Foreword: I do not own TES Lore, Khajiiti Lore and naming conventions, or the content provided by the mods installed on the playthrough that inspired this. I do not own TES characters or mod-added characters. Jori, Nene, M'Harji, S'Rukoh, M'Neji and Dro'Neji are mine.

Installed mods that might change how this is written/what is true in this universe are:

DLCS-Hearthfire and Dawnguard

Convenient Horses and Convenient Herding

Skyrim Monster Mod

Automatic Variants

Immersive Armors, Immersive Weapons, JaySuS Swords, Weapons of the Third Era, etc etc a few other lore-friendly leveled-list mods w/ weps n armor.

Apocalypse Spells, Duel - Combat Realism, and Skyrim Perk Enhancements and Rebalanced Gameplay

Brehanin's Better Vampirism

Ultimate Follower Overhaul, the Fair Khajiit Companion

Millview house and Warlord Stockade.

My little Kitty-Ma'Isha and My Little Hatchling-Ram-Ku and My little Kitty-Ma'Rahka

Dudestia's MultiMarriage

Werewolf Mastery-werewolf+vampire mods, etc

Expanded Towns and Cities

Rules about Vampires: Vampires are stronger when recently fed. Feeding may be done on living people and animals, and very recently dead people and animals. Younger vampires (S'Rukoh's age) must feed every few nights. Vampires do not take damage from the sun, but are sensitive to light and sound. Vampires can smell blood from a distance. Vampires gain more power the more blood they have, and may expend blood to regenerate wounds, perform feats of strength or agility, or enhance their senses for a short period of time. Vampires may not regenerate lost limbs or organs. A vampire's body works by circulating other being's blood the way a living thing would, and get colder the less blood they have. Vampires are immune to cold (but not ice/being forzen),disease, and poison, but are weak to fire, silver, and damage to the circulatory system. Vampires are different based on where they are turned/there are different kinds/tribes of vampires. Vampires only learn how to recognize one another by clan if they remain with the group they are born into. Animals and undead may be less aggressive toward vampires, but are not completely docile or similar to thralls.

PS Queer and gender variant people exist, please don't read if that'll get your panties in a twist.


"There is no place so pretty as a new place, this one thinks."

A curly-haired dog barked in the chilly night air, and a horse's hooves unsteadily moved over rough, hilly terrain. It was the thirteenth of Last Seed, nearly the end of the summer and the time of harvesting. The Rift of Skyrim was enduring the end of summer as it always had. There were golden leaves in the trees and coating the hills and stones. There was a wet shimmer on every surface, and a dampness in the air, which coursed between the trees and past the dens of the beasts to fill every farm and ruin in the area. Farmers worked day and night to bring the year's work to fruition, steadily moving up and down their portion of the Rift's tumbled and rolling landscape.

Crawling down the face of one of these many wet hills was a red cathay-raht, seated atop the horse and carefully balancing the dog in front of him on the saddle. This Khajiit was called S'Rukoh, his brown horse was M'Harji, and the dog was named Nene. The horse was massive, as horses go, with a big, trusting face and hungry lips that reached out for anything they could. She was dark brown with a creamy medicine cap, and a long, unruly mane. Her saddle was old and well worn, with two lightly-packed saddlebags. Nene had tiny, dark and unevenly trimmed curls. She had a nub of a tail and folded ears. The hair about her face was longer than on her body, hiding her slim muzzle and beady black eyes. The Khajiit had russet fur, bright, pink eyes, and long, dark hair. He wore banded iron plate, with all manner of embroidery on the gambeson and clothing underneath. A massive bow, just as tall as the large cathay-raht, was tied to the side of the saddle, and a heavy quiver full of long arrows swung on the opposite three were little more than a dark, monstrous figure in the night. They travelled without torches or candles, and stayed away from the roads. After all, S'Rukoh had passed the border between Skyrim and Cyrodiil illegally.

S'Rukoh had, of course, done many things illegally in his sixty years on the face of Tamriel. Twenty of those, perhaps his most law-abiding years, had been spent on the sun-baked dunes of northern Elsweyr, traveling with his nomadic, camel-herding clan. He'd been a good kitten, and an even better Khajiit. He still walked the desert in his daydreams, remembered every song and embroidery pattern of his clan, and knew the name of every kitten born in his time there. They also did minor trade, which, S'Rukoh would have said forty years prior, ruined his life.

S'Rukoh had been charged with safely trading moon sugar, hides, budi, and blades to another tribe close to the Valenwood border. Upon arrival at the perimeter of the camp, he and his clanmates were surprised to find a group of Bosmer, rather than the variety of Khajiit expected of… well, expected of a tribe of Khajiit. The strangers welcomed them into the camp, and there was no signs of struggle or problems. The Bosmer insisted that they were merely neighbors, watching the camp so that the Khajiit may do other things in the sands and in the trees of the nearby Valenwood. All was well until one of the cathay-raht's littermates lit a candle, and all of the Bosmer began to glow. Bonsamu vampires. After hours of fighting, the Khajiit were all killed or mortally wounded. Several of the bigger Khajiit were chosen to become vampires, S'Rukoh amongst them. All of their weapons were burned, they were stripped of budi and armor, and left only in the trinkets and tattoos of their clan. They were fed the blood of the Bonsamu, and kept as prisoners for three days. On the third day, the same time as they had arrived, clueless and innocent, they became undead. Another fight took place, this time instigated by the new vampires. The struggle ended with S'Rukoh and one injured senche alone in the desert.

The years had passed quickly after that, and it seemed mere weeks before the senche and the cathay-raht split ways. The red cat travelled endlessly, always dreaming of home, but resolved to never return. In his first decade, he hated himself. He exposed himself to danger and took great risks, feeding in broad daylight and behaving recklessly. He was a kitten all over again, weak and unsure of what he should do or where he should go. In his second decade, he came across several alfiq and ohmes and dagi as he walked through Cyrodiil to get somewhere else. They spoke of their own clans and tribes, the cities of the south, and best of all, provided the Khajiit with sweet moon sugar. Encountering these people returned some level of Khajiit-ness to him. He wasn't just a vampire, ducking out of candle-lit circles and ducking through people's fields to bite their livestock. He was S'Rukoh, cathay-raht born to M'Neji, child of the moon lattice, the one who walked the sands. He used to cut his mane off once a year and mail it to the Mane. He used to know every footpath through the sands, every place to water a camel between the eastern and western borders of Elsweyr. The first taste of moon sugar brought these memories to him, and as he lounged amongst other cats, belly full of sweet, soothing sugar, his entire outlook changed. Instead of running, S'Rukoh was travelling. Every new place had its own flavor of 'sugar.'

Following that revelation, life hadn't been so bad. For years he traveled the provinces,exploring everywhere he could, feeding in secret and keeping to the ways of his clan. He still wore budi and kept secrets, gathered anywhere he could find his own kind, and let life be lived. He travelled from the West of the continent to the East, encountering M'Harji and Nene in Cyrodiil, and taking five years to travel up through Black Marsh, Morrowind, and then back into the seat of Imperial power. And only a month ago, in the belly of summer, he decided he was going to trudge up and down the steep mountains with his animals and visit Skyrim.

The worst part of the trek over the mountains was the hunger. S'Rukoh had gone several days more than his usual without feeding, and grew delirious, tired, and jumpy. He would loll in the saddle, chin to his chest and a steady flow of drool wetting the neck of his gambeson, only to startle at the smallest noise and fall off. At times he would speak out loud, with nobody around to hear, accuse the air of crushing him, plead with Nene to bring him a morsel. With time, his arm was too weak to hold up his heavy bow, his ears sat dumbly forward and he felt death upon his undeath. Until today. Today he glimpsed the Rift, and descended the mountains. Today he slid off the mountain like a bead of sweat on the back of a troll, or better yet, a Nord.

M'Harji faithfully trudged down from the mountain, finding the safest path for a horse at every turn, powering through snow and later, the river passing through the south of the rift. She took the long way around a ruined keep, up a hill and then down, where she stopped and drank at a small stream. Nene barked and stood up on the saddle, tail wagging and ears perked to the North. S'Rukoh stirred from leaning back in the saddle, head titled skyward. His eyes startled open and he was overwhelmed with so many scents and sounds. He blindly fell out of the saddle, Nene under one arm. He set her on the ground and fell on his hands in the creek. His eyes finally registered the brown of the muck and the colors of the rising sun on the sky, and the dirty windmill in front of him. He looked about, and found the source of some of the sounds. There was a small field of nirnroot before him, something he'd seen in Cyrodiil, with the same light blue glow and tinny, annoying ringing noise. There was also a small group of people. His ears perked forward. That was the smell. Blood. He hauled his heavy, armored body upward and broke through the low fence about the nirnroot. One of the persons, a young Dunmer, screamed, another, an older Dunmer, possibly related to the younger, started cursing up a storm, and the third, an Imperial soldier in light armor, approached with the ring of a sword being drawn from its sheath. He sluggishly ducked under the falling sword and launched, open mouthed, at the guard. He snapped and snarled, teeth meeting flesh but only managing to scrape. He wrapped his heavy arms around the guard and bodily picked them up, hoisting them closer to his mouth. His teeth sunk through the armor on their shoulder, he ripped and tore it off, slicing into flesh with the leather still in his maw. He guzzled the blood that flowed into his mouth greedily, almost dizzy from the relief.

"This one does not think it is always wise to kill."

The cathay-raht dropped the Imperial soldier and turned to the voice, only to realize it was never really there. He noticed another group of Imperial legion soldiers running toward him, many more equipped than the one he had injured. In a moment of recently-fed clarity, he threw up his hands and surrendered.

S'Rukoh was quickly stripped of his armor and thrown onto a cart. A bag was tugged over his tall, pointed ears, and he could smell the soldier he'd injured shuffling in to press their armored leg against his fur. They didn't seem to mind talking around him. From small talk and higher officers, he learned they were going to camp near a settlement to the north of where he'd been captured. He knew the nirnroot farmers had been allowed to keep his animals, but not his goods. He also knew he was going to Solitude for trial. He did not think he would last that long, however, bound and stuck in a cart with no way to feed. He had terrible daydreams of breaking free and killing every last soldier, draining them and marching, victorious, back to the nirnroot farm to collect his animals and go about his merry way. These thoughts drove him to crying, marring the inside of his burlap hood with big, wet teardrops. When the soldiers heard him, some of them went silent. Others laughed. One started to taunt him, and others joined in until ordered to stop. The cart heaved to a stop, and everybody could be heard, clanking and jangling and talking, getting out of the carts and tromping off through the trees. One leg was left pressed up against his own, before it scooted away. It's owner stayed in the cart, however.

The hood was pulled up over his muzzle. He wiggled his head in an attempt to see, but was rewarded with a sharp slap. He snarled, and a young, almost timid voice answered.

"Sorry! Sorry! I'm not allowed to let you see." Her voice changed slightly, almost joking but still slightly serious. "I'm not allowed to do much of anything, anyway. I'm stuck here watching prisoners."

"Khajiit is not a prisoner!" S'Rukoh frowned. His daydreams must have gotten to him. He had developed some sense of impending freedom, that surely he would be free, not go on trial, and never have a black mark on his name because of all of this.

"Khajiit sure looks like a prisoner." Water sloshed on his face and down his bare front. They had barely bothered to cover his torso, and he winced, ashamed. "Sorry. I missed." The lip of a cup pressed against his mouth, and he opened to receive the water it carried. "But anyway, we're going to take you… whatever you are… up to Solitude for a trial… General Tullius has a plan, and you aren't part of it, that I know of."

There was a creak as she sat down across from him. "This one does not care at all about Legion plans."

"You should! We're catching Ulfric Stormcloak and putting an end to all this civil war nonsense! Sounds like somebody should have done some more research before walking across the border. It was closed for a reason, dummy."

He pulled up his lips and she tugged the burlap sack back down over his mouth. "Hey! Khajiit was not done!"

"Sure looked done. Look, for all we know the guard attacked you first or something like that, but with how you were holding…" She stopped and made a disgusted sound. "I don't even want you here. What are you? One of those senche things? You're big enough to be a senche, right?"

"Cathay-raht. S'Rukoh is cathay-raht."

"A jaguar man! and do jaguar men usually drink the blood of people they fight?"

He paused. "No."

There was a shuffling. "Look, I don't want to be stuck with you all the way back to Solitude. Just… I'll unbind you, and you run. Get out of here. Go. I'll even say you attacked me or something."

"Who speaks these words?"

"Jori, of Helgen."

Another voice spoke up from somewhere to the right. "And Jori of Helgen has just earned herself a head sack."

"You stay back!" Jori was quickly cornered by her fellow soldier, and soon was sitting next to the Khajiit again, disarmed and armorless. She fumed in her hood, cursing under her breath and occasionally striking out, elbowing the cat in an attempt to get out of her binds.

Some time after Jori grew quiet, getting close to sunset judging by the diminishing light through the burlap hood, the troops returned, stomping and merry and shouting. There were more feet returning than had left, however, and S'Rukoh sat up, listening intently. At first he doubted they had actually captured Ulfric Stormcloak, whoever he was, but the talking amongst the legion soldiers and the curses of captured prisoners led him to believe otherwise. In fact, it was practically a crash course on the civil war, listening to the two groups bicker back and forth. People occasionally addressed General Tulius or Ulfric Stormcloak but neither answered. It seemed to take till nightfall to get all of the stormcloaks loaded up, but soon enough, S'Rukoh came to miss the peace and quiet of sitting and waiting. It was not a comfortable ride, uphill and downhill, bumping over stones and uneven roads. For a time it got even colder, and he felt faint snowflakes dropping onto his body, melting into his fur. The wind bit and blew, and at times was blocked by whatever mountain they were passing near. It was a long night, and the red cat decided to sleep.