She enjoyed the quaint feel of Riverwood. The air was fresh with pine and lumber and the ground was softened with a decent rain after the day of Helgen. Alvor was more than the welcoming she had expected. Wherever she'd traveled, people had been wary of strangers and thereby of her, but Sigrid, his wife, wasn't so much concerned for the physical danger she might pose, compared to the threat she could cause to the woman's marriage, should Johanna have been the type to run off with another's husband.
Luckily for her, Johanna was hardly romantic, let alone conversational.
Alvor gave her permission to use the smith, which she took care as she crafted an iron bodice with the spare ingots he allowed her. She washed her roughspun rags and used them to make padded trousers with the deer hides she collected across the river; and in addition, the iron-plated hide boots she re-crafted with sturdy imperial leather, courtesy of Hadvar.
Dorthe was quite the character while Johanna used the forge, attempting to start up a conversation as the quiet woman tended to her steel on grindstone. "Did you really see a dragon? I bet it must've been huge. Mama says I shouldn't talk to strangers, and you are one but not to Hadvar, so I guess that makes you okay."
She stayed quiet, keeping a firm hand on the hilt of her blade and another at the tip.
"But about the dragon, what color was it? Did it breathe fire? What did it look like?"
She stood from the grindstone and stepped around the child, replacing herself at the workbench.
"You don't talk much, do you?" she deduced.
Johanna offered her a sideward glance and not unkindly, she said, "No."
"Dorthe, leave the woman be. She has things to do," her father said as he approached with firewood stacked in his arms. She almost wished she could stay one more night to fall asleep to it crackling in the fireplace, but as Alvor said, she had things to do and she felt even less inclined to impose. Upon finishing at the workbench, she briskly headed back inside.
"Heading out? Take care on the roads," Hadvar called to her as she gathered up supplies into her knapsack, "And remember to avoid any Legion officers until you get to General Tullius, that is if you decide to join."
She acknowledged his advice with a nod as she hooked her arms through the straps and refitted the buckles. She didn't say anything, but offered a wave as she swung the door open.
"Remember your manners, Johanna," murmured a faceless woman within the deep emptiness of the past, where her childhood should have been.
She stopped mid-step before she turned her body halfway and paused. Her head tilted to face him, "Thank you." Her gratitude seemed almost foreign as it left her mouth, though not ungrateful as she noted by his faint smile.
"It was no trouble at all," he said.
The few hours of rest she received, as scarce as they seemed, made her eyes dry as a chilling river breeze eased through her newly cleaned hair. It pried a smile into her lips at the refreshing feel as she hunkered down the steps in her heavy boots. Armed with a steel dagger now cleaned and an apprenticeship in the arcane arts, she headed along the uneven path towards the mountain.
As she reached the road sign, eyeing the pointed labels, she gazed up the unmarked road that she deemed probably led to the barrow Hadvar mentioned. Casting aside the caution quietly settling in the back of her mind, she set her sights on that barrow.
It would remain apparent that wolves plagued every land known to man. She was hardly halfway up the mountain when they made their presence known. From a subtle growl to angry gnashing teeth as they latched onto her palm, she never had less than the word of hatred for the blasted mongrels.
Sending its ravenous cavern of a mouth aflame with the hand ensnared between its jaws seemed inadequate, so she cleaved her dagger down its ribs where it whimpered to a timely death and the given moment was time aplenty to launch a bolt of electricity forth from her fingertips and into the other wolf that had hung back at her flank.
She took little time in assessing her scorched hand, because the flesh-wound had already been burnt closed. So she gingerly placed her opposite hand over it and focused a rejuvenation spell to harden the tender skin, where she then proceeded.
Her discomfort in the weather of Skyrim had reached its peak when she mounted the final step and laid gaze on the barrow's exterior. The snow was picking up in celerity and she doubted the armed men currently scouting about the ruin would give her an appropriate welcome, so she slipped by them without the slightest desire of engagement or the freezing wind.
It was hardly any warmer inside, and the light was dim at best. A man and a woman, she could deem, stood above a makeshift fire across the entrance hall. He on the left and she to his right remained unaware as they guarded her gate to curiosity: a large and dark archway perhaps leading to another chamber.
She approached slowly as she compressed a small ball of flame behind her back, her dagger in the other. Chatting quietly, not disturbing to the heavy dust that seemed to hold the silence in place, their positions were static and she was clear to advance.
She carefully stepped over the common-clothed corpse, its stench repelling a pause of examination as she assumed it to be a former hostage.
Once she was within range, she kept in low profile until she rammed her blade into the side of the man's neck, shoving him to the ground in her motion to yank out her knife.
The woman opened her mouth to shout, but Johanna clamped her hand down over her open lips and released the firebolt. She fell to her knees with her hands clutching her neck, and Johanna - unwilling to let her die down in suffering - plunged her blade into the bandit's heart.
As she glanced down at them, she almost felt sorry, but tossed the thought aside. They could have chosen a different way of life. If it were just larceny then maybe she could've had some pity, but murder granted them no mercy.
There was a locked chest, which thankfully didn't take long to crack. She popped the lid open and filtered through it, stuffing the few gemstones and gold pieces into the satchel on her hip.
"Y'ffre be praised, " she sighed in relief when she noticed the bow and quiver of arrows by the fire. This dungeon dive was about to go much more quickly.
That aforementioned "other chamber" had actually led to the burial crypt. Dragons, wolves, bandits, skeevers, and now undead. Skyrim was quickly turning into the worst place she'd ever been to. Regardless, she lured the lot of the undead creatures with a rune as it slapped into place on the ground, and the shadows held her accommodatingly as she picked them off with her bow.
Her fine-tuned perception had not entirely been focused on the walking dead. No, this place had also provided traps. From spiked doors to poisoned needles, whatever this crypt had stored away and put forth all of its remaining power to keep her from had better be worth her final poultice.
She never had the knack for swordsmanship, but she could proudly say she knew how to dig an eye out with a dagger. Her bow lay across the room at the foot of a peculiar wall that seemed to crackle like fire whenever she drew near, and she had managed to hold her ground through a matter of speaking in consideration of her opponent's greatsword and her own nimble feet.
Luckily for her, her magicka had not been entirely depleted and dodging this rotten-fleshed beast was hardly the challenge. Before it had the time to throw her into the cold wall with its voice, she tossed a rune at her heels, pried a ward up between her and the fiend, and sped off towards her bow. A few flecks of the blast caught her where the ward was weakest and for a moment she wondered whether she'd been struck down, because the room in front of her had grown black.
The sensation was similar to drinking a hefty magicka potion, dizzying but exhilarating; though, this was slightly different. Her lack of magicka remained present due to the surging ache at her temples, but a knowledge had been imprinted within her own mind. She could not access the meaning of the symbols that had settled in dormancy upon her knowledge and it wasn't frightening, because it felt so natural.
Light returned to the room, and she glanced around warily.
"Huh." She disregarded the previous moment when her eyes met the small red bottle sitting on a shelf by the opened casket. She swished it around with her tongue before she swallowed completely and headed for the stairs. Her knapsack had grown heavy in weight and she had loot to sell.
Whiterun awaited.
A/N: Brynjolf it is, and do note that it will all be eventual because I am a notorious procrastinator. But completely off topic, fanfiction keeps removing my hyphen between Non and Child in the title, so I apologize for its oddity. Anyways, constructive criticism is much appreciated!