Adult-FanFiction.org : Games

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
- 18
- 19
- 20
We wandered back into Whiterun at about midday. We hadn't seen hide nor hair of any beast or bandit on the entire trip since Mara's Eye and I was feeling rather happy with that fact. For the first time in a long time I had gone an entire day without getting into some sort of altercation.
I decided to head towards the market in the hopes of finding Ysolda. My first priority was making certain my sister had arrived safely and been taken care of. If I was lucky it would take me a few hours and I could pretend that I had spent the day doing other things. I couldn't let my sister know I actually cared or I'd never be rid of her.
My trip to the market was interrupted by the girl in question walking out of a house. The timing seemed oddly perfect, I noted absently. "Hey, Kees," I chuckled as she caught sight of me and dashed towards me. "You find some young male for me to beat up?"
She looked downright confused at my words. "No. This is your new home," she said with a motion towards the building.
I should have known that there would be something terrible waiting for me when I got back to Whiterun. "My what?" I asked stupidly. She led Lydia and I into the house without elaborating. "You didn't," I stated simply and looked around the place. "Even you couldn't be so crass."
"Crass?" Keesara squawked. "You'd call your own sister crass after she went to all the trouble of buying you a house."
"I'd call my own sister crass after she bought a house in my name," I hissed. "Conveniently leaving me with all the debt, I might add."
"It is a very nice house, my Thane," Lydia chimed in as she looked around the well-furnished place. Apparently my sister's expensive tastes extended to her "gifts" as well.
I turned a mild glare on my housecarl. "Quiet. You're not helping me be angry with my sister," I murmured.
"Half-sister," Keesara didn't miss her unintended cue. "It isn't like I left you with all the debt. I already paid almost two thousand septims of it."
My eyes snapped back to her. "Why did you have almost two thousand septims? Wait, stupid question: you're foppish," I almost laughed at her indignant expression. I cut her off before she could complain. "How close to two thousand is 'almost'?"
"...About a thousand and six hundred," she admitted quietly.
"And how much did this place cost?"
"After I had the place cleaned and furnished?" she asked and made a rather cute face as she did the mental math. "Around...six and a half thousand, I believe."
"So I still owe about five. Wondrous," I sighed. Leave it up to my sister to buy a house when I left her alone too long, I mentally groaned. The look of hope in her eyes that I'd be appeased made me sigh again. "Oh well, what's done is done. No sense in grousing too much about it now," I relented.
"I knew you'd like it, Kailev-Tel," she beamed and jumped to circle her arms around my neck in a nearly choking hug.
I stumbled back from the force and frowned at Keesara's shoulder but nonetheless hugged her back."I wouldn't go that far," I made sure to keep my tone annoyed. "Now then, how about you show me around my new house? I don't like being a stranger in my own home."
She quite cheerily gave me a tour of the house. It wasn't large, but it didn't feel particularly cramped either. The bottom floor was dominated by a firepit in the centre. Towards the back was a large table and a set of shelves. Keesara briefly showed me the "spare" bedroom behind the stairs, just past what amounted to the house's dining room. At the top of the stairs to the immediate left was Lydia's room. "The man who sold me the house said it was for the Thane's housecarl, which I'm assuming is you," my sister eyed Lydia as she spoke.
She nodded. "Yes. It is my duty to serve your brother."
"Half-brother," Keesara and I spoke in unison. I visibly sighed.
Lydia looked almost startled by it. "Why...?" she began, though I cut her off before she could get too far.
"In hist the words are completely different," I said with a shrug. "We were constantly reminded about that as children when we were learning Cyrodiilic. It's just natural to correct it."
"I see," she seemed satisfied enough by the explanation, though I wondered why she didn't ask why we never referred to each other with the proper terms.
Lydia stayed behind to inspect her room more thoroughly while Keesara and I headed to the last room. When we reached it my sister turned to face me with a grin. "And this is our room," she said as she swept her arm across the space. At the centre was a large bed with a weapon plaque at the head. The plaque had a pair of swords and a shield mounted on it and I made a mental note to take them down as soon as possible. I may have been durable but I didn't like the idea of a bracket giving way and dropping a piece of steel onto my head. An ostentatious uncle of mine who was too proud of his weapons had died that way.
"You mean this is my room," I corrected her.
Her lips turned into a pout again. "The bed is big enough to share."
I nodded my assent. "You're right. That definitely makes it my room. Your room is the one downstairs with the bed too tiny for anything more than you to fit in it."
My sister looked nearly aghast. "You can't make me take the spare room!" she shouted.
"It isn't the spare room. It's your room. I thought we'd established that," I said with a confused frown.
Her lips moved, though she seemed too shocked at my refusal to let her sleep with me to properly form words. She should have gotten used to me rebuffing her advances by now, I thought. "Fine," she grumbled after a moment. "But as long as you aren't home I get your room."
My frown deepened enough to crease my brow. "Whatever. I'm going to be around for a while, since apparently I have a few thousand septims to pay off. Speaking of which, you know about any decent paying work around town?" I asked and almost immediately slapped a hand to my head. "Wait, what am I saying? I can't remember you doing an hour's worth of work back home."
"I worked nearly every day of my life tending to the Hist grove in our home," she hissed indignantly.
"I can only fathom how hard it is to keep a bunch of trees happy," I rolled my eyes.
My sister responded with a hard punch to my ribs. The fact that it hurt more than any of the blows I had received from the men I'd fought so far in Skyrim spoke volumes. "Kailev-Tel! You can't speak of the Hist like that. They blessed all of Black Marsh with the gift of thriving life," she glared at me while I rubbed at my chest through my leathers.
"That's dressing it up to be a lot prettier than it is," I said with a frown. "I'm not having this argument with you right now. I'm sure it'll come up again at some point," I shook my head and brushed past her. "So, how's your room?" I asked Lydia as she exited it.
"It is nice. I haven't had my own room since I was a child," she said with a pretty smile. She looked quite content and I found myself smiling in return. At least there was some benefit to my sister's easy spending.

The next day saw me getting everything sorted out with my apparent ownership of property. There was a shocking amount of paperwork involved with a sibling buying a house in my name, as it turned out. I was glad to have it done with. At least it gave me the chance to give the steward the two thousand septims I had collected in my travels. It felt good to take a piece out of what I owed, even if it was a little less than half.
I walked down the steps of the keep and wondered what I was going to do to get some money. Before that, I realized, I had to get new equipment for Lydia and I. As much as I wanted to commit whatever funds we had to wiping out the debt effectively pinning me in place I had an obligation to my housecarl, if not myself. I didn't want her getting needlessly injured because I had wasted all of our money on my own debt.
Considering the amount of jewellery we had picked up from raiding various bandit holes, I figured we would be able to trade enough to get some new gear. The thought suddenly occurred to me that I could probably enchant a bunch of it and sell it at a higher price if I actually knew any enchantments. Perhaps it was time to go through all of the various amulets and rings we had picked up and see if any were already magically enhanced. I had never thought to check.
"Kailev-Tel!" I heard a familiar voice call as I made my way through the market.
I caught a flash of bright red hair and turned to see Ysolda quickly making her way towards me through the crowds. "Hey," I returned the greeting with a short wave.
"It's good to see you again, my Thane," she beamed at me with a bright smile. It startled me to have someone other than Lydia refer to me that way. "When did you get back? Your sister asked me to let her know when you returned."
"I got back yesterday. I already met with her. And my new house," I said. I fixed her with a curious look. "Did you happen to have anything to do with that?"
The question seemed to surprise her. "All I did was tell her that there was a house for sale and I had heard people speaking of its intention for the Thane," she said after a moment. "We spoke with the Jarl's steward and we managed to convince him of her relation to you. She's the one who decided to actually purchase the house."
Despite my reservations to being tied to a place by property ownership I was glad my sister had been taken care of. She'd have made me buy the house sooner or later, anyway. "Thanks for giving her a hand with that stuff," I said after a moment with a returned smile.
"You don't have to thank me, my Thane. She's your sister. That's reason enough for me to help her. It's the least I can do after all you've done for me."
Or to you, I wanted to say but held my tongue. "How's it going, anyway?" I asked instead. "Did you ever get a chance to sell any of those tusks I got you?"
She gave me a bright smile and nodded. "It's going great, actually! I've already managed to sell most of the tusks you gave me and I've been working out a good price with Hulda for the Bannered Mare. If I'm lucky I'll be gaining part-ownership with her in a couple months."
"And once she's done with helping you run the place I'm assuming she'll retire and leave you with full ownership, right?"
"That's the plan," the woman's grin widened and I felt the corners of my own lips pulling back. "I can't thank you enough for helping me get started on collecting enough money for this."
I couldn't suppress my smirk. "You've already thanked me plenty, but I suppose if you'd really like to again I'd be more than happy to humour you," I replied with a chuckle.
Her cheeks turned slightly rosy and her grin vanished in exchange for what I took for a sly smirk like my own. "I'd only be too happy to show my gratitude for having a kind and generous Thane like yourself serving my home, Kailev-Tel."
"Then it would certainly be prudent of me to join you some time in the near future and we can catch up," I said. I was about to turn away and continue on when Ysolda's teeth caught her lip between them. I stared at her mouth for a few seconds before taking a hasty glance around to make sure no one was paying too much attention to us. I didn't see anyone so I didn't see the harm in leaning down to give her a brief kiss. She gasped but reciprocated for the moment that it lasted.
It felt pretty good to give the young woman a kiss in public with complete disregard for appearances or the possibility of being caught. For all I knew Lydia could have come looking for me and ended up in the market. I pondered briefly whether she might be upset or not. We hadn't expressed any notion of a monogamous relationship, but females were beyond confusing, regardless of race.
I snapped out of my thoughts and pulled away from Ysolda's enticing lips. "Until then," I shot her another smirk and headed onward to my house.
I returned to find my sister and housecarl chatting about something over a meal. They stopped talking upon seeing me enter and I didn't catch enough of what had been said to pick up exactly what it was. "Everything finished, my Thane?" Lydia asked when I shut the door.
"I'm hoping so," I chuckled.
"How much do you still owe?" Keesara asked as though she intended to help pay it off. I snorted at the thought.
"About four thousand or something, I don't know. I gave them the two thousand I had," I shrugged easily. I settled down to the table with the food my sister had made in my absence. I smiled upon tearing off a piece of the fish with my fork. Even after four years she remembered my favourite food. The fact that she had cleaned and cooked three silverside perch for me was rather touching. It also made me realize I had no clue what she liked to eat.
"Then you owe three thousand now, my Thane." Lydia cut in on my thoughts.
"We're doing even better than I thought. Wonderful," I chuckled after washing down the fish with some clean water. "We don't have any actual money left, though, so we're going to have to start selling all that jewellery and shit we've grabbed from bandit camps."
"I believe it would be wise to sort through it all first, so we know how much we have to work with," my housecarl suggested.
I nodded in agreement while I chewed. I thought to look down at my chest in search of whatever pendant I must have been wearing to find nothing. I pondered on what had happened to all the ones I had put on in the past. They simply kept vanishing. I wondered if I could find the old pendant I had enchanted upon first arriving in Whiterun among the many tossed carelessly into our packs.
"Do you like the food?" Keesara piped up with a hopeful smile on her face.
"It's something," I shrugged and barely withheld my smile when she huffed and grumbled something under her breath. My foot reached out and nudged her leg under the table. "I'm teasing you. It's surprisingly tasty. I didn't know you could cook. Seems like it'd upset the trees, making a fire like that."
"Ugh. Don't even start," she gave me a rather pointed kick in the shin in response to my jibes and I regretted not having any plate covering it. "And of course I can cook. I wasn't going to spend however long it took to find you eating whatever ilsek the common Imperial calls food."
I didn't glance away from my food when I nudged her again, although this time when I nudged her with my foot, it was more akin to the blow she had landed against my shin. Her leg jumped on reflex to the kick and her knee slammed into the table with a satisfying thud. Another curse erupted from my sister's lips as she rubbed her abused leg. This time I did give her a sharp look. "Watch your damn tongue. I'm not gonna have my sister speaking like me," I warned.
"Half-sister," she hissed.
"All the more reason not to talk like I do," I snickered. Keesara recovered quickly enough for Lydia to not question if she was hurt. I knew there wasn't any need to worry; my sister was pretty tough, for a female. More than once I'd been on the receiving end of her self-righteous fury and it made me glad my dark scales didn't show bruising. "How long did you prepare before chasing after me, anyway?"
"Almost a year," she said after she was done glaring at me.
"That's a lot of preparation," Lydia spoke, having finished her meal. It reminded me of the remaining fish and a half on my plate.
"Unlike my brother..."
"Half-brother."
"...I actually plan things," she carried on heedless of my interruption.
"He is rather impulsive, isn't he?" my housecarl smile slyly at me.
"Hey, most of the time I'm pretty sure whatever I'm doing isn't going to get me killed," I spoke around my mouthful of food.
"I love the way he says 'most of the time'," my sister's sarcastic tone was accompanied by a familiar eye-roll. I was good at getting those out of people.
I stifled my chuckle with a quick swig of water. "Yeah, me too," I said with a grin.

I hissed as I once again caught my finger in my tongs. Making chainmail was proving to be a literal pain. Still, I thought as I surveyed my nearly-completed work, it was a very useful skill to be learning. Hardened leather had a bad habit of deteriorating rapidly with my lifestyle. I figured having a good mail shirt under light steel plate was better suited to the rigours of being the Dragonborn.
It was annoying to be pinching my fingers in the tongs every five or six links, though. Riveting all the necessary rings together was a tedious labour. I had started in the mid-afternoon and the sun was beginning to set in the sky by the time I was done the first half. "At least now I have an idea of how big to make the other side," I mumbled to myself. Constantly checking the first sleeve to make sure it would fit had been irritating.
"I didn't know you were a smith, Thane," an increasingly familiar voice lifted my eyes from my work.
"There's probably a lot you don't know about me, Ysolda," I chuckled as the woman neared. "Thankfully most of it's pretty boring."
"I have a hard time believing that," she remarked with a laugh. "Is that a mail shirt made of gold?" she asked after taking a look at the sheet of links I was piecing together.
"I wish. I can only imagine the looks I'd get with that. It's an alloy made from refined moonstone and quicksilver," I replied and returned my attention to the metal on the table before me. "Apparently it's some Altmer technique or something. Adrianne showed me how to make it earlier when I asked her for some help with making Lydia and myself armour."
"I suppose it makes sense to be able to forge and repair your own armour, considering what the Dragonborn must get up to," Ysolda said in an amused tone.
"It helps," I nodded and shot her a smirk. "You'd be shocked at how much trouble people start with apparent living legends."
"I'd be shocked if you didn't lead a rather exciting life," she giggled. It was odd talking to a truly feminine female after the extended time spent around my housecarl.
It was refreshing, as much as I enjoyed Lydia's company. "As exciting as I can make it," I agreed with a laugh. My joviality was cut short by my pinching my finger again clamping down a rivet. "Damn, that stings," I muttered and rubbed at the offended digit. I was grateful that the scales of my hands were already hardened from years of various work.
Her concerned frown surprised me. "How long have you been making that armour?" she asked.
"Since just after lunch," I answered with a look to the sky. "Time's just flown by, hasn't it?"
Her frown deepened. "You mean you haven't eaten since?"
"I guess not. I hadn't really noticed," I shrugged easily.
"Well I can't have a Thane going hungry. Come on; I'll make you some supper. I'm sure the armour's willing to wait until tomorrow," Ysolda offered with a kind smile.
I considered refusing but didn't see any harm in taking her up on her offer. I had a couple of days before finding work would be too critical and I had already gotten most of the work done on the armour. "Sounds good. Just let me get this stuff put away."
It only took a couple minutes to get the rings of mail sorted and locked up inside a chest in Warmaiden's. I thanked Adrianne for her help and told her I would return the next day before I left with Ysolda. I considered stopping in at my house as we passed but didn't see much issue with not. It wasn't as if I was vanishing in the middle of the night.
"I don't remember seeing you wearing that earlier," Ysolda gestured to my vest.
"I bought it from Adrianne. It has to be the most comfortable thing I've ever worn," I glanced down at it. "Apparently it's made of deer leather and lined with rabbit fur or something. Either way it's warm and soft. I think she said it was for some rich aristocrat that ordered it then got killed by bandits on a trip. It fit so I decided to indulge."
"That's indulging for you?"
"You found me working on chainmail. Most of the clothing I wear isn't designed for comfort," I pointed out. "What were you doing at the blacksmith's, anyway?" I asked as we walked.
"I went to your house to see if you were around and your housecarl told me where to find you," Ysolda replied. "She seemed rather unhappy about it..."
"She's just upset about being left out of something," I chuckled. "And probably about having to stay at the house with my brat of a sister. It's a trying experience, believe me."
"I thought she was quite kind and polite," my companion's lips curved into a frown.
"Get to know her," I returned with a grin. "She's the pinnacle of decorum, so long as she gets her way."
"I suppose a brother would know best," she relented.
I stopped myself just short of correcting her and shook my head at the stupid habit. "I should hope that four years apart doesn't wipe out the first sixteen I got to know her."
"You left Black Marsh four years ago?" she asked and it occurred to me that I had never told her anything about myself beyond my statuses as a mercenary, the Thane of Whiterun and the Dragonborn.
"Apparently," I chuckled and noticed we had reached the market. It was quite quiet, the last few people around either packing up or making last-minute purchases. "That would certainly explain why most of that time was spent elsewhere. Elsweyr, too, for a while."
Ysolda surprised me with a laugh at my stupid joke. When we reached her home I unconsciously stepped forward and opened the door for her. She smiled and brushed past me. I wondered when I had become so chivalrous.
I realized that I hadn't paid much attention to the place during my last visit. I took a look around while Ysolda opened the shutters covering a window to let in some fresh air and I lit a couple candles. It was a small house dominated by a fire pit in the centre. There was a table to one side with a pair of chairs next to it, though I also noticed another pair sitting beside the fire pit. "I suppose you didn't get much chance to look around last time you were here," my female companion remarked.
"I had more important things to worry about, as I recall," I smirked. "Still do, actually. I must admit that you've caught my interest with this idea of food."
I helped Ysolda prepare our supper, against her insistence that I relax. I wasn't content to sit around and wait; I was too hungry. I chopped vegetables while she sliced up a large piece of salted venison into something akin to steaks. She surprised me with how well she wielded her knife and I was impressed that she had kept it so sharp.
"You're a lot better at butchery than I am," I noted.
She chuckled and nodded towards my hacked up medley of vegetables. "I'd say so. It looks like you hacked those vegetables apart with a sword."
"I like to stick with what I know," I returned the laugh. It was oddly domestic of me to be making supper, and with someone else, no less. My life certainly had changed since coming to Skyrim. For all the added excitement there were times of peace I was unused to. It had been years since I'd had neighbours. Perhaps owning a home in the country wouldn't be so bad, I thought.
Ysolda set to cleaning her hands while I put the steaks on a rack over the cooking pit. There was a small stack of firewood nearby that I grabbed a pair of logs from and I set them ablaze with a burst of flame from my palm.
"That's a shockingly mundane use for magic," the redheaded woman said with an amused smile.
I shrugged and returned her smile. She joined me with the vegetables in a pan coated in some kind of animal fat. She set it over the fire beckoned me to sit on one of the chairs next to the pit while she grabbed something for us to drink. "I'm nothing if not practical," I said as she sat next to me on the other chair and handed me a wooden cup filled with red wine.
"I suppose philandering is quite practical," she remarked offhandedly
I nearly spat a mouthful of wine into the fire but caught myself before my surprise showed. "Am I a philanderer?" I chuckled after a moment in an attempt to avoid the inevitable.
"By the strictest definition. You know Carlotta and I work in the same section of town?"
"...It hadn't occurred to me, but that makes sense. The market's a pretty busy place," I nodded. "So you two are friends?"
She looked like she wanted to grin and I took it as a good sign that she wasn't too upset. "I certainly like to think so. We've known each since she moved to Skyrim with her family." I was tempted to ask about Carlotta's dead spouse but figured it would've been somewhat tactless.
I distracted myself by flipping the steaks. Years of work and weapon use had thickened my scales to the point that the heat of the fire didn't much bother them. "I didn't expect my sleeping around to catch up with me," I admitted at length. "You don't seem too pissed about it, at least."
Ysolda laughed openly at that and stood to get some plates and cutlery for us. "Should I be?" she asked in an amused tone.
"Honestly, I'm more shocked that both of you actually had sex with me than I would've been at you being angry," I shrugged in an attempt to deflect my embarrassment at being caught with humour. "Two humans in one town...That's a definite first for me."
"Perhaps two isn't quite enough to be a philanderer," the woman beside me hummed.
I wondered if three was as I helped her plate the food for us. She insisted I have more than her, considering my greater size and rather constant physical work. I relented easily; crafting chainmail all afternoon had actually been exhausting.
"If you'd like I could act horrified that someone else decided to take you to their bed," she offered as we sat down at her table. "Perhaps I should pity her?"
"I didn't think I did that badly," I frowned at her over my food.
"Considering how much you apparently get around, I almost wonder if you've gotten any better," my red-haired companion said with remarkable ease as she refilled my cup with wine.
"Was there that much room for improvement?" I raised a brow.
"There always is," she answered simply.
"Fair enough. What makes you think I've even found any other deviants like you to sleep with me?"
"You're just as much a deviant as I in this," she pointed out.
"Never said I wasn't," I said with a shrug and finished my food and downed the last of my wine. "Of course, if you'd really like to find out if I've gotten any better, I guess I could humour you." The faint buzz of alcohol did little else but loosen my tongue.
Ysolda eyed me for a moment as she finished her own meal. "Your housecarl and sister won't miss your presence? It's already after nightfall," she said, though I could tell it was purely for show.
I wasn't about to disappoint her. "Oh, I'm sure they'll live," I chuckled. "So do you want to or not?"
A light blush bloomed on the woman's cheeks, though whether from alcohol or my question I couldn't tell. "You're certainly eager," she giggled and I guessed it to be the former. "I almost believe that I was the last one to lay with you."
"Almost?"
"Your housecarl is a lovely woman, and she's been eyeing you since you two helped me," Ysolda said as she stood from her seat. I was impressed by how steady she was after half a bottle of wine "You mean to say you haven't shared a bed with her?"
"Sharing beds definitely saves on accommodations, I'll say that," I said and watched as she started clearing the table. I quickly hopped to my feet and helped her.
"I imagine keeping each other warm must have been important on the trip to High Hrothgar," she commented.
"Actually, I climbed the mountain on my own," I replied flippantly. "I don't really remember why. I definitely wouldn't have minded some company to help stave off the cold."
"It's starting to get chillier around Whiterun," she remarked. To my shame, it took me a second to catch on.
I nodded and glanced toward an open window. "It is that time of year. It's what, Sun's Dusk still?" I asked.
"Second of Evening Star, actually," she corrected me as she made her way around the house to close the windows. "I feel I should warn you, the nights get quite cold in Skyrim this time of year. A blanket may not be quite enough, and as I recall things got very heated the last time you were here."
I chuckled and stepped up behind her at the last window just as she closed it. My hands came to rest on her waist and she responded by leaning back against my chest. She had a point; the fresh air had cooled the room down, in spite of the fire. The thought occurred that it may be good to toss another log on it. For the time being, though, the warmth of the woman pressed to me would have to suffice.
Her eyes glinted with a playful light and an entertained smile hovered on her lips. She made a questioning hum and I shook my head with another chuckle. "You and your damn games," I murmured and leaned down to kiss her.
"I don't know what you're talking about," she laughed quietly before tilting her head back to meet my seeking lips. My arms curled around her middle to pull her tighter. I was thoroughly enjoying the feel of her body so close to mine, even mitigated as it was by our clothing. It was a startling contrast to the body I had been getting used to. Lydia was a solid three inches taller than Ysolda; there was no way I would be able to hold her like this.
My current companion drew me out of my thoughts when she spun in my arms and lifted her own to wrap around my neck. The position was oddly romantic, I noted. Still, I couldn't argue too much with her hungry kiss. Our tongues fought intimately and I could still taste the last hints of our earlier wine on her lips.
My hands began to grow frustrated with her long dress preventing my touching her. The memory of the feel of her skin seemed distant and my trouble recalling it guided my hands to slip behind her to the clasps running up the back of her dress. She did nothing to stop me and I took it as permission to continue. My mouth travelled down her check, past her jaw and landed on her throat as I pulled the clasps open.
I was just about to pull the offending garment down her shoulders when a loud knock at the door rang through the room. Ysolda jumped back in surprise and I directed a dark glare at whoever was on the other side of the door. I glanced back towards the woman regaining her composure. She reached behind her and hastily snapped a couple of her dress's clasps before wiping a quick hand across her lips and neck to rid herself of my saliva. I couldn't help but frown a little. Her cheeks were stained a deep red and her hair was a mess; it was already obvious what was being interrupted.
I stalked over to the door and opened it just as a second series of knocks started. My intention to use language that would make my sister utterly ashamed to even know me stalled when I came face-to-face with my housecarl. For a brief instant I didn't recognize her. She was dressed in a dark brown shirt and green pants. I wondered when she'd purchased civilian clothing. Even her shoes were made of soft leather.
"Oh! There you are, my Thane. I was just going to ask Ysolda if she had seen you," Lydia said glibly. Her smile was altogether too pleased.
I resisted the urge to glare at her and instead returned her cheery demeanour. "Yes, she invited me for supper and I just couldn't refuse, considering all she's helped my sister since she got her. It must've slipped my mind to stop in on the way and let you know," I said with an easy shrug.
"Your sister was concerned when you didn't come home before dusk and asked me to see if I could find you," she explained.
"Well, as you can see he's safe and sound. Sorry if he made you worry," Ysolda said as she stepped up beside me in the doorway.
"His sister also requested that I bring him back when I found him."
"And if I don't go, she'll be kicking the door down. It would seem I have to call it a night, Ysolda," I gave the woman an apologetic smile.
She let out a quiet sigh of frustration that I shared. "We'll have to get together again before you leave again, Kailev-Tel," she said hopefully.
"I'll be around for a while, at least until my debt for the house is paid," I assured her. "Have a good night. I'll make sure to stop by soon."
"Sounds wonderful. Good night," she said as I left with my hosuecarl.
The trip back was silent until we reached the market. "You are just the worst," I sighed.
"Something the matter, my Thane?" Lydia asked innocently.
I narrowed my eyes at her for a moment before shrugging and sighing once more. "Nah. Just frustrated," I replied. "So did you buy those clothes today?"
"Yes. Your sister and I visited the market with some of the spare jewellery," she nodded. The action made the silver amulet around her neck bounce and the amethysts set into it caught my eye. I caught onto the word "spare" and almost had to laugh. Lydia was acting shockingly feminine for someone who I had only previously seen either armoured, naked, or wrapped in bandages.
"Settling into the civilian life?" I chuckled. "I'll find us some work in a couple days, once I've finished working on our armour and weapons. I guess it's only fair you get a chance to relax now that I'm not actively trying to get us killed." It occurred to me that this was the first set of full-metal armour I had ever crafted and it was taking much longer than stitching leather did.
"Don't take too long. I don't want to get rusty waiting around and helping your sister spend your money," she said as we approached the front door of the house. "I don't know if I could take getting thrown off a bridge again."
"You'd be fine. In all fairness, half your broken ribs were from my resuscitation," I remarked and held the door open for Lydia. She shot me a rather shocked look and it occurred to me what I'd done. "Oh, don't look at me like that. It's your fault for wearing girly clothes," I frowned. "Now get inside. I can hear my sister watching the door."
"Half-sister," a voice inside called. I guessed her to be sitting next to the fire, by the volume. I was proven right when Lydia and I walked in. "Glad to see that you didn't decide to run off again," Keesara said and stood up to walk towards me.
"Why would I run away from a house that I own? That's just insanity," I scoffed and brushed past her. "I was at a friend's house for supper. I have those, believe it or not."
"Why didn't you take me?" she pouted and followed me up the stairs. Apparently escaping to my room wasn't going to work.
"Didn't occur to me," I said with a flippant shrug.
She hissed something under her breath that I didn't catch. I turned around and stopped her progress with a hand on her shoulder when we reached the entrance to my room. "I'm going to bed, Kees. I've had a long day," I said, though my eyes pulled to Lydia as I finished. She looked over her shoulder as she walked into her room and blew me a kiss. My eyes shot open briefly before I caught myself.
She stared up at me with pleading eyes. "But we haven't had any chances to catch up since I found you," she said pitifully.
I sighed and flicked the tip of her nose. "You can talk my ear off all day tomorrow. Now buzz off, fleshfly." She was left standing outside door as I slipped into the room and closed it.
I took what I could see of the room in the dark. I thought of lighting a candle but didn't think it worth the hassle. I stripped off my vest, tossing it onto a chest I knew to be at the foot of my bed. The blankets were cool, a welcome feeling to my frustrated body. I supposed that my sleeping around really had caught up with me. "A wounded thrinax is friendlier than a vindictive woman," Tal-Jarad had once told me. I sighed and closed my eyes. At least the swords weren't hanging over my head anymore.

A/N: This feels like chapter 7 all over again, except this time with belligerent sexual tension. I'm not sure if it's better or worse that it's longer. At least it's written now and I'm one step closer to an actually planned arc. As always, I encourage you to leave your thoughts, positive or negative as they may be.
- 18
- 19
- 20
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

The Line Begins to Blur