The Necromancer and the Archer
There are many stories of great heroes and despicable villains that can be found throughout the realm of Mundus. Selfless warriors, brilliant magisters and cunning rogues that have left their footprints in the annals of history. Yet this is not the story of some grand champion that goes on to save all of Tamriel and it can hardly be called a story at all. More it is simply a glimpse of a tired, lonely necromancer that had happened to meet a stealthy archer girl.
This particular necromancer had taken up residency in Breezehome, a simple house in the city of Whiterun. Many would think it odd that a necromancer would be living in Skyrim, given the hostility against those that practiced necromancy there. But this necromancer was listless and tired and had long ago surrendered to the machinations that reality had apparently laid out for him. There was nothing remarkable about him. His entire life had amounted to nothing noteworthy; in fact, even thinking upon his past could bring this particular necromancer down into a depression. He was not destined for grand adventures or a life of excitement, or so he had thought. Or at least not until a cute and wonderfully sharp-minded archer girl had fallen into his gloomy life with no warning.
The necromancer was currently fussing with his belongings, all of which he had stuffed in the chest in his room. He had always been too lazy to put his items anywhere else.
"So what are you up to today?" A slender figured appeared by the side of the necromancer. No sound, no warning whatsoever. The figure only made her presence known because she wanted to.
"Just packing," the necromancer answered matter-of-factly without looking up.
"Oh, are you going on a trip?" the archer cocked her head to the side. The necromancer finally looked over at her and saw a beautiful, sly smile on her face.
"Yeah! Going to go on a journey with a certain flower picking stealth archer. I'll leave Lydia in charge of guarding the house. I made her promise to get a fresh bread loaf to munch on. She's been eating that old one for a few months now and I worry she'll come down with some disease."
"Is Lydia going to take care of Meeko too, or is he coming along?"
"Depends on what you want to do," the necromancer said. "Sofie might like some company besides Lydia.
"Yeah, Lydia is tough company sometimes. Bless her heart."
"She means well though." The necromancer finished messing with his inventory.
"She does. You know everything will be in good hands. And she doesn't ask for much. It's a lovely day for a trip."
"We could head towards Black Marsh," the necromancer paused for a moment, trying to think things through. "Or maybe High Rock."
"Whichever you think is better this time of year," the archer said.
"Probably High Rock for now. We can enjoy the southern Black Marsh during the colder seasons."
"Good thinking. I imagine it's pretty humid right now."
"It's always humid in Black Marsh. It can be a nice change from Skyrim's snow though."
"How true that is," the archer agreed as she led the necromancer down the stairs.
"How shall we travel?" the necromancer asked as they left the house. "Horse-drawn wagon? Traveling too far in my ebony boots gives me some bad blisters. Though I guess I could just cast a healing spell."
"I vote wagon. Save you your feet and your magicka."
"Sounds good. Plus, I can just sleep in the wagon along the way. It will feel like I'm fast traveling."
"Good thinking. Fast traveling eliminates the bandit threat," the archer pointed out.
"Exactly. And it's… well, fast." It was a tad difficult to come up with witty retorts as the necromancer watched the wind flip the archer's short blonde hair about in the most serene way imaginable as they walked down the street.
"Unless you reach your destination in the dead of night and wind up waiting outside a locked door for six hours. Ha ha!"
"Yeah… that happens a lot. Have to find something to do to pass the time. That, or pick the lock… and rob the place blind in the dead of night."
"I always get caught," the archer confessed.
"'Stop right there, criminal scum!' Hard not to get caught when the guards are telepathic. How do they even know when we are in the house? They just show up and arrest us! Totally unfair."
"There's nothing like that moment when you leave a house and automatically zoom in on an angry guard. Makes me jump every time."
"Yeah! Freaky. Maybe we don't pick the lock and rob the place," the necromancer conceded.
"Fair enough. We can just camp out until the place gets unlocked."
"Sounds like the best option."
"Yeah. Last thing we want is for a homeowner to find us in their house. 'You're not supposed to be here!'"
"So, we gonna camp outside or find a nearby cave?" the necromancer asked as they continued their leisurely stroll down the street towards the edge of Whiterun. "Or maybe an old abandoned fort? Or shell out the gold and stay at the inn?"
"Let's stay at the inn. The bard knows two songs and we can have a bite to eat."
"Alright sounds good. I'm a bit tired and we might have to fight for the cave or fort. Oooo I could go for some sweetrolls and cheese."
"Don't let anyone steal your sweetroll!"
"I'll keep my eye on it. If they want it, they're gonna have to have a pretty high pickpocket skill."
"I hear the guards don't take sweetroll theft seriously."
"They're a bunch of jerks. Always making conjuration jokes at me. I will not conjure them up some warm food and a bed. Jerks. I don't even know the Conquer Bed spell. Or we wouldn't be spending our gold getting a room here."
"They make snide remarks about my honeyed words or some such nonsense. Don't take it personally."
"Yeah, I won't take it personally. What do I care what they think? They're so unimportant they don't even have names."
"Maybe that's why they are so unhappy. Maybe we should hook one of them up with Lydia."
"That's a great idea. I'm sure Lydia would like that very much," the necromancer said.
"She might even smile! … maybe." The archer's lazy walk teetered off and she simply stood there for a moment.
"She could use a good time after all the hard work she puts in carrying our burdens and whatnot." The necromancer stopped and turned to see why the archer had stopped. He simply found her looking at him and he returned the gaze of his companion. Her eyes were the color of a cloudy day; he loved cloudy days.
"Agreed. I'll bet she's shy under that tough exterior so it might take a bit of effort to get her to go along with it though," the archer gently nodded and started fidgeting with her hands.
"I'm sure with our speechcraft combined we can convince her to give one of them a chance. Either that or I could try casting an attract spell… but that may be… unethical."
"Yeah any kind of charm spell might be a problem. We'll have to let the natural charm of the guard do the work." The archer gave the necromancer a wink and a smile before resuming their walk again.
"Because they are such charmers. They all used to be adventurers, you know. Till they took an arrow to the knee."
"Those wayward arrows ruined the lives of so many adventurers."
"I know! There's some kind of stealthy archer menace afoot," the necromancer chided.
The archer started to whistle innocently.
"Whoever it is sure has it out for knees," the necromancer deadpanned.
"Maybe the person is insecure about the appearance of their own knees."
"They wouldn't be the only one then. Society has built up an unrealistic expectation for knees lately." The necromancer figured this wasn't about knees. He'd have to be a complete lack-wit to think that. But looking at the archer, he couldn't comprehend what she would be so insecure about. She looked beautiful, at least to him. If anything, she was so beautiful it made him feel insecure.
"Beauty standards are pretty high everywhere I guess," the archer said with a sigh.
"People show too much knee these days. They need to know when to keep their grieves on."
"If people covered their knees there wouldn't be arrows in them." The archer started to fiddle with her bow.
"Exactly. Well, I guess not everyone can afford grieves though. But I'm sure the Grey Fox could get the poor some knee coverings so no one has any excuse."
"Everyone should have a right to affordable grieves."
"Yeah!" The necromancer figured the arrows would start flying soon enough, but that was all part of the fun. It was the first time he had felt genuinely happy and excited about the future. He was finally going on an adventure! And he didn't have to go it alone.