As Mami had predicted, they arrived at Dawnstar right at… well, dawn.
Fitting.
The sun crested over the low mountains that ringed the far side of the port city. It was certainly the largest settlement the two girls had yet seen, even larger than Morthal. It didn't hold a candle to a modern city back home of course, but it was still easily capable of housing several thousand people. The city itself rounded a natural bay filled with ships of all shapes and sizes, and was slightly terraced from one ring of the city to the next as it led up into the surrounding mountains. Everything was white; snow had fallen overnight here, and as the first rays of the sun struck the city, everything from the landscape to the brown wooden buildings lit up dazzlingly brilliant.
Madoka took a deep relaxing breath, letting the steam waft from her mouth. For the first time since the hagraven attack, they both felt remotely safe and okay. There was just one more leg to this journey, and then they'd be in Winterhold.
Mami was… Mami. She hadn't spoken about the fight since she'd pulled herself together, and Madoka was pretty sure she wasn't going to. The blonde was a stone wall when she wanted to be.
"Any idea how to find a ship that will take us?" Madoka asked Mami, who was currently pulling Sayaka's cart as they'd switched out a few hours ago.
Mami stifled a yawn from a lack of sleep, "… Honestly I'm not sure. Is there a place you go to find out? Surely they don't expect you to just go up to each ship and ask," she paused, "… Right?"
Madoka shrugged.
The two walked the docks watching as people came and went, loading and offloading cargo, performing maintenance, or heading into town.
Up ahead they saw a fairly large ship like what you'd see out of a fairytail or a history book; wooden, with a large sail and decorative carvings on the side. It even had a mermaid carving on the front.
"Excuse me," Mami asked one of the dockworkers as the woman set down a box at the front of a pier, "We're sort of lost. How would we find a ship willing to take us where we need to go? Is there an office or someplace?"
The heavily-built nord woman looked down at the two girls with an odd expression, "… No, not really. You mostly just ask around, most any captain will take you onboard as long as you've got the money. Where are you headed?"
"Winterhold." Madoka said.
The woman sighed, "Ah, sorry, we're headed back to Solitude as soon as we finish dropping this cargo off and resupply, and that's in the other direction. However…" she looked up over at the next ship a pier over at a mid-sized fishing boat, "I think the old man next to us might be headed that way. He was complaining about something with the ice flows over there this time of year."
"… Oh," Mami said, both hers and Madoka's faces falling a bit at the thought of taking that ramshackle boat out into the open ocean, "… Thank you."
"Not a problem!"
"Hauti, I'm payin' you to work, not jaw with the locals!" the captain of the vessel said from his ship.
Hauti rolled her eyes, "Calm down Mero, I'm just giving directions. Take the mast out of your ass," she then grumbled to herself as she walked back towards the ship, "… give an imperial an inch and he thinks he's the Talos-damned emperor…"
Mami and Madoka made their way over to the next ship, the aforementioned fishing boat that looked like it had seen more than a few winters on the open ocean. At first they thought there wasn't anyone here, until they noticed someone on the boat itself, hunched over and obscured by the railings. He seemed to be grunting and mumbling to himself.
"Um… excuse me? Hello?" Mami asked.
The grumbling, irritated old man with a thick beard stood up, "What? What is it?!" he frowned grumpily at the two kids, "Who in Oblivion are you?"
"We um… I'm Mami Tomoe, and this is Madoka Kaname," Mami said, "We're looking for passage to Winterhold. I don't suppose you know anyone that—"
The old man cut her off with a wave of his hand, "Yeah, yeah, I'm going to Winterhold. Hop on."
Thrown off-balance by the sudden acceptance she wasn't even sure she wanted, Mami replied, "W-wait, what? No, I was just asking—no, I mean, don't you—are there other—"
"Other ships to Winterhold? At this time of year?" the man gave a sharp laugh, "Might be a few, but tryin' to navigate Winterhold's waters are dangerous any time of year, much less in winter. Heck, this is my last run for the year. You're welcome to try, but I'm leaving in a few minutes, and who knows how long you'd have to wait for someone else." He began to dig up the boat anchor.
"Do we have to pay you or…" Madoka trailed off.
"Pay?" the man paused, "Psh, what I need are deckhands. My last group wussed out, didn't want to risk getting shipwrecked by an iceberg. Damn solid-grounders, no sense of risk."
"… If it's so risky, why are you going?" Madoka asked.
The man gave them a grin, "Two words: Atmoran Swordfish! Lonesome and hard to catch, but right now they are at the peak of mating season, and wouldn't you know it, they think the ice flows and icebergs around Winterhold are prime mating locals! I get a fortune every season. 'Course I spend most of it on drink, but that's my business," he finished pulling the anchor up, "So, are you coming, or are you just going to stand there like a couple of piss ants?"
Not seeing much of an option, the two girls exchanged glances and then hesitantly stepped onto the boat, taking a moment to pull Sayaka's cart onboard.
"… What's with the dead girl?" the man asked.
"Not dead, sick," Madoka replied, slightly bashful at the man's nonchalance, "Her name is Sayaka. We're hoping the College can help."
"Not contagious, I hope."
Mami shook her head, "No, magical."
"Ah, curses, gotcha. Nasty business. Name's Igeford, but you can call me Iggy! Now, have either of you girls ever been on a boat before?"
The two girls shook their heads.
Iggy grunted with irritation, "What, do they not have boats in Akavir? How'd you get here?" when Mami moved to reply, Iggy again cut her off, "Nevermind, don't care. I guess I'll have to show you the ropes. I mean that literally, by the way."
The two girls blinked, "Uh…"
"What?" Iggy replied, grabbing the ropes to his small mast as he looked back at the girls, "I told you I was gonna put you to work. By the time we reach Winterhold, you're going to be fishing masters."
Even before the ship left the harbor, neither girl was entirely sure they hadn't made a terrible, terrible mistake.
In fact, they did not become fishing masters. Or sailing masters. Or masters of any kind, really.
By the time they limped into port, Madoka had spent most of the past three days hanging her head over the side of the railing, unable to keep much of anything down. Imagine; a former goddess, an entity that had seen over the totality of creation, had rebuilt the cosmos in her image, and had sacrificed everything for the happiness of others, and she couldn't keep from getting seasick.
She swore to herself she was never getting on another boat ever again.
Mami had tried her best, of course. But at the end of the day, she was an upper-middle class city girl who despite moonlighting as a superhero just didn't have the stomach for… this. She was encrusted in sea-salt, her hair was rough and wild, she was tired and wet and frozen, and she was pretty sure she'd never get the smell of fish out of her clothes.
She needed a shower.
Really, by the end of the first day Iggy had given up on both of them and was content to have them help with the basic grunt work; helping him pull nets, keeping the ship upright, steering, that sort of thing.
"Well, here we are," Iggy said as the boat rolled into port mid-afternoon, "Winterhold docks. You'll find the town up above."
Sure enough, there wasn't much to the "town" where they were; a string of huts and buildings lined the narrow sandy coast along with a series of wooden piers, but behind them stood a massive wall of ice and rock that went straight up. Above the girls could see a castle sitting on a pillar, connected to the mainland by a narrow stone bridge. As for how to get up there, behind the port existed a seemingly endless series of stairs carved into the cliffside. Both frowned at the thought.
This was not going to be fun.
"Thank you for your hospitality," Mami told Iggy, "I apologize for not being of more use."
"I suppose it's my fault," the old man grumbled, "I shouldn't have expected a pair of kids who hadn't even left land before to be all that useful. Live and learn."
Mami couldn't help but take that just a little personally, even if on some level she knew he hadn't meant it that way. Or maybe he did, it was hard to tell with Iggy.
The boat came to a halt and Iggy threw his anchor overboard before moving to tie his boat to the pier. Madoka gave one more dry heave before moving to collect her things—she looked particularly green-faced.
Mami sniffed herself before gagging, then followed Madoka as Iggy began to talk to the customs officer on duty; it seemed the two knew each other and so despite having come from Dawnstar and thus a separate kingdom, he was granted entry without much problem.
"And who are these girls you have with you?" the officer asked, in full city guard armor. He stood head to toe in chainmail with a cyan cloth sash on the front with the emblem of the Kingdom of Eastmarch on it; a bear's head. His face was obscured by a full-head helmet, and his height of six and a half feet implied he was probably a nord.
"Ah, some akaviri girls I picked up in Dawnstar," Iggy said, "Lousy fishermen. Decent enough girls though, I suppose."
"And what is your business here?" the guard asked them.
Mami and Madoka glanced over at Sayaka before Madoka replied, "Our friend is sick. A… curse, of sorts. We were hoping the college could help us."
"Hrmph, the College," the guard grunted, folding his arms in disdain before nodding his head to the castle above, "That'd be it up above, but good luck getting in there without prior permission. They're very particular about who they let in; not even the Jarl has permission. You might have wasted your time."
The expressions on the girls fell, disheartened as doubt creeped in. What if the College refused them entry? Wulf had vouched for them and had made them seem very helpful, but what if he was wrong?
"… I see," Mami muttered, looking worried.
Madoka grabbed Sayaka's cart, "If it's all the same, I'd still like to try."
The guard shrugged, "Be my guest, but don't get your hopes up. The College looks after its own and doesn't much care about what happens to the town. Anyway, welcome to Winterhold—but don't do anything dumb, because we'll be watching." With that, the guard turned and left, heading over to another boat that was docking.
"Thank you again." Mami told Iggy, giving a slight bow.
"Yeah yeah, whatever," the old man replied as he passed them by, walking towards a small tavern located just down the dock, "Keep your touchy-feeling to yourself. Imma go get drunk."
The two girls gave each other a shrug before heading for the staircase. Upon reaching it, they realized very quickly that the cart would by more of a hazard than a help and thus ditched it, grabbing everything they'd stored within it while Madoka slung Sayaka over her backside in a piggyback ride. They gave the nearly endless staircase one more glance before issuing a joint sigh of reluctance.
They began to climb.