So what had I been doing for all those thirty-seven years?
Quite a lot, considering what my slowly maturing body had actually been capable of.
By human standards, though, I’d spent far too little time training and far too much time loafing around…
Buuut… several factors had contributed to that.
First, the locals had no intention of adapting to my pace of life.
My mother and her friends taught me in their own way, which meant that between lessons I was left either contemplating the scenery or sitting with my nose buried in books.
And those books were nothing like modern textbooks.
Trying to learn from them without a teacher was…
rough.
Second, there were the natural limitations of a body that matured at a glacial pace.
Third, real-world magic wasn’t a game mechanic—it was an incredibly complex science, and I, a dyed-in-the-wool humanities guy, had to somehow make sense of it all.
Fourth, after spending nearly twenty years attending school and then college every single day in my previous life…
I really, really wanted to spend some time doing absolutely nothing.
Yeah, I knew I ought to be training because things were going to go spectacularly wrong sooner or later, but…
there was always the option of running away somewhere far enough that the trouble wouldn’t find me.
Yes, it was cowardly.
Yes, shame on me.
But Tamriel was a very big place, and the Oblivion Crisis was still a couple thousand years away.
Aaaand maybe I was just a tiny bit lazy.
Don’t judge me, you workaholics!
When all those factors were combined with my altered brain, which perceived the passage of time somewhat differently, those nearly forty years had flown by, feeling like only three human years.
So it made more sense to think of myself as being in my thirties than as an elf on the verge of retirement.
As a certain flying magician once said, I’m a man in the very prime of life!
“I don’t believe I caught your meaning.” She narrowed her eyes threateningly and, overcoming the instinctive fear of fire shared by every Snow Elf—especially magical fire—strode straight toward me.
“What exactly did you mean by that, runt?”
“You’re not one of those short-eared…
what’s the word?
Humans?
The ones who live in the south and sailed here from the north.” I grinned as mockingly as I could, savoring the irony of my own words.
“You should’ve heard me perfectly well.”
“I’ll drag you around by those ears of yours,” she promised darkly without missing a beat—the most terrifying punishment imaginable for an elf.
As for her age…
Considering the average Falmer lived for around four hundred years, Vaisy was, by human standards, roughly the same age I had been when I died.
A direct comparison wasn’t really possible, though, since elves barely seemed to age at all.
“Scaaary…” I replied with an exaggerated look of terror, feeling a second wind for our bantering kick in.
“Haaah…
Well, I’ll give you this—you’ve got courage to spare.
What you don’t have is nearly enough seriousness,” the lady complained about my personality once again.
“I could hug you and show you just how serious I am…
Just like when we were kids,” I chuckled with an utterly shameless grin, still making no move to get up.
“You’re not a child anymore,” she cut me off with a proud toss of her head, turning away sharply.
I sighed inwardly.
Well…
I had been guilty of that as a kid.
Who wouldn’t want to “accidentally” cop a feel of a genuine elf who looked like she’d stepped straight off a fashion runway?
“Haaah…
Fine.
Your parents were planning to tell you over dinner, so make sure you look surprised when they do.”
“Okaaay…” My long ears practically perked up.
“What’s this about?”
“We’re going to the capital.
His Majesty is holding a reception… They’re going to announce a preliminary decision regarding those…
strange Nedes who arrived by sea.” She turned back toward me with a grimace, evidently having already met my former kinsmen in person.
My suspicions only grew stronger.
We wouldn’t be attending a royal reception under ordinary circumstances—our family had an incurable case of paladin syndrome.
But that wasn’t the important part right now…
“You’ve met them, haven’t you?” I asked, more as a statement than a question, absently brushing a loose lock of white hair out of my face after it had come undone during our spar.
“Tch.
I really should talk to you less, you annoyingly perceptive little bookworm.” She let out a resigned sigh and, after taking a few steps toward me, abruptly dropped into the same fluffy snowdrift beside me.
“I have.
And…
they didn’t leave the best impression.
They’re…
strange.
I’d heard about people like them from the southerners, but these…
they don’t smell very good…
They’ve got hair all over their bodies, and beards, too…
But it’s funny how they shiver without their animal pelts—you know, the ones they wrap themselves in!
They actually get cold!
Just like you.”
“Let’s not compare me to a bunch of smelly, bearded barbarians who’ve probably never even heard of books,” I said with a visible grimace.
And, as far as I was concerned, that was simply the truth.
Whatever else the ancestors of the Nords might have been, they were essentially primitive Vikings.
People who had never exactly been famous for kindness or reason, no matter how romantically my own era liked to portray them.
“Hmm…” She rested a hand on top of my head and ruffled my hair, which, like hers, was tied back in a ponytail.
Unfortunately, tradition frowned upon wearing it truly short.
“What?” I asked in confusion, glancing at Vaisy, whose behavior had suddenly become rather unusual.
Close physical affection wasn’t particularly common among the Snow Elves.
Being so few in number, they were accustomed to having plenty of personal space.
“I’ve had a bad feeling lately,” she said after several seconds, staring up at the sky.
“I don’t know why, but…
a really bad one.”
“You’re imagining things, Vaisy,” I replied, though there wasn’t much conviction in my voice.
After all, I knew exactly what was coming.
I’d played Skyrim as a mage, which meant the College of Winterhold questline had stuck with me.
And that meant the Eye of Magnus, Saarthal… and the conflict that would one day lead to the near-extermination of the Snow Elves, leaving behind only a single true Falmer—rather like the Last Paladin, the One Who Stands Alone.
That was precisely why I never complained about the brutal training regimen and started pushing myself to the limit the moment I was physically capable of doing so.
The Falmer weren’t idiots.
In some ways, they were even more perceptive than humans, so I wisely refrained from bursting out of the gate and dazzling everyone with my reincarnator’s brilliance, despite knowing what awaited Tamriel.
After all, there would always be the option of fleeing south with my family or retreating to an isolated enclave like the Forgotten Vale and quietly living out our lives…
Probably.
Though, as things usually went, I was certain reality wouldn’t stick to the plan.
Ah, well…
There was nothing I could do about it right now anyway.
I was merely the son of a minor provincial lord—the human equivalent of a baron or perhaps a lesser count—who was only just preparing to become a knight-paladin.
I wasn’t a king or a prince whose words people would actually listen to.
I couldn’t even pass myself off as a prophet of the gods.
The locals knew far, far more about communing with Auri-El than I ever would.
All I could do was hope my fellow Snow Elves wouldn’t start slaughtering the Atmoran humans until I’d acquired enough skills to survive in the ridiculously—Daedra-damned—harsh world of The Elder Scrolls.