Chapter 1
"Freir... Freir. I've got to go out. C'rynn's asleep by the door again." Anekke's voice pierced Frier's dreamy morning routine.
"Just wake him and ask him to move."
"Freir, he's your cat. He only listens when you call him."
Freir's head appeared around her bedroom door. The impish look that annoyed Anekke so lit up her face. There was fun to be had here, she sensed. That particularly delightful kind that leads to your elder's embarrassment. "You're still scared of him Anekke, aren't you?" she asked with a grin.
"It's the way he looks at me."
"Well, you always scold him when he's trying to eat -"
"- OUR food! He tries to take it clean off the table. And you can get that look off your face young lady. I'm too busy for your games."
Freir laughed and walked into the living room still wearing her nightgown. "C'rynn, come here you big soppy thing. Scaring your aunty, you naughty cat." Her dutiful companion lazily hauled himself up from the hazy stupor he'd enveloped himself in. Only a cat could extract that much pleasure from a simple morning nap. She reached out and scratched behind his ear as he came close to her.
"I've never known a girl like you Freir. You're unique."
"Thanks" she smiled as C'rynn purred. A deep rumbling that seemed to shake the whole house.
"Who's ever heard of a Sabre Cat as a pet? I knew you'd be a handful when Sigurd sent you."
"Haha! You love me Anekke. And C'rynn. He'll always keep me safe, won't you you soppy boy. Aren't you a good boy?" She scratched under his huge, strong jaw with both hands and his rumble became a thunder.
Freir was a little short for a Nord girl, and slighter in build than most. She kept her jet black hair short revealing her sharply defined jaw and delicately shaped nose. Hardly anyone noticed the fine proportions of her features, or her diminutive stature. It was impossible to escape the lightening-flash ferocity of her sapphire-blue eyes.
Her striking looks brought Freir various kinds of attention from boys and girls alike, as often hostile as it was friendly, and for her it was a curse she'd struggled with since she came to stay in Whiterun almost a decade ago. Its hard enough being a newcomer in town when you're only eight, let alone as an orphan. All she wanted was to blend in, to be lost in the crowd, to be left to make sense of the world.
For Freir, the life of most Nords was unfathomable, unthinkable. The girls dutifully accepted a dull life of domestic servitude, even aspired to it, and their menfolk repaid them with an obsession with "valour" and "honour". For most, as far as she could tell, this meant drunken brawling, feuding between their clans, and tall tales of bravely murdering the innocent, intelligent wildlife that surrounded their city in the fertile central plain of Skyrim. For a few, their quest for honour left their wives and children alone for weeks and even months on end. Really? Were those stories of frost trolls and giant spiders believable to anybody? Who could say they hadn't just been in the skooma dens of Riften, spending their nights with the easy virtues of the Dunmer women? It was questions like this that made Freir unpopular with the other girls.
Freir yawned. "Anyway, why are you in such a hurry? Its more than an hour before the shop opens."
"We're going to busier than ever. He's coming, The Hero of Skyrim, The Dhovakiin. He's coming today." Anekke looked genuinely excited as she replied. The blank incomprehension on Freir's face told Anekke nothing had changed. What went on in that head of hers? It often seemed half of Freir was living somewhere far from here. It was to be expected Anneke supposed, given the start she'd had in this life. "I told you last week! You never listen do you? The Jarl is giving him the freedom of the city in thanks for what he did. People are coming from all over to see him. That means a lot of hungry people, and if we don't sell them sweetrolls and Horker loaf someone else will. Kyne knows we need the coin."
"So we're going to be overrun with mead-drenched glory-seeking louts and swooning empty-headed girlies. Great." Frier rolled her eyes and turned to C'rynn. "Looks like we'd better get out for the day C'rynn, or some ass will try and prove his virility by getting his head bitten off by you, eh?" A grin spread across her face. "Remember that idiot Beregrund? Ha! One swipe from you and he was out cold. Don't think the Guards'll be so understanding if it happens again."
"It didn't help matters that you hit him first."
"Well, he shouldn't have said what he did. He learnt his lesson. Didn't he C'rynn?" The powerful beast licked her arm as she moved to pat his powerful shoulder.
"Look, I've got to go. Just promise me you'll stay out of trouble you two."
"Bye Anekke." Freir carried on stroking C'rynn's thickly muscled neck. The door slammed shut as Anekke rushed out. "What are we going to do with ourselves today eh boy? We're fish out of the water here, you and me. Maybe she's right, maybe I was meant to be born elven eh? Or maybe I'm just not stupid like everyone else."
That was the day that Freir and C'rynn began to spend their days in the woodlands above the city, a decision that changed everything for them. Freir found she had an instinctive feel for the way of the world that the Nords seemed to want to cut themselves off from, to fight and conquer. As far as she could tell this was the cause of most of the strife they encountered in this beautiful, wintry land. She quickly found that if she listened to its song it repaid her, nourished her, and gave her the sense of peace and companionship she had always craved. Demia and Lemli always talked of their empty hearts, and longed for one of the local dullards to give them a house to scrub and screaming children to enslave themselves to. It made no sense to Freir. How could anyone be alone with such richness all around? The land breathed, it spoke to her, surrounded and cradled her.
Every now and then the woodland seemed to reciprocate her affection, open up to her, and let her see what for her were magical, almost sacred secrets. She would never forget seeing a foal come newly to the world, her mother gently licking her clean despite her exhaustion, hearing the tiny helpless thing's first bleating call.
She saw ugly sights too - the legionnaires escorting prisoners bound and sometimes gagged. Goading and beating them seemingly for fun. The deer carcass strewn on the pathway, its throat slit by a bandit practising his technique.
From outside, from among the trees, the city started to seem even more alien than when she was inside it. More like something born from the twisted and violent mind of the Deadric Lords than something made by the inhabitants of he land.
The rare herbs and mosses she found gave Anekke and Bruiri's breads a sought-after taste, and so Freir began to find a trade for herself, and more importantly for her a reason to be far away from the pressure she felt mounting from friends and Anekke to settle down, set C'rynn free, take a man. To give up on life. No chance. She was just beginning hers.