Chapter Three: Trudging Along
Disclaimer: Everything belongs to Bethesda Studios except my OC's. No profit has been made. Copyright peeps please spare me.
As always, comments and constructive criticism are welcome!
Jyrod was a pretty reasonable man, in his opinion. He had grown up to become a guard just like his father Jornelf before him, and he had done well in all the guarding that such a position required: patrolling the wilds around Falkreath and making sure the roads were safe from threats to travelers.
Typically, that just meant walking around in a line with his comrades and joking about the wannabe adventurers who would eventually find themselves on guard duty. Honestly, Jyrod was smart. He had decided to just avoid the dangerous adventuring part and skip to the -rather profitable- business of making sure the Jarl felt safe.
Even if the Jarl acted strangely. He had no idea why Jarl Siddgeir had wanted them to check the old bandit hideout. All they had found there was a little sack of garbage and a note addressed to the jarl – according to Gistir, at least, seeing as Jyrod couldn't read.
He figured that the paper was what Jarl Siddgeir wanted, but he couldn't find a reason for a note to be so important. A courier would have been better for this job than a detachment of guards, and faster than them as well.
Yet again he was reminded that he really didn't understand what went on in a Jarl's head.
Anyways, Jyrod thought, he was a man of simple tastes and simple desires. All he really wanted was to be back in Dead Man's Drink with a mug of mead in one arm and his sweetheart in the other.
What he had not wanted, however, was to have to deal with some crazy commoner who had come running into their camp, wearing nothing but her underclothes and moaning about getting chased by vampires.
He had slept through the entire thing – quite comfortably, too – but that was probably why the others decided that he would be the one to watch her on the way back to Falkreath. Probably to make sure she didn't stab herself in the foot or something.
It was dawn now and they needed to head out after breakfast, but he decided to give her some time to sleep while he finished packing up his things – wasn't like she had to pack anything up, anyways. Hopefully, the girl won't slow us up too much… never know when Siddgeir decides that we're on time limits.
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The first thing Evelyn felt when she woke up was exhaustion. She could barely move her legs at all, and she probably had some seriously raw skin and blisters on her feet. But she was alive. She relaxed back into the ground and went over her memories – she could vaguely remember running into a little clearing with a fire…
She jerked as something tapped her shoulder, twisting around to see the party responsible.
Or at least tried to. Her side cramped up near immediately and her legs protested at the movement. Evelyn settled for slowly twisting her neck to see the newcomer. He was wearing some sort of medieval armor – chainmail, if her eyes didn't deceive her – and he had a sheathed short sword in one hand and a wooden shield in the other. The shield was painted blue with a silver stylized deer head that looked strangely familiar.
"Greetings, miss, you gave us quite the scare last night." She continued to stare for a bit before asking "Where am I?" "Falkreath, miss, or at least you will be once we head back up to the town." Falkreath. Wasn't that… A city in Skyrim? Why would someone name a place after a video game city?
What is this place? First vampires, now Falkreath… what next? Will dragons start raining from the sky or something? No. I can't be in Skyrim. Video games can't become real.
"Well, miss, we let you sleep in quite a bit, but you need to get up and have some breakfast before we set out – it's already past dawn." The sun was indeed already past the horizon line. By a millimeter.
While he got up to leave, she saw the shield in a different light. The deer was the symbol of Falkreath, wasn't it? And I know that there are definitely no vampires where I'm from… what if I am in Skyrim?
She needed to get up to observe more of her surroundings. I could also simply have landed in some Jurassic Park type attraction for die-hard Elder Scroll Fans – There might even be some fake Vault 101 somewhere nearby if the owners wanted to capitalize on space. With a hint of an amused smirk, Evelyn tried to get herself up – to no avail. Her muscles were more tired than she could ever remember them being.
After a few seconds of her struggling to get her body to respond, the guard came back and helped her onto her feet – and then again when her knees buckled. She was mortified at essentially needing to be dragged off of the ground – I'm not THAT old, this should be easy – but eventually decided that it would be extreme stupidity to try to go it alone and fall in some horse dung or something. So she accepted the occasional bit of help from her apparent babysitter.
After a quick meal of steaming porridge or something, the group was off.
Every. Goshdarned step. Was a nightmare. I will not fall over. I will not fall over. Just need to stick one step. After. The other. And it. Will be. Fine. All fine. And then. I. can rest. A ragged breath came and went with each part of her mental mantra, but she kept on trudging.
She felt like she was doing pretty well, only stumbling a few times, but no one noticed as far as she could see. They kept on traveling throughout the day, stopping for a quick meal around midday before resuming the trek. Hopefully, we will arrive at 'Falkreath' soon, because I don't think that I'll be able to keep this up for much longer.
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Jyrod was thankful that the girl had finally remembered his name. He was not a "sir," it sounded too formal to him. And, after a bit of prying from Gistir, they figured out that her name was Evelyn. An unusual name for an Imperial, but who was he to judge.
The sun was getting low in the sky, but they were almost to Falkreath, so they would hike until reaching the town. They probably wouldn't make Falkreath until after sundown though. While the girl was doing better than expected, she was still slowing them down.
Jyrod checked behind him again. Aye, she's hasn't fallen on her face... Yet. Back to marching.
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The sun dropped below the horizon and the cold set in, and all of Evelyn's limbs were numb. She almost didn't realize when they had reached the city walls, walking through the gate with little reaction.
She regained awareness when they all entered a giant hall. There was a throne at the far end, but most importantly – it was warm. She could already feel herself thawing.
With the return of feeling, she realized that she was much more tired than she had been in the morning. It seems that a days-worth of straight trudging along will do that to you.
She felt a bit better when she saw that most of her traveling companions looked fatigued as well. The leader of the group -Gistir, was it?- stepped up to the man on the throne and began a long report. She tuned him out after the sixth mention of 'mine' and then tried to stay awake by counting the number of people in the hall. The problem was that she kept on getting different answers. She shuffled from foot to foot as she counted again.
She heard someone new speak up and turned back to the group. They were looking at her. Was she supposed to say something? "…Hi?..." More talking and gesturing, a woman was in the discussion now, but she couldn't focus on what was being said for the life of her.
The meanings slipped through her grasp. She tried biting her lip and then pinching herself but nothing was helping. She tried to be very still and keep her head up, only to realize that standing still is much harder than it looks. When Evelyn felt one of her legs begin to give, she course-corrected to avoid falling, but then had to correct herself again so that she didn't fall to the other side. It all devolved into a mess of trying to make sure she was standing straight.
A tap on her shoulder. Focusing hard, Evelyn saw it was the woman. She was smiling. Thankfully, it was more of a friendly smile - not like Hert's.
As if walking through a haze she was led out of the building and through the streets. They entered another building a little bit later - this one was warmer than the first.
The woman then led her into a room with a bed, which she all but collapsed on top of. No more walking for a long time... The door was just closing when Evelyn fell asleep.
