I watch as the horses walked the cobblestone path; pulling our wagon along without a clue of the tragic end we'll all have once we reach our destination.
Biting my lip, I turn my gaze away from the horse and stare at my fellow prison mates.
A blonde Nord notices me staring, and begins to chat with me for a little bit. He then scoffs at the poor man beside me bound and gagged.
"That's the High King of Skyrim! You'd better watch your mouth!" A man named Ralof tells Lokir. "He led the Stormcloak Rebellion against the Empire!"
Lokir sits back stunned and lowers his eyes. "I apologize, your highness." I don't even know who these people are.
I feel the carriage bounce as we hit a bump, and notice that we're finally in Helgen. It is here that I am to die.
As the men talk among themselves, I don't pay attention. I don't feel like talking. However, I don't know how to feel at all, considering that I don't even remember who I am.
Just this morning, I woke up in a prison, and later heard that I had illegally crossed the border. But when I had woken, I didn't remember my past. So here I am to die; without any memories to flash before my eyes.
The cart stops and I take in a deep breath.
"We're here. May the gods keep us in mind." Lokir says with fear in his eyes.
A soldier begins to call us forward, and suddenly it's my turn.
"Ah, an Imperial. How interesting." The soldier strokes his chin as he looks at me. "What is your name, Imperial?"
I sigh and think about this question. What is my name? Suddenly, I am able to remember at least that. "My name is Odara."
His eyes stare at the checklist he holds so casually in his hands, and looks back at me. "Your name is not on the list of rebels…" I feel my heart dance happily for a moment. He turns to the woman next to him. "What should we do with her?"
The woman looks me over and sneers. "Just treat her like the rest of them."
At this point, I walk to the place where I should be beheaded. There are plenty of prisoners standing with ropes tied around their wrists. I look over at them and notice one staring at me. He is a tall Redguard with long-ish hair. I squint to get a better look at him, and notice that he is analyzing me as well. Perhaps we knew each other before I lost my memory.
My eyes leave him and look down at the bloodied stone pavement in front of me. There is a block where each prisoner is to place his head, a man wielding an axe, and a basket for the head to fall. I swallow and grab my arm nervously.
"The Divines! Bless these poor wretched souls! Let them die quickly-" An old Priestess calls to the heavens, but is interrupted by a strange roar in the distance. I glance at the cloudy sky but see nothing.
Then I look back at the block, and a shaking man bows his head. The man with the axe wipes his forehead and raises the axe above his head. I squeal and squeeze my eyes shut; too afraid to even hear anything. When I open one eye, the man's lifeless body lies slumped on the box, and I do not dare to look in the basket.
"You're next." The axe wielder toothily grins at me. I bite my lip and step forwards to the block. The scent of blood is strong, and I almost have to hold my nose. My head goes down towards the block now, and I see the prisoner's resting head lying in the basket. I gag, so my murderer kicks my back and I fall onto the block.
"The only mess I'm willin' to be seein' on this block is your blood." He spits on me.
I close my eyes and begin to cry. Who am I? Why do I deserve this?
"Aus, dir, du, faas!" I hear from above me from a ferocious roar. Everyone begins to scream and run, so I look up and see a dark dragon standing on top of a tower nearby. It keeps on screeching its horrid language above us as it begins to set everything ablaze.
I freeze for a moment, and feel a hand grab my arm. It pulls me up and we begin to run. I glance at the owner of the arm: it's the redguard.
"KRONGRAH!" The dragon screams and soars down close to us. I scream myself and follow the redguard into another tower. There lies wounded victims of the dragon's flames being tended to within, but the redguard takes me past them to speak with Ulfiric, the High King. He instructs us to climb the stairs, so we race up them. About half-way to the top, the wall next to us breaks and there is the dragon; blowing his flames right onto us. I tumble down the stairs and look for my redguard friend. He lies on the stairs next to me.
The dragon flies away now that it's content with its damage. My friend stands up to look down through the opening and looks back at me.
"We must jump from here into the Inn. The upstairs looks stable enough, so we should be able to escape from there." He says, and jumps onto the Inn's second floor.
I come to the entrance of the broken wall and stare down at my new friend. Why in the world is he helping me? Shaking my head, I jump into the room after him and we dash downstairs to get out of there.
Outside, we find ourselves surrounded by flaming wreckage and a scene of horror. We see the Imperial guards trying to fight off the dragon, but there is nothing we can do so we look for an escape. Our random running takes us to a Keep, which is safer.
Inside there is a table and chair, and two gated doors. I watch as my new friend grabs a knife from the table and removes his bindings. Then he walks over to me and removes mine as well.
"It feels pretty free to be without those bindings, am I right?" He gently smiles and sets down the knife. "But man…I didn't even believe dragons existed." Well that's cool, since I can't even remember anything that exists, really.
I search the room for some weapons, and find a sword. Holding the sword in my hand, I swipe the air and raise an eyebrow. This feels familiar.
"So who are you?" I hear my new friend ask me. So he might not know me?
"My name is Odara…I don't know you, right?"
His emerald green eyes widen. "Of course not. Unless I'm mistaken."
I shrug. "I was worried I'd be mistaken. I barely remember who I am. I only remember my name, so if I've ever met you, I wouldn't remember now."
Shaking his head, he grabs a big axe hanging from the wall and leans on it. "You don't remember who you are, huh?" He puts his helmet on.
"Not really." I sigh. "I don't even know where I am to be honest."
"Then I guess you'll find out soon enough." He replies, and then grins at me. "By the way, my name is Raesh. I live in Riverwood, but you probably have no idea where that is, do you?"
I smile and shake my head; looking around the room some more. "So, Raesh, any idea on how to get out of here?"
Raesh walks about the room for a bit and finds a wooden grating. The gates open up for us. "This answer your question?"
We walk down the hallway until our feet approach an open doorway. Stormcloak soldiers notice us from inside, and leave the dining table to kill us. Yes, to kill us. It seems questioning intruders is not an option.
Raesh steps in front of me and swings out his axe. The soldier dodges him and attempts to strike with his sword, but is stopped by the handle of Raesh's axe. Then he was able to swing the axe once more until its side hit the soldier's head. However, he was able to do this without slicing the guy's head off.
"Raesh! What are you doing?" I scream in horror as I stare at the slumped soldier. At least he isn't dead, but he certainly isn't conscious.
More soldiers come at us. Raesh ignores my pleas and continues to attack them full on. Then some soldiers started walking towards me as well. I fearfully pull out my sword.
"I-I don't want to kill you guys!" I say shakily. They ignore me and start trying to decapitate me. One of them keeps swinging his long sword at me, while the other carries a morning star. I am too shocked to move. The morning star slams into my shoulder, and I howl in pain. Raesh jumps in and smacks both with the axe from behind. They hit the ground within seconds.
"See why I have no mercy?" Raesh crosses his arms. "And they're not dead…" Then he bends down and starts to loot off of them; winking at me. "However, we might as well take their armor…"
Frowning, I clench my fists. "I'm not taking their armor."
His eyes gaze over my bloodied shoulder. "Um…I really think it'd be a good idea. Besides, there's more of these loons past this room."
My eyes follow his towards the next doorway leading to another hallway.
"Fine…" I bend over another person and started taking his armor off. "But he's gonna be pretty dang cold when he wakes up."
Once we are well equipped, we continue our way through the Keep. More and more guards meet us along the way, and none of them are friendly. Unfortunately, Raesh has to keep saving my butt since I keep freezing up when threatened. Eventually, though, we enter a room with a few cages for prisoners. Inside, there's tons of supplies.
"Grab some bread and other supplies from here. We'll need it." Raesh orders me as he starts grabbing different things.
"Isn't that stealing?" I stare at him, even though I started developing a familiarity with this whole looting and stealing thing.
He shakes his head. "Everyone is racing to get out of here anyway. After all, that freaking dragon is destroying the whole place. Wouldn't be surprised if it's all in ruins by the time the dragon is finished."
I find many lockpicks lying around, lots of food (not the best though, who eats cabbages by themselves?), books, and other random knick knacks. The lockpicks help me to open some of the cages to grab some bags of coins. I figure I'll need some of that when we're free. However, it's a single book lying on a table that really catches my interest. It's black, and has an interesting dragon symbol on the front. I open the book and read the title, "The Book of the Dragonborn".
"Hey Raesh, what's a Dragonbron?" I look at him. His head is lost in one of the chests. He looks up and is wearing a cool helmet with horns sticking out on both sides.
He stares at nothing in thought for a moment, then looks back at me again. "To be honest, I'm not entirely sure." Then he laughs slightly. "In fact, I might have said earlier that I didn't even know dragons existed."
"Me neither…" I say and shove the book in my pocket. I just noticed! I can fit things the size of books inside my pockets! How do I do that?
But anyways, I wonder what a "dragonborn" is. This will be an interesting read when I get the chance. I feel major vibrations, and we hear the dragon roar loudly again.
"We should hurry." Raesh says and grabs my shirt to pull me along. I wonder why he enjoys dragging me around so much? "Also, take this. I found a bow and some arrows." I take the tools absent-mindedly.
After a bit more walking in the hallway, we find ourselves entering a cave. It's absolutely beautiful though! It's a bit foggy inside, but…Oh my gosh…Are those SPIDERS?
"Raesh…" I instantly squeeze his arm. "There's spiders in here! Let's kill them, please!"
He laughs a bit and pulls out his iron axe. "There just a couple of pests, is all." I watch him hack away at one of the spiders. Another starts creeping up behind him, but he doesn't notice.
"Raesh!" I squeal, but he doesn't hear. "RAESH!" He keeps smacking the spider, and the other is getting closer. What should I do? Should I let the spider eat Raesh and stay safe, or attempt to kill it? Well, I don't exactly like the idea of potentially being spider food. Then again, Raesh has saved my butt about a million times within the hour. Hmm…
"RAWWWWWRRRR!" I attempt to roar as I run at the spider. My sword is raised above my head, and I'm ready to slice his head off. Except…Raesh turns around and slices the spider's head off for me. I stop dead in my tracks and groan. While I was afraid to battle the spider, I had at least initiated battling. The least Raesh could've done was to let me finish my amazing heroic mission.
"Ah well…"I pant and continue to walk to Raesh. He's already looting off of the dead spiders.
"Gross…Why would you steal their body parts?" I stare at him.
Raesh packs the pieces in his never ending pocket and grins at me. "I like making money."
We continue walking through the cave, this time Raesh taking care to slash at every spider egg we pass by. It seems that spiders tend to like to place those everywhere. As we do this though, Raesh continues to loot the eggs too. I can't understand how our pockets can hold all of that.
"Hey Raesh…Why can our pockets hold so much stuff?" I look at him as we approach a small bank of water in the cave.
"Oh that's easy, Odara! You see we…" He falters into silence and stares. Then he wrenches on me and pulls me with him behind a rock.
"What the heck are you-"
"Shhhh…" He shushes me and points quietly. "Do you see it? A bear?"
My eyes search and find one drinking water. I smile. "A bear! I think my memory is coming back on those. They're cute, cuddly, play fetch…"
"That's a dog." Raesh whispers. "Now pull out your bow and shoot a couple arrows at him. Be careful though, we don't want him charging at us. It's better if we keep our distance for this guy."
"I don't know…" I say as I pull out the bow. "I think giant spiders are much, much worse." Squinting one eye, I focus on the bear's butt and pull back the arrow. I look at Raesh. "Now what?"
"Let go of the arrow." He says impatiently.
"Why don't you just do this you'd be way better at it-"
"JUST SHOOT, ODARA." He whispers angrily. I let go.
The bear is struck, but isn't dead. It turns around and snorts furiously. Then he catches a glimpse of me and starts running at us.
Raesh stands in front of me again and starts slashing with his axe. The bear jumps at him and he slams the ground. If the bear wasn't dangerous, I probably would've laughed as they rolled on the ground. But instead of that, I pulled my sword out of its sheath and started striking the bear. It moaned and snapped at me, but missed. With one more strike, it fell over.
"It's not dead, is it?" I say with a worried tone. I don't want to kill it…
Raesh weakly sits up and looks at the bear with annoyance. "No…I think it's just stunned." He then stands up. "Here, I'm going to pack some bear pelt. You should take some too in case you need extra money, or plan to work with leather."
"What's leather again?" I look at him.
After that close battle with the bear, we find the mouth of the cave. It shines brightly with light, and when we step outside, we're welcomed to beautiful forest and mountains. I look down and see a huge amount of flowers. Raesh is already picking them.
"Raesh! Stahp! You're ruining nature!" I cry and pull on him.
He stands up and rolls his eyes. "You've got a lot to learn. I'll be making potions with these, and its best you learn how to do that yourself."
We stand silently for a bit. I look behind him at the path that leads to…somewhere.
"Um…So now what?" I break the silence.
His eyes widen. "What? Oh…uh…I guess I'll head back to Riverwood."
My heart begins to beat quickly with fear. He's leaving. I'll be alone. I have no idea what the heck is going on right now and he dares to leave me!
"Hey…" I casually nudge his arm. "Buddy ol' pal...I kind of don't know who I am or really anything about where I am..and um…that's kind of awkward so…uh…" How can I ask him to let me follow him for a bit longer?
Raesh looks confused at first, but then his face softens. "Oh, right." Then he smiles and laughs. "You can come with me if that's what you want. There's an Inn you can stay at, too."
"Oh…thank GOODNESS!" I scream and give him a great big hug. When I let go, he looks horrified.
"Yeah, um…Just please no hugging. That's creepy." Raesh says and wipes his shoulders off.