"I am surprised you did not wish for a longer goodbye," the Dovahkiin said once they were out of sight from the Stronghold, looking up at him with curious eyes.
Ghorbash shrugged. "I will see them again, in this life or the next. A short goodbye is all that's due."
"That's one way of looking at it I suppose," she agreed, "Will you be allowed to come back?"
Ghorbash shook his head. "Only if I marry a non-Orsimer, so it's not very likely."
He expected her to act disgusted at the prospect of him marrying anything other than his own kind, but instead her eyes raked appraisingly over his body before she smirked.
"I wouldn't say too unlikely, you're six and a half feet of pure muscle, plus you're quite handsome face wise."
Shooting her an incredulous look, Ghorbash wondered, not for the last time, if the girl he had agreed to follow was actually insane.
"So..." the Dovahkiin continued, "Why is your brother so interested in playing Cupid?"
"Cupid?"
"Sorry, Mara."
"It will ruin any chance I have of becoming chief if I take a foreigner for wife. I have told my brother I have no wish for his power, yet he seems to still distrust me."
She frowned, but said nothing, taking a left at the fork in the road.
"Have you ever been to Solitude?" she asked after a few minutes, "I haven't, but I hear it's beautiful."
"Solitude?" he asked, voice low and gravelly compared to hers. "We're on the road to Markarth, why not stop there?"
The Dovahkiin wrinkled her nose.
"I stopped in Markarth before I came to your stronghold. I was thrown in Cidhna Mine, and had to escape through some old dwarven ruins; that's how my leg got fucked up."
Ghorbash stopped dead in his tracks.
"You escaped Cidhna Mine?"
The girl shrugged. "Madanach did most of the work, which is kind of ironic seeing as he was the one who got the guards to put me in there. They cleared my name after I escaped but still... I'm not in a hurry to go back."
Ghorbash nodded. "Nor would I be."
They continued on the road in companionable silence, stopping occasionally for the Dovahkiin to bend down to pick flowers and mushrooms.
"Do you ever mix potions?" she asked, looking up from where she sat, cross legged, picking stalks of lavender.
"That is woman's work," Ghorbash scoffed.
"Woman's work?" she questioned, incredulous. "Was it woman's work when you sewed my leg?"
"Yes," he answered, taking pride in her raised eyebrows and wide eyes.
"I'm not sure that I follow," she said, rising from the ground and brushing off her armor.
"Malacath's faithful know healing and alchemy are women's tasks," he told her as they continued down the road. "Alchemy I will not lower myself to learn, but my knowledge in medicine saved many Legion lives, including my own."
"Why did you leave, if you don't mind me asking?"
"I do."
She didn't press the subject, which he was grateful for, but after a few minutes she posed another question.
"Will it be a problem for me to be in the Legion?"
"No," he answered, "You are Dovahkiin, they will not make you a footsoldier, and I will be taking orders from you, not them."
She nodded. "I suppose that makes sense."
They walked in silence for a few minutes more, but then she opened her mouth again.
"So why did you stitch me up last night when you though I was there to steal from you?"
"Are you never quiet?"
"Are you always so-"
She stopped abruptly when Ghorbash held his finger first up to her, then pointing to a sabrecat ripping up a deer not 100 paces away.
"Is dressing an animal man's work?"
Ghorbash nodded, his grin showing all his teeth.
"Good," she replied, notching an arrow "because I don't know how."
The arrow pierced the sabrecat's fleshy neck, and when it turned to charge toward them the Dovahkiin loosed an arrow again, bringing it down with a shot through the eye.
"Is dressing an animal man's work?"
Ghorbash nodded, grin showing all his teeth.
An arrow pierced the sabrecat's meaty neck, and when the beast turned toward the two the Dovahkiin loosed her arrow again, striking it through it's left eye, killing it.
The deer was too disgusting to salvage, but Ghorbash quickly set to work on the sabrecat.
As he skinned it the Dovahkiin tried to knock out its teeth.
"Leave it," Ghorbash told her after watching her attempt at harvesting.
"I need them for potions," she protested.
"I will do it for you," he said, "I can get them out from the root."
She nodded and took her hands out of the sabrecat's mouth.
"Could you also get the eyes out?"
He gave a grunt of agreement and she sat down with her back to a fallen tree.
"I respected you," he volunteered after slicing up the legs. "You had bravery to walk into the stronghold just as you had to find the gauntlets. If I had to kill you I wanted you to have the opportunity to defend yourself. You had earned that much."
"That's very honorable," she replied, "though a little unsettling that you were thinking of killing me."
Ghorbash let out a huff of air that could qualify as a laugh, prompting the Dovahkiin to break out in a wide smile.
"You don't laugh much, do you?"
"There is not much to laugh at."
"Well, aren't you a Debbie downer."
"You talk nonsense."
She shrugged.
"It happens. I'm from somewhere... a little different. Where are you from? Have you always lived in the stronghold?"
Ghorbash nodded.
"I was born there."
"When did you leave the stronghold for the legion?"
"I was young, only twenty summers, and I lusted for glory."
"How old are you now?"
"Thirty. I returned to the stronghold when I was six and twenty."
"Do you lust for glory now?"
Ghorbash shook his head.
"I am not nearly so stupid now."
"Then what do you lust for?"
The air seemed to sizzle suddenly, and the Dovahkiin's pupils dilated as his eyes met her's. The moment was ruined, however, by the sound of a carriage coming down the road.
"Probably just travelers," the Dovahkiin said, but withdrew her bow and laid it on her lap.
It was, indeed, just travelers. A noble couple being driven in a carriage on their way to court in Solitude.
The Dovahkiin gave a courteous nod as they passed, but the woman in the carriage gave a little gasp and the man pulled his wife to his chest, covering her eyes while saying, "Don't look my flower, it is to horrid."
The Dovahkiin stared at the two in shock, but Ghorbash simply turned his face away. He knew that the nobles were disgusted by him. To them, he was a monster, and it probably did not help that he was covered in blood from the mostly skinned carcass in his lap.
"The only thing horrid here is you!" The Dovahkiin yelled at them, giving a rude hand gesture to the carriage before it rounded a corner.
Now it was Ghorbash's turn to be surprised.
"Do not mind it, it is bound to happen again."
"Then I will defend you again."
"I do not need your defense."
"But I wish to give it."
Ghorbash stared, hard and fast, searching her face for a bit of dishonesty. Finally, he nodded.
"Then I thank you for it."
The Dovahkiin smiled and he gave a nod before pulling out one of the cat's eyes.
The two did not talk as they finished their work, him pulling out the teeth and her drying the skin by flame magic.
After Ghorbash had given her the ingredients and wrapped up the meat he had cut off, they continued on their way.
"I've never eaten sabrecat before," she said conversationally.
"Best dried and salted," he told her, "The meat is already tough."
"Were you a hunter in your... is it a tribe?"
Ghorbash nodded.
"Yes, a tribe. I was war chief under my brother, but I worked in the mines when I was not needed. My brother was too afraid I would desert them again to put me outside the stronghold walls."
"So you haven't left the stronghold in four years?"
Ghorbash nodded.
"Though it seems longer."
"I can't imagine it," she told him, seeming to look at him in a new light, once more cocking her head like a bird. "I've always been a traveler, I like to spread my wings."
"Of course you do, little bird, it is your blood."
"My blood is dragon, not bird."
Ghorbash raised an eyebrow.
"Then you are the smallest kulkodar I have ever seen."
The Dovahkiin forgot her indignation in the face of curiosity.
"Does kulkodar mean dragon?"
"Why else would I have said it?"
"So you have your own language then, I wondered."
He nodded.
"We did not forget our language as the Nords have done."
The Dovahkiin contemplated this for a few minutes before breaking the silence once more.
"Can you teach me?"
"Teach you?" Ghorbash asked, incredulous.
In all his years he had never met a paleface that wished to know his language; in fact, they told him not to speak it, favoring the smooth flowing commontounge to the guttural speech of Malacath's faithful.
"Yeah, it would be helpful to have conversations without people being able to eavesdrop."
Ghorbash said nothing for a few moments, and the Dovahkiin was on the verge of apologizing when he gave his answer.
"I will think about it."
The Dovahkiin nodded and was thankfully silent.
It was not that Ghorbash disliked her, in fact, she was one of the most enjoyable people he had ever met, however, he was not used to talking so much in a single day. Ghorbash's days in the legion had made him quiet, core contemplative, less ready to talk even to his own kin.
He appreciated the silence until they could see the guard tower that stood in front of the main gates.
"Have you ever been to Solitude?" the Dovahkiin asked once more.
Ghorbash nodded.
"For the same reason you go now."
"Did you like it?"
"They did not like me."
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A/N. I'm using the black speech from Tolkien's books for orcish. I would guess that the common tounge would be Imperial, and that the Nords would have forgotten their language after they were conquered by the Empire. I always appreciate reviews!