Just Trying to Survive

Summary: When two longtime friends and a service dog get thrown into Skyrim without any warning, both are firmly set on staying away from anything that might kill them. But with injured Jarls, curious dragons, and polite bandits continuing to knock on their door, they know that they'll get pulled into the thick of things whether they want to or not. NO!Dragonborn, OCs, slightly OOC characters

Yes, I know I have like 3 other stories that I need to get around to updating, but it's been hard to find the motivation to write them. I won't be abandoning them, but just bear with me please! I'll get to updating them soon. For now, this is what my mind came up with~

Disclaimer: I Silent Kage do not own TES:Skyrim or any of TES games mentioned. The OC's Alex, Robyn, and Liam, however, are mine.

Sun light filtered through the treetops down to the ground, where the spotty morning light illuminated the form of two sleeping people and a large dog. Though, from how all three were laying, it seemed more likely that they had collapsed on the forest floor than fallen asleep. The dog was the first to awake. He let out a small whimper, as if it was causing him pain to stand up, but when he did, he was quick to move to the side of one of the women. The large beast was completely black, and much larger than any of the dogs or wolves of Skyrim. He sniffed the woman over and began nudging her urgently with his nose around her stomach and face. The woman on the right, as both of the persons on the ground were female, groaned softly as she awoke, batting the cold nose away with her hand.

"Stop it, Liam… Five more… minutes…"

The woman yawned and rolled over on her side, away from the persistent nudging. The hood to her cloak slipped off, though, when she turned her back to the dog, Liam. The woman was a Nord with long golden blonde hair that spilled over her shoulders and onto the ground. She had a pale complexion, with average cheek bones, dark eyelashes, and pale lips, and had she opened her eyes, one would notice that her eyes were a light green. Beside her on the ground was a hunting bow, along with a quiver of steel arrows, a steel sword, and an iron dagger.

Liam, frustrated at his mistress's dismissal of him, began pawing at her back, which made the woman realize that she hadn't trimmed his nails in quite some time.

"Damn it Liam! Quit try to shred… my… holy shit…"

The woman had woken up and quickly sat up in an upright position to stop the scratching, and just realized that she had no idea where she was.

"W-Where am I?"

Beside her, Liam barked, which drew her attention away from the surrounding woods and over to her beloved service dog, only to let out a small shriek.

"L-Liam?!"

The large dog, that didn't even look remotely like her medium sized British Lab, barked again and wagged its tail before squeezing his head underneath her arm and plopping down in her lap.

"Oomph!"

He had been heavy in her lap when he was 70 pounds, but the woman estimated he had to be closer to 110 pounds now, and it seemed like all of the circulation in her legs was being cut off.

"L-Liam! Get off my legs before you crush me! Off, boy!"

Slowly, with almost a pout, the large dog slunk off her lap and laid down beside her with a whine. Looking around again, the woman noticed another person still asleep nearby, though they too were covered by a cloak with their back to her. All of a sudden, she remembered who she was with last.

"Alex!"

Scrambling up, the woman raced over to her asleep friend and knelt down beside her before shaking her shoulders in an effort to wake her up.

"Alex, wake up!"

"Mmmm… Noooo….Too early, Robyn…."

Alex rolled onto her back and the woman stopped shaking her friend to stop and stare at her in shock.

"Holy shit… Alex?"

"Whaaaat?"

"W-Why are you a Khajiit?"

Blearily, Alex cracked her eyes open to squint at her friend above her.

"Robyn, what the hell are you- Holy shit! What the hell happened to you?!"

"Me?! What about you?! You're a fucking Khajiit! And what do you mean 'What the hell happened to me?!'"

"What?!"

Alex sat up and looked down at her hands, only to find her once human hands were now covered in fine brown striped fur with sharp white claws extending from her fingertips.

"Oh. My. God…. This is awesome!"

Alex jumped to her feet in a swift motion and turned her head to look over her shoulder to look at the striped black and brown tail that poked out beneath her grey wool cloak. She looked back at Robyn, who had stood up beside her, and gave her a cat like grin.

"This is so- Wait, how are you still taller than me?"

Robyn grinned down at Alex, who, by Khajiit standards, was at least a foot shorter than the average Khajiit, which meant that she was only up to Robyn's shoulder, with her Nord height working for her.

"Wait, Robyn, what do I look like? I don't have a mirror on me…."

Robyn looked over Alex for a moment. Obviously on the shorter side, Alex now had a a fur coat of a medium brown with dark brown and black stripes on her face, similar to a tiger. She had dark brown, almost black hair that was styled into dreadlocks that were held in a loose ponytail and fell down her back. Her slitted and slanted cat eyes were a dark green, which were framed by long black eyelashes. She also had higher cheekbones while her cheeks themselves were white, a dark brown nose, and her whiskers were long and white, drooping slightly at the ends. Her ears, also a medium brown, had black tuffs of fur on the tips of them, which reminded Robyn of a Lynx.

Robyn explained all of this to Alex, who then spent at least a minute trying to catch a glimpse of the tuffs of fur on the tips of her ears before eventually giving up.

Suddenly, Alex jumped in the air and spun around to face Liam, who had apparently started sniffing at Alex's tail without her knowing. With a startled hiss, Alex jumped behind Robyn, who was too busy laughing her ass off at her friend's cat-like reaction to calm her down.

After another minute or so, Robyn had finally calmed down enough to tell Alex.

"Sweetheart, that's Liam!"

Alex's eyes got wide as she stared at the massive dog that stood in front of Robyn that was happily wagging its tail.

"He got huge!"

"Yeah, tell me about it…"

Liam barked once, knowing he was being talked about, before Robyn suddenly turned to Alex.

"Wait, you said that I looked different earlier… I'm still human, obviously, but…?"

Alex scratched her head as she looked Robyn over.

"Well, to be honest, you kinda look like a female Ulfric, just ya know, more feminine…. And with boobs. Emphasis on the boobs, seriously."

Robyn looked down and realized that, while Alex had been graced by whatever Gods brought them here with Leather Armor, she, on the other hand, had been graciously given Hide Armor to wear.

Robyn cursed and drew her cloak closer around her to cover up the insane amount of cleavage that the hide armor made her have while Alex was laughing up a storm at her friends dilemma.

"Oh shut up!"

Robyn was distracted, though, when she finally caught sight of her now long blonde locks when one of her side braids fell into her view. Fingering her braid for a moment, Robyn tugged on it to make sure it was real, and after a slight pain from her scalp, she let in fall from her grasp.

"So, now what?"

Robyn turned around and looked at their surroundings for the umpteenth time before shrugging her shoulders.

"Truthfully, I have no idea. Obviously we're in Tamriel somewhere, most likely Skyrim, due to the weather and foliage, but the when and locations… Hell, we could be decades before Alduin shows up, or even years after he's been defeated."

Alex's ears flatted on the top of her skull, "I really hope neither of us is the Dragonborn… That'd be cool and all, to be able to shout, but I'm pretty sure we'd probably get ourselves killed on our first 'go kill this Dragon' mission."

Robyn sighed but nodded her head in agreement, "Second."

Both Alex and Robyn glanced at each other before looking down at Liam, who continued to wag his tail while staring up at Robyn.

"Well, I guess we'd better find civilization first and try to figure out where we are… Let me just grab these first…"

Robyn turned back to where she had woken up in order to grab the weapons she remembered seeing, only to now find a leather backpack sitting innocently next to the small pile of weapons.

"What the hell…?"

She walked over to the pile and picked up the back first and rummaged through it. Some food, a few potions, a change of clothes (which, at closer inspection, turned out to be a blacksmith's outfit), a few rings, and a necklace was all she found in the bag, and after realizing that there were enchantments on one of the rings and the necklace, Robyn slipped them both on, immediately feeling sneakier and quieter on her feet.

Looking over to Alex found that she also had what seemed to be an identical leather backpack, only this time, Alex was pulling out a few spell books. Ignoring her for a moment, Robyn turned back to her own bag and put it on her back before starting to equip her weapons. First the quiver of arrows across her backpack, then the bow which hung off of one of her shoulders, then her sword which was on one hip, and then her dagger, which was strapped to her other hip. Checking to make sure they were firmly secure, Robyn patted Liam, who had followed her over, on the head before turning back to Alex to watch her put her own bow and quiver across her back along with a dagger before immediately picking up one of the spell books.

Robyn shook her head and walked over next to her, with Liam heeling beside her.

"You'll have time to read those later, Alex."

Alex looked up at Robyn with puppy, well, kitty eyes and pouted.

"But…. Flames!"

Robyn rolled her eyes, "Fine, whatever. Just keep one hand on my bag so you don't trip over a root or accidently wander off in the wrong direction."

"Okay!"

Robyn looked down at Liam and nodded her head to her side, "Liam, heel."

Liam gladly trotted to Robyn's other side and then they were off walking. Robyn could feel Alex gripping onto the leather strap that held her back closed, so she didn't have to worry about accidently losing her in the woods. She had also chosen a direction to walk in at random, seeing as neither had any clue what was north and what was south as they couldn't get a clear view of the sky to determine where the sun was. The two friends continued their odd train through the woods, with Liam following obediently at Robyn's side, until they came across an old worn path along a river. Looking both left and right, and seeing nothing that indicated a town, Robyn decided to go to the right, and gently tugged Alex in that direction, seeing as she was still reading the Flames spell book. It was almost another hour of walking, with a small break to rest their legs, before they came across a small town that Robyn instantly recognized. Alex would have too, if she hadn't been so absorbed in her book, but that was until Robyn forcefully lowered her book, and made her look down the road.

"Riverwood…"

Suddenly, a loud thundering roar sounded in the far distance behind them, and the two spun around to get a glimpse of a large black dragon disappearing behind the large Nordic ruins known as Bleak Falls Burrow.

Liam growled, and both women stood frozen for a few minutes, merely staring off in the distance where the dragon had disappeared off to before they both turned as one to look at each other.

"I-I'm pretty sure I know where we are in the game now…"

Alex gave Robyn a deadpanned stare, "No shit, Sherlock."