One
One
The letter arrived on a Fredas, because of course it did. The universe had a sense of timing that could only be described as “dramatically inconvenient.”
I was in the middle of explaining to Thaddeus why his attempt at “Ragnar the Red” had accidentally summoned a skeever—not a metaphorical skeever, an actual skeever, currently gnawing on his boot—when Hulda descended the basement stairs with an expression that suggested she had seen things in her tavern that would break lesser women, and was about to see more.
“For the circle,” she said, thrusting a scroll at Delphine. “Came by courier. Fancy one. Purple ribbon. Smells like... juniper and pretension.”
Delphine unrolled the parchment with the careful fingers of someone who had learned to expect bad news. Her eyebrows rose. Then rose further. Then achieved an altitude that suggested she had either received a marriage proposal from a Jarl or a tax audit from the Thalmor.
“Well,” she said. “Well.”
“Well what?” Ysolda asked, abandoning her practice sheets.
“The Bards College,” Delphine read, her voice carrying that particular cadence of someone reciting words they don’t quite believe. “Invites the... the Anonymous Isekai Survivors’ Circle to participate in their new Experimental Narrative Program. Full scholarships. Room and board. A semester of study in music, storytelling, and ‘the documentation of non-traditional experiences.’”
Silence.
Then Jennifer, who had been quietly tending her Nirnroot cuttings in the corner, said: “That’s a trap.”
“It’s not a trap,” said a voice from the stairs.
We all turned. A woman stood there, someone I didn’t recognize—middle-aged, sharp-featured, wearing robes that managed to look both expensive and deliberately rumpled. She had the air of an academic who had spent too long in archives and not enough time in sunlight.
“Giraud Gemaine,” she said, descending into our basement like it was a lecture hall. “Dean of Experimental Narratives, Bards College. And before anyone accuses me of eavesdropping, I prefer ‘strategic listening.’ The stairs creak. Everyone on the stairs creaks. It’s not my fault you were discussing skeevers.”
She surveyed our circle with the avid gaze of a researcher who has found an unexpectedly rich subject population.
“I’ve been looking for you,” she said. “All of you. Or rather, I’ve been looking for stories like yours. People who remember other worlds. Other rules. Other...” She waved her hand vaguely. “Otherness.”
“How did you find us?” Steve asked, emerging slightly from his customary shadow. He’d been attending more regularly since Riften, though he still sat near exits.
“Your friend Michael,” Giraud said. “The bard? The one who adapted ‘too well’? He’s been submitting compositions to our annual review. Songs about people who don’t belong. Who speak of ‘loading screens’ and ‘save files’ and ‘patch notes.’ We thought he was mad, of course. Poetically mad, the best kind, but mad.” She smiled, sharp and delighted. “Then I followed him. To this basement. To you.”
She pulled a stool from somewhere—probably her own, she’d come prepared—and sat without invitation, arranging her robes with the efficiency of someone used to making herself at home in uncomfortable spaces.
“The College has a problem,” she said. “Our traditional narratives are... stagnant. The same sagas, the same heroes, the same dragons and destinies. But you—” she pointed at each of us in turn, “—you have new stories. Stories that don’t fit the forms. Stories that break the rules.”
“Stories that get us called mad,” Jennifer muttered.
“Stories that get you called interesting,” Giraud corrected. “Which, at the College, is considerably more valuable.” She leaned forward, suddenly intense. “I want to teach you. Properly. Music theory, narrative structure, the technical skills to shape your experiences into art. And in return, you’ll teach us. What it’s like to remember a world without magic. What it’s like to learn this world’s rules as an adult, as a foreigner, as someone who knows they’re foreign.”
“Why?” I asked. The question came out more suspicious than I intended, but I’d learned to be suspicious of offers that seemed too good. Especially offers involving institutions. “What’s in it for the College?”
Giraud’s smile softened, became almost human. “Besides the obvious academic value? Besides the publications and the prestige and the inevitable invitations to present at the Imperial Symposium?” She shrugged. “Honestly? Because I’m bored. Because I’ve spent thirty years studying stories and they’re all starting to sound the same. Because your friend Michael wrote a ballad about cheese wheels that made me cry, and I don’t know why, and I want to understand.”
Thaddeus, who had finally dislodged the skeever, cleared his throat. “The College. In Solitude. That’s... far. From my farm. From Rorikstead.”
“Your potatoes will survive,” Giraud said. “They’re potatoes. Remarkably resilient. As are you, if you’ve survived this long in Skyrim.”
He looked at Delphine. Delphine looked at me. I looked at the circle—at these people who had become my family in the most improbable of circumstances—and felt something shift. Something that might have been possibility. Or might have been terror.
“When would we leave?” Delphine asked.
“End of the month. The semester begins on the 1st of Rain’s Hand.” Giraud stood, brushing invisible dust from her robes. “Think about it. Discuss it. I’ll be at the Winking Skeever if you have questions. Or if you want to refuse—though I should warn you, I’m remarkably persistent. It’s a professional hazard.”
She ascended the stairs with the same deliberate energy she’d descended, leaving us with a letter that smelled of juniper and pretension, and a decision that felt far too large for a basement full of trauma and mismatched chairs.
