A Destiny Unspun
"What's wrong with you?" asked Miraak, watching Percy with a stern look. The boy seemed distracted, his gaze lost, paying no attention to the training. Assuming that, as his master, he should intervene before forcing him to suffer for his lack of focus, he spoke.
"Nothing," Percy replied with a frown. "Just a small annoyance."
"You want to learn to decapitate your enemies and take care of yourself. I suppose that's viable," murmured Miraak, nodding with a hint of pride.
"What? No!" Percy exclaimed immediately. "I just heard some strange things from Professor Brunner and my friend," he added quickly.
"Mmm… the horse and the goat," Miraak muttered under his breath while pulling a bottle out of nowhere and taking a swig. He looked at it with disdain. "This alcohol tastes like nothing but water," he added in disgust.
Percy noticed that the bottle was whiskey. He couldn't understand his master: sometimes Miraak seemed to know absolutely everything about this world, as if nothing could surprise him, but other times he acted like someone ancient, unable to grasp the most basic aspects of common sense.
"Master, may I ask how old you are?" Percy said, momentarily forgetting his previous worries.
"Master?" Miraak repeated with irritation. He disliked that title—he preferred to be called "lord."
"Come on, you're my teacher. 'Lord' sounds weird, don't you think? It's better to call you master. In our culture, a master is someone who teaches, and that's what you're doing. Besides, I've also heard that's what servants call their superiors," Percy explained with a serious expression, trying to ease that strange way of addressing him.
"Master…" Miraak repeated thoughtfully. Finally, he nodded. "I'll allow it." He paused briefly before adding, "In years of this plane, I should be over four thousand. Why?" He took another swig and tossed the bottle behind him. It vanished upon touching the ground, consumed by an ethereal spark.
"Four thousand!?" Percy stared at him wide-eyed. "You're basically a mummy," he blurted out reflexively, earning a harsh glare from Miraak that made him shut up at once. "I mean… you wear your age well. Blond hair, stylish clothes… the beard is a bit patchy, but I think you're cool, Master," Percy improvised quickly to save himself.
"If you're done fooling around, keep training before I throw you into a pit and force you to climb back out," Miraak warned with seriousness.
…
"Here we go again, off to the city," Percy muttered as he climbed onto the bus. His eyes darted everywhere, as if searching for something invisible.
"What's wrong, Percy?" asked a nervous voice at his side. Grover looked at him with concern, noticing how his friend seemed to expect something to suddenly leap out at them.
"Nothing, Grover. What's wrong with you?" Percy shot back, noticing how agitated his friend was.
"Nothing, nothing," Grover replied far too quickly, hurrying up onto the bus. Percy cast one last glance behind him, searching for the silhouette of his master. Miraak had promised to stay close to continue his training—after all, he didn't want his first apprentice to die after only a few weeks of practice. But Percy didn't see him anywhere.
The boy boarded, unaware that someone was lying casually against the roof of the bus, unnoticed by everyone else.
"This place is boring. I'm really starting to crave a fight with someone powerful. Only these weaklings keep showing up," Miraak thought, lifting his eyes to the blue sky. That sky he hadn't seen in centuries, and which, since his arrival here, he had secretly come to enjoy.
The bus rumbled on. Miraak could feel Percy inside it, along with his strange goat companion. The demigod's growth was becoming more noticeable by the day. For an instant, an unfamiliar emotion stirred in him as he recalled their last training session, when Percy had managed to lift one of the chests. He didn't know what to call the feeling, and the uncertainty irritated him.
Suddenly, the bus screeched to a halt. Miraak straightened, leaving his thoughts behind. From his vantage point he saw the driver wrestling with something beneath the steering wheel. Passengers began to disembark slowly, murmuring in confusion. Percy and Grover were among them.
With sharp eyes, Miraak studied the surroundings. On one side of the road, there was nothing but maples and scattered trash. On the other… a fruit shop. And beneath its shade, three old women sat. One was knitting a sock, another its pair, and the one in the middle held a basket of yarn that glowed faintly with an unnatural light.
Miraak frowned. The crones seemed absorbed in their work, until their gazes lifted in unison and locked on Percy. The silence that followed was unsettling. Miraak's scowl deepened even more.
Then Percy heard his friend's trembling voice.
"Tell me they're not looking. They're not looking at you, right?" Grover asked, pale and shaking all over.
"Looks like they are. Think the socks would fit me?" Percy joked, trying to lighten the mood.
"This isn't funny, Perc. Not funny at all," Grover shot back, his fear so raw it erased any attempt at humor.
Miraak, however, was watching closely. One of the old women had produced an enormous pair of shears, forged of silver and gold. They were no ordinary tool: the runes and enchantments carved into the blades were unlike anything he had ever seen, even in the centuries of knowledge he had amassed in Apocrypha.
The mere gleam of the instrument made Grover shrink back even further in terror… and even Miraak, this time, seemed to pay close attention.
Miraak, for his part, smiled. With a simple gesture, two spectral swords materialized in his hands, and from his body emanated a bloodlust so brutal it fell upon the surroundings like a storm. The air grew heavy, and many passengers felt an irrational panic, a primal fear that forced them to run back inside the bus as if that metal box could protect them.
For the first time, the old women raised their eyes toward Miraak. Or rather, it seemed as though they had only just noticed him. Or perhaps what they saw confused them. Their gazes showed no hatred nor recognition… but genuine bewilderment.
Percy, bewildered, looked around. That fear… he had felt it before. He didn't understand where it came from, but he recognized it. His friend, however, didn't give him time to think: Grover grabbed him by the arm and shoved him back onto the bus while screaming in terror.
Miraak smiled coldly, ready to strike if those women made a move. After all, there had to be a reason why the goat boy was so shaken by their presence.
But the old women did not raise weapons against him. Instead, they began rummaging through the basket of yarn with growing urgency, pulling out thread after thread as if searching for something lost. Their hands trembled slightly, each movement more rushed than the last.
Miraak, disappointed, slowly lowered his spectral swords. It seemed they had no intention of fighting. Perhaps, he thought, the goat boy was nothing but a coward. His bloodlust faded little by little, dissipating like smoke in the air.
Meanwhile, the driver, who had hidden himself under the engine, trembled without understanding what that terror had been that had paralyzed him seconds before. He shot up, yanked something from the motor in his desperation, and scrambled back to his seat with his face drenched in sweat. He started the bus and sped away roughly, as if escaping that place meant fleeing death itself. The passengers sighed in relief, glad to leave behind a scene of possible doom, never knowing what had truly happened.
Only Miraak remained calm, seated on the roof, his eyes fixed on the three old women still digging among the threads. One of them lifted her head and looked straight at him. It wasn't fear or anger in her eyes, but perplexity… as if his very existence were the strangest thing they had seen in centuries.
The Dragonborn whispered words in the language of dragons and dissolved into mist, passing through the roof of the bus. His body rematerialized in the aisle, right beside Percy and Grover. He placed a hand on his chin and observed them in silence, expectant.
"What's with those ladies? They're not like Mrs. Dodds, right?" Percy asked nervously.
"Just tell me what you saw," Grover demanded, not taking his eyes off the window.
"The one in the middle pulled out a pair of shears… cut the thread. Then she raised her hand, made a gesture that looked like a cross, but it wasn't. It was something else… something older," Percy explained, increasingly uneasy.
"You saw her cut the thread?" Grover asked, pale, his voice barely audible.
"Yeah, why?" Percy felt a shiver run down his spine.
"I wish this wasn't happening," Grover muttered, biting his fingers until they nearly bled. His voice was breaking. "I don't want it to be like last time… always in sixth, never make it past sixth…" he repeated over and over, each time more distraught, as if trapped in a memory consuming him.
"Grover, what the hell are you talking about?" Percy demanded, but his friend didn't answer, locked inside his own panic.
"Let me walk you home. Promise me," Grover said with a seriousness that made him sound much older than he was.
"Sure… but tell me something. Is this like a superstition or something?" Percy asked, trying to understand. Grover gave no reply. His silence was worse than any explanation.
Percy turned toward him, his heart pounding. "The thread that old woman cut… does it mean someone is going to die?" he asked softly, with a painful intuition.
Grover's expression said it all. The color had drained from his face, and his eyes were wet. For Miraak, that was enough to understand the truth.
The Dragonborn stared at Percy for a long moment. And without thinking, he lifted his hand, releasing a protective spell woven from multiple layers of magic. His instinct had acted before his mind.
When he realized what he had done, he clicked his tongue and shook his head. "What nonsense. If he dies, it will be because he was too weak to call himself my apprentice," he said with disdain. But then, after a pause, he added calmly, "Or I'll simply bring him back."
With that, he dropped into the empty seat behind the two boys, pulling out another bottle of whiskey.
Percy, on the verge of a panic attack from Grover's silence and the weight of everything that had happened, was startled by the sudden smell of alcohol. Strangely, that aroma eased him a little. His eyes scanned the surroundings in search of Miraak… but, as always, he couldn't find him.