As is so often the case, story arcs start for reasons which you never anticipate. I had been playing around with the idea of doing an arc from Sofia's point of view and while I was playing around with that idea, I sent a thank you to Christine, the vocal actress for the mod. I felt she deserved some token of appreciation since it was her acting skills that were pretty much what spun this story from me. But I've said that before. She responded, I responded to the respond, and the next thing I knew, we were talking about stuff and discovering we have an awful lot in common.

But what was most important about this story arc, is that she wants to write.

So as this story began to jell, I asked her to give it a full beta read and what's more, hack out anything which was not 100% pure Sofia. Since she's voiced all the lines, I knew she'd have a far greater insight into the mind of this character than I could hope.

So with instructions to be brutally honest she plowed in and lines have been cut, new one's added, paragraphs shifted, spelling errors corrected, and I'm impressed. Especially since English is not her native language. And in the process, I've gotten a new friend. Who'd have thunk it?


Hi, my name is Sofia Florian, but you probably already knew that. I'm pretty well known in Tamriel, though it probably isn't for all of the right reasons, or at least it used to be that way. That was before I met Valentine. It's not that I wasn't heroic. You see it's not easy becoming famous and loved when there's no one important to witness your great deeds such as destroying the World Eater Alduin, or saving all of Nirn from eternal darkness and death. But once the Dragonborn became entirely smitten with me, which was only appropriate I suppose, my fighting spirit and divine good looks could get noticed.

Of course you all know how much Valentine loves me. What can I say? Of course it wasn't easy for him to win me over. I wasn't going to just fall on my back and brush my toes on the ceiling of the wagon because he smiled at me. I made sure he worked like a dog before I let him do that. And he had to marry me too. Not that I would have given him the time of day if he hadn't already come up to my standards. But I've always had a sense of greatness and so once I noticed him back when I was using that now skewered horse thief Lokir for a little fun and amusement, I knew he was going to be the winner I needed.

Now of course you might be wondering why Valentine isn't narrating this particular piece of my adventures with him. Well, he's never really taken being heroic seriously enough. I've always been of the opinion that it is vitally important that the little people have someone to look up to, like me for example. And Valentine totally lacks that drive and ambition to propel himself as the necessarily sidekick to my free heroine adventurous spirit. Seriously, ever since Balder was born he's been happily sitting by the crib and playing the lute insisting that if our baby gets surrounded by music he'll grow up secure and happy. I'm not entirely sure about that but as I can't remember what life was like in my crib, I can't really argue with him about it. Besides, he always explains things in such a logical fashion and I hate that.

So given that Valentine is being boring, I thought I would step in and tell you the story of our adventure with Barbas and Clavicus Vile. This was in the late summer after I had him totally wrapped around my little finger but before I got him so drunk that he married me. The Jarl of Falkreath, Sitgore, had heard about me and Valentine and had sent a letter to Valentine, no doubt because he suspected I couldn't be bothered with his sort, asking us to come and show off.

Valentine had asked me about it and I had said, "Pfft! What for?"

"There's money in it," he suggested. "Which would enable us to afford a bottle of mead or two."

Something about the way Valentine said the word mead . . . It was like he was telling me I was beautiful in a soft soothing sexy voice.

"What sort of mead?" I asked. After clearing my throat.

"What's your favorite?" he replied.

Now that was the sort of question I liked hearing. It's the sort that told me I had picked someone up to my standards.

So I told him, "Black Briar Reserve," and he said, "Okay, that's what we'll get." and after a bit of thinking about it, I decided that perhaps we might as well go over to Falkreath and see what Sitgore had to say. If the weather was cooperating of course. I mean the rain can get my hair really frizzy and soaks me all the way to my undergarments and that is so uncomfortable. And if it isn't raining, it can get so cold. It was also late summer, the sun was always shining in my eyes and that makes it really hard to see your enemies.

Valentine would have you thinking I was chomping at the bit for that Black Briar but it's lies, all of it is lies.

So we set out from Solitude. We did a lot of walking in those days. Valentine didn't want to spend the money on a horse and I was okay with that because that meant more money for the important things, like booze. Valentine had just become a member of the Bardic college and it was during the Burning of King Olaf Festival. I will confess that was a fun adventure, especially the last part where they gave me and Valentine all the credit for saving it. And an awful lot of drinks were gotten for me too. I can't remember what the party was like so I know I had a lot of fun at it. And I must have been a little affectionate with Valentine because much against my better judgement I woke up in his arms. Not that anything happened. We girls know when we've been used, even if we can't remember who did it or when.

Like I said, he was up to my standards. It's not every guy you can wake up in the arms of and know for a fact that you've been respected while were you were having a bit too much to drink. It's kind of liberating really. To know you don't have to watch what you are doing because the guy you are with is going to be the sort who doesn't take advantage of you. Especially when you wake up with a pounding head and his breath smells like the horses have been stabled in it for the past thirty years. I probably didn't have to push him off of me that hard, but when your head is hurting like that, you don't need your nose joining in.

So it took us about two days to get to Falkreath and once we got there Valentine didn't go straight over to Sitgore. Taking my cue, we walked into Dead Man's Drink where Valentine worked out a three hour set so he could play for our bed and breakfast. I got to unwind, change out of my armor into a nice loose dress, have a few bottles of wine to drink, and get something to eat. Then when Valentine was done with his set and I was feeling nice and relaxed and buzzed, he gave me a foot rub and then he massaged my shoulders. I couldn't have asked for a better slave and he actually liked doing these things! He was so naive. He had no idea how much I was playing him. He was so in love with me. Not that I blamed him of course. When you're as attractive as me, guys just sort of fall at your feet on a routine basis. Either that or they think they can drink me under the table. They fall at my feet then too.

Heh.

Well the next day we talked with the Jarl, a young pompous irresponsible stuck up jerk who was so full of himself. I hate those sorts of people. Totally self-absorbed and looking down on everyone around him, the sort you want to just ram your foot so far up their . . . Excuse me Valentine is looking at me with that silly little world weary grin of his and shaking his head.

Yes?

As I was saying, he had one of those oily silky voices which tells you he's a first class jerk and he looked at the two of us, mostly me of course since I was actually presentable as well as attractive. Valentine had, like most days, not bothered to shave that morning. His mage robes were also totally covered in splattered mud from walking on those squishy cobblestone roads which pass for highways in this part of Skyrim. The Jarl then proceeded to pretend that he was suddenly concerned about the presence of bandits in Embershard Mine, which was a mostly exhausted mine south and west of Riverwood where, according to a note we found in the place of where a valuable horn was supposed to be, we were supposed to rent an attic room at the Sleeping Giant Inn. As there was no attic in the Sleeping Giant Inn, I was convinced that the note writer was an idiot and we had not bothered to do that yet. Anyway, the mine had this bandit gang in it who had been paying Jarl Sitgore off with the proceeds of their brigandage. They had decided, not that I could blame them, that he was a stupid ass who didn't need to be paid off. What they didn't know of course was that Sitgore would be so amazed by our heroic nature that he would be inspired to send us over there to take them out.

I never had a problem with taking out brigands, even if the Jarl was doing it for all the wrong reasons. Besides, not only were we supposed to be getting paid by him to do it, but we got to loot the entire encampment of everything of value and sell it off. And some times there were loose bottles of drink. It was usually the cheap watered down crap that people who only drink to get drunk will buy just so they can drink a lot of it before they pass out. I never could see the point in that. If you're going to drink so much you pass out, you might was well go out in style with the top grade. But it's still booze so I drink it. I just don't expect much from it before hand.

But hey? If someone is going to pay me to drink and kill stuff, who am I to stay their hand?

Yes, yes, Valentine, I know. I know. Kill stuff first then drink. Yeah.

Poor guy, he never has been able to hold his mead. Even after all that training with that crazy drunken master he still won't drink until he passes out.

Seriously Valentine, how will you ever learn to drink if you don't keep drinking it until you pass out? Yes, that is exactly what I do and why I do it. Don't you give me that look.

Men!

Well we got to Embershard with no fanfare. I never have been able to understand why we don't get a cheering throng just once? I mean after taking out Alduin you would have thought someone would have been praising us . . . What? Valentine? Of course I know Tsun was praising us but you were busy kissing me and that was really distracting and . . . I mean that I had to concentrate on doing it right and so I didn't hear him.

So we got into the cave and Valentine immediately tries to sneak down the tunnel. I never really trusted him to sneak properly, I mean sometimes he gets gas and you don't want to be behind him when he has that problem. Trust me you really don't want to be behind him. I mean there was one time I thought I was going to throw up. Meanwhile Valentine is busy pulling the torches out of the sconces and snuffing them and I'm sticking them in my backpack. We didn't need them that often since we were seldom walking at night and for some crazy reason or another all the caves and crypts in Skyrim are frequently lit by candles and lanterns which never go out and no one seems to know why. But sometimes you need a little extra light and Valentine could cast a light spell but he prefers torches because they save his magicka for important stuff. I tried to point out to him once that there was nothing more important than me in the room with him so why the torch? He just looked at me. Sort of like he's looking at me now.

We rounded the corner and there was this wooden ramp going down and an earthen ramp besides it. By this point I really was happy there were brigands in this cave. I hate it when there's bears or spiders. But that always means there's going to be other problems, like traps. So what we ended up doing was rolling this cart down the ramp and sure enough it triggered a trap which dumped a whole bunch of rocks on top of the cart. It was really fun to watch. From a safe distance that is. I nearly got hit by a rock myself once when in a cave and people were really disappointed that it missed me. Or at least they looked like they were.

So we got to the bottom and he holds up his hand to motion for me to stop and of course he can't tell me how to adventure so I slip up next to him. We both heard two brigands talking. One was all upset because he was convinced, rather rightly I might add, that anyone could slip in. The other was being an idiot, telling him that he was an idiot, funny how that works you know? Anyway he was pointing out that there was a guard at the front of the cave, which there wasn't, and there was that rock trap on the way down, which we had set off and they hadn't heard, and so he should go to bed and sleep.

It's at this point that Valentine summons up his fury spell and if it works we'll get to see the two of them hack each other to bits. It's always fun to watch but of course Valentine can't hit the broad side of Whiterun's walls let alone a single brigand so he fires off the spell at it slams into the post ten feet in front of him which alerts the guards and . . . No, I did not bump into you . . . Just because I was next to you does not mean that I lost my balance and fell into you when you casting . . . Who's telling this story anyway? . . . Don't you threaten me with that Baldor needs to nurse bit. My nipples haven't recovered from his last feeding.

He chews on me so hard the little pervert.

Well of course the spell alerts the brigands so they came charging up the way towards us, across a bridge in the middle of a cave. Don't ask me why there was this bridge in the middle of the cave because I don't know and I'm pretty, I don't have to think hard. And naturally I have step forward and deal with them while Valentine waits for his magicka to recover because he forgot to make magicka potions . . . I bet he never told you how often he forgot to make magicka potions in his telling of our quests against Harkon and Alduin did he?

Thought so.

So who's sticking their tongue out at me? . . . Just because I did it first does not excuse you.

Well Valentine fumbles around trying to figure out what he's going to do against the brigands so I hold the two of them down with my sword work and magic and very good looks. Seriously you have no idea how hard it is for a guy to hit me with a weapon because I look so good. He fires off a few magic bolts which fail to hit because, as he always did, he'd claim I kept jumping in front of him. Hey! I had good reasons for doing that. He would have gotten himself skewered so fast without my constant interference. And besides, it's just an excuse because it's not that I wasn't seeing fire bolts flying to the left and right of me hitting everything except the brigands.

So we kill the brigands and we get to look at this totally weird room in the middle of this mine. Well as Valentine would say, you can't make these things up. There was this pool of water in the middle with a bit of a shore next to it where the two brigands had been sleeping, a few torches and a fire pit with some stew bubbling and another drawbridge and an open ledge in front of us to the left. The drawbridge was up which meant we'd have to find a way to get to that section of the mine some way. But Valentine had noticed there is a vein of iron ore to the right of the fire and so he's pulling out his pickaxe and hacking away.

My Valentine, adventurer, dragon slayer, terror of vampires, the Dragonborn, trying to be a miner. And there I was just watching him and thinking how strong he was looking swinging that pick axe and imagining his shoulders bare and him lying in a bed next to me and *coughs* needless to say I had to remind myself that we were on an adventure. Not to mention the fact that yes, I had a big crush on him that I didn't want to admit I had. It made for some rather awkward moments especially when it was time to take baths or get to sleep or I had this very itchy spot on me that I really wanted him to scratch. Not that I couldn't itch it myself. At least in private, but you know how it is. Sometimes you would rather they scratch it.

So he finishes getting the iron ore out and we pack it up and it's into the next tunnel where there were two choices, the first which led to a cave in and the second which led to the room overlooking the drawbridge. There was a lever in that alcove which we presumed operated the drawbridge. So Valentine and I crouched down and he pulled the lever. That alerted two more brigands and he tried to hit one of them with the fury spell and as usual, missed. I got to kill both of them. And naturally I did it well without so much as a scratch or a broken fingernail.

"Must you look so smug afterwards?" he asked me.

"Yes," I replied. Well why not?

We crossed the drawbridge and a few feet later we find a hole in the wall which has a table right by it in the room on the other side. And I look in the hole and there's a brigand sitting with his back to us like he hasn't a care in the world which is more stupid than usual, especially when I'm sneaking around. But there's a bit of gold and a spell book laying on the table which I help myself to and Valentine then, thinking he's oh so clever, conjures his familiar in the room. Behind the iron bar door which the brigand is leaning against.

"I was trying to lure him into the room!" he argued. After I had killed that brigand too. "We could have then slipped around and locked him in or hit him from the back!"

"Well since when has a conjured familiar behind a locked iron barred door been a threat?" I snapped back. "He'd have to unlock the door first and why not just wait until it disperses?"

"What?" he exclaimed. "You mean you actually were thinking that through?"

I wanted to kick him so hard. So I did. I felt better afterwards.

Well it was around another corner in the tunnel and there it was, another pool with a shaft of light coming down from the ceiling, and more brigands. I raised my left hand to shoot off another fire bolt and he gently put his hand down on mine and . . . Has a guy ever done that to you in such a fashion that you really get turned on?

"I can do this," he said. "So let me."

And this time he did. The fury spell flew from his hands and hit the brigand in the middle on the rope bridge and suddenly there's this really exciting brigand riot going on and everyone is killing everyone else and the only thing that was missing was a bottle of mead or two so I could sit on the edge and drink it. But all good things have to end and soon there was just one brigand left yelling things like, "Didn't see the knife in my boot did you?" at all the corpses. I blew him off the bridge with an ice-bolt.

That was pretty much the last of the brigands in the cave. We finished exploring the back end and found another exit which opened up on the mountain sides south of the road to Riverwood and since it was night, we went back in to camp. There was a wooden platform overlooking the second pool which had several sleeping bags in it which didn't have fleas so we settled down there. And then Valentine tried to get me drunk.

You see he was madly in love with me, like just about every other guy I've spent time with and he knew that if he plied me with enough booze I'd let him snuggle me. I mean I had to encourage him in some fashion or he'd stop giving me mead. And then I'd have to get it myself and spend my money to do it.

Well after a bottle or two I was feeling a little romantic and as I said before, I kind of had a little crush on him and so I leaned against him. He put his arm around me which made me feel kind of secure. We were looking at the cave walls around us and I said, completely innocently, "I bet you have explored a few damp, dark caves in your time."

"Well," he said and I could hear that little smile in his tone. "There's a small one I know nearby I'd love to poke around in."

"What!" I cried. I almost jumped out of his arms, but I managed to just stand up. "I didn't mean anything by it! I also like exploring caves from time to time."

"You don't mean . . ." he began with that little grin of his that he likes to wear when he thinks he's going to embarrass you.

"No I don't!" I exclaimed. "I mean if she wasn't good looking . . . I mean . . . Quit laughing!"

I could feel my face getting all flush and hot. And there he was, just chuckling and shaking his head. I was ready to kick him again and then he pulls out another bottle of Alto Wine from his backpack and starts to fill up my mug with it.

So I decided I would overlook it this time. And I was starting to feel nice and buzzed while leaning against him. I kept feeling secure when I would do that but at the same time I was feeling like I was needing him and depending on him and I didn't like that either and who'd have thought feelings would be so complex? But we were in this cave and the torches were flickering off the walls and ceiling. I kept thinking of the last few years of my life; since I had left home.

"Have you ever tried living in a cave?" I asked him.

"No," he said. "I've not had a place I could call home since I left the Imperial City."

I kind of felt a little sorry for him. It made no sense. He was obviously from a rich family but that was what I was feeling.

"I have," I continued.

"What's it like?" He asked. He actually sounded like he was really interested in what I had to say about it. He actually sounded like he cared. I had to take a breath because my heart got all thumpity for a moment.

"It's not the most comfortable way of living," I said. "But you won't find anywhere more private."

"Even a house?" he asked.

"Well except a house of course. And unlike tents, you can give it a few homely touches."

"So what sort of touches?"

"Well I had a bed in a cave once, with a throw rug I got from a brigand's camp," I recalled. "It was kind of hard to get the bed in since I didn't know how to take it apart and get it back together like I've heard you can do. Well, I dragged it the whole way. But the rug was nice because when I put my feet down on the cave floor in the morning it didn't feel so cold."

"The bed was probably the hardest part," he said quietly. "Why didn't you keep living there? You could have gotten chairs and chests eventually."

"Yeah," I said. "But a mother bear decided to have her cubs in there while I was out adventuring and I hate bears."

"Tough taking a bear out by yourself," he suggested.

"I can do it," I answered back. "I just didn't want to. I hate having to work that hard to kill one. There were other caves I could move into."

"Maybe one day I'll have a house for you to live in," he said.

"I would like that," I replied. Then I realized what I had just said. "I mean . . . A house of my own. By myself!"

"If you say so," he said smiling. I knew he knew but I wasn't going to admit I knew he knew. I kept pretending I didn't. You know what I mean? It was so weird. I wanted him for myself, but I kept thinking he would think someone better had come along and he'd be gone. Not that I couldn't have killed them if they had tried, and I know I would have. But, I kind of knew he wouldn't like me afterwards. He was liking me now. I didn't want that to end. I just couldn't see how it could last forever either. He was the Dragonborn. He was from a rich family. He could have the daughter of a Jarl, in a nice silk dress. I had great looks, a great personality, but I knew I would get old some day. Old and fat. And pregnant if I let him have me. And Jarl's daughters have that special magic stuff that enables them to look pretty and thin until they turn into hags when they get old.

I sighed and decided that all these thoughts in my head were making me want to cry.

So I got drunk instead.

When I woke up, I was still leaning against him, with a slight headache, and he was leaning against the cave wall. He still had his arms around me. I suddenly got it into my head that it would be kind of fun if his hands were not just around me, but on my breasts? Then I found my hands on top of his hands. I swear they were operating as of they had a mind of their own, and I kept thinking about it and sort of beginning to move them just ever so slightly and . . .

Valentine? Just because I said I was thinking that then doesn't mean I'm thinking that now. Go change Baldor's diaper or something.

That man's got a one track mind I swear.

. . . Well suddenly I got freaked out over that and jumped up and he grunted and woke up and acted as if he was feeling sore and stiff.

"Time to get up and get moving," I said, rather coldly I admit. I didn't want to give him any more clues you see. He grunted but then he looked at me and he smiled ever so slightly. I couldn't understand how I could be so cold first thing in the morning and he could look at me and still smile. Eventually, after we had made love one night, months later, and I was resting on his shoulder and feeling his heart beat, which always made me feel kind of secure and warm, I thought about that and asked him why.

And he said, "Because you were always there."

It took me forever to figure out what he really meant by that. So you can imagine my surprise when it finally dawned on me that he was just as afraid that I'd leave him as I was he'd leave me. Funny how that works.

We gave the mine one last look over and then headed back to Falkreath. It took us the morning to get back but as we'd killed everything on the way to the mine, or rather I had killed everything while Valentine tried to help, we got back to the town around noon and a guard asked us if we had seen a dog out on the road.

"Some wolves," replied Valentine, "But no dogs."

"And I killed all of them yesterday," I added. Then I just stood there and looked like the hot Nord girl I naturally look like.

"Ah well," the guard said. Then he mentioned something about the Blacksmith, Lod, offering a reward for a stray dog which had been seen earlier.

A reward for finding a stray dog. How hard could that be? But Valentine was already on his way to the Jarl's hall and there was that reward to get for those brigands so I decided to tell him about what we would be doing after we took care of Sitgore.

"Teach them to stop paying me," he crowed once Valentine told him we had taken care of the problem. I hate people like him so much I was fantasizing about sticking my sword through that face of his and then he said to me . . . not Valentine . . . "I like you."

So I decided not to kill him after all.

"You're not afraid to get your hands dirty," he continued. "I hereby give you permission to purchase property in Falkreath hold."

I was so thrilled at being granted this privilege that I turned to Valentine and reminded him that we had to talk to Lod the blacksmith. Seriously? What's so great about spending money to buy dirt?