The moons lavish silver upon every rock and tree, painting the landscape in monochrome. Sleepy birds huddle together in their nests. Foxes lie curled nose to tail, dreaming of mice. A gentle south wind ripples the grass.
On a small farm near Riverwood, a dog begins to bark.
Someone is in the potato field.
As they bend to pick up the shovel, moonlight glints off their mismatched armor. What at first appears to be splotches of black paint is merely of trick of the moonlight: under the sun, the blood would be obvious. A hole gapes in the back plate, broken rings of chain mail jutting out of what must have been a mortal wound for whoever had worn this armor previously. The stranger wears stormcloak boots, imperial gauntlets, and Nordic armor with no consideration for fashion and even less for politics. A blond braid escapes from the helmet, without which the stranger's gender would be completely indistinguishable. Across her shoulders is strapped a spiked war hammer. A few bits of hair and gristle still cling to one of the spikes.
In front of her, rows of hillocks crowned by mature potato plants stretch to the edge of the field. Behind her, nothing but holes, scattered earth, and wilting vegetation remains. A shovel bites into the thin soil with a faint shoonk, and another clod of dirt is tossed over the stranger's shoulder onto the wreckage. She crouches and thrusts a gauntleted hand into the hole, rummages around for a moment, and pulls out a potato. This is dropped into a bulging sack.
The dog knows from personal experience that its master disapproves of anyone digging up the potatoes except himself. It edges closer, growling a warning.
The stranger's posture changes subtly. Somehow, this draws attention to the shovel in her hands. Its blade isn't sharp.
Somehow, that makes it worse.
Slowly, deliberately, she raises her head to look at the dog.
Whatever the dogs sees in her eyes, it whirls and bolts at a dead run for the safety of the farmhouse. It will be 48 hours before its master is able to tempt it out from underneath the porch, and much longer before it stops cowering every time it sees a shovel.
The stranger digs up every last potato. Then she starts on the cabbages.
(I'm not back, not really... I just couldn't resist taking a break to poke some fun at the way my berserker wanders through gardens eating bugs and flowers and nobody dares to complain. Thanks for reading!)