A/N: This is less different time period, more Skyrim-Meets-Aesop's-Fables-Put-In-Skyrim-Context… but hey! I had fun writing it!

Day 3: Choose a different time period and describe what your character would have been like in that time period.

Marcurio dropped to his knees, pressing a hand to his empty stomach as it roared in discontent.

He couldn't do this anymore. He needed to rest, at least. Admittedly, running for hours without food or rest hadn't been the best of ideas. The notion of just crawling under a tree and going to sleep crossed his mind, but when fire suddenly shot into the sky he knew that wasn't going to happen.

Of course, he had to see what it was – damn his curiosity – so he forced himself back up to his feet and trudged up the rise.

… Damn his curiosity.

At the bottom of the hill was an enormous dragon with gleaming white scales, writhing and roaring and spewing flames every so often. Tired as he was Marcurio made his body cooperate enough to run away –

Or so he thought, because he tripped on a rock and landed face-first in the dirt.

And by the time he'd gotten reoriented and ready to sit up, the dragon was coming toward him. Limping on three legs and holding one wing out to the side.

Marc's chest tightened; he didn't have the strength to run and he knew it, but the dragon was coming for him. But instead of attacking him it just laid on its stomach in front of him, the tip of its snout inches away from his feet, the same leg and wing stretched out to the side. When he actually looked more closely at the dragon's bloody side he saw a good dozen arrows sticking out between the scales.

It could probably kill him after this, but he reached forward and gently began to pull the arrows out. The dragon growled and groaned and even spit fire a few times, but stayed still as Marcurio continued removing the projectiles. And when he pulled at the last one, embedded in the soft tissue at the base of the dragon's wing, it roared and writhed away from his hands so violently that Marc thought it would turn on him. But after a few experimental flaps of the previously injured wing it calmed down and curled up around him, affectionately nuzzling its smooth-scaled nose against his face.

Instead of eating him the dragon brought him a deer that it had killed, and Marc gratefully ate it. The dragon brought him food for a while, and they stayed together in its cave.

But one day, while the dragon was away, a group of Imperial soldiers on patrol found Marcurio and, since he couldn't explain what he was doing there, they took him prisoner and brought him into the city. Thinking he was a rebel, they sentenced him to death.

When the dragon returned to its lair and found Marc gone it took to the skies, searching for him. As it flew it saw him, bound at the wrists, being led to the block to be beheaded. With an enraged roar it dove to the human's rescue, landing atop a tower and attacking the soldiers with unrelenting force. He flew about, spewing flames but watching Marc to make sure he wasn't harmed. The soldiers shot their arrows at it but the dragon gladly took the blows rather than let Marcurio be killed.

And after the dragon saw that the man had gotten away it turned and flew back into the mountains, landing heavily outside its lair with several arrows buried between the scales of its side and belly.

And when Marcurio returned to the lair and found the dragon dead, he gently pulled the arrows out as he had before and sat beside its head, petting the smooth scales along its nose.

...