When it came time to leave Shor’s Stone, I did not want to go. It’s not that I particularly enjoyed the squalid little town, nor living as a miner. It was just nice to have a moment of time living something akin to a normal life, something I had not had the luxury to do for any amount of extended time since before getting yanked to this fucking cesspool of a planet.

 

Also, I hate camping. I always have. You can enjoy sleeping under the stars if you want, but give me a nice bed, which is what I was laying in on the morning I had planned to begin my trip.

 

I know what you’re going to say (“I thought you were sleeping in the mine!”) and you are right, so let me just back up a few days and start from the beginning. Well, not the beginning. Let me start where I left off.

 

I stayed in the mine for the first four nights, which saved me a lot of money but was terrible for my skin and, even though I kept the skirt wrapped around my mouth at all times, my lungs weren’t very happy about it either. Neither were my muscles, which were sore already from the extended exercise (I had forgone my vow to do calisthenic-y exercises every day since mining is as good of strength and conditioning training as you’re likely to find) and sorer still after being forced to sleep on stone. (While I’m bitching about these things, I also had broken blisters all over my hands, but that can’t really be blamed on the sleeping conditions)

 

On the fifth day, Kellan, one of the miners (remember, I said we’d get to him), literally stumbled upon my sleeping arrangements. Aghast, he suggested I stay with him, all the time swearing he didn’t mean anything untoward by the invitation and it would be strictly for a place to stay. I took the chance and took him up on the offer.

 

We made it nearly one day before we started sleeping together, and that’s not because he broke his promise. He was just hot and I, somewhat to my surprise, was horny. After all I had been through, I had wondered if I would ever feel that way again, but whether it was because I was in an earlier untraumatized version of my body or because the world reset had also reset my brain, the trauma I expected to feel did not well up.

 

For three nights, we mined, then ate, then fucked (thank god the local general store had exactly one birth control potion, which lasts roughly a week), then drank deep into the night, then fucked again before falling asleep in each other’s arms. While we drank, we talked, and, one very drunken evening, I let slip my plan – to go to Helgen to see Alduin and kick off the “last gasp of the age” (again), or whatever it was Edith had said all those years ago.

 

Perhaps it would have been better not to tell him about the dragon part of it but, to be fair to me, I was drunk out of my mind. So much so, in fact, that I only remembered the conversation the next day when he volunteered to go with me on the grounds that, “I was only going to stay here for a while anyway” and “The strange clothes problem you have (sidenote: I had had to put on four different outfits before he could believe what I told him about Sanguine's stupid little joke, although that may have just been him enjoying seeing me naked. Not that any outfit was much different than being naked) proves that something weird is going on so, while it is hard to imagine dragons returning, I am very sure something unique is going to happen and I am very curious what it is” and, of course, “You need a male escort to leave town, right?”

 

I mean, how can you argue with any of that?

 

So there I was, two mornings later, wrapped in warm blankets with Kellan spooned around me, dreading the end of my brief time of peace and wishing someone else – anyone else – was the fucking Dragonborn. Alas, Kellan had more discipline than I and actually got up when he woke, the bastard. I even tried to lure him to stay by stroking his dick but he said he had to pee too much to enjoy that and, when he got back, he started getting dressed, steadfastly ignoring my attempts at sultry come-hither looks. Finally, I sighed, gave up, and forced myself out of bed.

 

It took little time to get ready. I put on my clothes which, of course, reverted to the bikini, while he strapped on leather armor and donned a sword I had not realized he owned.

 

“Where the hell did that come from?”

 

“My father. I was a soldier before, but I got tired of being yelled at and even more tired of killing people I had no qualms with, so when my time was up, I left.”

 

“To become a miner?”

 

He shrugged. “There are worse things.”

 

Which, fair enough. I glanced down at myself and muttered, “Wish I could wear armor.”

 

“You can, we just need to be away from a town or city. And you’ll have to change back into clothes before we get to another one.”

 

“Yeah, clothes like these.” I looked around. “There has to be something I can do about this. Do you have an extra cloak?”

 

He did, but when I tried it on, it turned into a delicate (and very see-through) wrap. I tried a blanket next, but even that transformed (into a fucking babydoll, of all things. Sanguine is the king of perverts. Of course, he would take being called that a compliment).

 

Finally, in desperation, I picked up the worn rug off the floor, shook it out (filling the room with dust that made us both cough), and wrapped it around myself. And, wonder of wonders, it worked! It was really ugly and dumpy looking, but at least it covered me up.

 

“Thank god,” I said. Then, “On second thought, scratch that – those fuckers are probably the reason this is happening. Thank seamstresses. Or…weavers, I guess. Whoever the hell makes rugs.”

 

Kellan looked amused but wisely said nothing. We left the house, went to the inn for food and water for the road (and for Kellan to terminate his rental agreement for the house – fortunately, the innkeeper did not seem to recognize my new accoutrement as the rug from his property), and left town around mid-morning.

 

Much as I hate to admit it, it was nice having him along. Not that I minded his company – I rather enjoyed it – but it was still galling to be required to have an escort. What did these fucking Nords think, that women would just stumble into situations where they would get kidnapped, enslaved, and/or raped if they weren’t with a man? The fact that that is precisely what had happened to me nearly every time I stepped outside a town (and even when I stepped into one, such as the first time I had gone to Riverwood) is irrelevant, Your Honor!

 

It is very difficult to rant about laws created that take freedoms from you on the grounds that they are for your own good when you, yourself, are the primary example of why those laws need to be in place. It is the irony of womanhood: men make laws to keep women safe from men when, if it wasn’t for men, the women wouldn’t be in danger in the first place. Well, aside from wild animals and dragons and such.  

 

Sorry about that – didn’t mean to start ranting. The point I was trying to make is, it is very nice to travel with someone who actually knows how to fight, something I did not (although I got Kellan to start giving me lessons the first day of the trip – he had brought a spare sword (and armor that shifted to a fucking thong string bikini, dammit) with him, which he gave to me when he learned I wanted to learn).

 

Anyway. Here is where it gets even weirder. Didn’t think it could get weirder, did you? Never underestimate the insanity of gods.

 

We had just passed the watchtower where I had found the dead soldiers last time. I told Kellan about it as we passed and he let me know the same had happened this time – the watchtower guards had been killed by an Imperial sneak attack on the same day I had arrived in Shor’s Stone. The bodies had been discovered the next day. So one thing was the same.

 

That’s not the weird thing. The weird thing was that, as Kellan was telling me that, we accidentally stirred up a nest of skeevers which came out snipping. Only…

 

Only, I could understand them.

 

They ran toward us hissing and squeaking, but the hisses and squeaks (and body language and odors) translated to words in my head. There is no way to tell you exactly what they said, since it was not, of course, in a human language. My best translation is this: “Die, interlopers! You will feed my nest for days!”

 

Before I could make sense of this, the skeevers died at the edge of Kellan’s sword, leaving me standing there with my own sword still sheathed, staring with wild eyes as Kellen kicked the corpses off the road.

 

I cleared my throat as he wiped off his blade and re-sheathed it. “Did you hear that?”

 

“Hm?” Kellan looked at me with raised eyebrows, clearly oblivious to the magic speaking rats. “Hear what?”

 

“I…” I shook my head. He was already half-convinced I was mad. There was no reason to tilt the opinion further. “Nothing. Just thought I heard a voice.”

 

He shrugged, said again he had heard nothing, and I let it drop. By the time we stopped for the night, I had forgotten all about it. Okay, I had not forgotten - how do you forget something like that? - but I had convinced myself it had been my imagination.

 

 

Don't feed the bastards. Feed yourself instead.

 

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