Skyrim is a cold land. That's just about one of the first realizations that one must come to about the Nords' home, and it's one we all have to deal with at some point. For most people it isn't more of a problem than anything else, but for Saxhleel - Argonians - that's actually one of the really frequent killers. We have to keep fighting it, every day. Whether we use magic, muscles or a big bonfire, that struggle is what most of our energy goes to in a day, generally.
We all have strategies. Me, I move a lot. Always busy, always working, never sitting too still for too much of the time. The harder labor the better, as far as I'm concerned. Moving helps. So does sleeping, if I'm in Windhelm and the Assemblage is hot enough. We all sleep for more than half the day, in loosely organized shifts. Skooma helps as well - gives you a rush that lets you shiver like you mean it, warms you right up. We water it down so we don't get hooked, but some of us are in the trap anyway. Stands-In-Shallows is in pretty deep. He's the thinnest of us, but because of the skooma he's never really cold. He's too old and set in his ways to listen when we say it's bad for him. Neetrenaza thinks we're all crazy, but he keeps himself going no less than the rest of us. He acts as if he doesn't notice the weather. To this day, I think he's alive by pure stubbornness. You could say the same of Shahvee, but she handles it a little more elegantly. She's too cheerful to let the cold bother her - she just accepts it as a part of her life she can't change, and appreciates the Assemblage fires all the more in the evening when she goes to sleep. That attitude has a lot to be said for it, if you can pull it off.
Learning how to swim here was hard. When you jump into a stream through cakes of sleet and ice and feel the initial cold-shock hit you, you just have to power on through. Get your tail moving, kick with your arms and legs like a human, make sure you get the deep muscles going so you stay warm for longer. We don't get frostbite like the humans, but we sometimes pass out in the freezing water, and the others have to pull out whoever didn't make it to the surface this time.
I know I make it sound miserable, and I suppose it would be for most others. But don't misunderstand - I think the snow is beautiful. I think the mountains are wonders, and climbing them is the best feeling in the world. The swamps are fantastic, and there isn't a trace of salt in the water. Really, most nature is nice if you can just appreciate the good points. Shahvee taught me that.
I like the Assemblage, cramped though it is. We keep each other warm, we cook hot meals, we have fun and talk jel and tell stories of Black Marsh and other places. They took to me right away because of all the traveling I had done. They were even good enough to bare with my halting jel, and teach me some more of the old language. For an Argonian who has never even seen a Hist, nor really lived with others like him since he was a hatchling, that's special. As I write, there is a holiday going on in Windhelm called the Feast for the Dead, in which the nords celebrate Ysgramor and his 500 companions, and how they made the way for the first human empire by driving out the elves. It's a solemn occasion for some people. For others, it's just another feast day. For the argonians, it means that they get a day off, which gives them time for other things. Mostly, we just sit about soaking up the warmth. The others need it - they work hard, and deserve whatever rest they can get.
Another thing one can appreciate about Skyrim is its people. Nobody taught me that, and I have yet to teach it to any of the others, because I think they would call me crazy, but I actually like the Skyrim people - or rather how they deal with each other. They have their priorities straight. There isn't much love lost for Argonians, true, but this land is hard, and everyone is needed. Peoples are forced together by hardship, and when the winter gets cold enough, and you offer your hands and back, nobody notices the scales. I know that because I've been to so many of the holds around Skyrim, and the common trait was pretty much that if you could make yourself useful, they'd be willing to overlook all kinds of things. Even the fact that you are an escaped convict, sentenced for the executioner's block.
Jarl Balgruuf the Greater of Whiterun. He didn't care what I had done. He didn't care where I was from. I could kill the dragons that were plaguing his home, and so I was a friend, and an honored member of his community, yeah, I know, I'm still giggling. He even gave me an honorary title. Thane. That means I'm a court retainer, and nobody has jurisdiction over me but the Jarl. If you think that sounds like I'm a henchman, you're right. I know I should be more appreciative of this, but a title doesn't keep me warm in winter, and it doesn't feed me or my friends. As much as I respect the jarl for taking me in, I'd like to tell him where to put his title. He believes it's important, though. Maybe that makes all the difference. I wouldn't know really - I've never had anything that changed value depending on how much I believed in it.
Then again, what's gold, if not that?
The only constant in my life. Gold. If you've never been poor, you don't understand. Being turned away from a dozen places and going for too long without sleep because nobody will let you in, stealing food to survive because it's all you know how to do, and so on and so on. That's all common when you're poor. You have to degrade yourself further and further, sell everything you own, take jobs nobody else want, all so you can earn half of what somebody without scales would have earned. I've watched proud people being treated like dirt, pack animals or sex toys by someone who, if there was any justice, would be reduced to the same nothing some day. But there isn't, so they have oceans of money and power, and do whatever they want, and nobody seems to notice or care. Yeah, I'm bitter. Shahvee tells me I should let that go. So does Scouts-Many-Marshes. But I can't ignore how we live - only our dignity keeps us from living in complete squalor. As much as I said I like the Assemblage, I know what it is. I've seen places like that before, back in Hammerfell. All it needs is chains on the walls and guards outside. We are wretched creatures, and it isn't our fault. That makes makes me angry, and I'm not altogether that pleasant when I'm angry. I won't apologize for doing something about it every now and again.
The others don't think of it as slave quarters, but they know that I do. Neetrenaza tried to take the talk with me, get me to tell them all why I was so frustrated, but I put it off. You'd think he'd agree with me, but he doesn't want to get bitter. He has been fighting that, he says, because it eats you up from the inside and makes you seljcil, which doesn't translate well, but it's kind of like unpleasant, only it effects everything you do. I got the message, and I told him as much, but I'll be damned if I can let it go. Every time I see the Assemblage, I'm reminded. It isn't right. I know there are so many good people here in north - I think that's why this is so jarring. There is no just explanation for why the Argonians aren't allowed to live inside the gates of Windhelm. It isn't because of the dark elves - if we're miserable enough together, we won't care who we are as long as we keep each other alive. And elves have just as many blood fewds between themselves as with us, if not more. Yet you don't see the Gray Quarter being torn apart by street battles. The dark elves hate it as much as we do, and they can do as little about it as we can. And, generally, they're much better at carrying grudges than Argonians are. Call me naive, but that proves something to me. You should think that would prove something to those puffed-up, bigoted Nords up in the Palace of Kings too. I hope, with every ounce of my soul, I hope that there is someone, somewhere up there who makes sure this happens, or ignores it where they should have helped solve it. Because if there isn't one in particular, that means they're all like that. That, or not a single one of them can be bothered with Argonians, dark elves, or anybody else that isn't rich enough to tell them otherwise.
I try not to talk about all of this too much, since it makes me so mad. Sometimes I can't help but think about it, though, and I work myself up until I want to knife the first nobleman I see. I want it so bad I almost shake. That would be the point where Scouts-Many-Marshes would come over to sit with me, if I was back in the Assemblage. He always does that - tries to get me to talk about something else, speaks jel because he knows I like that, tries to make me feel better. Shahvee always follows, but not before Scouts-Many-Marshes has told her it's alright. I can tell that she's scared of me, though. I don't know if you've ever been feared by those who you don't want to scare. If you haven't, I can tell you it's unpleasant. I always try to make it up to them later, usually by bringing firewood and food, or telling funny stories. I don't want to put a strain on the place, if I can help it. I don't know them quite that well, and I'm just passing through, after all.
They know that as well. We're acquaintances, in a way - friends in another. But, really, we know that any of us might be gone tomorrow. They certainly know that I'll leave soon enough. I may or may not come back, as fate wills it, but if I do, I know I have a place to rest my head outside the Windhelm walls. They even gave me a key. I got Breezehome later, back in Whiterun, but somehow I never stopped thinking of the Assemblage as home. It's a lot of things, good and bad, but it's a community first and foremost. A tribe consisting of whoever happens to be around. I like that, and I don't think I'll find that anywhere but in cold Skyrim. This place fosters that kind of people. In spite of everything, we stick together, we help each other survive, we fight the world together and every night, when we go to sleep, we've won. There are so few who understand that. To find a whole place of them has been good for me. Maybe I've been good for them, too. I like to think so.
