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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
- 6
- 7
- 8
Review response: Fog of Nature, that's an interesting idea and definitely got me thinking. We shall have to wait and see what fruit those seeds bear.

"I was wondering when you were going to come looking for me," I glanced over my shoulder when Lydia walked up behind me. I was browsing a jewellery stall in the market. I had no real interest in buying any of it, but I appreciated the craftsmanship and had told Lydia that it was where I would be. As much as I didn't necessarily enjoy the thought of having someone follow me around I saw the usefulness in travelling with a companion.
"It isn't even midday, yet," she noted as she looked to the sky.
"I never said it took you a long time. I just said I was wondering when you would," I chuckled and turned to her. "By the way, I hope you aren't expecting me to drop everything to go running off to the Greybeards. I'm going to need some money for a trip like that."
"So long as you do not waste too much time, my Thane," she advised as I walked past her. She fell into step at my flank almost immediately.
"They've been waiting on me for however long, already. A few more days or weeks isn't going to do them any harm," I shrugged. Lydia seemed less than pleased with my response, but didn't push the subject any further. "Besides, I'm going to need money for a trip like that, and that means I'm going to have to do some work around town."
"You have a plan, then?" she asked.
"Actually, I was going to poke my head in at the blacksmith's forge and see about repairing my armour," I nodded. "Or just make a new set. I could always use the practice."
"I didn't think Argonians generally held much skill with metalworking," she said offhandedly. I shot her a disapproving look over my shoulder.
"I'm sure you don't think Argonians hold much skill with much of anything other than working docks," I affected a similar tone.
I saw her tense slightly. "I meant no disrespect, my Thane."
"Of course not," I muttered when we reached the blacksmith's shop. "You just meant that you see my race about the same way as every other human in Tamriel."
Lydia looked like she had something to say to that but held her tongue. The woman from the day before was just walking out of the shop. "Can I help you?" she asked as I approached.
"Maybe. I was wondering if I could use your forge. My armour is in...unfortunate need of repairs," I gestured to the various gashes and frayed bits of leather.
I saw her eyes flick down to the badge displayed on my upper arm and she frowned. "As much as I would like to accommodate the Thane, the Imperial Legion has just filled me with a huge order. I'll be lucky to get any of my customers' equipment made within the week, at this rate."
"Then maybe I could help with that," I offered quickly. "How about I help you fill this order and in exchange I can use your forge whenever you're not busy with it?"
She eyed me warily for a few moments. I supposed that Thane or no, I was still a stranger. "I have to forge a total of about fifty swords and fifty full sets of their armour," she explained after a moment.
I just stuck out my hand with a smirk. "Kai," I introduced myself.
The woman smirked right back and took the proffered hand. "Adrianne," she returned. "Let's see how well you know your way around a forge."
The forge was hot and within an hour I was wishing I could sweat. I was working the metal bars for swords and heating up rivets for the armour while Adrianne cut, treated and shaped the leather into tunics and boots and gauntlets. I was surprised at Lydia's unflinching willingness to help with the work. All it took was a simple order and she obeyed without question. I was somewhat uncomfortable with the idea of someone so utterly devoted to my command, especially considering that she didn't seem to think much of me as an individual beyond the subservience to my position and the disdain for my race. Still, considering our respective positions I figured we'd probably have plenty of time to work things out.
Despite my focus on my work my mind wandered. The feeling of the hot sun overhead and the burning coals at my front reminded me of Riverwood and Camilla's canteen. The thought made me smile as I worked. I briefly wondered how she was and if she was thankful for the soldiers that had been sent to keep the village safe. Part of me even wondered if she had heard about my appointment as Thane before I remembered that it had been less than a day since the ceremony.
I suppose it must have seemed somewhat strange to the two women working with me when I stripped myself of my insulated leather tunic. "What? Blacksmith work is hot and I don't, you know, sweat," I explained simply when I tossed the armour next to the nearby smelter.
I resumed bringing the hammer down on the hot metal held tightly in a set of tongs, though I was distinctly aware of various sets of eyes on me. The survival instinct that helpfully told me when I was being watched made my spine tingle with tension. I had to mentally remind myself that I was under no threat of attack. People were just looking at me strangely because it wasn't often they saw a shirtless Argonian pounding white-hot metal.
My mind once more wandered to memories of Camilla's stares at my unclothed body and I couldn't have stopped the smirk splitting my lips if I had tried. I also thought of Carlotta's appreciation of my body the night before. Perhaps being physically fit was attractive, regardless of race. I thought briefly on my body in a rare moment of narcissism, of the hard muscles cutting sharp lines through black and grey scales. I wondered for the shortest of moments if I looked a little like granite at times. The colour of my scales was almost right for it.
"You look a little worn out," Adrianne's voice pulled me from my thoughts. "Perhaps you should work on the leather for a while and I'll take over on the swords?"
My arm was beginning to grow tired from the constant pounding and my hand had long since gone numb, but male pride didn't allow me to actually admit any of it. I just smiled sheepishly. "Sure. You can probably make a better sword than me, anyway," I placed the piece of metal I was about to start working back into the forge.
"Your swords are good," she nodded approvingly. "Though you're putting a bit too much time and work into them for what we're doing. With an order this large the Legion won't be expecting masterworks, especially not with what they're paying me for it. They just want weapons and armour as quickly as possible."
Her words caught me a little unawares. It seemed a bizarre concept that there could be too much time and effort put into one's work, but I understood her intention. Too much time on the arms and armour and they wouldn't be done in any kind of reasonable time. It didn't take a masterpiece of a sword to kill someone, either. All it took was a piece of iron with a bit of an edge.
"Lydia, could you work on sharpening the swords I've made so far while I work on this armour?" I tried to sound affable. She obeyed without hesitation and within moments the sound of stone grinding metal mixed with the pounding of hot iron.
I set to work on stitching the sheets and strips of leather into various pieces of armour. I didn't know exactly what size they should be and simply guessed that most of the soldiers would be about my size. They'd also probably be mostly human which certainly made things easier. It would have been quite the task to craft fifty hardened leather tunics for Argonians. No two had spines and horns in exactly the same place. I had long since learned that buying armour ended up being a costly process for the extra labour involved in making it fit our more complex forms. Well, it was either that or simply deal with the discomfort of constantly having my spines pressed into my back and neck. The tail, at least, simply took a small slit in the back of a pair of pants to accommodate it.
The armour was surprisingly easy and quick to make. Adrianne already had the leather prepared for it, so all that was required was a lot of sewing. Nearly another hour passed by the time I took over at the forge again to give the blacksmith a rest, and by then almost all the tunics had been stitched and fixed with rivets. Adrianne had made surprisingly short work of the swords, as well. Only another ten needed to be forged by the time she had me take her place. "How long have you been a blacksmith for?" she asked as she surveyed my work.
"I started learning a few days ago," I admitted with an embarrassed chuckle. "A man in Riverwood named Alvor taught me the basics. Nothing too fancy, but certainly enough to get started."
"You have a gift for it," she gave me a kind smile as she set to work finishing the last few tunics. "I know Alvor. He's a good man, and a fine smith. You found a good teacher in him." She gave me a quizzical look. "He has a nephew in the Legion, does he not?"
"Yeah, he does," I nodded, keeping my eyes on the metal in my hands. "We actually helped each other escape Helgen. I think he went back to Solitude after a couple days in Riverwood." A frown bent my lips as I thought about Hadvar. "I hope he's doing okay. So far my time in Skyrim has been...less than hospitable."
"From what I've heard you have a knack for getting yourself into trouble, my Thane," Lydia quipped as she worked on making sheathes for the sword.
"You have no idea," I laughed openly. "Honestly, I'm shocked I've never been arrested," I said and looked over at her in time to see the man from the inn the night before striding towards me with a pair of guards. "Oh, I did not just do that to myself..."
"That's him! That's the...beast that attacked me!" he shouted far louder than I would have liked. The marks on his forehead were scabbed and looked a lot worse in the daylight than they had at the inn and I had to suppress a smirk. His cheek was discoloured and swollen, as well. Overall I was almost as pleased with my work on him as I had been with my swords all day.
I sighed, tossed the hot piece of metal I was working on into the water bath next to me and strode over to meet the trio. "Is this true?" one of the guards asked.
I folded my arms across my chest and saw with a great deal of delight how all of their eyes flicked to the Thane's badge at my arm. I was suddenly very grateful that I had left it on. "Not exactly. I mean, I didn't attack him. He threw the first punch, actually. I just happened to throw the last. He was making an ass of himself and trying to force himself on a very kind young woman," I explained with a shrug.
"You don't say," the guards immediately turned on the man. "Are you trying to slander the Thane, Mikael? That's a punishable offence."
The troublemaker instantly paled. "But I...he..." he stammered piteously.
Now I openly smirked at his situation. Nonetheless, he was pathetic enough to warrant my pity. "Go easy on him. No harm, no foul, right?" I stepped in. "I'm sure he's learned his lesson and he'll think before speaking from now on. Right, Mikael?"
"Right!" he instantly jumped on what he saw as an opportunity to get himself out of trouble.
"If that is your wish, my lord," one of the guard's saluted me before they both walked away.
I caught Mikael's arm as he tried to make his own getaway and spun him around to face me. He found himself staring into a pair of angry eyes over a snarling mouth filled with razor sharp teeth and couldn't do much to look away for the fist gripping the collar of his shirt. "If you ever try to pull something like this again, you little shit, I swear to Akatosh I'll put you in the fucking ground," I growled low in my throat. "Now get out of here," I barked and all but threw him away.
I turned to my two companions with an amused smile on my face. "I'm pretty sure I just made that guy piss himself," I laughed. The fact that I stood half a head taller probably helped.
"So nice to see the new Thane bullying his subjects into submission," Lydia remarked. "Although with Mikael there's a good chance that it's actually a public service."
"I knew we'd get on swimmingly," I laughed as I walked by. "And here I was thinking you'd be one of the people who hates the fact that an Argonian was given a place of authority."
"I'm sure someone like my father would have something to say about it," she shrugged. "But I am your housecarl. I am sworn to serve you until death. I don't see how racial prejudices would make that a more enjoyable experience."
I smirked as I started pounding the last piece of metal I needed to work into a blade. "What a practical attitude," I chuckled. "So glad I got you as a housecarl and not some self-righteous jackass. I seem to meet a lot of those."
After only a couple minutes the last sword was forged and cooling in the water bath. Lydia was finishing up her last scabbard and Adrianne had worked through what had remained of the armour with amazing speed. She was clearly a much more talented blacksmith than she really let on.
"I can't thank you enough for your help," she smiled at me as I donned my armour. "Without your help it would've taken days to get that order finished. I'll be glad to get Idolaf Battle-Born off my back."
"No need to thank me," I waved her off. "So long as I can use the forge when I need to that's good enough for me."
"Of course," she nodded. "So long as I'm not too busy, you can use anything in my workshop whenever you want." She paused for a moment before gesturing to the armour I'd just put back on. "If you'd like, I could fix your armour, too. You helped me a lot and use of my forge doesn't seem like a good enough payment."
"I just put this back on..." I affected a mock hurt tone. "And I was going to try to improve on it. I scraped up some chainmail from a few of the dead guards at the watchtower and I was going to work it into my armour somehow."
"You took armour from the dead?" Lydia fixed me with a disapproving look.
"Why not? It wasn't doing them very much good anymore," I shrugged. "Besides, the individual suits were too damaged to be worth much. I was going to take the good pieces from each one and fix them over my leathers. I don't care if I look like some freaky patchwork mess."
"Give me the armour and whatever extra pieces you have and I'll see what I can do," Adrianne offered. "Come by tomorrow. I should be able to have it done by then."
"Okay. Just let me go find somewhere to get some spare clothes. I don't much feel like wandering around town naked. Seems like it might get kind of chilly."

A/N: I hate this chapter. It's short and pointless and...ugh. That said, it's been rewritten way too many times and if I don't post something I'll just end up scrapping the whole chapter and starting from scratch and that's going to go horribly awry. So you all have my apologies for this pointless mess. Depending on the next chapter it might just get deleted and simply given some kind of exposition, but I don't like doing that. Show, don't tell, right? I'd rather show how Kai gets to be a good smith rather than suddenly have him be a master of a skill he had never even attempted at the start of the story. Plus it shows him meeting other influential figures of Whiterun and yes, I'm just making up excuses. The next chapter will be set a few days after this one. That one I do have a solid idea of what will happen. Expect blood. That is all. If you hate this chapter as much as I do, feel free to tell me. I probably deserve it.
- 6
- 7
- 8
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The Line Begins to Blur