The sun had hit the sky and the cockerel crooned waking Lucan. Dawn had begun, he could smell the dew rousing in the air from outside mixing with the pine trees forming a most relaxing fragrance. Riverwood had its perks, remote, small and quiet. Away from the loud bustle in the Imperial City, just the way Lucan liked it. Sighing a yawn, Lucan raised from his bed, dusting whatever loose straw from his bed off of him and getting to his feet to begin his routine.
He decided to let Camilla sleep in for a few more hours, wanting to open the store himself. He preferred it that way, Camilla had been having quite the arduous temperament as of late. For the past months she had rousting about selling used weapons and armor at discounted prices for any traveling adventurers passing by, a good idea except for the fact that selling used weapons could make them target of unsavory characters, people looking for a fence and what not. Then there was an incident where a traveling herbalist had came by with some rather exoctic potions to sell, again that would make them a target. Camilla would get upset feeling as if she wasn't appreciated. It was her store too, as Lucan would tell her but he'd wish she'd understand that they came here to Riverwood to get away from all the rabble they left behind in Cyrodiil. "Dry goods and supplies for the local villagers is the hub of our store and nothing else." Is what he'd told her one day, and she'd huff, argued on how his lack for enterprise would bring ruin to this store and saulk about it all day making his day miserable. And since the burglary recently, her attitude was becoming more hard to endure.
Skipping breakfast and getting dressed, Lucan was quick to log inventory and sweep up before the day bell rings when he heard Camilla already awake and getting herself ready. She came downstairs wearing a bright yellow spring dress showing a little too much cleavage for a peasant gown, her hair, long and dark brown was messed into a bun and she was in light makeup, mainly her eyes dolled up in black eyeliner with light mascara. Always the dressy one that. "Maybe she's off see on of those suitors of hers." Lucan thought, while sweeping the floor slowly, "That idiot bard Sven or that annoying elf Faendal." Their parents would roll in their graves at the sight of their only daughter messing with that lot, he thought.
"No breakfast for you dear brother?" Camilla said coming down. Lucan was slow to respond, "No, I want to get the store up and ready before the day begins."
"Why so early, people are outside lining up for what? Flour, mushrooms, dung!?"
"Farmers need fertilizer dear sister." he said not looking up from the floor.
"It's been two days since the robbery and no word?" Camilla asked.
"I sent word to Gerdur who says she passed it onto the town guard in Whiterun." Lucan retorted.
"That's it!?" Camilla snapped, "That's all you're going to do!? We were robbed by bandits Lucan! Bandits on which you'd say would never come here because we don't have anything bandits want, right?"
Lucan said nothing only finishing his duties to ready the shop trying to keep his mind busy off the thought of the robbery. That claw….that sweet golden claw. Lucan had used it as ornament as way to attract customers. He knew it was worth some coin yet people from all over the province would come here to see a rare dragon's claw up close.
Camilla continued her rambling "We sell, flour, eggs, dirt and shit! And we still get robbed by fucking brigands! And then there's this talk of dragons…"
"Rumors.." Lucan interjected nonchalantly.
"And the civil war!?"
"This is Skyrim, the nords here fight over everything."
Camilla laughed, "I'm loving how you're refusing to accept the reality. Bandits robbed our place and you're doing nothing about it! We'll get burglarized again if we don't act!" She steadied herself, calming down. "Look I'm not saying you should go out personally and look for it, I'm saying is that I'll hire a nice burly fella that swings his sword for a living which in Skyrim isn't hard to find….."
"No."
"Well one of us have to do something!"
"I said NO! NO THIEF CHASING! NO HEROICS! WE'RE DONE TALKING ABOUT THIS!"
Two loud rapts bang the door cutting the brother and sister discussion short. "Are you open!?"" said a voice.
Gods, a customer. Lucan thought, I hope by he didn't hear that, Zenithar's mercy if I start losing customers cause of my dear sister's constant needs to debate. "Uh...Yes! Come in...Please!"
Rohan opened the door, stepping through, carrying to a large sack that looked to be holding some weight. "Divines bless you this fine morning!" he sung greeting the shopkeepers, he always sound disturbingly cheery when he knows some coin is to be made. Comes with being a mercenary he supposed.
Lucan was a little taken aback Rohan's sudden appearance. They barely were acquainted, he only knew him as that stranger who survived Helgen, that squats at the blacksmith's house. But he was quite eager to see what the nord was carrying, no doubt here to make quick coin by his perky attitude but he was still intrigued not many days since someone came to for a pawn. Camilla however was not interested in what goods he was carrying but the man himself. Lucan could tell by how hungirly she was eyeballing him, she was always like that when new guys came marching in, especially nord men and it annoyed him.
"I was speaking with Gerdur earlier." said Rohan setting the sack down on the floor, "And she told me you had something like this?"
He pulled out a shining golden plated dragon's claw and suddenly a burst of joy spilled on Lucan's and Camilla's face. "The claw!" Lucan cheered, "You found it! But how!?"
"In Bleak Falls Barrow, off a bandit's corpse."
"You went in the Barrow by yourself?" Camila asked.
Rohan flashed her a small grin, "Yeah, went there last night."
"By yourself?!"
"Yeah."
Camilla was trying to find words to speak but her mind was racing, those eyes...those strong arms...how brave he is…."Wow." her only reply.
"Thank you! Thank you! THANK YOU!" Lucan said, still beaming with happiness. He took the claw into his hands appraising it, it was cold at the touch but still so beautiful. "I'm going to put this right back where it belongs, I won't forget this!"
He placed upon its private shelf that overlooked the shop counter, the claw once more being the shining ornament of the Riverwood Trader. Lucan then quickly remembered once more thing. He bends low to a small locked chest under his shop counter, pulling out a small coin purse. 800 septims, that was the price he was secretly going to pay for someone to look for it or try to track the bandits down and by back from them, (Of course he wasn't going to tell Camilla that).
"Here take this, you've been a big help for my sister and me." he said.
Rohan raised his eyebrows at the sight of the coin. It was easy but still to be paid big for a job he did on a lark was a first for him.
"I wonder how you managed all those bandits, I know it wasn't easy." Lucan said.
Rohan playfully shrugged, "Handlings brigands isn't something new for me."
"I say I'm still quite surprised." said Lucan. "For what I've known about so far is that you help Alvor out at the smith and it was also you who fixed the mill recently too."
"Handling a swords, a hammer on an anvil or fixing a lumber mill is all in a day's work for me." said Rohan, not trying to boast yet still it came off so.
"You're a man good with your hands." Camilla spoke, low and softly.
Rohan picked up on the flirt, "I suppose you can say that." his locked into hers. Lucan could feel the awkwardness rising like the morning sun, Divines his sister was insufferable.
"Um….well is there anything else I can help you with?" Lucan spoke, cutting to his usual line with customers.
Rohan broke the seductive stares and back on to Lucan. "Actually yes you can help me." He still had something left in his bag.
Lucan's eyes went wide when Rohan put the stone slab onto his counter. "What..what is that?" Even Camilla was startled she looking closely over the counter.
"I got it from the Barrow." Rohan ceased the urge to tell the story about him fighting a shouting draugr to get it, as much as he wanted to for Camilla's favor.
Lucan put on a dwarven make loupe on his right eye, viewing the stone slab thoroughly. "I don't recognize the language." he said feeling the inscriptions etched in the rock with his fingers.
"It does not look Ayelid or Daedric." said Camilla, her going back on her studies on ancient Tamrielic languages and phonetics from her years of private tutoring back in Cyrodiil. "Perhaps Akaviri?" She said speaking to her brother, Lucan only shook his head while tapping his chin still looking at the stone tablet.
"No, something tells me that isn't quite exact. Its rare that's for certain. Where you looking to pawn it?"
Rohan shrugged his shoulders, "I'm trying to find out what it is before I do anything with it. Since I heard you had an inkling for rare ornaments." he gestured to the gold claw, "I was hoping you would know."
"You could possible have a sign that says latrine for all I know." Lucan spoke.
"There's always Farengar." Camilla implied.
"Who?" Rohan asked.
"The court wizard in Dragonsreach at the capital of the Hold."
"NO!" Lucan interjected, "He can't go there."
Camilla folded her arms in a huff, "And why not?"
"One, you need a summon to go to the jarl's palace and two, he could get arrested for going into that ruin in the first place. There's a law about grave digging and disturbing the ancient dead here in Skyrim, you know how nords are."
Camilla paused for a moment, pondering her brother's point on the matter and hated to admit that he was right on that, "What were you doing in the barrow anyway?" she asked.
Rohan was a bit flushed by the question, he didn't wanted to tell the two trader siblings about his vivid dreams and faint sounds of whispers and other nonsense that could cause them to skeptically laugh. "The bandits, they were camped out in the barrow no doubt they were going to rob the place or use the tomb as a staging base and raid Riverwood, there was no telling so I had to stop them."
An easy explanation seemed logical to a point and he was vague on the details. "I could tell you all about some time."
"Perhaps over a drink?" Camilla asked, raising an eyebrow and smiling at him seductively.
"I still can't believe you'd take brigands on by yourself." said Lucan.
"Trust me." said Rohan, "I know how to handle myself in a fight."
"He did survived that dragon attack in Helgen brother." Camilla said teasingly.
"Well…" Lucan said, "I can't help with this stone here, and my darling sister is right." he grumbled at her before looking back at Rohan. "The court wizard is the only one that can help you."
"But you said I can't go the Dragonsreach without a summon from the jarl." Rohan interjected.
"Yes, but there's also Gerdur." said Lucan, "She's in charge of this village here as you know or... well she seems to be all though she doesn't like to. Well she happens to be only one authorize to write writs requesting the jarl's audience. You can ask her to help you out."
That seemed quite the fair solution for Rohan's case, although he knew Gerdur is busy at the mill at the moment and won't be free till later that evening. All well that didn't seem an issue, Rohan could wait then. For now he needed food and sleep, he'll wake come sundown and meet with the other villagers in the inn
As expected, when the sun was reaching treeline turning the sky into a burnt orange haze, the villagers of Riverwood would retire from chores and labor for the night. Hod would shut off the saw closing the mill, Alvor would cool the fires in his forge and put up his tools, other villagers would put the chickens in their pens and finish up kneading their crops. A nice aroma of roasted honey brewing with wheat would whaff out from the Sleeping Giant indicating the Delphine had a fresh brew stirring for the villagers to come and enjoy.
Soon the inn was packed with all those of Riverwood coming for a quick bite of roasted goat leg, sweet bread and of course tankards galore of mead.
Faendal had slipped out of the inn and away from the rabble of crowd, taking a back way to Camilla's. Sven was busy entertaining the crowd with his mediocre tunes of ballads, always the same shit about some warrior from Rorikstead who gets his head lopped. Never has Faendal ever heard someone sing the twenty versions of the same bullshit song, but Sven could make it happen. "Divines...the culture in this hovel, if there even is any?!" Faendal would say to himself, thinking on it. But there was one shining blossom in this garden of mediocrity, one beautiful goddess and she Camilla Valerius. Her shining green eyes, thus luscious locks of dark brown hair that glimmer in the light and that shape of hers...Mara's grace that body of hers.
He stopped behind her home, seeing a candle light in her small bedroom window indicating she was home. Faendal opened his mouth to speak but a jolt of nerves caught him midway for a beat until his throat started to hurt to a point he had to speak "Camilla?" he says almost croaking he swallowed and continued, "I didn't see you in the inn so I figured…" Explaining yourself is dumb Faendal, just get to the point! "I've been meaning to talk to you earlier...I hope I'm not disturbing you its just that the poem I gave I was hoping to see if you liked it and.."
"Still with that same redundant elven shit, eh Faendal?" said a voice Faendal did not want to hear.
Sven came walking out of the outcasts shadows of the buildings and into the bright moonlight. "You writing her... poetry." Sven scoffed.
Faendal crossed his arms and sneered, "Better than the trash you holler out to the drunken rabble back at the tavern."
Sven only giggled, stepping closer to Faendal giving him a playful tap on the shoulder, "Oh Faendal you silly little bosmer." he teased, "When are you going to realize that that sweet succulent woman isn't interested in some frail elf such as you."
Faendal face morphed into sour disgust the nerve of this ass of a nord, "You think because I'm an elf she won't be interested in me!?"
"I think because you're a half wit is why she's not into you!" Sven retorted. "Women don't come to Skyrim to fuck elves! Especially elves who stink of wood rot and bear shit!"
"First of all you pissant! I only have that odor because I work at the mill, you know a REAL job!" Faendal fired back. "And second…"
Both the elf and the bard bickered back and forth while inside Camilla's bedroom she was ignoring the rambling outside and instead poured her and her guest another cup of brandy.
"I have to say." said Rohan, "That wood elf is rhapsodist. Such rhythmic and passionate verses he has of you." He says, setting the papers of poems down on the end table.
Camilla walked over carrying two small cups of liquor, her naked body gleaming like tan gold in the candle light as she steps over to him. "Mmmm." she purrs, "I know someone else who's quite passionately rhythmic as well." Rohan took the cup for a sip, giving her a playful wink.
"As I always say, if one is a good bladesmen he can handle his other bladesmenship ." Rohan said setting aside the glass.
"Lover and a fighter, my type." Camilla said, coming into the bed with him, her naked body pressed against his naked body, resting close enough for Rohan to take his calloused hand and caress her. "Funny, Sven thinks himself the same way." she said, running her finger through the muscled lines between the pecs of Rohan's chilsed chest.
Rohan snorted, "That bard makes me want to shove that lute down his throat or up his ass depending on what song he bellows out."
Camilla giggled, "Come now, Sven is fun."
"Bards are annoying." Rohan said rolling his eyes.
He reaches over taking another gulp of his brandy before setting it back down, now having his full attention on Camilla and the bodily gifts the Divines had given her. "Now as much as I want to talk about your wannabe boyfriends, I'd say the night is still young enough to have another tumble before your brother shows."
Camilla was finishing her cup of brandy as well and she smiled gingerly ready to embrace the burly nord before her. Rohan was on top pinning her and engulfed her mouth with a deep kiss, his hands exploring every part of her body from her chest to the lower bottoms. Camilla moaning deeply, she hoist herself onto him, wrapping her legs around him ready to take all he had in.
She broke from the kiss letting his mouth find her neck, "This time…" she whispers huskiley into his ear, "No breaks, lets keep going until we can't anymore…" she says eagerly. "I want you to give me everything...you've got."
Rohan was ready to oblige but just as he was ready to enter her, a bone chilling scream hollering from outside caused them both to cease their moment of passion.
The scream was so loud that chatter inside the packed tavern stopped and villagers from the tavern and some in their homes came bursting out to see the commotion, Gerdur being already there at the scene.
Two nord girls, one looking at least fourteen or fifteen the other no younger than six. Both were drenched in sweat due to miles of running, hot soot caked on their skin and their clothes looked to have been singe "H-HELP! PLEASE!" cried the teenage Riverwood villagers encircled the ragged two, eyes wide in bewilderment and terror.
"Delphine! Quick!" said Gerdur taking one of the girls by the shoulder and checking her body for injuries and other ailments, "Blankets, bandages and some water! Please!" Delphine gave assured nod and ran back inside the inn hollering at her assistant Orgnar to gather the supplies.
"What happened?!" Gerdur said. In a fit of tears the teenager explained, "It...it...burned everything...our farm….gone….my ma...my da…." she stopped in words, tears streaming down heavily as she tried to contain herself. The younger one began to wail
Gerdur was confused "What...what was it?" .
"DWAGAWN!" the younger girl cried.
Gasps echoed around the mass the crowd along with concerned murmuring, "Dragon what?!" someone had said. "Like Helgen?! But that was a rumor!" said another.
Gerdur quickly hushed the crowd. "A dragon attacked you?" she asked the girl.
The teenage girl nodded, "It flew over us like a racing shadow. I didn't know what it was first but then it had those great big wings and fire poured from its mouth and...Me and Abby just started running after pa told us to and..." Gerdur placed the tip of her hand over the girl's lips. She did not need the girl to finish to know the rest.
"Hush now." she says softly to the girl. Gerdur then called for her husband, "Hod! Get some pallets made for the girls and some stew." Hod assuringly nods his head and rushes over to their home. Delphine soon came out with the blankets with Orgnar following her with the bandanages and other supplies.
Rohan dashed outside, an unstrung lenin shirt over his body with short pants, Camilla herself in a small silk robe following outside to the see commotion. Both of them shocked to see the two young girls dirty with soot and shooken scared.
"What's happened?" Rohan says.
"Dragon attack." said Orgnar overhearing him. "From a farmstead north of the road."
A tinge of fear hit Rohan like a ram, memories of Helgen flashing before him. He rushes over to the two traumatized girls "Did it have black scales and red glowing eyes?" he says eager for an answer. "Come!" he snaps, "Tell me!"
The teenage girl was a bit lost for words, "...No….well I don't think so….it was….orange? I believe…" her words stuttered as she trembled while trying to look back on it. Delphine draped a blanket over her shoulders causing the girl to stop. "Let's get you and your sister indoors." she says motherly in a way. She then gave Rohan a glare. "They need healing and shelter not an interrogation." she says almost snarling before leading the girls to Gerdur's home.
Rohan said nothing, realizing that she had a point and he was being a bit to harsh. But he had to know the dragon attack in Helgen didn't quite felt like a brush of danger in the wild. For the past weeks staying here, Rohan deep down felt that there was something more to the dragons sudden reappearance. And the great black wing demon he saw had something to do with it.
"Alright everyone, the nights over go home!" Gerdur called out trying to disperse the crowd but none yet stirred.
"What about the dragons!" said one villager.
"Yeah! Helgen was not far from here and those girls home wasn't too far neither, we're next!" said another.
"Riverwood is defenseless! We have no means of protecting ourselves!" that time it was Alvor speaking, yet not accusingly like the others just a deep concern.
More chatter began to rise up until Gerdur raised her hands quieting everyone to listen to her solution. "I know the Rivewood has no means to put up a fight with anyone, especially dragons and I assure you I will get to the bottom of resolving this issue."
"With what!?" said Lucan, along with other folk in the mass nodding their heads agreeing.
Gerdur raised her hands again for the noise to cease. "I'll send someone to the Jarl with a writ for an audience."
Scoff and huiffs of disdain echoed throughout the crowd.
"The jarl doesn't care about us! He'll hide behind those damn walls of his and do nothing about!" said someone.
"He sure as shit is good at hiding from this war! Why not he hide from a dragon as well!"
"I said SHUT IT!" Gerdur snapped. Utter silence hit. "Now." she continues this time softly spoken. "Jarl Balgruuf is a very cautious man but he's also a concerning one who cares about his Hold and his people within in it. He will not let any danger come to it, that is why I'm sure he'll listen."
A beat then the villagers began to murmur softly concurring with Gerdur's statement. "It's the only solution we have." said Alvor, speaking up. "We must trust Gerdur." Gerdur smiled at him slightly, nodding a thank you. Without another word the villagers left for their homes, some hoping to find sleep on this now restless night, others still not assured by Gerdur's suggestion yet still had no strength to argue a protest.
Rohan too was about to leave with the crowd, seeing not to follow Camilla (for he was now not in the mood to finish what they started) but to master Alvor's and lady Sigrid's home on his bedroll in the basement. A hand on his shoulder stopped him in his tracks, it was Gerdur.
"Walk with me." She said quietly for no one else but Rohan to hear, he obligated her and followed. The two walking slowly towards her home.
"I need you to go to Dragonsreach, first thing at dawn." Gerdur said.
A tinge of joy had hit Rohan just a little, he had been planning to ask Gerdur if she could get him an audience with the jarl in ways to talk to the court mage about the slab he found in Bleak Falls Barrow. But still some nerved him to find out why she picked him to volunteer at this moment.
"Why me?" he asked, bewildered.
"You were at Helgen, you know better to what we were up against." Gerdur replied.
"I know better? I was too busy running while men, women and children were being burned to death! Those two girls know just as much as I do."
"That's not what Ralof told me."
A beat. Rohan waited for her response.
"He told me the night before he departed back to Windhelm, that he said before the attack he saw that you had sensed it coming."
A peculiar look dotted Rohan's face. "Sense it?"
"Yeah, you told him you could feel it coming."
Rohan's memory then jogged back to that moment and remembered. A surge of energy rising within his body at the sound of echoed wail in the sky, the dragon's call. The goosebumps dotted his skin and his heart began to race, he had completely forgotten at that time he was about to be executed.
"Then he saw the dragon approached you and right before it attacked it spoke to you." Gerdur finished. "Mah deh sos tin dov….Mah deh joore...Av dilon." Rohan had almost forgotten those words the dragon spoke yet he shuttered it in the back of his mind as it eerily crept to him as such a bad memory does. "No." he said shaking his head, "It didn't speak to me." He sounded as if he was trying to convince himself.
Gerdur didn't press further on that subject. "Whatever happened. Still you have more experience with this matter and meaning only you can convince the jarl."
"You think I have political traction to convince a jarl to send soldiers?!" Rohan said with a laugh. "I'm an ex mercenary who got caught in events and almost had my head cleaved by the imperials!"
Gerdur put her hands on her hips, "So you're saying you won't do it?"
"No, I'll go to Whiterun I owe Riverwood that much but I'm saying don't expect a miracle. I've had bad experience with nobility in the past."
"Your past in Cyrodiil is your business and Jarl Balgruuf is different, he isn't like the other jarls you'll find in Solitude or Markarth. He talks to his people directly and I have faith that you can tell him so of what troubles his Hold."
She then places a calm hand on his shoulder, "Talos guide you."
A/N: This chapter was a little short but I wanted something a bit climatic to get Rohan the hell out of Riverwood. I just had a birthday so I was a little busy this past week and such. Hope you enjoyed it, I'm firing up the next chapter as you read this. Thanks for the reviews keep them coming. XO
