"Adara, I don't want to be alone. I miss your father every minute of every day, and I can't lose you too."

"Mom... mom you're not losing me, Winterhold is just, just a few days away..."

Yeah okay he should not be here for this part. He quietly slips away to let them talk.

"On behalf of Stonehills, thank you for dealing with that creature," one of the guards walks up to him to say, sounding a bit stiff.

Probably thinks Ruby's just as bad for having summoned an Atronach of his own. "You don't need to thank me. It could've caused a lot of damage and hurt a lot of people, I'm glad I could prevent that."

"...right. Uh. Is... is Adara going to be going to Winterhold with you, then?" He shuffles his feet a bit. "We all knew. Gretolde tried to hide it but... we knew. We saw the small things she'd do, sometimes, especially when she was small. We thought... maybe she'd grow past it..."

Ruby shakes his head. "She can't. She'll only grow more powerful. The safest thing for her and for Stonehills is for her to come to the College. Once she can control her magic, she'll be able to return here and live a normal life, if she so wishes."

And what's left unsaid is that she's unlikely to wish it. Wizard or no, Stonehills isn't really the kind of place one returns to, after leaving. Some people enjoy the quiet, the calm, but...

"Will you take good care of her? At the College."

"I'm just an Apprentice, myself, but... she'll be in good hands. And she's a resourceful young lady, ordering an enchanted item using her mother's name was quite clever. Believe in her."

That... does cheer him up. "I will. Thank you."

"It's what I'm here for."

Gretolde and Adara have their heart to heart. Gretolde is finally honest about her thoughts and feelings and has a real conversation with Adara instead of just treating her like an unruly child. Adara for her part admits she has been acting like an unruly child but didn't know how else to get what she wanted. They take a while, and Adara asks Ruby for some more time in order to say goodbye to everyone and get ready to go, since she's no longer stealing away in the dead of night.

Yeah, sure. Might work better, even, if the storm has more time to subside further.

It does. They decide to wait until the next morning, and by then there is no snowfall at all, only the normal biting cold wind of northern Skyrim.

"Do you know how to ride a horse?"

"Um... a bit...?"

"You don't need to be a professional horse racer, I'll conjure magic horses for both of us and they're stabler and much more well-behaved than regular horses, I just want to know if you can sit on the horse and not immediately fall."

Her eyes light up when he mentions conjuring a magic horse and she's nodding enthusiastically by the time he's done. "Yes! I can do that!"

"Alright, then let's set off."

He doesn't conjure the horses in the village proper since he doesn't want to make the villagers nervous, but once they're past the village limits he summons two of the ghostly seeds.

"I want to learn how to do that," she says immediately.

"Unfortunately I did not bring a Spell Tome for it," Ruby says, helping Adara attach her stuff to her horse's saddle. "But you can borrow one from the College library once you're there. You can already conjure a more powerful Atronach than mine, it should be easy enough for you."

She can't manage to hold back a squeal, and once the saddle is properly adjusted she pulls herself onto the horse. She looks like she's vibrating on her seat.

Ruby grins fondly but then once Adara is ready to go he starts leading the way.

"We're going to take the main road to Dawnstar," he explains, "but the old road that goes from there directly to Winterhold hasn't been maintained so we'll need to take the road that goes south around the mountains. It'll be three days to Dawnstar and then about a week and change to Winterhold."

Map of the Trip

"...that's a long time."

"The old road to Winterhold would've been four days instead but you said yourself that you're not very good at riding so I don't want us to try to brave the wilderness."