I suppose it’s no surprise that Lysha had a hard time swallowing the entirety of my story – hell, I barely believed half of it myself – but she at least had the good grace to hear me out and not immediately call the guard right back.

 

I did learn some things from her, to whit:

·         She confirmed slavery was not legal and even seemed surprised it was a question

·         She clarified the guard’s statement: women couldn’t leave a town or city without a male escort unless they had a special writ

·         The special writ was almost impossible to get

·         Women needed licenses to carry weapons or wear armor

 

There was a certain logic to all this, and, to be fair, it wasn’t based on pure women-are-weaker misogyny – the civil war was still a thing in this version of Skyrim and both sides had plenty of “camp whores” who may or may not have had much say in their choice of profession (not to mention the usual bandits and such). So go back to bullet point one and add an asterisk next to it.

 

I left that conversation on…well, not bad terms with Lysha, by any means, but in retrospect, I probably should have just stuck with the “that idiot Parman dragged me here” part of the story and left out the whole time-travel thing. Something to remember if there is a third time through.

 

Oh, and before I go any further, I should mention the most annoying fucking part of the entire thing, which I assumed (correctly, it turns out) was that asshole Sanguine’s idea of a joke: anything I wore instantly become the sluttiest possible version of that clothes item.

 

No, I’m serious. Lysha’s limited graciousness extended to giving me a set of clothes because the ho dress stood out a bit more than I preferred. The moment I took the ho dress off, it reverted to the fun spring dress it was supposed to be and, of course, the moment I put on Lysha’s clothes…well, they mostly disappeared. The hem went up, the neckline went down, the middle bit…

 

Tl;dr: it became a bikini (a thong bikini, no less!) with a loose wrap that sort of counted as a skirt around the waist. And a pair of strappy pumps, the only part of the outfit I liked (although it made me wonder why my Cole Haans had been turned into ugly Mary Janes if heels were…I don’t know, “acceptable” shoes for this stupid game. Maybe Sanguine just doesn’t like kitten heels?) As a bonus, there was some sort of enchantment on those shoes because they felt super comfortable and as stable as flat-soled shoes. I may as well have been wearing tennis shoes. I never feared for my ankles when running or mining or fighting in them.

 

Since we’re giving what credit there is to give, the bikini (and all the other slutty outfits I ended up donning over this time) also kept me temperature-regulated – I didn’t need a coat in the cold, nor did rain or snow feel less comfortable than, say, a lukewarm shower. So (very) minor kudos, even though that “thoughtfulness” was really just to give me no reason to try to cover up.

 

My relationship with Lysha took another turn downward when she saw the outfit and assumed I had taken it upon myself to alter the clothes I was borrowing from her. I tried showing her the now-un-sluttified dress and also tried pointing out I could not have made all those alterations myself in the three minutes it had taken to change, but she was clearly done with my weirdness and kicked me out of her home.

 

Not that I blamed her, of course. But this was certainly not how I had pictured things going.

 

So now I was in the all-too-familiar predicament that had been the hallmark of nearly every one of my previous non-slave days – I had very little food, no place to stay, no money, and no job with which to make money. Which I would need in approximately a week, if I wanted to get to Helgen in time to see Alduin and get cracking on my…Dragonborn-ness. Or whatever.

 

So much of the rest of the day was spent going in order of preference down my list of jobs:

 

Filnjar, the blacksmith, simply laughed in my face when I suggested I could help him. He offered some cash to sleep with him (which I did not take, obvs), but that was as close to a smithing job I got.

 

Ehod, the innkeeper, lit right up when I mentioned a job and was already halfway through explaining what my duties as a sex worker would be before I could give the word that I was only interested in, like, waitressing or cooking or something. His interest in me disappeared faster than the hem of my clothes had. He explained, very patiently, that “the waitresses are also the whores. We’re not a bit city tavern that can afford twice as many employees” and “my wife does the cooking. She would not be interested in you hanging about underfoot” and “if you don’t want to be a whore, why are you dressed like one?” Which was an absolutely fair - my outfit was not exactly on the Suggested Professional Outfits to Wear for Job Interviews list - and equally absolutely impossible to answer question.

 

With my only two viable options thus crushed, I took several deep breaths and drank some of Parman’s wine to bolster my courage, then plodded my way to the mine to talk to Grogmar, the orc owner. He responded much as the others had until said I wanted to mine, not be a whore. He seemed disappointed but at least he did not say no.

 

Thus it was that, fourteen days after (and 2,335 days before) I left the mine where I had spent the majority of my time on my previous life, I willingly (a very very loose term) and intentionally walked back into one.

 

In terms of training…well there wasn’t any. Grogmar pointed at the pickaxes and shovels (thank god I didn’t have to pay for one) and that was it. I followed the sounds of work until I came across the other miners, found the darkest corner (where I saw a viable node) I could, and got to work.

 

After the first wave of dust, I remembered my poor lungs and, after a moment of hesitation, I removed the bikini wrap (that wasn’t really long enough to cover anything anyway) and wrapped it around my mouth and nose to keep the dust away.  

 

It took a little time for my untrained body to pick up what my brain was trying to tell it and I was not strong, so it took several strikes to dislodge the first chunk of ore. I paused when it fell, expecting dark memories to rush out of the depths to overwhelm me, but surprisingly, all I felt was a vague sense of accomplishment.

 

Nice!

 

I got back into it and, after a bit of adjustment, managed to fall into my mindless pattern of swing-twist-pull. I had to take more breaks than during my peak times in the slave mine, but I did better than I had been doing at the end. Of course, I’m pretty sure I was on the verge of dying at the end, so maybe not the best comparison. Anyway, I wasn’t paying much attention to my surroundings until my brain registered unfamiliar sounds. I stopped after digging out a large chunk and looked around.

 

I was surrounded by miners.

 

I gripped the pickaxe as cold panic swept through me, certain things were about to take a turn toward rape with a probable side dish of slavery, since, if they locked me up down here, no one would ever know. The overwhelming dark I had been pleasantly surprised NOT to feel suddenly came rushing up.

 

It was broken a moment later when the entire group broke out in applause, which echoed in thunderous waves off the cave walls. Then there were shouts of encouragement, a lot of laughter, and the inevitable cat calls, but those clearly (mostly) meant in jest.

 

Thus it was that I met the Redbelly miners, who were as coarse and rough as you might imagine, but at least were not rapists. The worst I ever got from them was a couple pinches and a lot of leers. So it was like being on Earth again, really.

 

It was also when I first came across Kellan, although only in the oblique manner that he happened to be part of my adoring audience. I had no idea what a life-changer that moment would turn out to be.

 

 

Don’t feed the bastards. Feed yourself instead.

 

 

 

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