Sun's Dawn

Bleak Falls

"If you need to make some gold, I hear Lucian had some trouble," Gerdur said coolly, "we cannot afford to pay anymore workers at the mill at the moment."

Qa'nabi was mostly just distracted by her surroundings. Riverwood was beautiful. In fact, after her incredibly jarring first introduction to Skyrim, she was realising it was a very beautiful place, and although she was already feeling a little homesick, she thought that Elswyr couldn't compare.

"Ah, she won't know who Lucian is yet, we came straight here when we arrived. I'll take her by the Riverwood trader and then get some rest, I need to get back to Windhelm and find out if Ulfric made it out."

"I'm sure he did, Talos himself is on our side, brother. And you, Khajiit, what will you do next?"

"I... Hmm, I suppose I will take this Lucian's job for more gold, then I will give it to my sister, maybe we could hire a horse so we have less to carry for our caravan, or maybe we can hire an extra guard from Elswyr, or here. If dragons are truly back in Skyrim, travelling the roads will be very dangerous."

Gerdur nodded, picking her axe back up to the table, "well, please keep us in mind if you do head to Whiterun. Riverwood desperately needs the help of the Jarl. And please, take whatever you need from our home, within reason of course, any friend of Ralof is a friend of mine."

Ralof and Gerdur seemed much nicer than Qa'nabi had anticipated, or expected, based on what she heard of Skyrim. In Gerdur's case, she assumed it had been because she had helped her brother escape from Helgen, but why had Ralof been so kind to her, a Khajiit? Maybe she was wrong to assume all Nords would be cold, and xenophobic, maybe he was just a good person.

Qa'nabi hoped that would be a sign of things to come, that Nords and the other residents of Skyrim wouldn't be as cold as it's climate.

*

With an axe lodged in its neck, Svali kicked away the dead wolf. Uthgerd had taken care of the other with ease, some grumpy, over-glorified dogs were nothing compared to two Nord warriors.

She grinned at the older woman, "y'know," she yanked her axe from the wolf's corpse and put it back on her belt with the other, "this would almost be fun, if we weren't doing it for such a stupid reason."

"What? You don't want to trek halfway across Whiterun to fetch some dusty old rock for the Jarl's wizard?"

Svali shoved Uthgerd playfully, and they continued their journey up towards Bleak Falls Barrow.

"We'll stop at the little inn at Riverwood on our way back, get a couple bottles of mead and some hot soup as a reward. Oh, and I'll make Farengar give us extra gold for it, call it a business expense."

"I'm glad I don't need a sellsword, you're the worst."

Svali grins, and shakes off a few snowflakes that have begun to stick to her fur armor and in her hair. The closer they get to Bleak Falls; the higher they get. And the higher they got; the colder it got, and the heavier the snow began to fall.

Goosebumps prickled up across the bare skin of her arms. She noticed it almost immediately, and lifted one up to inspect it, blowing out a slow warm breath over it, watching to see if it would make them disappear. It didn't.

"Feeling cold, whelp?"

She waved a hand in Uthgerd's direction, "oh shush, I've been living in the wilderness for months, no matter how cold it gets in Whiterun, it's still Whiterun."