A/N:
So, important note. Cedar Falls is a made-up place! If there really is a town in Washington called Cedar Falls that is a suburb of Seattle… oops? I'm just playing here! Just remember that I'm totally full of crap, you guys. ;)
Anyway, on with the story! Let's go!
She rolled over in her sleeping bag, her muscles aching. She knew she'd get a crick in her back from sleeping on the ground! This was why camping was the worst.
Except… she wasn't really all that uncomfortable. She was warm and toasty and all wrapped up in rough blankets. And she wasn't on the ground, either. She was on some kind of hard mattress. She lay still for a few moments, replaying the events of the past 24 hours in her mind.
It was funny how you could wake up in the morning and not remember that everything you knew had been turned upside-down.
"Are you awake?" a young girl's voice asked. Jackie opened her eyes to see a little blond girl standing next to the bed where she lay.
"Yeah," she replied, her voice hoarse.
"Mama told me to tell you there's a bath waiting for you," she said, placing her elbows on the bed right by her face and resting her chin in her hands. "Where are you from?"
Jackie sat up, folds of blankets falling off her body. She didn't remember putting them on… "Washington," she replied distractedly, taking in the house around her.
"I've never heard of that place. Are you an adventurer?"
Jackie laughed, surprising herself. She looked down at the young girl and smiled. "Oh heck no," she said. "What's your name?"
"Dorthe," the little girl replied. "How about you?"
"Jackie. You said there's a bath?" she asked, catching a whiff of herself. Smoke and body odor were not a pretty combination.
"Yes, and a fresh change of clothes, too."
"Wow. Um, thank you," she said, looking down at the rags she'd had to exchange her nice camping clothes for. She wondered what those soldiers had done with her stuff. "Uh, Dorothy?"
"It's Dorthe," the little girl corrected good-naturedly.
"Oh, sorry! Er, Dorthe… I was wondering if maybe…" the question was most likely pointless, but she just had to ask. "Does your family has a telephone?"
As predicted, the little blonde gave her a blank look. "What's that?"
"It's nothing," Jackie said, her heart sinking.
The bath she took wasn't particularly warm or relaxing, but it felt amazing anyway. She felt the dirt and sweat and smoke wash off of her body as she scrubbed. She washed her hair as well as she could with the bar of soap she'd been lent, and came out feeling much better. She secretly wished for a blow dryer or a curling iron but she really couldn't complain—she wasn't sure these people even knew what those things were anyway. So she pulled her hair into a loose braid and hoped for the best.
Sigrid had given her some clothes—a long tunic with a belt wrapped around the waist. Although she wished for some pants, Jackie accepted the gift graciously.
"Thanks so much. You've been so nice," she said, feeling almost guilty for taking advantage of Hadvar's family's hospitality.
"It's quite alright," Sigrid said kindly. "I can tell you're a long way from home."
"Yeah, I guess I am…" Jackie replied, fiddling with the belt of her tunic. "So… I don't suppose you could tell me where we are? I mean… where is Riverwood in relation to…" To the state of Washington? To America? To the planet?
"We're apart of Whiterun Hold," the older woman supplied.
"Whiterun?" Jackie asked hopelessly. This wasn't helping at all.
"Whiterun is the closest city to Riverwood," she explained. "And it's not a far walk from here."
"A city, huh?" Jackie was immediately interested. Maybe in a bigger place she would be able to find something like technology or… or some answers in general. Sigrid looked curious.
"Where did you say you were from, Jackie?" she asked, tilting her head and studying her closely. "You don't look like a Nord or even an Imperial…"
Jackie felt her cheeks burn under the scrutiny. People kept asking her that. What did it matter where she was from anyway? "I'm from Cedar Falls, Washington. It's a suburb of Seattle…" That earned her a blank look. "United States of America?" she added. The fact that no one she'd talked to so far had even heard of America caused her gut to churn.
"It must be very far away," Sigrid said. "Why did you come to Skyrim?"
So she was in a country called Skyrim, huh? "I'm… I'm not sure," she said, slowly, wondering if it would be a smart idea to tell her exactly how lost she really was. "I don't… really remember." It was sort of the truth, and it was the only plausible thing she could tell her that wouldn't sound completely crazy. Surprisingly, Sigrid seemed to accept this explanation.
"Perhaps some strange magic brought you here. Maybe one of the Divines," she said with a small smile.
"Magic…" Jackie scoffed, remembering when Bradas had healed her bruised face. Magic is real. She wasn't at all ready to reevaluate her entire worldview, but she didn't really have a choice now, did she? "Do you know a lot about magic?" she asked, thinking that she'd never expected to say that out loud without an ounce of irony.
Sigrid scoffed at this idea. "No, magic is for elves. We Nords have no use for something like that." She seemed to notice that Jackie was genuinely interested, however. "If you are interested in spells, you should go to the College up in Winterhold. Or you can visit the court wizard in Whiterun."
"You said Whiterun's not far from here?"
"Yes, are you planning to go? It may be wiser to stay here in Riverwood until you feel a little better."
Jackie could see her point. Although her previous injuries had been miraculously healed by… magic, or whatever, she still wasn't in any shape to strike out into the woods by herself. Although, there was one person who she had already traveled with… "Um, do you know what happened to the… guy I was with?"
"The elf?" Just hearing it out loud was surreal for her; what kind of place actually had elves for real? It almost freaked her out more than the dragon. "He may or may not still be here in town. Last I saw, he was going to the Riverwood Trader for supplies."
"Where's that?" she asked, wondering what she meant by 'supplies'. Was he going to just take off? Maybe he was going to head for Whiterun too, and she could convince him to let her tag along.
"Just across the street," she informed with a smile. "Are you planning to go to Whiterun soon?"
"Well…" She actually wasn't sure what she was going to do, but Whiterun seemed like a good idea. Especially if this court wizard guy could help her out. Maybe he could figure out a way to send her home? "I guess so," she said reluctantly. "I don't want to overstay my welcome… you guys have been really nice to me. I wish I could pay you back somehow."
"Please don't worry about it," Sigrid laughed. "Feel free to stay as long as you need, Jackie. Any friend of Hadvar's is a friend of ours."
"Thank you," Jackie said, relieved. She didn't intend to stay for long, but the fact that she had a place to stay for a little while was a huge relief.
As soon as she was finished getting ready for the day, she made her way over to the Riverwood Trader to see if Bradas was still around. When she went inside, she was greeted by an enthusiastic shopkeeper. "Welcome to the Riverwood Trader! How can I help you?"
"Hi," she responded, her own greeting far less exuberant. She looked around for any sign of her potential companion. It seemed she'd missed him, since the only people in here were the shopkeeper and a woman who was cooking lunch over a fireplace. "I'm looking for my friend, I think he probably came in here."
"What does he look like?" the man asked.
She felt stupid describing him. "Um, he's an elf with dark skin? Long hair, pretty tall?"
"Oh, him," the woman by the fireplace piped up. "He left for Bleak Falls Burrow just a few hours ago. He's going to retrieve our golden dragon claw."
"You have a dragon claw?" Jackie asked with a frown. "An actual dragon claw?"
The shopkeeper looked at her like she was stupid. "No, of course not," he said. "I kept it on display here in the shop and some bandits stole it."
Bandits. Right. Of course there would be bandits here.
"Oh, alright…" she said, disappointed.
"He should be back soon," the woman said, seeming to take pity on her. "A few days, at the most. Maybe you can meet him, then?"
"Yeah, that's true," Jackie said, feeling hopeful again. If she could just kill some time in Riverwood until Bradas came back, she could gain her bearings and make some sort of plan.
Bradas Sarayn was no slouch when it came to dealing with bandits and draugr, and Bleak Falls Burrow was overrun with both. At one point he had cut a fellow Dunmer out of a web, only for the man to double-cross him and run away. This wasn't a problem for long, though, and only a few moments later Bradas was kneeling beside his dead body and rummaging through his personal items.
He flipped through the journal he'd recovered from Arvel's body, wondering if recovering a shopkeeper's mantelpiece was really worth all this trouble. He examined the glittering Golden Claw, wondering if he should turn back and return it to Lucan or continue on in search of the treasure Arvel had been after.
It wasn't a difficult decision.
He trekked on, cutting down draugr and searching through burial urns for septims, getting lucky enough to find a few jewels and old potions. He grinned to himself and wiped the sweat from his brow—these would be more than enough to buy himself a room to stay in and a good meal. Then he could take off and enjoy Skyrim without having to deal with people trying to kill him. He'd had enough of that to last a lifetime.
It was these thoughts that he hung onto when he came across the swinging axes. With a deep breath and a short prayer he darted down the narrow corridor past the sharp pendulums and right into some more draugr, which he set on fire without an ounce of grace or finesse.
Bradas continued to fight his way through the Barrow until he finally made it past a puzzle—the solution to which was engraved on the actual claw—and into a large, quiet chamber. Too quiet.
Carefully, he approached the center of the room, where a chest rested in front of a huge… shrine of some sort. He opened the chest to see what lie inside, feeling a strange pulling in his chest while doing do. He ignored it in favor of taking the gold and treasures that rested within, feeling satisfied that this trip had been worth it. He'd never been very attracted to caves or tombs; he hated the dark, damp atmospheres, not to mention the undead that almost always roamed within. But if all ruins had treasures like this, he thought, he might have to reconsider.
After tucking the last of the jewels into his pockets, he shut the treasure chest and turned around to face the curious stone structure behind him. His breath was suddenly sucked from his lungs and his vision blurred. He stumbled forward toward the shrine as if being roughly pulled, a huge, indiscernible sound filling his ears—no, his head—and a bright light swirling around and into him.
FUS!
He fell to his knees when it ended, gasping. What in Oblivion was that?
A cracking sound made him jump to his feet and he turned around to face a huge, angry draugr pulling itself from its tomb.
In Riverwood, Jackie had two choices: stress out and worry about how she was going to get home, or try and distract herself with work.
Or both.
For the past two days she had been helping out at the lumber mill, a job for which she was woefully under-qualified. She wasn't ashamed to say that she heavily relied on people's pity for her to get by; she was pretty positive that Gerdur wouldn't have let her work at the mill otherwise. It was a huge change from her work at the beauty salon. She didn't like it, but there wasn't much else she could do. She needed to figure out her money situation… and her living situation… and just about every other situation, actually.
Over the days she spent chopping wood (or trying) and operating the large, industrial cutting machine, she formulated a plan: she was going to wait for Bradas to get back from Bleak Falls Barrow and offer him some money from her lumber mill earnings to take her to Whiterun. There, she would try to see this court wizard guy and ask him to send her back home. She was optimistic about this plan. Magic probably sent her here, and by that logic it should send her back. Then she could put this whole nightmare behind her.
Bradas came back on the third day, looking tired and dirty. She was chopping wood when she saw him walk by without even noticing her, looking like he was either fed up with life or spacing out. She couldn't actually tell… his elven features made him look angry all the time.
Was that racist?
She put down the axe she was using and ran to meet him. "Bradas!" she called, waving her hand in the air. He turned back to see who was calling him, and his dour expression didn't change. She plowed on, despite the feeling that he really didn't want to speak to her. "Hey! How was Bleak Falls Burrow?" she asked cheerfully, looking him over. From up close he looked like he had been crawling through dirt and… there was a spot of blood on his armor. She diligently ignored that.
"It was damp, cold, and filled with draugr," he groused, continuing his walk into town. She ignored his sour mood and fell into step with him.
"What's draugr?" she asked, running a hand through her sweaty hair to try and look like she hadn't just spent all morning clumsily shopping wood.
He gave her a look that couldn't be mistaken for anything but incredulous. "You don't know what draugr are? You really are from far away," he said.
"Sorry," she mumbled, jogging a little to keep up with his long strides. "Um, Bradas, do you have time to talk?"
"Later," he said, stopping in the middle of the road to turn towards the Riverwood Trader.
"Okay? Thanks…" she trailed off, watching as he stomped up the steps to the shop without looking back at her.
She sighed and sat down on one of the barrels by the door, determined not to let him slink out of town without talking to her first. He definitely wasn't the friendliest guy… elf… that she'd ever met. He seemed irritated to even have to be dealing with her at all. But he was the only person she knew besides Sigrid and Alvor's family, and she couldn't live off of them for long. They had been really kind to her, but she could tell that they didn't have a lot. She didn't want to be a burden to them.
She needed to leave Riverwood and Bradas was clearly some type of adventurer-type who could help her. If she could just get him to take her to Whiterun, she would get out of his hair…
Bradas left the girl from Helgen outside of the Riverwood Trader, not wanting to deal with her at the moment. He was tired, hungry, and he needed to unload the junk he'd picked up from the cave.
Lucan and Camilla were grateful and he was given a nice sum of gold. He sold off most of the armor and weapons he'd managed to pick up from the bandits, which also proved to be lucrative.
"Come back anytime!" Lucan called as he went out of the shop. Bradas gave a lazy wave and shut the door. Today, he decided, was a day for relaxing. After surviving that nasty ruin, he'd earned it.
Well, after he'd dealt with Jackie, anyway. She was still outside the shop, sitting on a barrel and leaning up against the building. Her eyes were closed and her breathing was shallow. Had she really fallen asleep while waiting for him? A grin tugged at the corners of his lips as he moved closer to look at her.
"Are you really asleep?" he asked aloud, watching with satisfaction as she jumped and hit the back of her head on the hard wall behind her.
"Jesus Christ," she muttered, placing a hand on the sore spot. "It's just you," she breathed.
"Yes, just me," he replied, raising an eyebrow and watching her as she stood up and rubbed her eyes. She really was sort of pathetic, in a lost and confused kind of way. Something about her was completely out of place-he couldn't pinpoint what. She wasn't tall and strong like a Nord, nor was she regal like an Imperial or a Redguard. She didn't have the fine, delicate features of a Breton, or any other elf-blooded human. Her skin was an olive tone and her hair and eyes were dark. She was probably some mish-mash of human races, although that didn't explain her lack of knowledge. Who didn't know what a draugr was?
"I was hoping to talk to you once you got back," she said with a winning smile. So she planned to charm him, did she?
"Oh?"
"Yeah. Um, I need to get to Whiterun." She looked nervous as she pulled a stray piece of hair back and tucked it into her braid. "I was wondering if you would help me. I don't really know the way."
"Why not look at a map?" he asked.
"I don't know how to read maps," she said. He almost laughed until he saw how serious her face was.
"Are you joking?"
Her cheeks turned a brilliant shade of pink and she crossed her arms. "No… but if you help me I could pay you?" It was really more of a question than a statement, but the promise of money caught his interest right away.
"Really? How much?"
"Hm, let's see…" she put a finger on her chin and looked up in thought. "By the end of the day I should have thirty gold pieces from working at the mill. I can give you… like, ten?"
He gazed at her, unimpressed. He'd found at least fifty septims while rummaging through tombs. The dead had more money than she did. "Are you serious?"
"Yeah! I mean it's gold, right? Pretty valuable," she said, pulling out a gold piece and shaking it enticingly.
"A beggar could pay me more," he said, snatching her coin and using his thumb to flip it. She tried to snatch it from the air but he beat her to it and held it above her head.
"You'd steal money from a girl with less money than a beggar?" she asked, frowning. "Huh, I think I see why you were on that cart back there."
"No, thievery is not why I was in Helgen," he said as he tucked the coin into his pocket. She frowned, but didn't say anything more about it. "As a matter of fact, I believe that was your crime."
"I didn't steal anything," she grumbled. "Listen, I just need to get to Whiterun. I can give you fifteen coins, but that's it."
"Don't bother," he sighed, knowing his mind was already made up. He'd take her to Whiterun, but only because he was planning on travelling there anyway to speak with the jarl. "Just be ready in the morning. It should be about a full day's walk to Whiterun if we don't make too many stops," he gave her a significant look, "So it'll most likely take us a day and a half."
"Yes! Thank you!" she said, looking like she wanted to give him a hug. He moved away before she could even think to execute such a plan. "Alright, I've got to get back to the mill and finish out the day. I'll see you in the morning!"
"Yes, the morning," he sighed. It would be a pain, but at least he wouldn't be stuck with her for long. He watched as she ran back to the lumber mill to continue mangling firewood.
He usually travelled alone, but he'd try not to let this weigh on his mind. He was already worried about what had happened in the tomb when he'd come across that shrine with strange writing. Logic told him that all kinds of bizarre things happened in those crypts, and that he should just be thankful he had survived it. It was most likely the remnants of some old curse, nothing else to it—and clearly it hadn't affected him. But worry had settled itself in the back of his mind.
With one last look in her direction he made his way to the inn. He shook his head—he had other things to worry about. He would be sure to get plenty of rest, food, and ale before tomorrow's new adventure.
A/N:
Well? What did you think?
It's sort of a boring chapter, I admit. Hopefully the next will be a lot more exciting!
As always, please review! Let me know if there is a direction you'd like to see this fic take. :) I have sort of an idea of where I want to go but nothing is set in stone!
