It had been a days journey on foot from the city of Blacklight into Eastern Skyrim; a journey that was not without it's woes: wolves, rats, mudcrabs, bandits, and most recently trolls, a dangerous traverse indeed but Sarydos was used to dangerous work having spent time as a mercenary back in the city and has driven off everything from slaughterfish to reavers to Kwama Warriors.

He had quite a keen understanding of combat, balancing blade, bow, and spellcraft in his battles with the various fiends of Morrowind, his experience as a sellsword had done him well on his journey so far and he had no doubt it would continue to prove it's worth for years to come; however, he was no longer in his beloved Morrowind the familiar grasslands and blue skies of the Velothis district was now replaced with snowy fields and bitter cold winds.

'Skyrim is nothing like home.'

he thought to himself as he trudged through the snow trying to follow the worn cobblestone road to the nearest city. He knew he was getting close when he began to pass small farms, he stopped at one of them when he saw another dunmer working the field nearby.

"Excuse me friend, may I have a moment of your time?"

The other elf looked up at Sarydos from under his thick eyebrows, his face is worn and dirty and his hair is long and frames his face.

"Yeah? what do you want?" He asks in a tired and slightly annoyed tone.

"I was wondering if you could tell me whether or not this is the city of Windhelm." Sarydos speaks as clearly as he can. The other dunmer just stares at him for a few seconds with a somewhat confused look on his face but then he finally answers.

"Yeah, this is Windhelm alright."

Sarydos thanks the elf and begins to walk away,when suddenly he hears the elf say

"Don't expect a warm welcome from the nords, though…."

he turns around to face the elf again

"I'm sorry, what did you say?"

"The nords of Windhelm… well… pretty much all of skyrim... don't very much like us…."

"Oh….. thank you for the warning, I guess….." The elf simply nods and continues his farm work. As Sarydos walks towards the bridge into Windhelm. As he walks across the bridge many of the city guards stop and watch him walk by. As he watches them watch him he concludes that they aren't used to the sight of a armed and armored dunmer in these parts. He pushes his way through the door into the city, he steps inside and pauses to take a look around when suddenly he hears something that catches his attention, he looks slightly to the right to see two nord men and a dunmer woman, he takes a few steps forward to listen in closer.

"You come here where you're not wanted, you eat our food, you pollute our city with your stink and you refuse to help the Stormcloaks." One nord says

"But we haven't taken a side because it's not our fight."

"Hey, maybe the reason these gray-skins don't help in the war is because they're Imperial spies!" The other nord chimed in

"Imperial spies? You can't be serious!"

"Maybe we'll pay you a visit tonight, little spy. We got ways of finding out what you really are."

the first nord snarled, his voice carrying malice and hated.

He had heard enough, Sarydos trotted over quickly towards the dispute an positioned himself between the sneering nord and the defensive dunmer woman. surprised, the nord looks at Sarydos, who crosses his arms and gives the nord an intimidating glare.

"What?! What do you want?!" He snarls, Sarydos just stares at him harder.

"You damn grey-skin. Go back to Morrowind!"

"You know, you sure do talk a lot." Sarydos sneers, shoving the nord back causing him to stumble a bit. People are starting to gather around and the dunmer woman steps back, not wanting to be caught up in the middle.

"You know something else?" Sarydos continues. "I don't like your attitude."

The nord steps forward quickly calling upon his confidence

"Don't like it? Too bad. This is our city. Ours! Don't think I can take you? One hundred septims says I can punch you back where you came from."

More townsfolk gather around the scene.

"You're on." Sarydos smiled.

"All right. Fists only. And none of that magic stuff, either. Let's go!"

Sarydos removes his sword handing it to the dunmer woman. He then removes his Bracers, he wants the pleasure of beating down this nord with his bare knuckles.

"Ready?"

"Ready."

The brawl begins

The two men rush towards each other, the nord swings and misses.

"Is that all you've got?" Sarydos teases. He swings again, another miss. Angered, the nord swings again and again, each time missing his mark. The crowd is yelling:

"Come On! Drive that snowback into the ground!"

"Teach that Grey-Skin a lesson!"

"Hit em Dammit, Hit em!"

'hmmmm, this crowd doesn't seem to be on my side….' Sarydos thought to himself. 'That'll just make it even more satisfying when I beat him to a pulp…."

He smiles, it's been an amusing game watching the nord fumble around trying to hit him but now it's time to end this, Sarydos finally decides to swing back. The first strike knocks the nord's head to the left the next knocks him off balance, he stumbles to his knees…. but it's not over. Sarydos repeatedly pounds the nord's head with his fist, each impact pushing his head violently downward until the nord finally gives in.

The beating stops, the nord takes a moment to catch his breath, he stands up to face Sarydos. Bleeding and bruised he looks at Sarydos wearily.

"That wasn't….. a fair… swing" He manages to slur. Sarydos smiles.

"Pay up, n'wah"

"yeah. sure. whatever, here you go."

He hands over 100 septims and stumbles off towards the tavern in defeat with his hand on his head. Sarydos chuckles to himself before turning around to collect his things from the dunmer woman woman. She stares at him taken aback by his bravery.

"My possessions please, miss"

She snaps out of her trance and begins to hand over his effects. First; the bracers, as he slides them on she admires his sword, it is an emerald colored blade forged of Malachite, leather, and moonstone, It appears to be instilled with so sort of enchantment as well as the blade gives off a dark blue-purple glow, she admires it a bit more before handing it off to him. He sheathes the blade then looks back to her, she takes this opportunity to speak:

"Thank you, I'm not sure who you are but… thank you…"

"You are welcome"

"Looks like those Nords were giving you a hard time" He adds.

"Nothing new there. Most of the Nords living in Windhelm don't care much for us, but Rolff is the worst by far. He likes to get drunk and walk around the Gray Quarter yelling insults at us in the small hours of the morning. A real charmer, that one."

He stands there pondering just how bad the discrimination against his kind is in Skyrim when she speaks again:

"It would seem we have not been properly introduced, Might I know your name?"

"Of course, my name is Sarydos Tervandes just out of the city of Blacklight"

"Blacklight you say, I haven't been there in a long time. Pleased to meet you Sarydos, My name is Suvaris Atheron."

After a quick exchange of pleasantries the two bidded each other goodbye and went about their business, Suvaris traveled back towards the Grey quarter while Sarydos made his way towards the market. As he walked towards the marketplace he noticed the windhelm residents stopping to stare at him some out confusion, some out of disgust, while others were simply surprised to see a new face around he simply ignored them and continued on his he reached the marketplace he saw several venders manning their stalls: there was a nord blacksmith with a younger nord woman that sarydos assumed was either his daughter or his apprentice maybe both, an Altmer woman with an enchantment table, another nord selling produce and on the far side of the market another dunmer, having gotten a bad impression about nords from earlier he decided to see what the dunmer had in stock.

"Come and browse my fine selection! Everything's fresh and delicious!" The dunmer proclaimed proudly and cheerfully, Sarydos approached the stall.

"What do you have?"

"see for yourself"

after browsing the merchandise, Sarydos bought some steel arrows, a grand soul gem, and a few healing potions but before leaving he decided to ask the merchant a question:

"any good places to get a drink and a meal around here?" The merchant thinks for a moment before replying.

"Well there's Candlehearth Hall but they're not too fond off our kind there, it would probably be safer to go to the New Gnisis Cornerclub down in the grey quarter, it's not as nice but you'll find it far more friendly."

"What's the Grey Quarter?" The merchant stared at him with a surprised look on his face.

"You must be new here, I should've known by that armor, the Grey Quarter is where all of Windhelm's dark elves are forced to live by the nords. It's a terribly impoverished slum not truly fit for living and Ulfric and his lot intend to keep it that way…"

"who's Ulfric?"

"Who's Ulfric?!" the merchant was once again taken by surprise "Ulfric Stormcloak is the jarl of Windhelm and the leader of the rebellion here in Skyrim. He claims to be a liberator but he's just a pig-headed nord and a racist, he despises us and anyone else who isn't a nord. This is his city and he doesn't let us forget it…."

"Thanks for your time." Sarydos says as he leaves the stall.

" You know, you should stop by Sadri's used wares in the Grey Quarter."

Sarydos travels back the way he came passing up the main gate towards where he saw Suvaris go earlier assuming it was the direction of the grey quarter. he walks down the narrow streets and worn stairs where he reaches a filthy narrow alley with a bunch of worn down buildings, he walks further in and sees a the same dunmer from the farm outside of town drinking in front of a small building with a sign that reads New Gnisis Cornerclub. He decides to head inside for a drink and some food when he enters he is greeted by the innkeeper:

"Welcome Brother, please enjoy yourself."

Sarydos looks around noting many other dunmer in the bar, there was Suvaris as well as a few dunmer he did not recognize. he takes a seat at the bar and the innkeeper approaches.

"what'll you have?"

" I'll have a leg of goat roast."

"sure, anything else?"

"Do you have any Sujamma?"

"Wish I did"

"how about Ale?"

"Coming right up"

The innkeeper leaves the counter but returns after a short while with Sarydos' order, he places a leg of goat roast and a bottle of ale in front of Sarydos, he picks up the goat roast and begins eating. He hears footsteps behind him, it's Suvaris she sits on the stool next to him.

"Remember me?"

"Yeah."

The innkeeper looks confused.

"You two know each other?"

She looks at him.

"This is the one that beat Rolff Stone-Fist into the ground"

"More like Clumsy-Fist if you ask me"

Sarydos adds.

"You put that fetcher in his place?" The Innkeeper asked, astonished. The other patrons and employee look up from what they're doing.

"Yeah, it was almost too easy." Sarydos answers before taking a swig of ale to wash down the roast.

"Well in that case, consider that food and drink on the house!" The innkeeper proclaims happily.

The front door of the cornerclub opens and closes, Sarydos turns to see who it is. he recognizes the the dunmer and altmer venders from the marketplace, the altmer woman takes a seat at a nearby while the dunmer heads in their direction.

"what's going on here?"

"Aval, good timing." The innkeeper says, Aval looks confused. The innkeeper points at Sarydos.

"This fellow here put Rolff Stone-Fist on his ass!"

"Did he now?" Aval asks

"It's true, I saw the whole thing." Suvaris adds.

Aval looks at Suvaris.

"What happened?"

"Earlier today Rolff and that dingy nord Angrenor were hounding me." She began

"Really?"

Aval asked sounding angered

"Yes, they approached me and just wouldn't leave me alone, insulting me and accusing me of being an imperial spy. Our friend here came and stood up for me." She continued. "He gave Rolff quite a thrashing and sent him limping off."

"Rolff, that fetcher wait til I see him again." Aval said "And Angrenor too, the next time he asks me for a septim I'm gonna spit on him." They all laugh at Aval

"What?! I'm serious!" He yells.

"I'm sure you are brother" Suvaris chuckles.

after an evening of light-hearted merriment at the cornerclub Sarydos set out towards Candlehearth Hall, unfortunately the Cornerclub didn't have any rooms for rent and none of the other dunmer could spare the room he was sure but didn't ask because he didn't want to burden them. He opened the door and stepped outside when he heard a commotion nearby.

"We don't want your kind here, dark elves!"

He recognized that obnoxious drunken voice.

"You like living in this filthy slum, dark elves? Maybe you should go back to Morrowind, where you belong!"

He looked up the street to see none other than Rolff Stone-Fist shouting drunkenly, wobbling in place mumbling to himself in between his shouting with a tankard in hand.

"This place reeks of gray-skin filth!" He shouts again. Angered, Sarydos shouts back

"You must have a death wish, Clumsy-Fist!"

Rolff stops and looks towards where he heard the threat. Sarydos approaches him.

"You should've stayed home, fetcher!" He snarls at the nord. Rolff tosses the empty tankard at him and attempts to make a run for it. Sarydos dodges the tankard and takes off after Rolff. He quickly catches up with the nord who is Stumble-running trying to escape, a hard punch to the back of the head foils his escape and sends him tumbling to the stone, he lays sprawled out on the dirty stone street groaning in pain.

"Aggghhhhhhh..." He groans in pain.

"You really should've stayed home." Sarydos growls. Sarydos thinks about what he should do next when suddenly he hears rapid footsteps heading his way. He looks up to see a Windhelm city guard running towards him.

"What's going on here?" The Guard demands in a thick nordic accent

"He took an arrow to the knee" Sarydos say sarcastically.

"Very funny, what really happened?" Says the guard in an annoyed tone.

"I have no idea, I found him like this." He looks down at Rolff then back up at the guard. "I think he might've had too much to drink."

"Lousy milk-drinker can't handle his mead."

Sarydos simply shrugs his shoulders and continues down the road towards Candlehearth Hall.

'That was close."

He thinks to himself. When he reaches the Inn he opens the door and lets himself in and as soon as he turns around the first thing he hears in a very irritating voice is:

"Another dark elf. Just what Windhelm needs"

He looks to see the nordic innkeeper leaning over the counter looking at him with a disgusted look on her face, not wanting to try his luck hitting another nord he just slams ten septims on the counter and heads toward his rented room for some rest.

'This town has a serious attitude problem' He thinks to himself as he closes his door, he removes his armor and puts on a hoodless red dunmer outfit. He places his bag, his sword, and his armor in the corner of the room on a table. He lays down and closes his eyes.