It was a fools errand. We all knew it, yet what else was there to be done? The dominion stood strong with their grasp on the empire stronger, Ulfric Stormcloak held captive, the war was essentially over. We sat on our wooden stools at our round table by the hearth of The Winking Skeever. Neither of us wanting to hear the signal just yet, all of us having one last drink before our probable deaths. We drank half heartedly as the bard sung her sickening anti-stormcloak symphony.

We drink to our youth, for the days come and gone

For the age of aggression is just about done, we'll

drive out the stormcloaks and restore what we own

with our blood and our steel we will take back our home

Down with Ulfric! The killer of kings, on the day of your

death we will drink and we'll sing, we're the children of

Skyrim and we fight all our lives, and when sovngarde

beckons every one of us dies! But this land is ours and

we'll see it wiped clean, of the scourge that has our hopes

and our dreams.

Much to my dismay and guilt, Erik, or as I jokingly called him, Erik The Slayer was sitting to my left, staring into the fire, twiddling the little obsidian dagger I gave him between his fingers. I looked at the dagger and felt a pang of guilt. He was a dear friend, much like a brother whom I needed to protect. After all it was my fault he was here. He was too young, still a boy and I brought him into this world of war and death and I broke him. I watched him closely, his expression blank, his once vivacious green eyes were cold and empty, as if staring into the eyes of a dead man, and it was my fault. As I stared I began to remember what things were like before. He was thirteen when I met him, he ran the Frostfruit Inn with his father Mralki, an ex legionnaire for the empire in the small village of Rorikstead. It had been a long winter and I had been travelling around Skyrim in search of adventure, as a young woman in armor I was a sight to see. Tired and hungry I stumbled into the inn to hear a borderline hysterical screech. "See father! It's an adventurer! It's a sign! A sign I tell you!" Mralki muttered something about little boys and their silly dreams and sent him away to clean the rooms. I sat down at the bar and instantly struck conversation with the man, he told me of his son's dream to become an adventurer and how he couldn't do it because he was so small and frail and young. I knew that all it was, was the fact that he was scared of losing the only family he had, he explained how he knew his son would leave eventually but the thought of it crippled him.

I'd spent about a week at the inn, far longer than I'd ever stayed anywhere, when his father wasn't around to tell him off Erik would ask me about my adventures, and sure enough I told him stories of how Amren and I journeyed through Black Marsh, the deadliest province of all of Tamriel. I saw spirit in the boy, the kind of raw excitement and curiosity that disappears once children reach a certain age. I wanted nothing more than to nurture it, and like an idiot I promised to take him with me some day, until then I gave him a dagger to practise fighting with.

Sure enough, I did come back for him and all was well for a little while alas, we all ended up at that table by the hearth, as for Erik, no one knew what had happened to him before. Except me.