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It wasn’t a place she wanted to remember and she just wished Lydia would move on. But it had also been moving faster than walking speed and she’d chosen to stare at her knees instead until the tower was lost to the horizon behind them. Of course, she had seen the place after the battle once before – the cart to Rorikstead had traversed the road right next to it. There was the stone that had halted the progress of her broken body. There was the nook she’d been hiding in for most of the battle.

She could still smell scorched flesh on the air and pick out the burn marks on the ground where nothing would grow. They’d walked right up to the Western Watchtower entirely without her noticing. Tanniel blinked out of her stupor and looked around. “Huh.” Lydia suddenly said, stopping in her tracks and studying something in front of her. In fact, she still had a lingering fear of Lydia herself. She was afraid to push her luck in this matter.

What would she think of her if she knew about the addiction? Their new friendship was on shaky ground as of yet and there was still so much that was mysterious about Lydia. She was hoping desperately that Lydia hadn’t noticed anything, that she didn’t suspect what had been going on since she’d first arrived in Whiterun and met the Khajiit caravan that had been camping outside the front gates. Her mouth was horribly dry and on top of everything else, she felt weak from the physical exertion she’d been putting herself through after not having done much of anything for weeks. She could feel her bones rattling deep inside of her, her organs quivering. Her hands were shaking ever so slightly whenever she held them up to her face. It didn’t appear that today was the day for it. She’d been thinking about swearing off of it entirely. It was true that she had been feeling much better recently - well enough to have no need of its pain-relieving abilities. She had worried about it at first, but as they pressed on, had to believe that she’d be fine, that she could go one night without a taste of the stuff. They’d had to clear out of Rorikstead in such a hurry that Tanniel hadn’t had a chance to grab the bottle of skooma she’d hidden in her room in the Frostfruit Inn. It had started sometime in the night, as they’d run from one danger to the next, their overpowering desire for sleep weighing down their every step. Once she got there and locked the door securely behind her, she’d finally be able to make this shaking stop. Her mind was locked on the end table of her attic room in the Bannered Mare.

She had been beginning to think that she wouldn’t make it without collapsing into a heap and foaming at the mouth. Just a little bit farther and they’d reach it at last. Her heart fluttered in relief at the sight. She could see Dragonsreach rising in the distance above the plains, the sun glowing behind it. But the sun was getting higher now and burning off the chill nighttime fog. They’d beaten off wolves, crept around sleeping bears, tripped over shadowed rocks, hidden from a rowdy mob of passing bandits, hardly daring to breathe and she was entirely certain that at one point she had put her foot in a giant’s cesspool. After leaving Rorikstead in a hurry and crashing through the wilderness in the dark, they had to have run into just about every danger Skyrim had to offer. It might have been hilarious, had Tanniel not been certain that she looked exactly the same. She was haggard and grumpy, her face set in a seemingly permanent scowl, mutely pressing on toward Whiterun, her fists bunched at her sides. Chapter IV: To Oblivion​There were twigs and leaves sticking out of Lydia’s disheveled hair and she was grungy, covered in a patina of soot from the fire she’d spent the better part of the night fleeing.