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tinypurpleparrot · 4 years

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Thank you so much to @incorrect-daedric-quotes for their follower raffle! Follow them! A rare moment when Starfall and Kaidan aren’t making each other tear their own hair out. I’d provided a short scene as a reference.

The papers, textbooks, and journals stacked up on Violet’s desk until anyone entering the Archmage’s study couldn’t see if she was really in there. The room itself hummed softly with magical energies powering the various devices and artifacts, enough that all of the background noise was cutting through all of her thoughts like a knife. She wished that some of the magicka pouring from the font downstairs could make its way up to her. Well, it could, but that would require that she stop her studies and focus on funneling it up. She was so close. She couldn’t stop now. That damned humming orb in the main hall was going to melt her mind soon if she didn’t figure it out what it actually did. And then that worthless Psijic Order would be back to take it away, and the past few months would be for nothing. Sleepless nights, keeping the damned nosy Thalmor and Synod out of the college despite the Eye shining like a lighthouse beacon visible from Masser, and sending expensive letters rushed by horseback courier in secrecy. This had better be worth it.

She was pressing the charcoal so hard to the paper that when Kaidan knocked on the door, the stylus snapped and smudged black dust across the paper. She made a tiny gasp and stared at her ruined work.

“Starfall? Just making sure you’re not dead.” He was tall enough to see the petite mage behind the stacks from across the room, but the top of her head disappeared with a thunk to the table.

All he got in response was a small whimper.

“You’re not going to find what you’re looking for by just grasping at your reflection in the water. You’re tired and you’re making mistakes. Go to bed. The moons are setting.”

“What are you doing up, then? Go away.” She grumbled.

“I’m awake because I’m always awake before dawn. Hunter, remember? Just because we haven’t been on the move in a few weeks, I have to find something to do around here. Please rest. It’s not going to do anyone any good if you’ve died of exhaustion.”

“They’re going to take it away from me…” She sighed.

“Suppose you do figure it out. Do you think you’re going to get to keep it, anyway?” Kaidan walked up to the desk and looked over the stacks of paper. They made her look even smaller.

“At least I’d have a better idea how to proceed than these other fools who are just going to lock it up in the basement and neglect it for another five thousand years so some other poor bastard can get caught up in this all over again.”

“How is any of that your problem?”

“Because if I could find who left this mess for me, I’d burn them inside out, heal them, then do it again. I don’t want to be that person to someone else.”

“That would be Ysgramor, and he’s dead, so go to bed.”

“If you’re not going to help me, then go away.” Her voice faded and rasped, this time from disuse.

He refused, coming around the table and picking up a book. He was able to follow some of the talk going around, but not the technical details. “Imperial Report on Saarthal. You’re going with the theory that the elves were after the Eye?”

Violet rubbed her face and mumbled into her hands. “It’s the only thing I have to go on.”

Kaidan sat on the desk beside her, cracking the book open at her bookmark and started reading. “And so I have no conclusive results to report at this time. I can say with certainty that the initial attack on Saarthal seems to have been very focused, and does not appear to correlate to any locations that have been established as points of defense or importance. While the eminent scholar Sentius has yet to examine my findings, or indeed show any interest in them, my inclination is to suggest that not only did the elves know the apparent layout of the city, but that their assault was based on a specific directive and perhaps a singular goal.”

“That’s the thing. I’m having a hard time believing that I was the only one ever able to reach that chamber in all this time, especially when that awful thing is radiating enough energy even when it’s closed that someone completely devoid of magic should be able to sense it. The damn thing was literally drawing the elves towards it even though it had been buried for even longer than when the Merethic Nords had discovered it. And honestly, it had to be what drove them to settle in this godsforsaken wasteland in the first place. Hmm… Read something else. Your voice is helping.” She had pulled out another piece of paper and was already writing again.

Kaidan milled her words around in his head. If magic felt like a general sense of unease and the urge to vent energy like a jittery rabbit, then yes, he could sense it droning away downstairs. One, it felt horrible and no wonder she (and mages in general) was a damn mess. Two, he didn’t like that its power was seeping into him. It meant that Starfall might get curious and start experimenting on him to see if he could finally do something with magic. Ancano had told him that he was ‘cut off’ from Aetherius, and he was just fine with that. He got up and went to see what other books she’d inherited with her new job.

The library in the Archmage’s study was almost as large as the one on the other side of the building; it seemed to be a little more varied, as well. The previous archmages’ personal books were peppered in with what were probably forbidden magical tomes. A particular book caught his eye, making him leer back in Starfall’s general direction and bring the book back to her desk. He took his place beside her and started reading again.

“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, there is a rapture on the lonely shore.

There is society where none intrudes, by the deep Sea, and music in its roar.

I love not Man the less, but Nature more, from these our interviews, which I steal from all I may be, or have been before,

To mingle with the Universe, and feel what I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.

…I was not expecting this to be in a mage’s study. Reminds me of more peaceful days.” He chuckled.

Kaidan looked down at Starfall, grinning and expecting her to be annoyed or bored by his prattling; instead, she had her head down on the desk and was already half asleep.

“Did you really only need me to read you a bedtime story for me to get you to go to bed? …How old are you, again?”

Her voice was muffled by her sleeves. “Please keep reading.”

“I’ll read more if you go to bed, then.”

The Archmage finally relented. As she got up, she whispered in his ear. “Your voice is really nice. And I’m sorry I dragged you out here.”

He stared at her, frowning. “I chose to follow you here. Now go on, so I can follow you to bed and make sure you stay there.”

She hugged him tight and nearly fell asleep on him then and there. He sighed and helped her the rest of the way.

#skyrim #kaidan skyrim #the elder scrolls #my oc #starfall #he'll actually read books to you in game #hot akaviri man who loves a good book and can slit a man's throat without hesitating #livtempleton you spoil us all

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