A/N: I know it's been a very long time since I last updated this, but I hope you enjoy this chapter! I'll be updating this much more frequently now, so the next chapter should be out in a couple of days.

"Would you stop that?" Lydia snapped at him and put the bit of slightly burnt venison they'd bought off a few hunters down onto a small cloth. "I can't eat when you're doing…that."

"What's wrong?" Staid asked cluelessly as he carefully imbued more and more magic into the deer corpse they'd gotten the hunters to part with after a bit of coin changed hands. He frowned as he felt his carefully honed control begin to waver and with a sickening squelch the deer's head exploded and showered the forest around them with bits of gore and bone. "Oops."

"That!" His companion cried and nudged her venison away in disgust. Staid didn't know why she was reacting so badly. He'd aimed the deer so that any more incidents like the one that had just occurred wouldn't spray into the campsite. "I accept your use of magic, my Thane, but to defile the bodies of the dead is something I cannot overlook."

Staid sighed and pulled himself away from his macabre experiment as it slowly began to rise, suffused with ethereal blue energy that poured out of its exposed neck in a geyser of power. He waved his hand and cut the connection with the resurrected deer, which allowed the undead creature to explode into dust as the magic consumed it. A simple whisper of, "Fus" dispersed the pile of glowing dust into the forest.

"What would you have me do, Lydia?" He raised an eyebrow. While Lydia had warmed up to him a bit after they'd left Riverwood he hadn't expected her to express herself like this. She'd been a bit detached ever since they were introduced. "Conjuration is a powerful tool and I'm not powerful enough to throw it away. I'm still untrained in the Voice and barely skilled with Destruction. Right now just about anything other than some idiot bandit could probably take me down."

"Nothing will get past me, but very well," Lydia nodded with a scowl on her hard face. "I do not approve, but if you must use it then do so. But I do ask that you refrain from necromancy unless you are forced into using it. It is a cursed art."

"It has a lot of potential for abuse," Staid corrected and concentrated for a moment as he thrust out his hand. Seconds later a fish left in the campsite by the hunters flopped back to life on the rack it had been hung on, eyes alit with the deathly blue energy of necromancy. Lydia grimaced in disgust and drew her sword to return it to the grave, although Staid twisted his hand and allowed the magic to flow out of it before she acted. "Just like all magic. Necromancy's probably the worst, though. Not too many people can resist the kind of power it gives you."

"Besides," he continued with a grin, "Farengar helped me with that spell for free! How can I not use it?"

Lydia sighed and rubbed her forehead. "I'm sure he will be overjoyed to hear that, my Thane."

Staid just smiled for a second before he became a little more serious. "I'll try to avoid necromancy if it bothers you that much. It's just…I don't really know how I'm supposed to fight something like a dragon. You weren't there to fight Mirmulnir. You didn't see what it could do."

"Mirmulnir?" Lydia let the foreign name roll off her tongue. "That was the dragon's name?"

"Yes," he confirmed with a short nod before he reclined against a small boulder and looked up at the inky night sky thoughtfully. "Mirmulnir. When I killed it, when I took in its soul, I saw things. Memories. Stuff I can't even really comprehend. It's a part of me now and I don't really know how I've been changed from it."

"Perhaps you'll get used to it enough," Lydia offered grimly. Staid just snorted.

"I hope not. One dragon was bad enough and Mirmulnir wasn't even close to the strongest."

"Oh?" The Housecarl asked, curious.

"I didn't get that much out of Mirmulnir, but there's this one dragon, the one that destroyed Helgen," Staid began, "It's something else. I don't know it's name, but Mirmulnir was afraid of it."

He shuddered from a combination of that thought and a sudden gust of icy wind and let a bit of magic flow from his palms to heat himself. The coldness that pervaded Skyrim would have unbearable if he wasn't reasonably well-versed in magic. Staid personally didn't know what sort of frigid wasteland the Nords came from that made Skyrim seem like a decent place to settle but he made a mental note to avoid that land no matter what.

"It sounds like a terrible beast," Lydia agreed and idly toyed with her dagger as she looked into the flames Staid had produced for the two. "But with the Greybeards' teachings I have no doubt that you can triumph over it."

"Thanks," Staid flashed the Nord woman a smile. She returned it back, a lot more amenable now that she wasn't concerned about his more unsavory bits of magic. "How much do you know of them, anyway?"

"The same as any other Nord," His Housecarl shrugged. "They are legends, the Masters of the Voice. The Greybeards have not intervened in the world since Talos walked the earth but they have not been forgotten. Of course, I suppose their intervention has begun again now that you have been named Dragonborn."

"Troublesome, that," Staid sighed and felt a bit of bitterness well up in him. "It definitely messed up my plans."

Lydia raised an eyebrow. "And what were those plans, my Thane? I don't know much about your life before the revelation of your nature, but the rumors claim that you were a simple wanderer."

"Calling me a wanderer might be a bit too charitable," The Last Dragonborn snorted. "I was a vagrant and beggar with just enough skill in magic to survive the roads. The Legion camps were probably the only reason I lived long enough to reach Helgen."

"A hard life," Lydia commented sympathetically. "Where did you learn to fight?"

"Here and there," He replied evasively. "The Legionnaires taught me a bit, mostly how to fight dirty with a dagger. I'm still a bit small for most swords. Magic's something I learned from my Pa before he died and I managed to scrounge up enough coin to keep learning while I traveled. Throwing a fireball is a lot safer than getting up close, you know?"

"How did your parents die, if you don't mind me asking?" She said hesitantly. Lydia was obviously worried that she'd offend him somehow.

"Bandit raid," he scowled. "Bunch of idiots that called themselves the Marauders. They're dead now."

Lydia grunted and gave him a nod. It looked like she was just as uncomfortable with all of this as he was. They really didn't know each other at all beyond the basics. Staid got the feeling that she was a little disappointed that she was guarding him, even if he was the Dragonborn.

Actually, that might be why she was disappointed. Staid knew he didn't really fit what most Nords expected of their legendary Dragonborn.

Honestly, he'd be a bit disappointed too if he found out a legendary hero he'd heard about his entire life was, well, him. He didn't fit the description that well, even if he had a knack for magic and could fight as dirty as any other orphan raised on the streets of Bruma and lawless roads of Skyrim.

"It's late," He said after a long, awkward silence. There wasn't really a way to get back into the conversation with the turn it had taken. "I'll take first watch, if you want."

Lydia looked like she wanted to refute that, but she paused and nodded. Staid smiled in the darkness and pulled himself over to an angle that would let him look out at the road instead of the black forest. If there was danger that would be where it came from.

There were a few bandits stupidly brave enough to try to ambush travelers at night, but for the most part they stayed in whatever cave or old, decrepit fort they'd holed up in.

Plenty of things wandered in the cold nights of Skyrim and bandits were the least threatening of them.

"Good night," he grunted to Lydia as she collapsed onto the rough sleeping mat the hunters had left at this camp. It was better than nothing, but just barely. He doubted that Lydia would care what she slept on as long as it wasn't the dirt. That heavy armor was probably exhausting to wear all day, not to mention uncomfortable.

"Good night, my Thane."

Staid sat there for what felt like an eternity. He just listened to Lydia's breath until it turned deep and rhythmic in the wake of sleep.

Once he was sure that she was gone, he glanced at the rabbit carcass that hung adjacent to the rows of butchered fish and reached out with his hand. Deathly blue energy shot out and consumed the rabbit, which animated much faster than Staid was capable of a few days ago and lurched erratically until it had fallen off the rack and meandered its way over to Staid.

He wrinkled his nose at the stench of death and the sheer unnaturalness of a butchered rabbit pulling itself around with legs mostly stripped of skin and muscle and reminded himself that it was an experiment. Despite what he told Lydia, Staid was no fan of necromancy itself but knew it was too useful a tool to ignore, especially since he hadn't been able to afford any of the spell tomes Farengar sold that would let him summon daedric entities to his aid.

Still, he thought he was onto something here. Staid mentally commanded the rabbit to slowly shamble deeper into the woods where there would be enough trees and foliage to block what happened next.

While he waited for the rabbit to carry out his bidding, Staid squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his fists until his fingernails cut deep into his palms as he slowly worked his next piece of magic, which was a convenient spell that would let him see in the darkness for a few minutes.

Once he felt the familiar itching in his eyes he opened them and glanced into the forest where the rabbit stood still. It was visible thanks to the ethereal energy that swirled around it like a winter's mist but that would change soon enough.

Now that he was able to see the results of his experiment, Staid sent another burst of magic across the link and felt a satisfied grin work its way onto his face when the rabbit promptly exploded into bits of gore and bone.

Maybe not the equal of the famed 'Enemies Explode' spell used by the most powerful of the mages well-schooled in the Destruction school, but this had its uses. Staid doubted it would actually hurt anyone physically, but it would definitely surprise them and leave them open to a quick stab to the neck.

Staid leaned back and smirked as he kept his eyes locked onto the surrounding darkness that his magic pierced through with ease. Nothing would get past him unless it was invisible.

His eyes lit up when he saw a chance to use yet another of the spells he'd purchased off of Farengar with the hefty sum of gold Jarl Balgruuf had seen fit to reward him. Staid squeezed his eyes shut in concentration and let the fiery magic work its way through his body before he released it and allowed the writhing energy to form in the shape of an intricate series of runes on the ground just a few feet away from the campsite, right on the worn path that led to the road a short distance away.

He grinned at his success but regretted casting the Fire Rune immediately as he felt his reserves of magicka dwindle to nothing. That could have been fatal in a real battle and would have been stupid enough of a mistake to get him to admit that he deserved to get his head smashed in with a giant hammer for such a stupid slip-up.

Still, this was why he always tested his spells before he had to rely on them in a fight. Farengar had told him that casting a Fire Rune was draining for the inexperienced but he never expected it to drain him dry. He'd have to practice with it a lot more before he could use it practically. Right now he doubted he could even conjure up a small flame.

The Last Dragonborn sighed and let himself collapse against the hard stone in exhaustion. He'd have to heal up that bruise tomorrow but it was worth it. His muscles felt like he'd just lifted a heavy boulder and carried it all the way back to Whiterun and he felt a headache starting to brew.

It was too bad he still had a good amount of time left on guard duty. The lone Fire Rune he'd cast wouldn't be nearly enough to safeguard their camp and was more of an experiment than anything else. There was no way he would let himself succumb to his self-inflicted exhaustion. He'd made the mistake of sleeping out in the wilderness without any kind of protection and had nearly died for it at the hand of an enterprising bandit.

Ah well. He'd just have to suck it up and hope that sleep would soothe the burn in his muscles and nip his headache in the bud.

He really didn't want tomorrow to be difficult.

XX

"Hold it!" A thin woman with black eyes and ragged furs barked and stepped out in front of him with a sword of dubious quality held threateningly. "This here's a toll road, boy!"

Well, it looked like today would be complicated after all.

"And how much is this toll?" Staid sighed and reached for his dagger. Lydia, still in her armor, grasped her sword and readied her shield for battle.

"For you? Two hundred septims," The woman grinned and showed off a mouth of black and missing teeth. Staid snorted in disgust. "If you don't want to part with your gold we can just take it from you. Take it or leave it!"

Staid scowled at the bandit woman when two of her fellows walked out of the tall tower nearby to join her. They were poorly equipped but they still made things difficult. Lydia had warned him about this little band of outlaws holed up in the Valtheim Towers, so he was ready. Still, this wouldn't be enjoyable.

"Hand it over. Now!" One of the hulking masses of muscle sneered and hefted his massive club to show he was ready to smash some heads.

The Imperial pretended to consider it for a moment. As if he'd ever hand over his hard-earned septims to a couple of dirty bandits when he had Lydia and plenty of nifty magic at his beck and call.

Honestly, he had no idea why they thought robbing him was a good idea. He might be young, but he was clearly armed, had an ancient staff of ancient nordic steel strapped to his back, and was followed by a well-armed woman with armor that would probably break their shoddy weapons if they tried to attack her.

None of the bandits were quick enough to react when a spike of conjured ice shot into the woman's throat. They just stared at the corpse, dumbfounded at their comrade's unforeseen death.

By the time the two thugs had started to react one had been struck in the chest with a second Ice Spike and Lydia had already rushed over to the second and smashed her heavy shield into his nose.

Staid had to wince at his Housecarl's honed brutality as she elegantly rammed her blade through the bandit's shoddy armor and into his chest. The man gasped and dropped his axe to helplessly grasp at the blade, but Lydia easily wrenched it out and finished the bandit off.

Lydia's face was hard as stone as she carefully wiped her blade off on the dead man's furs and glanced over to the second tower, where one of the bandits seemed to have noticed the fate of his fellows.

"Well, let's go do our duty as good servants of Whiterun," Staid sighed and sheathed his dagger in favor of the staff, which sent a familiar tingle up his arm as he grasped it and allowed some of his magic to flow into the ancient steel. He'd fight off any archers with it while Lydia took on whatever poor bastards decided to come at them with a blade or axe.

Once he had his mask secured and the familiar feeling of strength and vigor in his limbs that wiped away any of his exhaustion from the previous day he motioned for Lydia to take point.

"I sure hope the Jarl appreciates this."

XX

Staid wasn't too concerned as Lydia locked blades with the leader of the bandits. The giant of a man had managed to pull on a steel cuirass while his followers sacrificed themselves to Lydia's shining sword and Staid's ruthlessly powerful spells and had proved to be quite a formidable foe, even if he couldn't quite put Lydia on the defensive.

He was impressed yet again with his Housecarl even as he dispatched what passed for a mage amongst the bandits with a careless blast of lightning from his staff. Staid had no doubt that he was leagues above the bandit witch in skill, although he had to admit that the staff he'd taken from the Lich's tomb probably simplified things somewhat.

The Dragonborn would never discount the threat posed by even the least skilled of magic-users, but she had been a disgrace to the art. By the time she'd managed to call upon her flames he'd already noticed her, raised his staff, and shot her with enough lightning to drain her meager reserves dry.

"Time to die, meat!" Another of the few bandits that hadn't yet fled his and Lydia's unstoppable advance roared from behind him. Staid reflexively ducked and cursed as he realized the bandit had probably been waiting for him to let his guard down this entire fight.

Another furious swing of the bandit's sword nearly caught his arm and Staid cast his staff aside in desperation, although he was loath to let go of his most powerful weapon. It would just get him killed in these close-quarters, though. Before he'd just struck down any bandit stupid enough to charge him from the bridge. Up close it was too unwieldy to be much use.

Staid swore again when the bandit managed to score a thin, shallow gash on his arm. He quickly ducked another wild swing and yanked his dagger out of his sheath.

There was no way he'd win this in a straight-up fight. The bandit attacked like a drunken troll but that worked surprisingly well in the tight confines of a tower.

Good thing he didn't plan on fighting fair.

Staid raised his hand at the bandit as the brute shouted a guttural war cry and lunged for him again, although he smirked at the bandit from behind his mask as writhing flames swirled around his hand and prepared to sear the dirty thug's flesh with magical heat.

The bandit cried out in fear and lost his footing as he did his best to stumble away from the expected gout of flame. Staid saw his chance and lowered his hand to dash forward and stab his dagger into the bandit's exposed neck while the man was relatively defenseless.

He grimaced as the man gurgled helplessly and reached for his blade before he wrenched it out. The skin around the stab wound was black from the icy cold of the enchantment. Staid hoped to avoid anybody with a similar enchantment. It was a nasty one.

Now that the last of the bandits was dead, Staid turned his attention back to Lydia. She was still crossing blades with the bandit leader but he had clearly lost the battle. Blood poured from various gashes on his unarmored legs and arms and it looked like he'd lost most of his ability to move.

Staid couldn't help but let his eyes follow Lydia's graceful movements. Her body was covered with her heavy steel armor but the way she moved as she fought was still enough to grab his attention. The sheer skill and precision that went into every movement, every twist of her arm and slash of her sword, made every other warrior he'd seen save Irileth look like a staggering drunk.

It was beautiful and he realized that Balgruuf had given him one of Whiterun's deadliest tools as a guardian.

That didn't stop him from wincing when Lydia neatly sidestepped the chief's last, desperate lung and lopped off his head with a single powerful blow. She looked at the body for a second before she gave it a quick nod of respect and wiped her blade off on one of the bandits' furs.

"Are there more, my Thane?"

"No," he shook his head and wiped off his own dagger. "I killed the rest."

Lydia nodded. Her face was still hard as she looked at the three corpses in the room. "What shall we do with the bodies?"

"After I check them for anything interesting just throw them into the river," Staid remarked casually as he ran his hands through the bandit witch's pockets. He found a few septims and a small, shriveled herb but nothing of real value. After he slipped the gold into his pouch he picked up his nearby staff and went onto the next one. "Go check and see if they had any of their stash in this tower. It has to be somewhere around here."

He didn't miss his Housecarl's grimace but shrugged it off. Lydia might be above searching dead men but he wasn't. You had to do what you had to do if you wanted to survive on the roads and he'd like to have a bit more coin in his pocket than what Balgruuf had spared.

Besides, you never knew when you might find something interesting.

XX

"We'll need to hire a caravan to follow us at this rate," Lydia complained from behind him as he happily headed down the road with a bag of valuables held in his hand and another two strapped to the main pack that held his mask.

Staid just rolled his eyes. She had nothing to complain about. They'd found a nice stash of pilfered gems and septims, enough potions to bring a dead man back to life twice over, and an enchanted bow that was currently strapped to Lydia's back. He wasn't skilled enough to tell what sort of enchantment was placed onto it, but hopefully there would be an appraiser capable of specifying whatever magic was imbued into the weapon.

He grumbled as he realized that he wouldn't be in this situation if Farengar hadn't decided that some strange alchemical project was more important than teaching him. He'd have to find someone willing to teach him so that he wouldn't rely on others to identify enchantments. It was an annoyance to need other people to help him.

Still, that was completely wiped away by the sheer satisfaction of the wealth he'd found himself with. The Valtheim bandits had an unusually good operation going on, but it had given him plenty of incentive to take whatever bounties Proventus handed out in the future.

Staid sighed forlornly. It was too bad that he hadn't managed to get his hands on a nice piece of enchanted weaponry like his staff or dagger back when he was still a nameless wanderer just seeking refuge for the night. Or even a partner that could easily equal Staid in combat prowess.

Even a minor group of bandits would have had enough gold on hand to last Staid a good while.

Anything was better than nothing, after all.

"Once we stop for the night we can split the haul up," He remarked to Lydia, who looked at him oddly. "What?"

"As your Housecarl, what's mine is yours," Lydia explained when she realized that he really didn't understand. "My life is bound in service to your own, and with it my possessions. Everything I am or own is at your disposal, Dragonborn."

"Huh," Staid blinked. He hadn't realized just how much Housecarls gave up for their honored positions. They were free men and women, that much he knew, but it seemed like that only mattered when they weren't actively serving their Thane or Jarl. "Anything else I should know?"

"That's about it," His Housecarl replied drily. After a moment of silence she continued, "Did Jarl Balgruuf or Irileth not explain your new status as Thane?"

"Oh, they did," Staid said evasively. "I just wasn't at my best when they were. I'd just nearly been eaten by a dragon, after — damn it, not again!"

Lydia's finely honed reflexes revealed themselves as her calloused hand grasped the hilt of her sword to cut down the small pack of scrawny wolves that had just rushed at them from the side. By the time her blade was raised to slay the first of the strangely green-eyed beasts, however, Staid had already dispatched them with a single fireball that killed two of them instantly in an explosion of heat and force.

"I hate spriggans," Staid grumbled as he knelt down by the nearest of the wolves and cut its throat to put it out of its misery. He wiped his bloody blade off on its smoldering coat before he sheathed the ancient dagger and concentrated for a moment. "I've had to deal with more wolf attacks in Skyrim than I ever did in Cyrodiil because of them. You'd think that someone would kill the damn trees."

"My Thane…" Lydia warned as the wolf he'd just slain staggered to its feet, shrouded in deathly blue light. Staid concentrated harder and the wolf suddenly dug its sharp teeth into one of its fellows' neck and dragged the canine off into the woods.

"What?" The Dragonborn grinned innocently. "I'm just clearing the path. It's not like we have the time to spare to skin them."

Lydia just sighed and set her face into its normal resigned state. Staid noticed that she'd been doing that a lot today. "Why do I think you aren't going to stop that foul practice anytime soon?"

"I will when I find something more useful," Staid shrugged and let the wolf's body crumble into dust as the magic that animated it was yanked away. "If Farengar wasn't so stingy…"

"If Farengar's miserly habits are what's stopping you then you've already reached your full potential," Lydia snorted. "The wizard drives a harder bargain than Belethor."

"Really?" Staid asked, not surprised in the least. "And how would you know? Personal experience, perhaps?"

Lydia carelessly rolled her eyes before she realized the slight against her Thane. Staid just grinned. "Of course not. Good steel is all that any proper warrior needs. A wizard's tricks can't compare to a sharp blade."

"We'll see about that…" Staid muttered with a slight smirk. "Do you count the Voice as a wizard's trick? It is magic, after all."

His Housecarl froze and Staid felt a good bit of satisfaction at that. "No."

"Good, good," Staid sang, "I can't even imagine how disappointed the Greybeards would have been to hear that there's such little respect for the Voice in Skyrim anymore."

Lydia shuddered at that and Staid briefly wondered if he might have pushed too far.

"You would have fit in well at the court."

He knew that was not a compliment, but at least it didn't look like she was angry with him.

XX

"Is this is?" He asked as a far-off village became visible to the naked eye. Staid squinted but couldn't make out much more than a couple of buildings. It was still too far away to estimate how big Ivarstead really was.

"Yes," Lydia said tersely. He glanced over and saw that she had gone even paler than usual. She must have been a lot more nervous than he thought if she was starting to lose her composure. "Shall we rest for the night, my Thane?"

Staid nodded. "I don't want to climb the Seven Thousand Steps right now. We need to stock up on supplies and see about selling some of these potions, anyway. I don't want to be weighed down on the trip up the Throat of the World."

"Of course," She replied and followed Staid as he hastened his pace. It was beginning to get dark and he didn't want to have to compete with anybody for spots at the local inn. While he wouldn't be particularly averse to sharing a room with Lydia he was sure it would be terribly awkward. She probably wouldn't want to share the bed and he figured that one of them would end up on the floor.

And, given how seriously she took her duties as Housecarl, Staid had the sneaking suspicion that it wouldn't be him.

So, definitely an awkward experience. Staid was hardly chivalrous, but he'd gone without a bed so often over the last few years that he wouldn't really mind not having one again. Lydia was definitely more accustomed to the luxuries of Whiterun if her slight discomfort with the sleeping mats they'd used the previous night was any hint and he wouldn't want to deprive her of that.

Staid let a little bolt of lightning jump between his fingertips as he and Lydia trekked on to the small town ahead of them.

He had to hide a grin when he realized that his little tricks with fire and lightning would soon be the weakest weapons at his disposal. Fus was powerful enough on its own. If the Greybeards taught him more Shouts…

Well, Staid hoped the dragons were ready.

He certainly would be.