Chapter 4

Camping sucks.

There's not much else to say about the outdoors except I wanted to get myself clean in something that wasn't a freezing cold river. So when we reached Riverwood we were ecstatic at the thought of a nice warm bath. The water warmed over the fire, the big basin to soak your cold bones in. It was a dream.

Plus my parents were there and I was pretty happy to see them. But still the bath was what was on my mind the most.

Walking into town I saw the familiar faces that made me realise how much I missed home even though the place still smelled like Miltank. Kat was behind me while Sin bounced around excitedly before bolting straight for my home at the far end of town. Leo on the other hand just looked appalled at the situation as though this town was worse than staying out in the forest. Stuck up beast.

Trying to look as inconspicuous as possible I attempted to avoid most of the people in the town for the simple reason that I didn't want to stay in the area longer than necessary and they probably wouldn't even remember my who I was given that it had been five years since I had last been here. But sure enough one or two of the residents would pull me aside and give me a big bear hug while Kat muttered in the background that "small towns are really weird."

After what seemed like hours dodging people and talking to those that managed to notice me we reached my house where we found Sin sitting on the porch with a hang dog look that said everything wasn't as he remembered.

Knocking on the door I was greeted by a Nordic man who I did not know.

"Can I help you?" he asked in a deep timber that could have shook the earth.

"Yes I'm looking for the people who live here," I replied as awkward as I had ever been.

"I live here," was all the man replied with.

"But this is my families home," I told him with a thoroughly confused expression on my face. "My family lived here long before I was born."

"Oh," the man replied with a disinterested voice, "you must want the people we bought the house from. They said something about moving to Falkreath. Better vegetation for the Miltanks or something."

"Oh," I replied rather shocked, "alright. Ummmm, thank you...?"

The man nodded before closing the door in my face.

As I walked of the porch I was greeted by Kats evil face grinning at me. "You know for a second there I thought your parents were Nords," she teased in an attempt to make me smile.

"My parents are Nords," I replied with a raised eyebrow. "Well, the people who raised me anyways."

"What?!" Kat screeched. "Why have you never told me this before?"

"It wasn't really relevant," I told her.

"How did you have Nordic parents?!" Kat continued, seemingly entranced by my life story all of a sudden.

"My parents worked on the farm with some other elves and in order for them to work more effectively the family that owned the farm for took care of the children," I stated. "Well, admittedly only my mom worked on the farm but my dad was some guy I know nothing about. You know traumatic childhood events and what not."

"So didn't your mother raise you?" Kat asked in confusion.

"Naw, she was killed by some raiders when I was to little to remember," I told Kat emotionlessly.

"And you don't feel anything about that?" Kat asked.

"Not really," I answered with a shrug. "The people who raised me gave me a great life. I had food, shelter, pokemon, and love. They always treated me like I was their very own. I called them mom and dad and they called me their daughter. I knew I was, for lack of a better term, adopted and for the obvious reasons they never hid it. I mean the pointed ears kind of give it away.

"They let me do what I chose to do and when I left to make my own way in life they supported me. Sounds better to me that having only a mother who was dumb enough to get herself knocked up by what I assume is either a nord, or a high elf given that I've only met like two other wood elves in all the twenty one years I've been alive. And you know the lack of dark skin or any semblance of a tan on my skin implies I'm not part dark elf or any other human race. Also I'm guessing the general lack of body hair, scales and a tail are signs that I'm not part of Khajiit or Argonian."

Kat starred at me, looking pretty phased by all the knowledge of my life. "And now you tell me all this?!"

"What did you want me to tell you as recruits?" I asked with a laugh. "'Hi, I'm Tabitha the only elf here but I'm totally ok to talk to because I was raised by Nords.' Because, you know, that's not weird at all."

"Well- well you still should have told me before now," she retaliated.

"Fine," I replied with my hands up in surrender. "Lets just go get a room at the Inn. I need a hot bath and we'll pour some drinks down your throat so you can calm down girl."

With a heavy sigh Kat did exactly what I expected from her, she rolled her shoulders back, lifted her chin up and replied, "fine. But you're buying."

"I always buy when you're in one of you moods," I said with a chuckle. "I swear we must seem like a couple of lesbians to people some times."

Heading from my former house to the Inn I looked behind me to see Sin hanging his head so low it almost reached the ground. There was no doubt the look of sadness was because he didn't get the extreme affection my parents had always given the pup whenever we went away for a few days. Five years of being separated would get him some really good table scraps and a whole lot of belly rubs. Though I'm not completely sure how he ever managed to lay on his back with the big bone ridges that grew around his spine. Not to mention the giant horns on his head. But he managed it every time he was home.

Opening the door to the Inn we walked inside with Sin and Leo in tow to which the lady began making a rather loud fuss. "No Pokemon in the Inn!" She screeched so loudly that it was probably heard up in Dawnstar.

Our Pokemon seemed confused by the command but waited patiently for us to give them a cue.

"Please madam," Kat asked, using her sophisticated tone that only came out when she wanted to persuade people into things. "We have been travelling for many weeks and would love to use your Inn for a hot bath for all of us."

"I am not cleaning up after untrained beasts," the women replied sternly.

"You can rest assured that both my Liepard and her Houndoom are fully trained and if any problems arise we will happily pay for the damages," Kat told her.

"I don't know," the Inn keeper responded with hesitation in her voice.

"Whiterun is only a few hours walk from here Tabitha," Kat only ever used my full name when she was mad or trying to get something.

"You are right," I replied, knowing this game all to well. "We've been walking for weeks a few more hours will not kill us. I know the Inn in Whiterun accepts Pokemon."

"Well then I guess we shall be on our way," Kat told the woman with a head nod before being stopped by a large nordic man.

"Stop, stop," he bellowed. "Honey don't turn away good business. Clearly the Pokemon are trained or they wouldn't be sitting there waiting for commands. I'm sorry about her. She has just had bad luck with Pokemon in the past. Come in, come in. Do you need rooms? Hot water? how about some home cooked food?"

"All of the above please," Kat replied.

"And some mugs of mead please," I asked as the man flashed me a smile.

Gesturing at Sin and Leo they walked in and curled up right next to the large fire in the middle of the Inn. Clearly they were cold to the bone like Kat and I were except we knew we could get hot baths.

After we had paid for everything up front Kat and I went to our respective rooms to find a tub of warm water in each. I had never gotten armour off that quickly before in my life.

Slinking down into the hot water I let out a soft, contented sigh as my body sunk to the bottom of the cast iron tub. The bath warmed me to the core and though I had used up most of the warm water during my hour long soak and scrub the Inn keepers were kind enough to heat me a couple extra buckets to give Sin a bath. To be fair it was probably because the poor thing smelled something fierce after eating entrails, playing in the mud, killing things, and laying by campfires. Really Sin did it to himself and though he struggled for the first little while he eventually came to the realization that the bath was inevitable and just took it like a good little trooper.

Kat on the other hand must have had one hell of a time with Leo because when she returned there were giant claw marks down both her arms. I laughed long and hard at her inability to bath the large feline but she got some revenge when Leo decided it was play time and tried to catch a loose thread on my tunic. Needless to say I had four claw marks along each side of my ribcage from the Liepard attempting to catch the small thread.

Sitting in pain Kat and I drank our Mead in relative silence until a man came up to us and introduced himself as Sam. Sam was a pretty chatty guy and when he challenged us to a drinking contest we had to say yes. When an attractive man is willing to buy you mead until you pass out there is no answer other than 'yes.'

After the first drink things started to get hazy and I honestly don't remember anything after the fifth but when we finally came to after hours of heavy partying all I managed to say was, "where are we?"

AN: I don't know if anyone is liking this story but I hope its not just me... it's not about that Dovakin... that something right? Right?