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The Line Begins to Blur	By : VirusVescichetta Category: +A through F > Elder Scrolls - Skyrim Views: 61884 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: Look at the URL. Now back to the disclaimer. Now the URL. Back to the disclaimer. Sadly, I don't own Skyrim or make money off it, but you can now read a story that's written as though I did. And yes, I just wasted a mod's valuable time.

Chapter List
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"...And this one I got from a broken mead bottle in a bar fight," I pointed to a scar running along the back of my hand. I wasn't entirely sure how Lydia and I got on the topic of my scars again but I was having a surprising amount of fun recounting the various tales of where they all came from. "There are a shocking number of humans in Cyrodiil who aren't too fond of Argonians. I got pretty good at fist-fighting just from hanging around enough pubs."
"I refuse to believe you never did anything to provoke them," my housecarl rolled her eyes at me.
"I'll have you know I'm the absolute picture of politeness, even when drunk," I tried to sound indignant but just ended up breaking into a laugh. "Okay, I can't even say that with a straight face."
"You weren't so bad the other night," Lydia chuckled.
"I wasn't all that drunk," I defended myself. "Back in Cyrodiil I used to get so thoroughly imbibed I could barely walk straight on a nightly basis. And then someone would say something stupid and a fight would break out and I'd have to bribe my way out of jail time. Then I ran out of money and had to stop that habit."
"So the Thane of Whiterun is quite the troublemaker," she sounded amused. "How scandalous."
"One good thing about causing a lot of trouble is that you learn how to get yourself out of it. Or get your ass kicked and thrown in jail," I said with a laugh.
Lydia looked like she was going to add to the conversation when we came around a bend and caught sight of an old, broken tower further up the road. It had a bridge that ran across the river on our left and I imagined that when it was built it was quite the fortification. As it was, though, it just looked like somewhere for highwaymen to wait by the road for travellers. My suspicions were virtually confirmed by the pair of roguish individuals sitting by the door.
"And here I was thinking about how nice and quiet the roads in Skyrim are," I sighed. "Well, apart from the odd giant or sabre cat looking to make itself troublesome."
We each kept our hands near our weapons as we approached. The humans at the door, a female with a pair of daggers at her hip and a male armed with a simple sword, stood up and walked to intercept us on the road. "This is a toll road," the man said as he crossed his arms over his chest. I noted that his hands were nowhere near his weapon.
"Aye. Two hundred septims sounds about right," the woman said and looked me up and down.
"Two hundred?" I made sure to sound unbelieving and turned my head to look at Lydia. "I look like I'm that wealthy?"
Before she could answer my rhetorical question I had already drawn my sword and slashed it across the man's face. Or at least tried to. With the edge I had sharpened it to it dug far deeper than I had really intended to and almost cleft his head in two. My housecarl used the distraction to bash his counterpart with her shield, knocking the woman to the ground. Her blade quite cleanly drove through the bandit's throat and nearly removed her head.
Movement above us caught my attention and my eyes widened in alarm at the bows being drawn. "Archers!" I warned in a sharp bark. Lydia and I took the only path that led to safety from the death from above: into the tower. It was bound to have more bandits to be dealt with but at least inside we wouldn't be shot down without a chance to react. I silently lamented my lack of skill with a bow.
There were no one on the ground floor with us in the tower, though I expected that to quickly change and I was less than thrilled with the idea of the archers picking us off from the top of the stairs. I motioned to my housecarl with my head to follow me up and meet our attackers rather than being overrun before I shucked my pack from my shoulders.
It didn't take long to run into someone. It also didn't take me long to run them through, either. I made sure to toss the body to the side so Lydia wouldn't have a corpse come toppling down on her from above. She stopped at the bridge outside to hold off anyone trying to attack me from behind while I continued my way up the tower to take care of the archers. I didn't much fancy the thought of being made into a pincushion while handling whatever other bandits occupied the place.
When I got to the roof of the building I immediately took an arrow in the shoulder with a short grunt of pain before I could cut down the first archer. I managed to dodge the second's shot and closed the distance quickly enough to lop his head from his shoulders. I tore the arrow sticking out of me with my teeth and almost felt my battle rush quicken from the coppery tang of my blood on my tongue. It faintly occurred to my mind that the pair had been Bosmer.
I turned around and looked down the stairs from whence I came in time to see a beast of an orc bearing down on me. He had a rather massive battleaxe clutched in his hands and I knew I didn't have time to get out of the way. Instead I raised my blades and caught them against the haft of his weapon, keeping the deadly head away from removing my own. Unfortunately the sheer force of the blow was enough to knock me back and I stumbled off the edge of the tower's top. Luck had me end up on my back on the stone bridge connecting the tower to the other side of the river. Bad luck flared up in a shot of pain in my side that told me I hadn't quite kept the orc's axehead away from my flesh. Terrible luck had my position on the bridge be between two bandits, though one was engaged with Lydia.
I blocked a downward slash of the other one's sword with my own and narrowly kept it from finding purchase in my face. I slashed out with my other sword at the man's legs and forced him to jump back and give me room to get back on my feet. "Behind you!" I shouted to Lydia as the beastly axe-wielder made his way down from the roof. With some obscene shout I caught the attention of her current quarry long enough to make him think my sword swinging at his back was more important than my housecarl's shield.
"Take care of him! I've got these two," I commanded and spun around to block the first bandit's slash at my back. I was immensely thankful of the blade in each of my hands and the skill I possessed with them as I blocked and parried a man on either side. My swords were a blur and neither of my attackers could get a piece of metal close enough to do any damage. Neither could I, though. As much as I knew I was good, there was only so much I could hope to do against two adversaries at once aside from keeping them busy and hope Lydia could handle the other one inside the tower.
I could feel exhaustion taking its toll on my muscles far too quickly for that hope, though, and decided that I would have to put my gills to good use. I snaked my swords inside each bandit's guard, locked the crossguards together and twisted their swords from their hands at the cost of my own. Metal clattered on stone while I gripped the collars of both their tunics and threw us off the side of the bridge.
I caught Lydia out of the corner of my eye as she emerged bloody but clearly victorious and could swear I saw panic light her face for a moment. I was too busy with my current opponents, though. I fed one a punch in the face and grabbed the other to twist him under my body. When we hit the water I was grateful for the sack of meat under me to take the lion's share of the impact.
All three of us tumbled under the roiling waters and I found myself disoriented by the impact of the fall. I almost tried to breathe before I remembered the futility of the action. I reached out and grabbed the nearest body to my and slammed a fist into its ribs. I was always amazed at how slow other races were underwater. Another blow shot the air from his lungs in a stream of bubbles. I pawed at his waist until my hands found leather wrapped steel and I pulled the man's dagger free. A dark red cloud burst forth when the blade tore open his neck.
I made sure to sink it into his collar for good measure and turned to see a flash of silver. I managed to catch my attacker's wrist and keep the second man's dagger away from my throat, though to force of his strike made us tumble through the water. He must have swam up to the surface for air and built up speed for an attack, I realized. Quite clever for a human.
I clenched my teeth at my own plan when I twisted his wrist downward and drove the dagger into my own side. Better there than in my neck, I decided. It also had the benefit of locking his hand somewhere it wouldn't stop my jaws from clamping around his neck. I bit down and twisted with all the force I could muster from my long neck. It turned out to be enough to snap a human's and the sound of a splitting spine echoed through the waters around us. A second twist the other direction made sure the man wasn't going to cause me anymore trouble.
I figured it would be in my best interests to vacate the water before a slaughterfish or five came to the scent of blood. I didn't want to be around when they inevitably descended upon the fresh meat. I stumbled onto the shore, pulling the knife from my ribs and dropping it with a dull clack onto the rocks at my feet. "That was a really bad idea," I muttered as I clutched my bleeding side. Apparently I had been right about my guess for where the gap in the chain mail was. I wished I hadn't been.
"My Thane!" I heard Lydia shout as she jogged towards me. I didn't realize how far downstream I had flowed. Unfortunately I had gone back the way we had come from. It wasn't an extra minute of travel I was looking forward to.
I noticed that my housecarl had at least had the decency to pick up my swords from where they had fallen. "Thanks," I gave a weak smile as I took them back and sheathed them.
"You're bleeding," she said with a slight frown.
"Shit, really?" even pain didn't dull my sarcastic tone. "Well that kind of sucks, doesn't it? Good thing I can heal." Lydia's look of scepticism was met by a pained smirk. "Still, that'll take a couple of days, so it's also a good thing that I know a restoration spell."
Lydia shook her head and began heading back towards the tower without me. I frowned before conjuring the stupid golden glow that knit my wounds back together. I was getting sick of using it. On the bright side, it was getting easier and easier to do it with all of my practice. Being able to heal from most any non-fatal wound in a few days time was great and all - broken bones took a week, at the most - but it seemed I was getting less and less free time for healing and so magic was my remaining option.
We cleared out what gold and valuables the bandits had built up in the old tower. I slipped on a couple rings and a necklace and shot my housecarl a cheeky grin. "Damn, I'm fashionable. Wish I had a looking glass to enjoy myself in," I said in a mock haughty tone. I laughed when she rolled her eyes. "You should put some of this jewellery on. Show off your lovely neck and all that noise."
"You enjoy my neck, my Thane?" she asked in a joking tone.
"Oh, definitely. Plus having a necklace hanging there would give me an excuse to stare at your chest," I affected a similar tone, despite the truth behind my words. I figured that some day I was going to tell her how I really felt about humans. Or she was going to figure it out on her own. Either way worked for me.
Lydia looked down at her chest and back up to me with a sceptical eyebrow raised. "That might not work terribly well while I'm wearing armour."
"Probably not. Can't blame a man for trying, though," I said with a chuckle and a shrug. Images of her with dripping wet hair and water droplets racing twisting paths along her curvaceous body flooded my mind and I very quickly vacated the tower. I decided that the sooner we got to High Hrothgar the sooner I would probably be too cold to deal with the results of my lascivious thoughts.

I pulled the mammoth hide cloak I had purchased before leaving Whiterun tighter around my body. The ragged looking thing had cost me over a hundred septims but considering it kept frostbite from claiming my fingers and toes I figured it was well worth the investment. At least the lining was made of something much softer than the thick, wiry hair covering the outside. I guessed it to be rabbit fur. It was clearly designed for use by a human, though, and the hood had been less than agreeable with the spines and horns I had adorning my head. "Who the fuck decided to put this stupid temple on top of a mountain?" I grumbled to myself.
I had left Lydia back in Ivarstead along with a pack I didn't figure I would need. She had been less than pleased with being left behind but had obeyed an order from her Thane. My regular pack was exchanged for one filled with salted and dried meats that I had agreed to deliver for someone in the town. I enjoyed knowing that once I got back I would have some small amount of gold waiting for me.
Another sharp gust of wind blew a few more snowflakes into my face and I winced against the biting cold. Black Marsh may have had its cold times in winter but it was nothing like climbing to the Throat of the World. With no one to maintain appearance for I let myself shiver and my teeth chatter. I hated snow, I decided. My once brown cloak had become mostly white for the stuff and I was becoming sick of the clattering my spines made when I shook it from my head.
It was only getting worse as I climbed the mountain. At the start of the steps I had felt rather relieved at how tepid the air around Ivarstead turned out to be. I was expecting much chillier weather around the town proper. As it stood I had simply been led to believe a falsehood.
I hoped the fact that my feet were numb wasn't a sign that my toes were going to fall off. I wondered if they would grow back like the tip of my tail would. The line of thought of my extremities freezing off worked its way to the logical extreme of becoming significantly less...masculine. I really didn't want to find out if that would grow back.
"Seven thousand steps," I murmured quietly. I didn't know if that was an exaggeration or an understatement. I also didn't know if I'd climbed two hundred or two thousand. All I knew was it was colder than I had previously imagined possible and I was starting to regret leaving my housecarl behind. The conversation would have been nice and I chuckled at the thought of convincing her we needed to huddle together for warmth.
So far the trip up the mountain had been peaceful, though, despite the frigid temperatures. There were apparently other pilgrims climbing the steps from time to time and I had been warned that wolves often hunted along the path. I hadn't encountered either. Perhaps I was starting to get something not too far removed from good luck.
Or perhaps my luck was never going to change, I thought as I stopped dead in my tracks. An old, familiar feeling of danger worked its way into the back of my neck. Something dangerous was close and was going to become rather unfriendly in a moment. It was a feeling I had developed years ago in Black Marsh to keep myself from falling prey to a hunting thrinax or fen snake or whatever.
The harsh growl cutting through the air the only warning I was given to drop my package and dive to the side. A stark white wolf went soaring past me, claws and teeth tearing through the space I had just been occupying. A plume of snow flew up when I hit the white powder and I dreaded that it might disorient me more than my attacker.
I had my swords drawn just as the beast turned towards me. Its lips curled around its fangs in a snarl as it lowered itself to pounce again. I narrowed my eyes at it, silently daring it to try. We slowly circled each other, neither one making a noise beyond the near silent crunching of snow beneath our feet.
Another wolf came charging at my from the side. I felt rather proud of myself when I spun and brought both my swords down across the back of its neck in one smooth slice. Blood splattered across the small flakes of ice, staining the pristine white a macabre red.
The distraction proved enough for the other wolf to get the jump on me. Powerful jaws clenched around my forearm. My leather gauntlet did little to mitigate the nearly bone-breaking force of the wolf's bite. I reacted on instinct and drove my sword into its ribs. The teeth around my arm tightened for a brief moment before going slack as the beast slumped into the snow.
I extricated my arm from its mouth and flexed my hand to check for broken bones. Thankfully I was for the most part whole, though the same couldn't be said of my now shredded gauntlet.
"These beasts are a lot easier to deal with when I see it coming," I smirked. At least Skyrim didn't have too many dangerous animals lurking around. Only a few cats, wolves and bears.
Something between a growl and a heaving breath caught my attention to my side. I looked over and paled at what I saw. Apparently they had a few trolls, too. I had fought only a couple in my life in Cyrodiil, and never alone. "Fuck me," was the only thing I could come up with to accurately describe how I viewed my odds against it.
It hunched down onto its knuckles and charged at me with blinding speed. I foolishly tried a similar counter as I had with the sabre cat. Mid-spin I took one of its grotesquely strong fists to the ribs and went flying into the wall of the mountain rising up beside us. I felt a rib crack from the impact and had to resist the instinct to shut my eyes at the pain. One of my swords had flown from my hand and landed somewhere in the snow nearby. Or at least I hoped. For all I knew it had gone over the cliff opposite where I stood staring at the oncoming white brute.
I dropped to the ground when it hit, narrowly avoiding having my skull caved in by its fist. Three eyes stared at me while I drove my sword into its gut with all the strength I could muster. The monster barely even flinched.
Powerful arms lifted me and sent me flying towards the cliff as a reward for my efforts. I tumbled through the snow, kicking up what almost amounted to a cloud while I desperately tried to stop myself short of the cliff's edge. I ended up staring over it and watching the sheet of snow I had pushed over fall down the mountainside. It was a long way down.
I rolled over and watched the troll pull my sword from its stomach. It roared, though I didn't know whether it was at me or the object in its hand. Whichever the case it seemed to think the best thing to do with it was to throw it at me. I barely moved out of the way before the blade went slicing through the air and snow beside me and over the cliff's edge. "That's going to ruin someone's day," I muttered as I pushed myself to my feet.
I resisted pressing a hand to my side. At least two of my ribs were broken, though the battle high I was riding kept me from feeling too much pain. The troll's side, though, were just sealing up despite the damage I had done. I hated these things, if for no reason other than they were one of the few creatures in the world that healed faster than I did.
Another guttural roar signalled another charge and I hoped I could lure the troll into running off the side of the cliff. Instead it began skidding to a stop just short of me and brought its fists down in a brutal slam. I narrowly escaped the blow with another dive.
Flames engulfed my hands as I hit the ground, rolled and spun to face my foe. Fire was something a troll couldn't just heal through and troll fat burned like lantern oil. It was knowledge that had long been forgotten that came flooding back into my mind at the one moment I really needed to remember it.
Instead of just sending out a pair of flaming streams, though, I held my hands close together and combined the magic of my spells. I did it mostly on instinct and out of desperation and had to smirk when it actually worked. A massive blast of fire tore from my palms and burned a path through the snow to engulf my pale nemesis. A scream I couldn't even describe tore from it while it flailed and panicked. The smell of burning hair and flesh was all but annihilated by the freezing cold wind blowing around us.
Eventually the screaming stopped and the troll dropped to the ground in a charred, blackened heap. I dropped as well, heaving out in puffs of white steam. The pain from my broken ribs was setting in and I finally let myself shut my eyes and groan pitifully in agony. I pushed myself back to my feet and cautiously made my way towards the inert body. I didn't know if it was truly dead or not and wasn't looking forward to finding out the hard way.
I drew my dagger and swiftly drove it through what remained of the troll's throat. When it still made no attempt to tear off my face I decided it was probably just a corpse now and started on my way back up the mountain, pack on my shoulder. "Sometimes I really hate this place," I muttered with a sigh as I pressed glowing palms to my broken ribs. I wondered if maybe Skyrim was really so bad or if I was just horribly unlucky. I decided it had to be the latter when I tripped over my lost sword and landed face down in a snowbank.

Almost an hour later I was nearing the top of the mountain. I shook my head, both to clear it of the snow that had gathered on it and to try and shake off the slight vertigo the thinner air caused. Lessons from my childhood surged up in my mind, information I once considered worthless because of the sheer lack of mountains in Black Marsh. "Morrowind has Red Mountain. For you that is reason enough," my teacher had clucked in disappointment when I had complained.
I paused momentarily when I came upon a statue of Tiber Septim. It was an old, weathered thing, with small cracks running through it in various places and some lichen trying desperately to grow in the freezing conditions. Still, it had held up amazingly well given how ancient it must have been.
"So...I'm just like him," I mumbled to myself. I shook my head with a dry, humourless laugh. When I thought of it like that the whole thing sounded like a load of bullshit. I was an Argonian. I had been taught over my years of travel that my race was reason enough to enjoy a life of obscurity and unimportance. I was less than convinced that I, of all people, was the next Talos. "Just some stupid lizard with a really loud voice."
I dropped off my package of food in a chest just outside High Hrothgar's temple. There were offerings haphazardly strewn about the place. I imagined that the stone just before the great obelisk between the two sets of stairs had been worn down by a great many sets of knees over the years.
The doors slid open with startling ease considering their size. I instantly felt the heat inside start to seep into my armour and cloak and let out a quiet sigh of relief. It was certainly quite cozy inside the stone walls, especially with the torches lining them.
An elderly man in a long, dark robe approached me when I entered. He carried himself with a calm strength that made me stand just a bit taller. "So...a Dragonborn appears at this time of strife and desperation," he spoke quietly and purposefully.
"That's what I keep hearing," I chuckled as I rubbed some heat into my numb skin. "Not that I'm particularly clear on just what that means."
"That will be explained in due time," the man said with a gentle smile. "First, let us see if you truly are the Dragonborn. Let us taste of your Voice."
"Taste of my...oh, you mean that Shout thing?" I blinked and must have looked rather foolish. "I have to be honest...I'm not entirely sure how to do it intentionally."
"If you are the Dragonborn I'm sure it will be as natural as breathing," the man gave another smile and spoke patiently, as though he were teaching an undisciplined youth.
I nodded and took a deep breath. I focused on the glowing symbols of the one word I knew. "Fus," I spoke and felt the air around me nearly shake with the force of it. The Greybeard before me didn't even flinch as his robes flew about in the wind created by my Voice.
Another smile, this one of satisfaction, lit upon his face. He gave a polite nod of his head. "I am Master Arngeir of the Greybeards."
"Kailev-Tel," I introduced myself. "Apparently the Dragonborn, if all the hype is to be believed."
"You are the Dragonborn. There is no doubt of that," Arngeir sounded rather pleased about the fact. "Now tell me. Why did you come here?"
The question actually somewhat stumped me for a moment. I really didn't much know why I had come. It had simply felt like the thing to do. "I want to know what it means to be the Dragonborn,"I answered.
"The Greybeards are here to guide all those of the Dragon Blood in that pursuit."
"You mean there are other Dragonborn?" I asked quizzically. If there were others I really couldn't be all that special.
"You are not the first. There have been many of the Dragon Blood since Akatosh bestowed the gift upon mortalkind. Whether you are the only Dragonborn of this age...You are the only one that has been revealed to us thus far," Arngeir explained. "Now come. There is much for you to learn. The coming days will see if you are truly worthy of your gift."

A/N: I tend to try and create original dialogue that's based around what gets said in-game. Mostly because I'm lazy and copying that shit verbatim is a pain in the ass. I also tend to try and have either a fight scene or a sex scene in each chapter, though the story doesn't always allow for that and sometimes I'm forced to put out boring chunks of dialogue. I don't know whether or not I should actually do Kai's training with the Greybeards or just skip over it and have it mentioned in passing later. Let me know what you think. After all, this is being written more for the ten people who actually read this than anything else.
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The Line Begins to Blur