narrowed his eyes. "And what sorcery do we deal with?"

"I can't really see who just asked that but regardless I did assure Jarl Ulfric that I would not use Onmund's body longer than was necessary. As such, my soul now resides in this pendant -- and is well-protected both within and without," she added after a pause.

"Very well then. Had I known I would be speaking to jewelry I may have reconsidered my agreement to this meeting. Speak your piece and be quick about it."

"I shall be direct then: I ask for permission to relocate somewhere within your lands, Jarl - preferably somewhere off the beaten path. In return, any such mages that decide to remain under my tutelage will guard your Windhelm and protect your people."

That definitely surprised Ulfric. "Elaborate, if you will."

"Certainly. I want to stress that I am not offering to fight your war for you -- in fact, I intend to remain neutral to this whole mess regardless of what holding or territory we end up in. However you wish to conduct your war, and whether you are successful or not, is entirely up to you. What I can and am willing to do however is to look after your people while your forces are elsewhere. It hasn't escaped my attention that there's rumor that dragons seem to be making a reappearance, and your city's guards may not be able to handle one rampaging through Windhelm on their own. Additionally I was told that when you rode to Winterhold's assistance you were limited in the number of men you could spare -- the situation may be different now but this tells me you are in a position to at least consider my offer as it would potentially relieve a few worries you have here at home while you're afield fighting your war."

The bear-man scoffed. "If you're not here to fight for Skyrim then we're wasting time and breath speaking to you."

"Quiet, please, whoever you are. The adults are talking," came Kestrel's sarcastic reply.

Onmund grimaced a bit but the man didn't respond, instead looking to Ulfric; the Jarl remained quiet for several breaths.

"And if it is the Legion that comes for my city," Ulfric finally said into the silence. "What then?"

"Obviously if they march on this city then a handful of mages aren't likely to turn the tide of that battle, nor would we try," Kestrel replied. "What we can do instead is get your people out of the city and to somewhere well out of the way of their warmongering. -- the ones who will go, at least. From experience I find that Nords do not typically run from battle, even if they're hopelessly outnumbered or out-skilled. It is both admirable as well as condemnable but I won't force anyone to leave."

"Only a coward runs," the bear-man growled.

"You call it cowardice, I call it choosing the battlefield," Kestrel countered. "If I know I will lose here but that I will assuredly win in a different location I consider it far more useful to go to where victory is assured. Dead men rarely win wars and we are straying from the point of this meeting besides."

The man looked to Ulfric again. "You can't be seriously considering this?"

"Enough, Galmar. I would at least hear all the details on the table before I make a decision." Ulfric's attention moved between Galmar and the others before moving back to Kestrel on the table. "What is your intention? Another school?"

"No, though I will not turn away any who come seeking instruction. We obviously can't completely hide ourselves away - bare minimum we must have a means of feeding ourselves, we must have some sort of income to survive off of. I don't intend for it to become widely known where we are but we also cannot just disappear and still uphold our end of any bargains made, assuming we manage to come to an agreement."

Ulfric nodded curtly, then reached out to tap fingers against a map that was still left open; Onmund glanced down and saw he was tapping on Winterhold, near the cost where the College was. "And what of your College? Have you given up the castle to Korir?"

"Not willingly but yes, we have. We have taken all that we can carry from there - a detail I'm sure has made Korir even angrier as he has no spoils to go with his stolen property. If I may, however, I would ask you warn him not to try expanding beneath the main floors of that castle -- the ground can easily be de-stabilized and then he and Winterhold will have a second collapse on their hands."

That was a little half truth they'd decided to use -- down in the Midden were two things the mages hadn't been able to move or destroy: the Augur of Dunlain, and an atronach forge. The Augur was...not able to be reasoned with, so there was no hope of asking it to never approach anyone that may stumble into the room that housed it. And leaving the atronach forge out in the open where anyone could attempt to use it was too dangerous. They'd spent several days moving dirt and stone around to fill in the Midden, and then several more painstakingly replicating the patterns in the stonework of the College's floors, carefully erasing any hint of the Midden's existence.

It had been rather boring and tiring work but it was sadly the quickest solution to the problem as any sort of magical means to prevent mining under the College wouldn't last without a source to power it and they simply didn't have the spare hours and hands needed to acquire one and get all the delicate spellwork in place while also emptying the College. They had been racing against time to get everything out as it was, as Kestrel's ice-globe spell was going to eventually wear off and Korir had wasted no time either and had already had men working at rebuilding the bridge to the College the day after the mages had left (and once they had one in place the men came back armed with pickaxes -- it was a strange thing to watch from the inside but it had prompted a bit more urgency in the mages as they hurried to carry out crates and satchels and armloads of objects).

Ulfric nodded slightly after a pause. "I cannot promise he will listen but I will warn him. Anything else?"

"Yes, actually. Should you, for any reason, come across an intact corpse of an Altmer woman, I would be rather grateful if you would retain it for reasons I don't think need to be voiced considering my current situation. If you're able to have it delivered to me I would consider myself owing you a single favor in return."

Ulfric nodded again and stood in one smooth, if abrupt, motion with his expression betraying nothing of what he might've been thinking about THAT particular request. "I will consider your offer. For now I have other things to attend to. The guards shall see you out."

At that Ulfric left with Galmar stomping along at his back, the bear-mantled man pausing to throw one final glower at them before disappearing through the doorway.

Onmund picked Kestrel up and lifted the chain around his neck. "Well...it wasn't an outright no?"

"Wasn't a yes either," Gormir grunted.

"Give him time. He will be weighing the advantages and disadvantages against his game of politics and calculating cost measures with his war," Kestrel said quietly. "I did not expect an immediate answer today anyway."

"How's he get his answer to us then?"

"Nelacar was kind enough to tell me of a College member serving here within the Jarl's court -- that is how I got this meeting set up to begin with. I thought it'd be better for our chances if 'one of our own' were the one to broach the subject with the Jarl. Any messages or answers will make themselves to us through him."

The guards at the door hurried them out of the city as quickly as they'd escorted them in and Onmund pulled up his hood as they trudged back out into the wind; the weather had shifted while they were inside and it was beginning to flurry.

Gormir peered up at the sky then out toward the horizon, and shielded his eyes from snowflakes. "Looks ready to get worse."

"Hopefully it'll hold for a few hours more since I'm due back at that Azura statue," Onmund sighed. "A couple more days and that part should be done."

Gormir plodded along behind him as they headed further from the city back toward a little clearing they'd marked as a temporary portal placement in the event Ulfric actually agreed to meet them. "-not been any trouble out that way?"

"None so far as I know. Aranea's said Winterhold's been all but kissing the backsides of the stonemasons though."

Gormir let out a bitter chuckle. "I bet. Any gold is welcome now even if they'd rather stick you in the back than let you inside the city limits."

Onmund looked back at him. "What, really? They don't like dunmer either?"

"Not daedra worshippers, they don't."

Onmund found it a bit amusing that, having driven out the mages he hated so much, now Korir had to rely on the daedra worshippers he apparently also hated -- and even this source of coin wouldn't be there much longer as the statue was close to finished and the altar wouldn't take long to complete either being as Onmund wasn't the only person working to restore it.

Aranea had explained when they first met how all the followers of Azura had scattered long ago but with the destruction of the statue and altar a lot of them had come rushing back. Among them were a few of the original stonemasons that had crafted the statue in the first place; they'd been rather pleased when Onmund demonstrated how he could meld and shape stone, and they'd all worked together to create a rough plan of repair for the statue: the stonemasons would get the remaining pieces fitted together and Onmund would fuse it and then help fix any missing bits by getting raw stone set in place for them to shape and carve with their tools. It'd taken a few weeks for them to get the resources together to build a pulley system and scaffolding for the tallest parts but it was coming along and was nearly completed, and Onmund was assured that for the rest of the altar and the platform it had rested on all he'd need to do is get the stone in place and the masons would finish the rest.

Korir would have maybe another two weeks of whatever he could squeeze out of the masons and then they'd all leave again, leaving Winterhold empty. How he'd attract anyone up to his nearly abandoned hold was anyone's guess and, Onmund supposed, wasn't any of his business so it wasn't worth thinking about.

Ahead of them the clearing came into view and he was relieved to see the circle of rocks they'd used to mark out the portal spot was still undisturbed. As they got closer Onmund gently touched the pendant and, as usual when Kestrel took control, his body stumbled a few steps as her soul took a moment to adjust to the switch; being inside the pendant was like being inside a large faceted globe -- "behind" him was his own chest (with a magnified view of whatever he was wearing - he'd never really thought of what effort must go into making clothing but seeing all the details very up close had given him a newfound appreciation for what he wore) and "ahead" of him he could see the world as though he were looking out of a window. It was quiet and strangely cozy in here and he didn't mind waiting while Kestrel did whatever they'd needed to change places for -- in this case it was casting the portal spell as this was one type of magic you really didn't want to get wrong and Onmund simply wasn't practiced enough to portal long distances yet even with anchored, defined endpoints in place.

She relinquished control once they were back in Saarthal; the only downside to portaling in and out of here was they all had to climb the stairs each time they needed to go outside. As Onmund began his climb he could hear Gormir behind him still -- he supposed the man would be going out to hunt again as the smoked bear meat the others had been eating for the last couple of weeks was running low and no one particularly liked eating vegetable-only stews.

"No J'zargo this time?"

"He's supposed to be waiting topside for us to return -- he'd better be, anyway. I'm not waiting on him today."

Onmund chuckled and kept climbing (and was halfway up when he realized he was still in his formal robes...he decided it wasn't worth heading back down to change and kept going -- it's not like he planned on getting dirty and the robes were thick enough to keep him warm even if it started snowing hard). The carved dragon wall loomed over them as they crested the steps and kept going, traveling through empty rooms until they came to the main entry hall where, huddled over a small brazier, J'zargo waited.

"There you are - this one was beginning to wonder if the Jarl threw you all into the harbor."

Gormir jerked his head toward the door. "Come on, let's see if we can't find another bear - at the very least I want two deer this time."

J'zargo twitched his nose. "We shall need firewood as well - most of it was used to smoke the last hunt's gatherings."

"That's what the sled's for, isn't it?"

The khajiit huffed out a sigh. "This one will get the axe."

Gormir smirked and kept going, brushing passed Onmund and J'zargo and heading outside.

Onmund paused, glancing at Gormir's back and then to J'zargo. "You don't have to keep hunting if you don't want to, you know. I can do it when I'm done with that statue and altar."

J'zargo waved a hand, tail thrashing behind him. "It is not the hunting that bothers this one, it is the weather. Everything freezes quickly and it makes gutting anything we hunt a pain in khajiit's tail."

"At least frozen meat holds well?"

"This one supposes so...would like to taste fish again though."

"It's a possibility if we end up moving."

"Did the meeting go well then?"

Onmund glanced down at the pendant, half-expecting Kestrel to speak up; she didn't, surprisingly. "--well enough. He didn't say no but we didn't get an answer either way."

"Ah, yes, good. ...an answer for what?"

Oh, right - J'zargo had no idea what they'd gone for. "Kestrel wants permission to move to Eastmarch. Jarl Ulfric lets us settle somewhere, and we protect his city in return."

The khajiit scratched at his chin. "Interesting... At least Eastmarch does not hate mages. Perhaps if we are lucky we won't be barred from the city outright. J'zargo would not mind at all to go to the market as needed and-"

"Let's go, khajiit - weather's turning."

They both jumped a bit at Gormir's shout; Onmund hurried outside with J'zargo on his heels, carefully stepping outside and navigating through churned up, iced-over snow to where Gormir waited next to a wooden sled.

The snow was indeed beginning to pick up some, as was the wind; Onmund adjusted his hood and latched the clasp to keep it pulled in tight to his head. "Couldn't have held out another couple of hours..."

Gormir hefted one of the ropes attached to the sled and slung it over a shoulder. "The north isn't known for sunshine, mage. Ought to make hunting easy enough -- can't run from what you can't see. Stay downwind and we'll have something bagged in no time."

J'zargo sniffed suddenly. "--speaking of downwind, does anyone else smell that?"

"Smell what?"

"Something burns - something burnt. This one does not see smoke but can smell it on the wind."

Onmund sniffed deeply -- whatever the khajiit could smell wasn't strong enough for him to pick up on it. "I don't, sorry. It's being carried on the wind so..." The wind was coming from the west; he jogged back toward the wooden walkways and stairs that zigzagged down the hill to Saarthal and climbed to the uppermost one, then clambered on top of the bluff that Saarthal's entrance was dug into. Up here he could very faintly smell smoke now so he kept climbing, moving all the way up past a giant, square-ish segment of rock that jutted out from Saarthal's top (it looked like it was part of Saarthal but his probings had shown it was a carved but solid chunk of the mountain - no guesses as to what it was or why it was made that way, either) and up to a higher point on the ridge.

There, three ridges over, Onmund could make out the little pinpoints of light that marked where trees were aflame -- and here, standing directly in the wind without any parts of the mountain to shield him, he could definitely smell the smoke.

He turned around and jolted a bit when he found Gormir standing only a few paces behind him, squinting out at the far ridge. "--you move way too silently when you want to."

"What do you figure did that?" Gormir asked, ignoring Onmund's attempt at a joke.

"No idea." Onmund turned back to the ridge; every tree within view was engulfed in flames and judging by the column of smoke there was likely more of them hidden from sight further out.

Then, on the wind, came a roar muffled by distance. Onmund and Gormir looked to one another silently.

"Did I just hear a dragon?"

The two of them looked down to Kestrel then, as J'zargo climbed up the ridge behind them. "--did J'zargo just hear you say dragon?"

Onmund wordlessly gestured toward the flaming trees in the distance. "There's really a dragon over there?" That was directed more toward Kestrel but Gormir interrupted him with a rough slap to his chest, shaking him until he looked up from the pendant and back toward the trees.

A dark, winged figure darted up from the flames, circled a few times, then dove back down out of sight on the far side of the trees.

"...this one thinks we are not hunting tonight, no?"

"Oh, we're hunting, but it won't be deer."

The two mages looked to Gormir blankly -- the man couldn't be serious, right? But then again...if the dragon was that close and if it saw them, then they wouldn't have a choice--

"Interesting. Well, Gormir is correct - consider this a trial run for the eventuality that we find ourselves guarding Windhelm from one," Kestrel said into the silence.

"You actually WANT us to go hunt that dragon?" Onmund asked incredulously. "It'd take hours just to get over there."

"If I can hear from here it means it's essentially on our doorstep," Kestrel replied. "I'd rather not have this area laid to waste, again, and have our immediate resources destroyed. Believe when I say it will come to you once you've been spotted so you should probably find your way down from here and get into a more open area."

"Am curious - have you fought a dragon before, master?" J'zargo asked into the brief pause.

Onmund heard a quiet little laugh from the pendant. "I have. It was...rather messy."

"Do we actually stand a chance then?"

Gormir snorted. "Talk like that means you've already lost, boy - come on you two, let's get to low ground. And I'll be needing my shield besides."

------------------------------------------------

So much for his formal robes (though the defensive spells in them meant that only the clothing had taken a beating and not Onmund himself).

Everything was quiet when the three of them had plodded back down into Saarthal; Onmund was thankful for that as he didn't have to immediately explain why his robes were burnt beyond saving and why J'zargo had several bald spots where his fur had been singed off.

"Ah ah, not bed - not yet. Remember?"

Onmund paused with his hand on the door to his room and sighed heavily -- right: Kestrel wanted to speak to Brelyna, Nirya, and Urag first. Which would likely mean waking all three of them up. "Can't I at least change first?"

"Fine, but be quick."

He shouldered his door open and came to an abrupt stop when he saw a hunched figure at his desk but felt a twinge of relief when he realized he was looking at Brelyna's back; she was slumped over a book, head resting on crossed arms -- asleep, by the looks of it. Carefully he crept into the room and began quietly tugging clothes free; plain shirt, plain pants - nothing fancy for now. He was tired of fancy (he was tired, period, but couldn't fall into bed just yet). Once he was clothed he headed over and gently shook Brelyna's shoulder until the woman stirred.

"Oh. You're back -- I thought you'd be back hours ago."

"So did I," Onmund sighed. "I wasn't at the statue, I was fighting a dragon."

That seemed to wake her up some. "A dragon? Really? So the rumors were true then...dragons have returned."

Onmund ambled over and dropped onto the corner of his bed. "I was hoping it was just rumor too but-" he briefly glanced at his burnt robes where they lay wadded into a ball at the foot of his bed. "-at least the combat training was useful." There was a brief pause which prompted Onmund to poke at the pendant. "You said you wanted to talk to Brelyna - she's right there."

There was still another several seconds of silence before Kestrel replied. "Mm, yes, I know. I was thinking. Brelyna, I have a research request for you, as well as Nirya and Urag. I want you three to locate all the information we currently have on dragons and gather it together for study. Something...rather odd happened with this dragon tonight -- something that did not happen with the other dragons I've slain or witnessed being slain in the past. I have my suspicions but I'd rather not voice them so I don't introduce any sort of research bias into your search."

Brelyna nodded. "I can do that, and I'll let the other two know. What happened, though?"

"It burned away like parchment," Onmund said. "It started burning before it'd even fully hit the ground, in fact. And there was this rushing wind-like effect that flew away to the south - it was quick enough that none of us really got a good look at what it was before it was gone."

"Very strange..." Brelyna muttered. "--can I go with you the next time you fight a dragon? I'd like to see one."

"I have a feeling we'll be seeing more of them as time wears on," Kestrel replied, before Onmund could. "We did bring the skeletal remains back for study however. We'll have to prepare to bring them inside Saarthal somehow -- I'm thinking into the room that once held the Eye. It should be large enough to house it and we can use the last remaining bit of ambient energies in there to power the spell to move something of that size."

"So dragons...don't die like that, normally?"

"No," came Kestrel's flat reply. "They never did. Or at the very least they persisted long enough that you could harvest useful things from them -- blood, scale, organs, bones, and by then there wasn't anything useful enough to care about if it degraded. There was only a small handful of scales that didn't burn away on this one, and of course none of the soft tissues or fluids remained. All the bones seem intact so at least there's that."

Onmund lifted Kestrel from around his neck and held her out toward Brelyna. "Here - you two go research. I need to sleep -- oh, and uh, don't make fun of J'zargo when you see him."

Brelyna gave him an odd look but stood up, stretched, then took Kestrel and left. Onmund closed the door behind her then collapsed into his bed, hoping the masons wouldn't be too angry with him tomorrow.

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Ulfric had eventually said no. Siddgeir, Idgrod, Skald the Elder, and Igmund had said no. Balgruuf had at least apologized with his answer -- he too was concerned about what it would look like politically if he allowed the mages sanctuary in his hold. He struggled to remain neutral in this war and worried that if he allowed them to settle that it would appear he was fortifying against one side or the other (or possibly both at once, and a single hold couldn't hope to fight a war against two superior forces). They accepted each rejection gracefully and quietly arranged to speak to the next Jarl on the list. But finally...

Laila Law-Giver, Jarl of Riften, had said "yes."

...sort of.

Laila didn't want their protection or assistance (she was...strangely convinced that nothing was amiss in her lands but had at least expressed deep appreciation for their desire to protect her people) but gave them leave to settle in Ivarstead -- a city as far from her capital as you could get, but it was still permission to settle somewhere.

The people of Ivarstead at first had mixed opinion on the appearance of the mages; some saw it as a means to draw more than just pilgrims to the tiny town. Others saw it as something that would bring nothing but trouble to their peaceful lives.

They had immediately, and accidentally, gotten on the bad side of Temba Wide-Arm, who owned the lumber mill in Ivarstead and had been expecting something of a windfall out of the mages that had arrived and were in need of a building to house them. When she'd learned that they could, more or less, cause a building to slowly spring from the ground like a plant of stone she'd stormed off in a huff and had refused to even speak to any of them for nearly two weeks straight until her bosmer apprentice Gwilin had talked her into dropping the grudge and assisting them with providing wood for furniture in exchange for labor.

In fact a lot of what the mages needed they obtained either through bartering or by trading labor, as they didn't possess a stockpile of coin to buy things outright; farmwork and working at the mill were the only tasks available to help with but a few things were at least rather simple to do. Kestrel quietly taught them a few spells to increase crop yields (and Onmund taught the others how to conjure water) and nearly overnight they had the enthusiastic approval of the farmers, and once they'd smoothed things over with Temba they had both a steady supply of food and wood.

There was a large hill to the north of a barrow on the edge of town and that's where they chose to settle, and they fell into a routine of helping the townsfolk in the morning, working on their home in the afternoon, and then spending a part of their evenings socializing with their new neighbors. The folks of Ivarstead hadn't heard the story of what had happened at the College so they weren't already poisoned against the mages, and at least a few of them had questioned the decision of driving them away; it was nice to know that there were still plenty of others in the world who could see reason and the truth of things, and at last the last of Ivarstead's hold outs were welcoming of the mages and looked forward to what the future might bring for them all.

It took months but finally they had their home: their living quarters were (thankfully) above ground this time, and they'd included several empty rooms in case others came to seek them out with the intent to stay and study. There was a proper kitchen and storeroom above ground too, and a small gathering hall. Within the hill they'd dug out study rooms, a giant library, an armory, and miscellaneous closets and work rooms to hold the various supplies, tools, and stockpiles they had taken from the College. While they had been sorting through the books (they thought it best to keep Kestrel's and the College's libraries separated among the shelves) Urag had found an old spellbook that taught them all how to direct air currents so there was always a feeling of freshness to the air within the underground portion of the haven and a barely noticeable breeze flowing from the multiple air holes they'd put in.

And, both the above and below ground areas were spacious enough that everyone in Ivarstead could fit inside if the need ever arose -- Jarl Laila might not have accepted their offer of protection but it was still an option if Ivarstead ever got attacked.

Which was something they would probably find themselves testing soon -- the frequency of dragon sightings was increasing, especially to the north. Ivarstead was very open to an attack from the air and a dragon could devastate the town in minutes; when he wasn't helping at the mill Gormir had taken to sitting on the front steps of their haven, attention always turned to the sky. There was a slight but still noticeable tension to the town each time they heard anything that could be mistaken for a distant roar, or heard stories of sightings from the travelers who regularly passed through the town...it was becoming more "when" than "if" regarding an attack, and Onmund wasn't sure how they could minimize the damage to the town if they weren't able to lure the damn thing away.

'We'll just have to see when the time comes,' he kept telling himself. They wouldn't be able to plan until they saw how a dragon might attack Ivarstead -- fighting a dragon out in the forests or on the side of a mountain required different tactics than fighting one in or near a populated area. Would the dragon purposely target people fleeing it and ignore those trying to stop it? Would it prioritize damage and chaos over a calculated strike?

There were so many different ways a dragon attack could go. For now the best thing to do was try to not let it bother him too much.

------------------------------------------------------

"Tell me, Onmund -- how do you feel knowing you've been my apprentice for two years?"

Aha - so THAT was why Kestrel had insisted on going with him this morning; he paused to consider the question (and the chicken he was reaching under took that opportunity to peck at him - he shooed it away and grabbed the eggs from the nest and settled them gently in the basket he was carrying).

"I...don't know. I guess older, and smarter." He quickly moved on to the next nest and then stood -- he was pretty sure he'd gotten them all today. "But I think I'd feel that way even if I'd stayed at the College."

"No regrets?"

"Not really. Maybe if you'd asked me a year ago I would. Why?"

"Just wondering. When you're essentially a mind in a gemstone there's little else to do besides think and talk. You've endured a great deal, and it seems fate has rewarded you with what you wanted."

"It did?"

"We're above ground and no longer hiding."

Onmund shrugged. "True, but now that I have it it doesn't seem so important now considering what it cost."

Kestrel laughed quietly. "You really have gotten older then."

"And I'm only going to get older."

"Have we received word from Ulfric?"

"Not yet. I don't think we should rely on him to trade a body for a favor." He hefted the basket of eggs and headed from the coop over to the little field where Boti and Jofthor were growing cabbages. "If he was interested in a favor I feel like he would have delivered by now. If there's anyone the Thalmor would want dead it'd be him and I doubt they've only sent males after him."

Kestrel was silent a moment. "Short of skulking around a battlefield... I may have to settle for whatever we can get our hands on. I am adamant that it must be female, however."

They both went quiet as Fastred, Boti's daughter, stood up from among the cabbages and came over to retrieve the egg basket from Onmund; she gave him a shy little smile as she took it and Onmund gave her a curt nod in return and hurried back toward their haven on the hill -- Fastred was young and pretty and had taken a liking to him, something he wasn't certain how to handle as according to her parents she already had two suitors vying for her attention and he had no intention of stepping into the middle of that mess.

"From what I've heard about Riften we likely can just find a body stuffed in a gutter," he muttered. "Jarl Laila is... I'm surprised someone like her rules over somewhere like that."

"As I've said before, not all leaders are wise and not all who are wise end up leaders. You'll find that there are many who believe manipulating events while puppeting another is the best way to obtain and hold on to power. I will admit I was genuinely surprised she permitted us to settle -- being as she refused our offer of assistance I was expecting that whoever pulls her strings would not want us anywhere near their business at all."

"For all we know it's more than one person doing the string pulling."

"A possibility I did consider, yes. Did Brelyna and Nirya finish the matrices?"

"I think so. I remember Nirya mentioning she didn't think they'd hold though." His boots thudded onto the wooden steps that led up into their homestead; from this point on the hill you could see all of Ivarstead and the road that led into the town. It was a nice view and he could pick out Gormir's form over at the mill, swinging an axe and steadily building up piles of chopped wood.

"It's not really a matter of if they'll hold but if they'll work at all. This isn't something I've seen before and we're working on guesses and hypotheses. We'll find out one way or the other once we destroy another dragon."

Suddenly, almost as though she'd summoned it with her words, there was a roar echoing down the mountainside and it was loud. Onmund spun on a heel and peered up at the peak; you couldn't see very far up the mountain from its base - there were always clouds and blowing snow that blocked any view of the top of the Throat of the World. The roar had sounded like it had come from above but he couldn't see anything but the usual white cloud cover.

"Speak of the devil."

With a grunt Onmund hurried inside and down the short hall to the stairs that led into the hill; in one of the work rooms, carefully sat upon a rough wooden base on top of one of the tables, were two devices that looked like several soul gems fused into a pair of fist-sized, spiky, greenish gems, both held in a delicate copper and iron filigree. Kestrel had referred to them as soul matrices - something meant to hold a soul and amplify its properties without damaging or draining the soul itself.

Right now they were empty but only because they intended to try and trap a dragon soul inside one.

They'd fought two more dragons before they'd come to settle in Ivarstead -- much like the first one they'd found the dragon's body had burned away and some sort of wind-like phenomenon had rushed off into the wilds each time. Kestrel's best guess was they were witnessing the dragon's soul fleeing and while she had no idea why this was happening now and hadn't before when she'd personally fought dragons she was determined to catch one to examine and try to determine why.

He reached out and carefully lifted one of the matrices off its base; it looked fragile but was as solid as a rock in his hand, and he hurried over to a small side table near the door and pulled a leather pouch out of a drawer -- it had once been a waterskin but had since been repurposed into a sack large enough to carry a matrix. Onmund slid the matrix inside and tied it to his belt, then jogged back up the stairs and about collided with Gormir as the man came rushing into the hall.

"-got a dragon circling in from the northwest."

"I heard it. Sounded like it came off the mountain," Onmund responded. He sidestepped out of Gormir's way; the old guardsman disappeared down the hall and Onmund heard his footsteps turn into his room.

He left Gormir to gather his things and continued outside; halfway down the path to town a shadow flew by overhead and the dragon's screech tore through the sky followed by the panicked shouts of -- well, Onmund couldn't quite recognize Ivarstead's inhabitants just by voice alone yet but he could spot Fastred, Boti, Temma, and Klimmek hurrying toward Temma's mill.

"Just get inside and stay there - we'll handle it," he yelled at them, waving for them to keep going.

He stopped at the barrow and shielded his eyes as the dragon spun in the air with the sun at its back; this one looked strangely pale - almost white. The others had been a sort of muddy brownish-red...guess he was about to find out if coloration meant anything with the damned things.

Color aside he needed to treat this one as he did all the others, and that meant that first he needed to get its attention and get it out of the sky.

At the moment it seemed content to keep to the air and was gliding back toward the mountain but its current path would take it directly over Ivarstead; Onmund waited for it to get closer then lobbed a fireball into the air in its general direction. It didn't hit (and he hadn't intended it to) but now the dragon's head turned toward him, and its wingtip dipped as it took a sharp turn and angled in toward where he stood at the barrow's edge.

He'd stopped here mostly because the barrow was made of (and ringed with) stone and was far enough away from the town that no structures would be immediately set aflame; this dragon, however, inhaled and breathed over Onmund as it strafed by overhead and his ward rippled as it was bathed in ice.

"At least this one can't set the town on fire," he growled under his breath, shivering a bit at the icy blast of air that slipped up under the ward's edges. His boots crunched over the iced-over grass as he turned to run away from Ivarstead and out toward the wilderness.

By now he was rather familiar with the surrounding territory; there was the lake that the river fed into with its little island in the middle, and further beyond that was an old, crumbling watch tower on the far shore. If he took a sharp turn north he'd be running down into a very steep ravine that led up to the eastern side of the Throat of the World (and the river at the bottom of the ravine, which he knew was rather deep through that stretch of the mountainous area). Onmund would have much rather run to the south to the sparse forest and smaller hills but didn't think he could safely cross the river with a dragon circling overhead, and to get to the bridge he'd have to run through town which wasn't a good option either... He'd have to make do with the ravine.

With the sound of beating wings behind him Onmund took off down the hillside, moving north; he knew where the almost invisible game trails were between the rocks that jutted out of the ground here and stuck to them to avoid getting his feet tangled in the undergrowth. He went about halfway down then turned to stand his ground, watching as the dragon continued on overhead but could see how its head twisted to keep one eye on the mage.

"C'mon, get closer..."

It circled back and dipped low - Onmund took that as a sign that it was about to strafe him again with its breath. He shifted his weight to the balls of his feet and waited to hear the inhale, then danced off to the side as the dragon came gliding through spewing its ice breath at him; he kept his ward up in case it turned its head suddenly but with his free hand he hammered a bolt of lightning into the beast. The lightning struck the dragon's flank (he'd misjudged the speed a bit and had missed the wing) and the dragon shifted in such a way that it seemed to rise into the sky at almost a right angle to the ground, rapidly rising out of his reach again.

"Is a mouthful of snowflakes all you've got, dragon?" he yelled up at it. "I can do this all day!"

Movement up the hill caught his attention; Gormir came into view -- the guardsman was wearing his battered guard's armor (though he'd removed all traces of Winterhold's insignia from it) and was wielding a large, finely crafted longbow that Onmund knew rather well: it was made from some of the dragon bone they'd collected from the three dragons they'd killed so far. Coming into view behind Gormir Onmund could just see the top of Brelyna's head at the very crest of the hill -- the dragon's attention shifted from Onmund to the two up there, and he hurried back up the hill in time to see Gormir plant an arrow right into the dragon's left haunch as it turned in the air.

"Nice shot."

"Get it to ground, boy."

"Right." Onmund watched; the dragon hadn't seemed to react much to the arrow in its side and was arcing around to come at them again. He glanced to Brelyna and caught her eye, jerking his head toward the left - she nodded and brought her hands together, the flicker of flames appearing between her palms. As the dragon dipped low and inhaled again the mages shot their spells with Brelyna targeting the left and Onmund aiming for the right. The dragon clamped its mouth together tightly enough Onmund heard teeth clicking as it tried to brake its forward momentum with a sharp beat of its wings coupled with a sweep of its tail that shifted its entire body like a cracking whip; Onmund's spell missed but Brelyna's struck the wing membrane and left a large and obvious scorch mark there, and the smell of burnt hide reached them as the dragon's wings buffeted them with wind as it struggled to climb again.

Gormir drew and fired a moment after the mages and his arrow embedded itself into the lower rib region of the dragon, eliciting an angry roar that grew distorted and echoed strangely off the surrounding hills as the beast rose back into the sky.

"This one doesn't seem to want to cooperate."

Gormir grunted in response and readied another arrow, tracking the dragon's path through the sky with the arrow's tip.

Brelyna conjured another fireball between her hands. "-here it comes again. Same as before?"

"Sounds like a plan," Onmund replied. They cast again in unison, one to each side, as the dragon came down and then scattered in opposite directions as Onmund's fireball struck the wing's tip and sent the dragon into a tumble that ended with it crashing into a partially rotted tree; he took a facefull of leaves and dirt as the dragon scrabbled on the ground to right itself with a sweep of its tail but he was already casting again, sending another fireball into the creature's side and feeling the heat across his face as somewhere behind him Brelyna fired neatly over his shoulder.

It didn't take long for the dragon to get its feet under itself and in an instant it had lunged and covered the distance between them. Onmund's ears began to ring as the dragon roared at him, almost point blank - these damned things were loud when they were close - and he had to dive to the side to avoid the snapping teeth. The dragon turned to follow him and Brelyna sent a pair of fireballs in rapid succession into its unprotected shoulder and wing; as it turned to snap at her Gormir shot again and pinned an arrow into the scales right at the dragon's brow -- it was a poor angle and just barely hanging there but it got the dragon's attention and it whipped its head around to breathe directly at the man.

Onmund heard Gormir's snarl of pain as he was lashed with the harsh, icy breath; he wasn't positioned far enough in front to send a spell down the dragon's throat so he hammered one into the side of the beast's skull. The dragon jerked to the side, off balance, and Brelyna shot a maintained spray of lightning at it; it wasn't the most damaging spell against the dragon's protective scales but it definitely made it difficult to concentrate or move with finesse, evidenced as the dragon tried to bite at her and missed without the dunmer even needing to move.

Onmund hurried over to where Gormir was clumsily trying to brush away the ice clinging to him; the healing magicks he flooded the man with seemed to strengthen him and banish the numbness of the ice, and within a few breaths Gormir was reaching for another arrow and readying to fire with an appreciative nod to Onmund.

The dragon made as though it was going to bite at Brelyna again and as the mage moved (and interrupted her lightning) the dragon abruptly spun the other way and sent its tail smashing into her; Brelyna was sent rolling uncontrollably down the hillside and almost out of Onmund's sight among the scrub bushes.

Growling in irritation he summoned a small whirlwind around himself and then sent it at the dragon, filling its face with grass, leaves, and gritty dirt. It wasn't meant to really harm the thing but it did distract it enough that Gormir's next shot struck it in the throat and stuck in deep. The dragon let out a pained noise and leapt clear over their heads, landing well over halfway down the ravine and then leaping again to put itself airborne. It rose to a distance out of their reach then turned to stare them down, remaining there for a moment or two before bellowing out what seemed to be speech and then turning to fly out over the far side of the ravine and then out of sight.

Onmund kept a close eye on the dragon until it was completely out of view then looked around for Gormir and Brelyna -- the guardsman was over helping her to her feet, and while she had an obvious bruise already forming on her face she seemed to be all right.

"So much for that one..." Onmund grumbled, dropping a hand to rest on the pouch holding the soul matrix. "Should we follow it?"

"No," came Kestrel's reply. "It wouldn't be worth the time to try and track it down. This area is too mountainous to efficiently follow and then fight it, and it could just as easily be retreating somewhere that favors it."

Brelyna brushed hands across her face, healing away the bruising. "I guess we'll try out these matrix things on the next one." She too was carrying one of the pouches tied to her belt; if only they'd managed to kill the dragon...

"Let's return to town and let the others know the dragon has been driven off," Kestrel went on. "I feel we'll have no shortage of them, considering we live at the base of a mountain that houses monks that study the dragon's thu'um. ...that may be a factor in the future if it seems like we're seeing far too many dragons for one region."

Gormir snorted. "Surely you don't think the monks up there are allied with the damned things?"

"No, but dragons tended to be very prideful. If they think mortals are reaching for something above their station, especially if that 'something' is the dragon's own language, I imagine they'd have a few rather violent opinions to express about that. We'll have to keep a careful watch and headcount, and see if there's anything amiss in the coming days."

They trudged up the hill and among the trees, heading back to Ivarstead. From the top of the hill the town seemed deserted save for J'zargo - they could see him pacing near the main road that lead through the town. Onmund handed Brelyna the matrix he was carrying and continued on as Gormir and Brelyna headed back into their main hall.

"Aha, there you are," was J'zargo's greeting. "This one heard the shouting about dragons and was readying to put out fires."

"This one breathed ice, actually."

The khajiit's nose twitched; Onmund had seen that particular twitch enough to know it was a sign of annoyance. "Lovely. What don't they breathe?"

"Let's not test fate with a question like that. Is everyone inside?"

"Yes. J'zargo sent a few stragglers into the inn -- he will let them know it is safe to come out."

"For now. We didn't manage to kill it, only force it to leave. Gormir did put an arrow in its throat so it should be off licking its wounds for a bit, if it even comes back at all."

"Ah, sad. This one was wanting to practice against a dragon again. Ah - might J'zargo take the master and practice instead?"

As Onmund looked down at the pendant he heard Kestrel chuckling quietly. "Eager as ever I see. I will give you a few hours but come this evening I will need to be returned to Onmund -- there are a few tasks I need him to perform."

With a shrug Onmund passed the necklace off to J'zargo and left them to it; he headed over to the lower entrance to their haven and went inside, heading to the library -- Kestrel had mentioned tasks she wanted done and if they were anything like the other 'tasks' she'd had then he would need to retrieve a couple books and have them ready for this evening. Urag and Nirya greeted him and then left him to his own business as he wandered the shelves, looking for the titles he was careful to not let them see him taking and also was careful to shift to another shelf once he was done copying reference notes out of them.

Necromancy as a whole still made him fairly uncomfortable but he was steadily getting used to the idea that it was essentially just another tool, and that it was up to him to not abuse it. Using it didn't make him evil, doing evil things with it would make him evil. And he didn't think restoring Kestrel was inherently evil, even if they needed to somehow obtain a body to anchor her soul to -- that too wasn't necessarily an evil act if the person was already dead. And if the rumors about Riften were true then they'd probably trip over a body and no one would care if said body disappeared. That was a 'truth' that made him more uncomfortable than necromancy did, in fact.

He made it back to his room without any questioning from Urag or Nirya, and spent the rest of the afternoon thumbing through the musty tomes; J'zargo finally brought Kestrel back well after dinnertime, looking exhausted but rather pleased with himself. Once he was back in his room Onmund reached for the book rest that Kestrel normally sat on when they were pouring over books but a tutting noise from the pendant made him pause.

"No books tonight. We need to plan for a trip instead."

"To Riften?" he asked.

"Yes, and then...elsewhere. Wherever it is that seems to be seeing a great number of dragons."

Onmund moved over to his bed instead, leaving Kestrel sitting on the little table he kept beside the head of the bed. "--so, anywhere."

"Technically. We need to capture a dragon soul for study, or at the very least figure out where these souls are fleeing to."

"And you want to do that before we actually stick you back into a body?"

"Onmund, acclimating to a new body could take months. Skyrim may not have that long if the dragons are returning in full force. I've seen the devastion that even a small flight of dragons can do to a region."

"A...flight?"

"It's a term referring to a grouping of dragons. It was coined by -- well, it's not important. The man who popularized the term has long been dead and I'd rather not get started on a history lesson. Even if the old bastard would be beyond pleased to know his name persisted through several eras..." she added after a pause, sounding somewhat amused.

"So...which are we doing first, then? Riften, or dragon hunting?"

"Riften. Once we've obtained a body I know how to halt further decay - it should be fine to sit for weeks, months, or even years until we can get to it. We obtain it, bring it back here and stow it away in my quarters, then head out into the great unknown until we find ourselves a dragon or two and answer a few questions."

Onmund nodded, looking around his room. "At least I won't need to worry about food. What exactly should I be packing then?"

"Spare robes, something to sleep on or in, blank parchment and writing tools, a matrix, whatever coin you currently have or small trinkets you think you could barter. We'll visit the armory before we leave and see about making sure you've at least one martial weapon on you."

"I'm not really practiced with weapons."

"No, but I am."

Ah, right. "All right. Seems like we have a plan. When are we leaving?"

"I will give you a day to prepare, and we'll need to let the others know besides."

---------------------------------------------------

The trip to Riften had been uneventful; the trip back was done with a portal in the dead of night so no one would see Onmund carrying a cadaver wrapped tightly in cloth and leather, or hear his body casting spells as Kestrel readied her remaining coffin with the needed enchantments to place the body in a sort of magical stasis so long as it remained inside. Her spellcasting ended with a conjured magical lock over the coffin's lid and then just as silently as they arrived they left, sneaking back out of Ivarstead and heading north. It would be a long trek, skirting the base of the Throat of the World to circle around north and then west to reach Whiterun; they'd decided to begin their search there as Whiterun was a central region and a heavily trafficked trading hub, and if there was any new information to be had about dragons it would likely be running rampant in the streets as folks speculated and told tales.

Onmund secretly hoped they'd get lucky and find a dragon sooner rather than later; while Kestrel wanted definitive answers regarding the dragon souls Onmund didn't see what they could possibly do if the soul matrix didn't work -- their plan was built around the assumption that it would, and if it didn't then they'd have no reason to keep wandering around Skyrim hunting dragons...probably. This was another assumption Onmund had as, by his logic, if Kestrel could capture a dragon soul with a spell she would have done so by now.

Actually... "What do we do if the matrix doesn't work?"

Kestrel didn't answer right away; Onmund lightly hopped over a depression in the ground - he imagined it probably filled with water during heavy rain - and continued on up the far slope of the ravine. The moon was at least bright enough to light his way though it cast strange shadows that kept catching his attention as he walked.

"-we return to Ivarstead and consider another path."

"That's what I thought." He huffed a bit as he clambered over a fallen log. "-watch: Ivarstead will see more dragons than we do by the time we get back."

"I won't say that's not possible but for all our sakes I hope not."

Onmund hadn't slept outdoors since he was a young boy; the nighttime sounds of the woods were somewhat soothing as he camped under the stars, tucked in among tree roots or under rocky outcrops. It took five days to get up to the river that ran along the northern side of the Throat of the World. In all the time he'd been walking they'd not seen anything other than a few deer and a fox; it'd been strangely peaceful, and pleasant. Part of him was thankful for that while part of him wished to just get the dragon hunting part over with -- he felt rather exposed despite the tree cover, and wasn't particularly wanting to try and fight a dragon in a cramped or tree-choked area. If they could make it out onto the plains without incident he'd consider themselves lucky, even if the flat farmlands that surrounded Whiterun wouldn't offer any sort of cover and would force him to rely on his wards and wits to keep out of danger.

It took another three days until Onmund got away from the base of the mountain and finally moved out of the forest and took his first few steps out into the plains.

"Finally... I'm going to walk holes into the soles of my boots by the time we get to Whiterun."

"A hike across farmland is easier than through a forest at the least. We should make good time now."

Onmund peered up at the sky; it had been an overcast day with the faintest hint of rain on the wind for the last couple hours. It would be getting dark soon and if it was going to rain he'd rather have what shelter he could from the trees. "I think I'll camp here at the treeline and head toward Whiterun at dawn. I'd rather not be wet, miserable, and also the tallest thing in the middle of a field in a storm."

"Logical. We did recently pass a pine copse - that should suffice for a shelter."

With a nod Onmund turned to head back into the forest; his feet hurt anyway so he could use the extra hours of rest before starting out in the morning again. He found the copse and set about loosely braiding some of the lowest branches together to form a sort of ceiling, then unrolled his bedroll under it and stretched out. As night was falling the rain finally came but the braided branches over his head were thick enough to keep the water off him; the rain itself wasn't very heavy and seemed to be just enough to fill the air with the pleasant smell that came after a rainfall.

At some point he drifted off to sleep and, come morning, a roaring voice thundered down from the Throat of the World-

DOVAHKIIN!

Onmund jerked awake and kicked out at his bedroll thinking, for a brief moment, that something had grabbed him and was holding him down. Once his sleep-fogged brain caught up to him and the last echoes of the call had faded away he sat there with his heartbeat racing in his ears, staring around in confusion.

"-what the hell was that?"

"...I have genuinely no idea. But I do know the word we just heard."

"The -- what was it?"

"Dovahkiin. Dragonborn."

Onmund wiped a hand across his brow, smearing off cold sweat as he inhaled and exhaled slowly a few times, trying to calm himself down from the abrupt awakening.

"Well. Considering this sudden development I think we should return to Ivarstead and take the path up the mountain. That voice seemed to come from the top of the mountain itself, which would mean the monks are responsible. If they're calling to a Dragonborn..."

"Wait, UP the mountain? All the way up the mountain?"

"Yes, Onmund - that's typically where the top of a mountain is."

Onmund groaned. "-Klimmek complains about how rough that climb can be, and that's even when the weather is clear."

"You just spent a week walking through the woods, spending a day climbing a mountain should be easy in comparison. Had I been able to predict a bunch of mute monks would suddenly shout from the heavens then we could have waited in Ivarstead -- I so despise wasted time."

He set about rolling up his bedroll and carefully undoing the braidwork that held the pine branches in place; though he knew that returning to Ivarstead emptyhanded was a possibility it still soured his mood to have to turn around right as they got to Whiterun's territory. "Can we at least stop in Ivarstead for news and to rest? And probably a new pair of boots..."

"Yes, we shall. I hope the others have sense enough to be researching why the monks would be summoning a..." She trailed off a moment. "--I can't believe I've lived to see another era with a dragonborn existing within it, and I say that as someone who has been alive for several of them."

"What does that mean? I mean - I know what dragonborn means, I've heard the old tales. What does that mean for us?"

"A great many things."

"That's not really an answer."

"I don't want to discuss it right now. Are you packed and with everything at hand?"

"Yeah, I'm ready to go."

"Good. Trade places and I shall return us to Ivarstead and spare your feet."

Onmund placed a hand on the pendant and was quickly drawn inside it, watching from within as his hands traced the complicated shapes needed to form a portal that would return them to Kestrel's quarters at Ivarstead. After a brief flash of light they were back inside her room, and Onmund was quickly given control of himself back; he pushed out the door and wearily headed back to his own room to drop off his pack. He couldn't hear anyone moving about and assumed the others would be either in town or downstairs in the library (there was no way anyone could have slept through that noise), and let his feet take him toward the stairs to check there first.

Going down he met Brelyna coming up and he walked with her back up into the gathering hall and dropped onto one of the benches. "Please tell me you heard the shout this morning."

She nodded. "It woke the entire town up. I think everyone is excited more so than worried or anything -- Wilhelm seems to think we're going to see a rush of pilgrims in the upcoming weeks because of it."

"And one of those will be the dragonborn themselves," Kestrel cut in. "In fact, do let everyone know that if someone claiming to be a dragonborn arrives that they let us know. It would...certainly help answer a few things."

"I will. I'm just as curious as everyone else." Brelyna paused, then eyed Onmund up and down. "I guess you didn't run into any dragons while you were gone."

He shook his head. "Not a single one. I bet I will when I climb the mountain though."

"So long as you aren't knocked off the mountain."

"That won't be an issue," Kestrel interrupted again. "Get to your tasks and research -- Onmund, we have our own tasks to tend to, if you please."

With a shrug (and an inward groan) Onmund stood and headed back to Kestrel's room as Brelyna headed outside and back down the hill into Ivarstead. He closed the door behind him and slowly moved over to where the coffin sat. "So...actually getting started on getting you into the body, then?"

"Yes. We no longer have the luxury of time -- we must have this in place as quickly as possible."

"Is...is a dragonborn appearing really that bad?"

"...Onmund. You said you've heard the old tales. Do you not recall at all what they said?"

"Not...entirely, no."

He heard a sigh come from the pendant. "Let's get started. The world is about to grow more chaotic."

----------------------------------------------

As a final catalyst to get Kestrel anchored to her new body they'd had to sacrifice the tether that bound them together; splitting them apart had been easier than expected though it left them both feeling empty and nauseous for days afterward. When the nausea finally wore off Onmund found himself starving -- hungry for the first time in over two years.

And, of course, it was during his first meal in all that time that the Dragonborn arrived in Ivarstead.

The mages made themselves available to the woman, of course -- all their knowledge, both in book form as well as instruction. Onmund had walked with her to the base of the mountain, and watched as she steadily climbed the crumbling stone stairs until she was out of sight among the cloud cover far above.

While she was gone the mages planned, and studied, and waited. Whatever was about to happen in the world was too important to stand by and simply watch. They debated and researched and made plans for this and that, and waited for the woman to come back down the mountain.

"You're sure about this?"

"You should consider yourself lucky I now have two other apprentices to keep myself occupied with while I wait for you to return."

"And if I don't?"

"Please. You are my pupil - I would consider it a great insult if you're killed by something inconsequential."

"She could just say no."

"She could. But she won't."

"You seem pretty sure about that despite not knowing anything about her."

"Trust me, Onmund. She won't turn down your offer of help and I sincerely doubt you'll be the only one following in her wake. The path this world is on is about to take a drastic turn and I'd rather it not be directly around a corner and into oblivion."

"What will you be doing?"

"Teaching apprentices, catching them up to your level and readying ourselves to step in if the situation calls for it."

"So much for staying quiet and out of sight."

"Yes, well. At least we had the forethought to include spare rooms in the haven."

When the dragonborn finally came down off the mountain Onmund was waiting, and as Kestrel had assured him his offer of help was accepted. Once again he found himself heading out of Ivarstead and into the more or less unknown.

He'd be back eventually though. Probably. Personally witnessing history was usually the best way to record it -- it was an interesting thought to consider that a book he'd penned himself would eventually find its way onto Kestrel's bookshelves and potentially beyond.

"So, where are we off to first?"

"Whiterun."

...figures.

#The Master's Apprentice #tma #The Master's Apprentice- ch 22 #Onmund #AU #Kestrel #Brelyna #J'zargo #Gormir #Dragonborn #Skyrim

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sometimesrosy · 4 years

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Hey Rosy. So what is your opinion on Yennefer? I am able bodied, so I don’t know if her whole “beauty transformation” was offensive or not. It seemed wrong to me. She became more powerful, wanted, and taken seriously after she changed all her “imperfections”. And she never thought of herself as worthy before that. So what the heck? It feels wrong but also, I love her and I’m not the right person to decide if it’s offensive to similar people or not

I have read some tweets about the ableist interpretation of Yennefer and I can’t say I disagree with them. I definitely see it and understand why it is offensive.

I understand the story they wanted to see with a disabled heroine and how much that would have been awesome. I’m not sure that’s the story this show is telling, so the disappointment it there, especially when they showed Yennefer as a multi layered disabled character in the beginning.

I am able bodied too... well... I haven’t been that abled lately actually, with Chronic Fatigue and PTSD and hypothyroidism etc BUT my disability is all hidden and not of a particularly long duration (though long enough) so I’m still dealing with what it all means to NOT be abled and have not had years to understand. And I have a disabled son with autism and anxiety and adhd etc. But I still don’t consider myself an expert of ableism or able to speak for everyone or really anyone.

It isn’t really up to us to decide if someone else finds something offensive or not. If disabled people think it’s offensive, we should listen to them. It doesn’t always mean we have to find it offensive ALSO. We each get to decided what we think it offensive.

I see the offense and I get it. I’m not sure I am offended personally. For me it offered a question mark on the story, and I allow a certain level of question marks before I am offended or think a show is not worth my time. When a story does something that offers LOTS of question marks and some exclamation marks, that can mean I find the story offensive or triggering. Like I just answered a question about TROS. That one gave me many question marks and a LOT of exclamation marks because of my personal experiences and feelings, but I don’t think that other people, without those personal experiences need to share my offendedness.

The Yennefer storyline is still undecided for me. She was powerful and desirable WITH her disability, but, because of her background and abusive family, she had internalized the ableism and hated her own body, leading her to torture herself and give up the functioning of her body in a way, as a young person, she thought was inconsequential but turned out to be more important as she got older. In return for her loss of self, she gained beauty and perceived perfection, and a job in a glamorous court-- what she thought she wanted. Power, also. She thought that her beauty would give her power. I’m not sure this “trade” was treated callously or even framed as the correct decision.

Years later, and beautiful Yennefer serving in a glamorous court is MISERABLE. Her trade off did not make her happy or particularly powerful. She’s still beautiful. But she does not matter. She is not important to anyone. And THIS is a plot point. It’s possible that if Istredd hadn’t betrayed her she might. never have gone through the beauty torture. IDK. Even though she’s beautiful now, that beauty did not give her what she wanted. Or what it gave her turned out to be not important.

I feel like this connects with Geralt’s refusal to kill monsters who aren’t monsters. Who might LOOK like monsters, but are just people or animals who have been cursed or are hungry or have suffered. Because Yennefer was treated as a monster when she was disabled. But she wasn’t. She was just a girl with severe scoliosis. Right?

I don’t know where this story is going so I am not ready to make a judgment on it. I see some positives along with the negatives, while still understanding why it’s a serious nope for other people. I do think there’s some value in showing a story, even if it is not necessarily empowering to disabled people, because it makes people talk and think about things that are usually ignored.

And I’m not sure if this ableism issue is conflated with a general hollywood objectification and lookism. Everyone is beautiful because beauty is valued above content of character. Yennefer not only had her hunchback but also something strange with her lip, and coarse hair. They did the painful magic and gave her a superficial makeover on top of it, and all of a sudden Yen feels of worth and powerful... even though she was of worth and powerful before.

Hmm. Is this an issue that the show makes part of its discussion or is it an unconscious bias? I tend towards part of the discussion but they are also taking advantage of it by showing Yen and Geralt, cheesecake and beefcake, in various stages of undress.

#witcher #ableism

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juvoci · 3 years

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9 January 2021

This blog can be read in its entirety on JUVOCI.com.

9 January 2021.

11:03 AM.

Okay, so in the last blog post, for 8 January 2021, I left alot of cliff-hangers.

Firstly, I didn’t quite finish the Thought Leader idea.

Secondly, I didn’t quite finish the Philosophy is Dumb and What is Philosophy ideas.

But before we get into either of those, I’m going to go on another tangent (as I do), because I just commented on someone’s Reddit post, and it seems relevant, so I want to post my response here. I’ll post the screenshots below.

This was the Reddit post. It was posted in the CircleJerk sub-Reddit. Obviously, it’s a joke. A sarcastic joke. But I took this sarcastic joke as an opportunity to express a real solution to some of our problems. Here it is:

Stop taking EXTREME and ABSOLUTE positions on COMPLEX topics.

“All Cops Are Bastards”? Obviously, this is not true. There are many police officers out there who simply want to use their elevated power to protect their communities from agents of chaos who wish harm upon innocent people. These cops do indeed exist.

Not all cops are bastards. Some of them? Yes. Most of them? Maybe, I don’t know. All of them? Certainly not.

Taking extreme and absolute positions on complex topics is a recipe for disaster. It’s a childish and immature and lazy way to approach the world. We can do better than this.

And I just want to mention, because I can see the trolls licking their lips. Yes, the question was a sarcastic joke, and my answer was a serious statement. I am fully aware. 🤡

11:29 AM.

Okay, now, let’s get back to the Thought Leader stuff, because that’s important.

The importance of Thought Leaders, and what it takes to be one.

Let’s define Thought Leader again, but in a different way this time. A Thought Leader could be compared to an “Influencer”. When Serena Williams or LeBron James or Coryn Rivera or Steph Curry or Lindsey Vonn or Michael Phelps endorse a brand such as Nike or Adidas or Puma or whatever... these brands gain an elevated reputation. “LeBron James wears Nike sneakers? Damn! Nike must make good sneakers!” And so Nike sales increase.

Jordan Peterson, for better or worse (I’m still undecided about him, though I do think that he’s genuinely a good guy and has a good heart, despite his viewpoints), is a Thought Leader. When Jordan Peterson says Marxism is on the rise, this is dangerous, we need to take this seriously and rebel against it... literally thousands of people will begin distributing his message online and IRL (in real life). Jordan Peterson quite literally has a microphone which broadcasts directly into thousands of people’s ears. (Well, not literally literally, but you get my point.) This is, in some sense, the definition of a Thought Leader.

In some sense, I’m already a Thought Leader. Many of the ideas I express are unusual, esoteric, not mainstream. But my reach isn’t very big, so I’m not leading many people.

11:45 AM.

So now that we’ve defined Thought Leader (again), let’s discuss why I want to be a Thought Leader (or at least grow as a Thought Leader), and what train of thought I actually want to lead.

In the last blog post, I mentioned Peace and Love. This is foundational. This is where it begins. If we don’t exercise Peace and Love, we cannot even really engage in conversation. The only reason I can honestly and freely engage in conversation with you is because we are at peace. If we were at war, this would not be possible.

Now, of course, just like everything else, Peace is a spectrum. At the high end of the Peace Spectrum, even arguments cease to exist. Individual beings simply express themselves and everyone who is listening simply listens. In such a circumstance, this being is expressing their truth, and everyone is listening with open minds, open hearts, without judgment. This is sort of... an idealistic scenario.

But this “idealistic scenario” isn’t necessarily what we need right now, because humanity does indeed have some complex problems which need solving, and simply opening our hearts to everyone’s subjective truth isn’t necessarily going to solve those problems. Instead, we must share our ideas, experiment with those ideas, find the best ideas, and act on them. In other words, we must share our ideas and then debate those ideas, in order to find the best idea.

Problems arise when ego interferes. People become attached to their ideas. They want credit. They want to be the savior of the world. People become so attached to their ideas that they ignore better ideas. This is why I like the Philosophy of Infinity and the practice of Infinite Openmindedness.

Recognize that your pet idea is just one idea in a sea of infinite ideas, and it isn’t necessarily the best idea. Recognize that you might be wrong. Recognize that other people have lived complex lives, likely (more or less) as complex as yours; and other people are capable of intelligence, just like you; and other people are smart, sometimes smarter than you. Recognize that a Competitive and Free Market of Ideas will create an environment where the best ideas rise to the top, breeding better ideas. If we can all enter the Chamber of Debate, and leave our egos at the door, we will discover the greatest truths by merging our individual minds into a smarter collective mind.

So, to summarize, Absolute Peace is the eventual goal, but Peaceful Debate is what’s needed now.

Peaceful Debate means that we respect each other’s life experiences, we respect each other’s viewpoints, we live and let live, we don’t violently attack or insult other groups simply because they disagree with us.

“If you disagree with me, that’s fine. You can live on your land, and I’ll live on mine. We will go on with our lives, in peace. I won’t blow you up or shoot you down, and you won’t do so to me either. Yes, we may disagree, but we won’t raid each other’s homes and destroy each other’s families... simply because we disagree.” This is a more evolved standpoint.

12:03 PM.

We need a collective purpose, a collective goal. Humanity is a train-wreck right now. America, and her ideals, has been a global leader for decades, and now America is a clusterfuck.

Too many things get lost in translation between countries. Too many people and corporations are “beating the competition” rather than “working together to find the best solutions”. Too many people are power-hungry and egoic and not seeing the bigger picture. Too many people are afraid and confused and fearful of death; and when people are afraid and confused, they sometimes act defensively and violently.

Too many people are overwhelmed by the constant bombardment of media and information, much of which is not only pointless but is also damaging to one’s peace of mind. Too few people have taken the time to meditate and contemplate deeply the true nature of the universe.

Too many people are without mentors, without guidance. Too many people have so many questions, but no one to answer them.

This is why I want to be a Thought Leader. The world needs guidance, direction, stability, understanding, structure, philosophy, wisdom. But there doesn’t seem to be enough people distributing these things.

Wisdom hasn’t gone mainstream yet.

And will it ever go mainstream? This question has literally been debated for thousands of years. Ancient philosophers have written, including those who authored The Kybalion, that “the Truth is reserved for the brave few” and “the masses will never know the Truth” (or something along those lines).

But I’m an idealist. I disagree. I say: “Why not?” Why can’t we have the world we desire?

“But, Juvoci, you said” (in the last blog post) “that some people desire war!”

Yes, I did. But the desire for war is, in my estimation, a more superficial desire than the desire for peace.

I believe that, deep down, EVERYONE simply desires PEACE and HAPPINESS.

And those who pursue war, only do so because, deep down, they believe it will lead to PEACE and HAPPINESS.

In other words, people who wage war believe that war is the only option, the last resort, our only chance, for a peaceful world.

Of course, this is not the case, and is in fact completely wrong, completely opposite of the truth. This is the definition of evil, of devilry.

War only leads to more war.

When you wage war against someone, a grudge is formed. When you destroy a culture, destroy a family, destroy a people, they don’t forget, they get angry, they get depressed, and they label you “the devil”, they slowly and quietly rebuild their power, and then they come back to bite you.

And then you may say: “But what if you eradicate them completely so that they cannot ever return?” Sure, but then your people will remember what you did to those people. “Remember what our empire did to those people we destroyed? That was kind of messed up.” And then there is a deep collective regret in the population which must eventually be repented and made-up-for, lest the society be eaten alive from within by its own shame and guilt of its own violent history. And the cycle continues...

Just like, in your own personal life, you cannot purify, you cannot cleanse your soul, until you’ve repented for the evil you’ve done. Until then, your soul, your spirit, is broken, shattered, split.

The neuroticisms of a culture, a society, a nation, seep into the hearts of its citizens, and destroy it from within.

The most powerful thing that a leader can grant... is peace. Not dominance, not power, not wealth... peace.

But then there are the questions: What of that evil which lurks in the shadows? How do we defend against it? If we focus only on peace, won’t we be blind-sided by a secretive malevolent faction? If we focus only on peace, we won’t fund our militaries, and then we will be vulnerable to evil forces, right?

And this is true. Although I wish this were not the case, I cannot deny it. If we don’t keep our guard up, to some extent, then evil could once again overcome us.

Just as the sage must constantly remind herself of the Truth, society must remind itself of Evil. History repeats itself, so remember history.

So what does this mean for military funding?

On a material level, it means two things.

Firstly, we must prioritize defense over offense. Don’t develop military technology for the sake of attacking and conquering. Develop military technology for the sake of protecting.

Secondly, we must redefine our enemy. America’s enemy is not Russia or China. China’s enemy is not America or Japan. Australia’s enemy is not Russia or North Korea. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera...

No, Humanity’s enemy is Chaos, Insanity. Humanity’s enemy is Ignorance, Violence, Immaturity, Ego. This is how we must redefine our enemy.

But let’s bring this, once again, to a spiritual level, a metaphysical level, to a level beyond materiality.

Ultimately, we are talking about FEAR. “What if Evil grows stronger while the rest of us are focusing on Peace? What if we detract from military funding and leave ourselves vulnerable and get destroyed by an evil faction? What if? What if? What if...?”

These are questions of fear.

FAITH over FEAR.

This is where my Thought Leadership re-enters.

We must all subscribe to a philosophy of Faith over Fear.

Now, this is easier said than done, obviously. And I’m not trying to claim that I’ve fully succeeded in this realm. I never claimed to be perfect. But it’s the direction I try to move in, and it’s the direction that I’m encouraging you to move in aswell.

What is Faith over Fear?

This is getting into some pretty deep spiritual and metaphysical areas, but I’ll do my best to explain, especially because many people who read this, who haven’t dived deeply into spirituality and metaphysics, might not exactly understand what I’m saying. But I’ll give it a shot.

Faith is a fundamental force of the universe. Now, I’m not talking about Christian Faith or Islamic Faith or Jewish Faith or Buddhist Faith or whatever. No. I’m talking about pure Faith. I’m talking about Faith as a fundamental, pure, force.

In fact, Faith is so fundamental to the Structure of Reality that, at a certain point, it becomes physical, it becomes material, it melds and merges into the physical world. Don’t believe me? Keep meditating.

Faith is the reason you wake up in the morning. Faith is the reason you’re able to walk on solid ground. Faith is what keeps the entire universe in motion. Faith is a fundamental force. We can call this concept FFF or F-Cubed. The fundamental force of faith. Maybe the FFF thing is dumb. I don’t know. Whatever, moving on. Lol. (If you’ve made it this far in the blog, take a moment to breathe and relax and recognize that nothing is like super serious necessarily.)

But, yeah, Faith is super important. Pure faith. You exist because you believe in your existence. Without that fundamental structure of belief (which is another way of saying Faith), your entire being would collapse and disintegrate into a vortex of chaos and structurelessness. Don’t believe me? Well, I wouldn’t recommend experimenting with this concept unless you’re truly a Master of the Mind... because this can be dangerous territory.

So why am I talking about Faith now? Because Faith over Fear. Faith is the antidote to Fear, and Faith is your savior.

Yes, Evil could be out there, plotting your demise. Yes, the Universe could implode suddenly and instantaneously, destroying everything and everyone you’ve ever known. Yes, an asteroid could land on New York City, killing millions. Yes, some rogue country *cough* could drop an atomic bomb and decimate Humanity. Yes, danger, danger, danger, fear, fear, fear, possibilities, possibilities, endless fearful possibilities.

But can’t you see? It goes on and on and on and on and on. The mind can think of infinite reasons to be afraid, to fear evil.

But here’s where Spirituality and Metaphysics swoop in and save the day...

FEAR CREATES EVIL.

Yes, literally, Fear creates Evil. No, even further... Fear is Evil.

As Franklin D. Roosevelt (allegedly) said (I wasn’t there): “We have nothing to fear but Fear itself.” This quote is actually quite wise. Well, it’s, like... almost wise. The only reason it isn’t completely wise is because it implies that we still have to fear something.

But the point is (or at least, the Truth that I see in the quote) that Fear is the enemy. And, from my experience with spirituality, Faith is the antidote to Fear. In other words, when your being is aligned in Faith, your “enemy” ceases to exist, because all is one and all is you and so all is in Faith.

These are pretty deep ideas; and if you don’t understand exactly what I’m saying, don’t worry. Just stick with me, and eventually you will understand.

1:06 PM.

Okay, so, I feel like I’ve kind of beaten that topic to death. Let’s give it a rest for a little while. Let’s get back to that point about Philosophy.

In my last blog post, I said that Philosophy is dumb. But, obviously, I need to elaborate on this, not only because this statement will probably offend some percentage of people, but also because it’s a pretty vague statement.

So, what exactly do I mean? And why exactly am I saying this?

Firstly, let’s define Philosophy. Yesterday, I posted in two sub-Reddits (the Philosophy and AskPhilosophy sub-Reddits) asking the simple question: What is Philosophy?

Both of my posts got banned from those sub-Reddits. This is strange, and doesn’t make any sense to me. If your sub-Reddit is about Philosophy, then one of the most important questions on that sub-Reddit should be... What is Philosophy?

Duh?

But, for some reason, the moderators of those sub-Reddits thought such a question should not be on their sub-Reddits and so they removed it. And now, in my mind, these two sub-Reddits have lost some respect and credibility.

But, whatever, maybe that’s a signal that “What is Philosophy?” is a dumb and unnecessary question.

Perhaps I can define Philosophy simply by explaining why I think parts of it (not all of it) are dumb.

To me, Philosophy becomes dumb when it becomes about using big words, and how many philosophical terms you know, and arguing about the nature of reality, and choosing one side or one philosophy and being an ardent advocate of that one philosophy or opinion or perspective.

These aspects of “the Philosophy world” are dumb to me because they miss the point. Reality is infinite. The universe is infinite. There are infinite perspectives. Everyone’s life is different, and everyone’s unique life experiences lead them to believe certain things about reality.

You might be a staunch Atheist, but if one day you went to sleep and woke up in a garden where Krishna explained to you the metaphysical workings of the universe, and you existed in this garden for thousands of years, exploring the world of spirituality, before finally, eventually, after those thousands of years, returning back into your human body, to this human life... you might have second thoughts about your staunch Atheistic beliefs.

So who are you to say that someone who identifies as Hindu and has had a similar spiritual experience with Krishna is wrong? And likewise, who are they to say that someone who identifies as Atheist and hasn’t had any spiritual experiences, like you (the staunch Atheist)... is wrong?

See? Nobody is wrong. Everyone just has different life experiences.

So, whatever your Philosophy is, it isn’t right or wrong. It’s just one perspective of infinite perspectives.

A lot of philosophy is just preaching. Just rattling off complex names and concepts and big words, just arguing pointlessly about abstractions.

Real Philosophy is about listening. This is, if I am to make a distinction here, the difference between Philosophy and Wisdom. Philosophy literally means love of wisdom. But perhaps Love of Wisdom isn’t always the same as Wisdom itself, in the same way that you may “love” your spouse, but not necessarily treat them well, or know them well.

Arguing with people on Reddit (or any other forum), for example, about why your Philosophy is right... is a pretty deformed version of Philosophy, in my opinion. If you want to grow as a philosopher, if you want to grow more wise, spend more time listening and asking questions, rather than preaching. Then, if someone asks you a question, you can expound your knowledge.

Philosophy has been dubbed “a science” by many individuals and institutions. But one of the problems with modern Science, in my opinion, is over-categorization.

Science creates categories upon categories upon categories, dividing and dividing and dividing. Now, don’t get me wrong, there isn’t necessarily anything wrong with categorization. In fact, there isn’t even anything necessarily wrong with over-categorization.

In some sense, excess categorization is the natural evolution of language and quantifiable knowledge. As our understanding of the world becomes more and more nuanced, we naturally will create more and more terms and thus categories for explaining and identifying it.

The problem arises when we begin identifying with our identifiers. When a scientist or philosopher says “I am a Materialist” or “I am an Existentialist” or “I am a Stoic”, they are missing the point of Philosophy and Science, in my opinion.

This is the problem with Identity. When you identify with one finite piece of an infinite reality, you inherently limit yourself. Better to have as small of an identity as possible, and simply observe reality. To me, this is what Philosophy and Science are truly about. Egoless observation of reality, in the name of Truth.

2:02 PM.

Okay, I’ve been writing on and off for awhile I’m gonna take a break and do something else. Be back later, maybe.

instagram.com/juvoci

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This blog can be read in its entirety on JUVOCI.com.

#politics #economics #cryptocurrency #tesla #philosophy #language #science #religion #spirituality #peaceandlove #wisdom #jordanpeterson

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fulltidalwavetrash · 4 years

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bluewatsons · 4 years

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Jeremy Bernstein, Godel’s Universe: Threading between genius and insanity, he changed forever the way we view mathematical truth, Commentary Magazine (September 1997)

In the fall of 1957 I began a two-year fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Although I was by then committed to a career in theoretical physics, I had been a mathematics major in college, and one of the residues of my undergraduate years was a feeling of awe for the work of Kurt Gödel, then a professor at the Institute.

In a brief series of papers written in the early 1930’s, when he was in his mid-twenties, Gödel had transformed forever the way we view mathematical truth. Prior to his discoveries, it was generally assumed that mathematical systems—like geometry or the theory of numbers—rested solidly on a foundation of extremely plausible axioms and definitions (for example, that between any two points there is one and only one straight line). These axioms and definitions were in turn connected to mathematical theorems (for example, that the sum of the interior angles of a triangle is 180 degrees) by a stainless-steel webbing of logical argument. What was mathematically true was provable.

What Gödel showed was almost the exact opposite. First, in systems complicated enough to include the usual numbers and their properties, there were necessarily propositions that were, he argued, undecidable. Although they might well be true, no proof of their truth could in principle exist within the system. Moreover, among these undecidable propositions was the consistency of the axioms themselves! You could never demonstrate that your axioms would not lead to a logical catastrophe. You might find one day that the axioms implied both the truth and the falsity of the same proposition. The castle you thought you were living in might turn out to be a house of cards.

Listen and Subscribe to had studied this in college, and it is why I held Gödel in such awe. Although he was in some sense my neighbor at the Institute—his office was in the next building—it would never have occurred to me to visit him there. Not only was he reputed to be “reclusive,” I could not imagine what I would have to say to him.

But then J. Robert Oppenheimer, the Institute’s director, decided that it might be nice to hold what Radcliffe girls in an earlier age used to call a “jolly-up”: a little social gathering where we could all meet each other. It took place, as I recall, in the Institute cafeteria, where the usual suspects—professors, visitors, the odd local—had all been rounded up. And there in the corner, much to my astonishment, was Gödel. I recognized him instantly from his photographs. He was exceedingly thin, and looked Central European in the same way that Kafka looked Central European. Perhaps it was his dark horn-rimmed glasses: I used to wonder if a single factory in Austria had supplied them for the entire Austro-Hungarian empire.

Why Gödel came to this “jolly-up” I cannot guess, but at some point he started to be introduced around—perhaps by Oppenheimer—and soon it was my turn. When I gave him my name he replied: “I knew your father in Vienna.”

Here was a proposition that was not only decidable, but decidedly false. My father was a rabbi in Rochester, New York, and to the best of my knowledge had never set foot in Vienna. But when I politely pointed this out to Gödel, he repeated, in exactly the same tone of voice, “I knew your father in Vienna.” Clearly, whatever the confusion was, it was not going to be resolved at a “jolly-up.” I thanked him and he moved on to the next guest.

It took three days before it finally dawned on me whom Gödel had in mind. In the theory of sets—the theory of ensembles of objects—to which he had also made monumental contributions, there is a famous theorem named after Emil Schröd Felix Bernstein, two German mathematicians. Bernstein, who was some ten years older than Gödel, must have come to Vienna at one time or another, and the two men must have been introduced. So, at least, I surmised: I never got another chance to speak to Gödel and verify my hunch.

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All this came back to me in reading a new biography of Gödel by the mathematical logician John W. Dawson, Jr.,1 who teaches at Pennsylvania State University. It is with some reluctance that I use the term “new biography,” since that may imply a string of previous such studies. In fact, since Gödel’s death in 1978, and apart from brief sketches, there has been no biography.2

The reasons are not difficult to seek. To write a biography of Gödel, one must really understand what he did, and this is something only a professional mathematician or mathematical philosopher can do. And then there is Gödel’s character to deal with.

To call the man “reclusive” is to trivialize the matter. Certainly in the last years of his life, and on and off for most of it, he was a fullblown paranoiac. As far as I know, he granted almost no interviews. From time to time he would respond to inquiries about his life and work, but in many cases his responses were never actually mailed. They were found only after his death in his Nachlass, his personal papers. (Dawson has catalogued these, along with the rest of Gödel’s unpublished manuscripts.) Among the Nachlass were library slips for every book Gödel had checked out of any library since he was a student in Vienna in the 1920’s.

Dawson has reassembled Gödel’s life and work with understanding and respect. Indeed, one wonders whether, after his biography, there can be another.

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Kurt Gödel was born in Brno, Moravia, on April 28,1906. He was baptized a Lutheran even though both his parents were non-Lutheran Christians—a fact I mention only because later in his career some people (including Bertrand Russell) seem to have assumed that he was Jewish. As far I can tell from Dawson’s book, there was no indication in the family of any special genius for mathematics (this, by the way, was also true in Einstein’s family), although the young Gödel was, as one might expect, an excellent student. He also began early on to exhibit the kind of detachment and withdrawal that would characterize his adult life.

In 1924, Gödel entered the University of Vienna. It was his intention to study physics, but after a couple of years he gravitated toward mathematics, in part because of a gifted teacher, Hans Hahn, who was one of the founding members of the “Vienna Circle”—a group of brilliant scientists and philosophers who had taken it upon themselves to rid science of “metaphysics.” Gödel attended some of the meetings of the Circle but apparently said very little, probably because he vehemently disagreed with its positivistic approach. Gödel was then, and remained, a Platonist in mathematics: mathematical entities, he thought, have a reality which we do not create but rather discover. I suspect he was not disappointed when his theorems showed there was more to mathematics than what could be generated by logical deduction from axioms.

In 1910, Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead had published a monumental treatise, Principia Mathematica. The title was not accidental: it echoed in part the title Newton gave to his treatise—the one that laid the foundations of the science of mechanics for the next two-and-a-half centuries. What Russell and Whitehead thought they had done was, similarly, to lay out a set of axioms and principles from which every true statement in mathematics could be derived; but the program of their Principia lasted only about twenty years. In those years, mathematicians like David Hilbert asked whether one could show that the axioms were actually consistent as well as “complete”—in other words, that every true proposition necessarily had a formal proof. Hilbert himself (to say nothing of Russell and Whitehead) thought the answer was yes.3

It is not clear what exactly inspired Gödel to study the completeness question. There were hints that Hilbert might be wrong, but it took Gödel to demonstrate it, as he did in his Ph.D. thesis. He was in his mid-twenties, about the same age as Einstein when he showed that Newton’s Principia was wrong.

Neither then nor later did Gödel feel that he had exposed some kind of inherent limitation of the human mind. What he showed, rather, was that mathematics was not a logic machine. Some years later, the British mathematical logician Alan Turing refrained Gödel’s results by translating them into the language of such a machine—namely, an abstract computer whose properties Turing himself defined. This was not a real machine of tubes and wires, but in principle it could perform any computation a real machine could perform. Turing found that in using his “machine” to explore an arithmetic net of inferences, there were necessarily some propositions for which the computing procedure might never terminate. For these propositions, the machine would go on grinding forever without letting the user know if they were ultimately true or false. This became known as the “halting problem.”4

Not long afterward, Gödel showed that among the undecidable propositions (as I noted earlier) was the consistency of the system itself. This finding, which was as much a surprise to him as it was to everyone else, introduced a completely new way of looking at mathematical systems.

On the face of it, to ask whether a system is inconsistent sounds as if we were standing outside the system and noting its properties. Gödel’s genius was to encode such a question within the system itself. He devised a method of attaching numbers—“Gödel numbers”—to formulas and hence to the strings of formulas that comprise a logical deduction. Any proof that the system was consistent would then be represented by a single number. But Gödel’s ingenious translation of formulas into numbers showed that this final number states its own nonexistence. Since it cannot exist, the consistency of the system cannot be proved.5

The reaction to these results was, at first, mixed. Hilbert was very disturbed, but he was also too good a mathematician not to come to realize that Gödel was right. John von Neumann, about Gödel’s age and one of the quickest mathematicians who ever lived, had also been working on the consistency of mathematical systems when he learned that Gödel beat him to a proof of undecidability. Not long afterward, von Neumann emigrated to the United States; he became one of the first professors at the Institute for Advanced Study and, when it came time in the late 30’s for Gödel himself to emigrate, instrumental in finding him a home there.

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In 1933, Gödel made his first visit to the Institute to deliver a series of lectures. Upon his return to Vienna in 1934, he underwent the first of his nervous breakdowns, a subject Dawson treats with sensitivity and compassion.

Right from the start, Gödel’s psychological disorders were mixed up with physical ones. Before he entered the Pukersdorf Sanitorium near Vienna he suffered an inflammation of the jawbone, traceable, it seems, to a bad tooth. Gödel accused his dentist of infecting him, perhaps deliberately. For the rest of his life, he was sure that doctors of all kinds were conspiring against him, and as his real physical problems increased, his paranoia kept him from seeking adequate treatment.

In 1934 Gödel was seen by an eminent psychiatrist, Julius Wagner Jauregg, who concluded that his breakdown was a consequence of overwork and recommended a brief stay in a spa. Considering the mental prodigies Gödel had just accomplished, the diagnosis seemed plausible enough; but a year later, he was back in a sanatorium suffering from depression. Still, he managed to make a second trip to the United States, during which—and this, too, was characteristic—he was as brilliant and, at least as far as mathematics was concerned, as lucid as ever.

One of the things that surely saved him over the years was his relationship with the woman who eventually became his wife. Her name was Adele Thusnelda Porkert. She was six years older than Gödel, and when they met she was already married—unhappily. Although she professed to have once been a ballet dancer, at the time of their meeting she was employed as a dancer in a Viennese night club. What this meant in reality is unclear, but to Gödel’s family she was little better than a prostitute, and his brother and his mother—his father had died in 1929—vehemently opposed his interest in Adele. By the mid-1930’s, however, he and the now-divorced Adele were traveling together, and in 1938 they married.

In the wedding picture reproduced in Dawson’s book, Adele is blonde and rather pretty-looking, while Gödel appears almost sleek—dark horn-rimmed glasses and all. But when, two years later, the economist Oskar Morgenstern met Adele in Princeton, he would confide to his diary that she was a “Viennese washerwoman type: garrulous, uncultured, strong-willed.” Be that as it may, she seems to have been able to deal with Gödel’s paranoia, tasting his food to reassure him it had not been poisoned and listening patiently to his complaints about how the refrigerator was emitting poison gas.

On March 12, 1938, German troops entered Austria and were greeted with joy and open arms by the population. It is difficult to assess the nature of Gödel’s reaction. Insofar as he said anything, it was oddly detached, but whether this reflected his true feelings or was a form of self-protection cannot be easily judged.

The Nazis running the Austrian educational system were themselves uncertain as to how to deal with Gödel. Against him was the fact that his thesis had been supervised by a Jew—Hans Hahn. On the other hand, he seemed completely apolitical. The authorities never quite trusted him. In the meantime, von Neumann and others were trying to secure a non-quota visa to the United States, without which the German authorities would not allow him to leave Austria.

During this period, Gödel was beaten up on the street by Nazi thugs who took him for a Jew, and it became imperative for him to leave. Finally, in January 1940, the Gödels were able to emigrate, taking the trans-Siberian railroad from Berlin and then a ship from Yokahama to San Francisco, where they arrived in March.

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It is a curious fact about Gödel’s relation to the Institute that, despite his being one of the greatest mathematicians of this century, he was not given a permanent professorship until 1953. Nor did Princeton University confer an honorary doctorate on him until 1975, well after he had received all sorts of other honors elsewhere and was anyway beyond the point of caring; he did not even bother attending the award ceremony. What lay behind this shabby treatment may simply have been academic politics of the usual, viperish kind. In any event, a more interesting facet of Gödel’s stay at Princeton was his relationship with Albert Einstein.

It is hard to imagine two people less alike. Whatever revisionist notions have been advanced in recent years about Einstein’s character, no one has accused him of paranoia. There radiated from him a supreme sense of self-confidence and serenity. Physically, too, he and Gödel were totally dissimilar. Einstein impressed many people as a very powerful man: C.P. Snow, who visited him in the late 1930’s, thought he resembled a retired rugby player. Gödel, by contrast, looked as if he would blow away in a strong wind. Finally, Einstein never had much interest in pure mathematics, and even less in academic philosophy. For him these were simply useful tools for unlocking the secrets of the “Old One”—his playful reference to God.

Nonetheless, the two men became very close. Einstein, along with Morgenstern, and to a lesser extent von Neumann, took it upon himself to look after Gödel. Among other things, Dawson suggests that Einstein may have been attracted by Gödel’s ability to adopt some apparently outrageous position and defend it by means of intricate logical argument. It is also possible that in some sense Einstein enjoyed Gödel’s “craziness.”

Two anecdotes suggest as much. Both are in Dawson’s book, though I myself heard the first one from the horse’s mouth—in this case, Ernst Straus, Einstein’s last mathematical assistant. At the Einstein Centennial meeting in Princeton in 1979, Straus recalled how, just after the presidential election of 1952, Einstein burst into his office to announce that Gödel had now gone completely mad: he had voted for Eisenhower!

What Straus did not describe—and this is the second anecdote—were the circumstances that made it possible for Gödel to vote at all. In December 1947, Gödel went for his citizenship hearings in Trenton, New Jersey. He was accompanied by Einstein and Morgenstern. But there was a problem: Gödel had detected a logical flaw in the American Constitution, and was quite capable—so his friends feared—of refusing to swear allegiance to a country so deficient. On the way, Einstein tried to distract Gödel by telling all sorts of stories, but it was like trying to stop a train with a Q-Tip. Fortunately, the presiding judge in Trenton was the same man who had sworn Einstein in as a citizen a few years earlier, and the minute Gödel began his disquisition he made it clear he was not interested in the famous mathematician’s logical dilemma. In fact, Gödel later described this judge as an “especially sympathetic person.”

Aside from all this, Einstein was impressed that Gödel had made a significant discovery in the theory of relativity—something the textbooks now refer to as the “Gödel universe.” Gödel claimed that he was led to his discovery by reading Immanuel Kant on the nature of time. Whatever the source, he hit upon a new solution to Einstein’s cosmological equations, according to which the whole universe rotates and it is possible, therefore, to travel backward in time. Whether this universe of Gödel’s has any connection with our own is another question.

A final anecdote, in connection with this discovery: a few years ago, the Princeton physicist John Wheeler told me that in the 1970’s he and two junior colleagues decided to pay a little visit to Gödel. Although it was a nice spring day, they found him in his office wearing an overcoat and with the heater on. Gödel wanted to know if in the course of their work they had found any evidence for the rotation of the galaxies, and was disappointed to learn they had not even considered the possibility. It turns out that Gödel was trying to find his own evidence by consulting a standard source—probably The Hubble Atlas of Galaxies—and measuring angles with an ordinary ruler. Just to complete the story, Wheeler also told me that years later he ran into a man at the Institute who was going through page after page of these hieroglyphs to figure out what they signified, in preparation for a biography of Gödel; it was Dawson, of course.

Dawson ends his book wondering if anyone could make a drama out of Gödel’s life as one was made from the life of Alan Turing. But Turing’s life was a drama. He helped to crack the German Enigma code during World War II; he was a homosexual who was convicted under the Gross Indecency Act; and he later committed suicide by eating a poisoned apple. If there is drama in Gödel’s life, it lies in the narrow path he threaded between genius and insanity. Suffering greatly, he left an intellectual legacy—an entirely new way of looking at mathematical truth—to be pondered forever.

Footnotes

Logical Dilemmas: The Life and Work of Kurt Gödel. A.K. Peters, 361 pp., $49.95.

Fragmentary conversations with Gödel by the late mathematical logician Hao Wang have just been published under the title A Logical Journey (MIT Press, 391 pp., $40.00), but these hardly count as a biography.

This whole subject is nicely reviewed in Dawson’s book, though the nonspecialist who finds it hard-going might profitably consult Douglas Hofstadter’s 1980 volume, Gödel, Escher, and Bach, a less scholarly but somewhat more “user-friendly” approach to the issues.

On account of such phenomena, some commentators see a relation between Gödel’s incompleteness theorems in mathematics and Werner Heisenberg’s uncertainty principles in quantum mechanics. This, however, is not only befuddled but deeply ironic, since Gödel, like Einstein, did not believe in quantum mechanics.

The Gödel number that states its own nonexistence is an extremely sophisticated example of the self-referential paradox, of a sort that has been known since the ancient Greeks. Perhaps the most famous involves the Cretan carrying a sign, “All Cretans are liars.” Is this Cretan a liar?

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