Crobuck
Crobuck walked into the Bee and Barb, a solidly built local tavern near the center of the bustling town of Riften, and looked around. He noticed a young woman in worn leather armor offering him a scornful look from the north corner of the main dining room. Crobuck walked over to meet her.
"What do you want?"
Crobuck shook his head, "You're a pleasant enough sort." He snorted derisively and paused to consider her for a moment. "I'm new to this city; I thought you looked like someone who knew their way around the place pretty well." She glared at him, "you obviously don't know how this place works. Many a man has lost his life for asking questions here. Everyone minds their own business; you should learn something about that."
Crobuck was slightly taken aback by her aggressiveness. He normally associated aggression on this level with women of his own Orcish race. He looked down at her
"I apologize fo-"
The woman interrupted him, "don't be sorry. Just go away. I want to be miserable in peace without some idiot Orc bothering me."
Crobuck sat down at a nearby table. His first interaction with a citizen of the city, aside from the guards at the gate trying to drain his coin pouch dry, was not very pleasant. He waved at a passing waiter. The man walked over and offered him a menu.
Crobuck looked up at the man and asked "Is that woman over there always so unapproachable?" the man looked across the lamp-lit room and nodded. Without taking his eyes off the woman, who pretended not to notice the man staring, he said "Her family was killed by bandits led by an Orc. She managed to escape a similar fate but she is like a feral animal now. Stay away from that one."
Crobuck shook his head. "Has anyone tried to help her?" The waiter nodded once more, and responded with "She yelled at them too. Now she resides here, soaks up booze and starts fights with random strangers." The massive Orc said "sounds like the ideal Nord woman." The waiter was not amused and turned his head to look at Crobuck, "she's not a Nord. And she's not ideal for anything other than being a problem." He placed a folded cloth and a tankard on top of it. The metal vessel sweated cool beads of moisture and the faint aroma of honeyed mead was a rare pleasure for the Orc. With this, the waiter walked away to help another patron.
The woman began her approach as the waiter left. Crobuck saw her coming and raised an eyebrow at her as she approached. The lower half of his face was obscured by the mug in his hand; he pushed the chair on the opposite side of the table out with his foot and beckoned her to take a seat in it as he lowered the tankard back onto its linen cloth.
"I'm not your enemy."
Her eyes burned with barely contained anger, it was directed at nothing in particular, just anything she saw; "you're not my friend either; stop trying to get information about me. Last warning." The woman punctuated every word with a minute pause between words.
Crobuck was a massive man, towering over all but the tallest Nords and High Elves; even so, this fiery tempered woman had given him pause. "You're one of the first people ive met in this city and you really are making a bad name for it." She took a step forward, her eyes narrowing to tiny slits as she did so. "You think this is some sort of game? You idiot. This city is a place of secrets, back alley deals and corruption. Under a veneer of pretty wood and vibrant color this place is cancerous. People with nothing left come here and when they get here, they continue to have nothing." Crobuck looked up at the woman; he had enraged her. Crobuck asked nonchalantly,
"People like you?"
It was a low blow and the Orc knew it. He, however, no longer cared. He was tired of being talked to as if he were a simpleton. The woman stiffened as if struck but recovered quickly and drew her daggers, one in each hand. She moved with the grace of an acrobat and with a speed he could barely follow.
Crobuck leapt back from the table, knocking over his chair as he did so. He brandished his own weapons with a raise of his hands. He wore a pair of metal gloves, ribs of metal bands laid one over the other, overlapping like scales, covered his hands. These were perfectly suited for hand to hand engagements. The small woman bore down on him and a plan started to formulate in his mind Crobuck knew he couldn't kill her on his first day in the city but he knew he could win. He just had to knock her down hard enough to gain the upper hand. She was fast and agile but Crobuck was strong and had a reach far longer than hers.
Everyone in the tavern turned to see the fight and they watched in wonder as the two bobbed and wove around each other, seemingly oblivious to the now encircling crowd. The woman lunged at Crobuck and stabbed downward. Her cut never connected, he hit her hand and elbowed her in the face with one smooth motion. However he didn't see her other hand as it came up across his face as she fell.
Her dagger sliced through the delicate tissue and nerves surrounding his eye. The woman tumbled into the crowd and they dissipated, like water flowing around a stone. Crobuck cried out, he tried to see out of his left eye. He found that he couldn't. She had blinded it. The massive man looked down at the woman picking herself up off the floor; she smiled evilly, "told you to get away from me." She had flecks of his maroon blood across her face and in her hair.
Crobuck stormed over to her, kicking her as hard as he could in the stomach. Ribs cracked and the woman screamed, a dreadful sound emitting from her small beaten frame. She slid across the timber floor, worm smooth by years of use. The young woman knocked over a bartender who spilled his mead flagons all over the floor. His drinks gave the air a stuffy sweet smell as they mixed with the grime on the floor. Crobuck wasn't done yet.
He stalked over to her where she was forcing her battered body to uncurl itself. Crobuck picked her up by the throat with one hand and he clamped a vice-like grip on her hands with his other. Mead dripped off of her brow and leather attire. He brought her face to face with him and made her stare at his now blinded eye. The sweet stench of honey mead mixed with the coppery smell of fresh blood was sickening. "Do you know what it's like to want to kill someone so badly you can taste it? Have you ever felt that way? Ever held the life of another in your hands?"
Her eyes had lost a bit of their fury she looked almost scared. Almost. She spat at him, she screamed in his face and tried to bite him. Crobuck smiled, his sightless eye sending tendrils of blood down his face and into his mouth. The blood made a grisly contrast with Crobuck's abnormally white teeth. "I thought so." Crobuck put his face less than an inch from hers, his voice low and dangerous, like distant thunder. "I will put you down woman, but if you attack me, I will kill you where you stand." He dropped her and took a step back.
The woman rubbed her wrists and glared back up at him. "Won't you leave now, or do you not need that other eye?" Crobuck may have been an Orc, but he knew he would not allow her jest at his excruciating wound to force his hand. Crobuck shook his head; he turned his back to her. "I only needed that eye as much as you needed your ribs." The crowd had now retreated to the fringes of the room, peering at the spectacle but utterly silent.
She yelled after him, "don't you walk away from me!" Crobuck gave her another grisly smile "I thought we had nothing to discuss." He continued walking towards the door, talking to her over his shoulder. She huffed and Crobuck heard the scrape of a dagger being pulled through a leather sheath, his elongated ears twitched at the noise. "Only draw it if you plan to use it woman" Crobuck approached the door, just as he was about to open it, he turned and slammed his fist into the rushing woman's face. She may have been quick and quiet, but shadows are hard to hide in lantern-lit taverns.
She cried out again and staggered back. Crobuck raised his foot and kicked her square in the chest. She flew across the room into a table. The wood splintered and broke under her impact. The Orc walked over to her once more. She whimpered but still she stared defiantly up at him. He felt a strange sort of pity for her. It disappeared in an instant. She stabbed one of her daggers that she had hidden under her body into his calf with a demonic scream. Crobuck roared, the patrons winced as the massive man let out his anguish. He brought his foot down on her hand, crushing it to the ground. He picked her up and cuffed her on the side of the head with his meaty fist. Her limp body fell to the ground; she was out for a while and would have one hell of a headache when she came to.
Crobuck looked at the bartender and his bruised eye where he had landed face first on a flagon; "at least you still have yours" he said jokingly. The bartender marveled at the Orc's ability to ignore pain and helped him get the limp body off the floor so the cleanup could begin. Crobuck tossed her over his shoulder and winced as muscles connected to his face from his neck were strained. "Even when she isn't awake she still manages to hurt me."
Crobuck offered the bartender a sour smile and a large pouch of Septims, gold coins that passed as currency in Skyrim. Crobuck opened the well-oiled door of the Bee and Barb and disappeared into the murky streets of late-night Riften.
The Orc walked over to the nearest guard he saw, and the man's helmeted head turned towards him. "Good evening, the disturbance over at the tavern was caused by this little lady", he patted the head of his unwilling companion. Wincing as he accidentally shifted her weight against his neck, pulling on some agonizing muscles.
"Can you direct me to the nearest apothecary or healer or whatever passes for one around here?" The guard bobbed his helmeted head up and down. Having all the guards wear the same full face helmets gave them a certain type of unsettling anonymity, something Crobuck understood they frequently used to their advantage.
The guard said "around the city circle there is the Temple of Mara, they will fix you up as well as they can. But to fix that", the guard pointed at the wounded Orc's eye," You need to visit the Temple of Kynareth in Whiterun." Crobuck thanked the guard and continued on to his destination, Mara's temple.
