"Swords?" Ashe whispered, tilting her head to the side in confusion.

Not real swords, of course, these were wooden swords made for play. Ashe had seen them before; toy swords weren't as popular as toy guns but some of the other kids back in the community had them. One of her best buddies, Isaac, loved those all pre-Commonwealth stories of pirates so much that he and Francis used to stage epic 'pirate battles' for the amusement of her, Sherry, and Missy. When she thought about it, Ashe understood why such toys were so popular and widespread among the little boys of the community.

'Real, fancy toys are expensive. Most families could afford televisions or computers -Mama also said we were blessed to be able to afford a radio and some books- but some wood scraps, nails, and a few splashes of paint? Even the poorest families in the community could afford that,' she realized. 'It's just like how Sherry, Missy, and I all had rag-dolls instead of porcelain ones like Gretchen Harich. Being the mayor's daughter does have its advantages, I suppose.'

But the toy swords that belonged to her friends and the other boys of Tough Seed Farming Community, were crude wooden things, not particularly smooth or detailed or pretty no matter how much work the boys' parents would put into making them. Isaac's sword, which he insisted on naming 'Bluefin' for its bright blue paint job, was made from the bits of wood leftover from when his dad needed to patch up some holes in the roof of the family home. Despite the care that Mr. Moore had put into making it, the wood was poor quality and prone to splintering; it got so bad that Isaac had to wrap an old scrap of canvas held in place by thick tape around the handle to keep his hands from getting hurt.

These wooden swords, however, were much nicer; in fact, they were absolute works of art. The toys had been beautifully created with a perfectly carved handle and in the 'blade' with a thick layer of protective finish to protect from weather damage. They were clearly old though, the finish had yellowed slightly and there was a thin layer of dust collected in the groves of the different carvings, but they were also clearly created with much love, skill, and care.

'They've also been played with a lot,' Ashe mused. She ran her thumb down the 'blade' of one of the play swords as the pad of her small finger caught on the subtle dips and bumps in the wood. Her brow wrinkled as she examined them; Ashe had seen marks like this before, back when she had to help Papa repair the fence around their crops once. 'These types of marks are made when wood knocks up against something real hard.'

Ashe lifted the top-most sword so she could see it better only to drop it almost immediately, quickly stepping to the side so it wouldn't land on her foot.

"Wow, heavy!" she exclaimed, crouching down and trying to pick it up again. Her arms shook under the weight of the heavy wooden toy, "This must have been a toy for a very big kid!"

Deciding to leave the toy sword where it was, for now, Ashe returned her attention to the chest and began sifting through the rest of the fake weapons. There were more toy swords, each one as beautifully detailed but beat up as the last, but there were other types of weapons too. There were fake knives with the edges smoothed just enough to prevent any real injury -though getting 'stabbed' by one would still probably leave a nasty bruise. A couple of really big hammers that could definitely hurt someone -Ashe didn't even risk trying to pick one of them up, she'd certainly drop it and the little girl didn't want to risk any broken toes. Some axes that were as pretty as they were scary look. Buried at the bottom of the chest, protecting three child-sized bows, each with a small matching quiver of blunted arrows, was five wooden shields, each only a little bigger than one of Mr. Kravos' serving platters.

It took some work but Ashe was eventually able to pull out a shield painted silver with dark blue flowers that had been morphed and misshapen by repeated blows that left the surface covered in dents. It was heavy, Ashe noted as she slid her thin arm through the two leather straps fastened to the inner part of the shield, but not overly so and round in shape.

"Too big for me," Ashe grumbled as the shield swung limply from her arm. "But I can hold it up... which means I'm getting a lot stronger! Still, I wondered who this belonged to?"

Sliding the shield off, Ashe turned in over in her hands to examine it from every angle. Eventually, a small name scrawled in black ink caught her eye.

"Runa... Runa Fair-Shield," she read aloud. "Huh, I guess it makes sense that a girl's shield would have flowers on it. Most girls don't like playing with swords and stuff, not of my friends ever did."

All this talking out loud to herself probably wasn't healthy, Ashe really wished she had another kid to play with.

Ashe could only imagine how Papa would have reacted if she had asked for a fake sword and shield for her birthday. He'd have probably taken her over his knee for such a ridiculous suggestion; in an admittedly dark way, it was actually kind of funny to imagine.

Still, I wasn't like Mr. Kravos' daughters and granddaughters didn't have more traditionally 'girly' toys; after all, the bedroom was packed to the brim with dolls, dollhouses, pretty dresses, tea playsets, rocking horses, and the like. But the fact that there was a chest full of toy weapons with all of his kids and grandkids name on them proved once more that there was something very different about Ashe's guardian.

"Ashe, sweetheart, you still down there?"

'Speak of the devil...' she thought, watching Mr. Kravos climb through the cellar hatch and down the ladder.

Mr. Kravos hopped down the last few feet of the ladder, landing nibbly as a cat despite his more advanced age. As he turned around Ashe began to squirm as she realized that the evidence of her snooping was everywhere, plain to see. Again, Mr. Kravos had never shown any anger towards her and her curiosity-filled adventures had only ever been met with bemusement. The closest he ever got to anger was whenever Ashe tried to sneak her way into one of the various locked rooms of the house, a stern warning that if a room was locked then it was probably for a good reason.

'The chest didn't have a lock, so I am probably good,' Ashe reassured herself. 'Right?'

And, once more, Ashe was proven right when Mr. Kravos looked around at all of the scattered toys...and smiled brightly.

The man laughed and picked up the silver-painted wooden shield, turning it over in his broad, callous hands. "Oh, it's been years since I've seen this thing! Runa's first training shield... ahhhh, I made this for her as a gift when I adopted her. She outgrew it in less than two years but was so attached to it that Runa refused a new one for a long time. She was stubborn like that, still is."

He said that last part with a fond, low chuckle, rubbing his thumb over the name. Ashe was unable to resist smiling as well. Mr. Kravos' voice was just so warm, so affectionate, and caring that it made her feel relaxed and loved just listening to his words. But then a certain word stuck out to her.

"Training?" she repeated back. "So these aren't toys?"

"Hmmm... no, not exactly," Mr. Kravos hummed, scratching his beard. "My kids and grandbabies played with them, of course. They played with them more than they should have to be safe; the kids were always smacking one another around, left awful bruises on each other and I even had to patch up a couple of broken noses. Oh, and don't even get me started on everything those rascals broke! By the gods, they could be absolute terrors, especially when I had to leave for a week or so to take care of business.

But, anyway, no. Technically speaking, these are not meant to be used as toys. All of these-" Mr. Kravos gestured to the still-open chest and the scattered wooden weapons "-were meant for martial training. That is why they are so heavy; I made them from solid wood so using them would help Runa and the other kids build-up the strength they needed. Then, once they'd grown a bit bigger and gotten strong enough, I'd make them a newer, heavier one so they'd keep getting stronger."

"Why?" Ashe asked, deciding that this may finally be the opportunity she needed to get some damn answers. "Why'd you wanted them to get stronger fighting with all these swords and stuff?"

"Because I was worried about them," Mr. Kravos answered plainly. "I... I lived a dangerous life when I was younger, Ashe. Skyrim is a dangerous enough place as is, full of vicious wildlife and bandits, but I was also an important man, someone with a lot of enemies, and I knew that my children could have easily become a target so I wanted them to be able to protect themselves. Unfortunately, my fears were proven valid more than once. I'm just thankful that my kids were strong enough to protect themselves in those situations."

She felt her bottom lip quiver, but she pressed on, "...And your grandchildren? Why did you teach them?"

"Many of the same reasons," Mr. Kravos shrugged. "But, with them, sometimes it was just for fun. Some of them asked me for lessons so they could show off to their friends. I'll admit that it was a lot more fun teaching my grandchildren, even if they did rarely take it as seriously as their parents did."

"Did they enjoy learning to fight?" Ashe asked, recalling back to how Mama would always reprimand her whenever she caught Ashe wrestling or roughhousing with her friends. Ironically, her 'feisty spirit' was one of the few things Papa had praised Ashe for, even if would he still punish her for it more often than not. "Your kids, I mean."

"Some took to it all a lot quicker and with more enthusiasm than others," her guardian replied with another amused grin. "Samuel, Runa, and Hroar threw themselves into training the most, though Hroar came to prefer a bow as his primary weapon over a sword or ax. Alesan was also pretty dedicated to his training, though he was far more interested in learning how to sail than how to fight. It makes sense, I suppose; the boy was brought up as a sailor, after all, and any sailor worth his salt needs to know how to fend off pirates.

My little Blaise was tough and strong, he had to be to look after animals much bigger and stronger than him, but he's always had a gentle heart and wasn't much for violence. Britte was very... aggressive but was not willing to listen to instruction, so I was extremely hesitant to teach her. Francois could take care of himself well enough, but neither he nor Lucia or Sofie were exactly born warriors; they all preferred to explore other areas of learning. Francios could easily spend an entire day curled up in the library reading, Lucia was deeply devoted to her singing lessons, and Sofie was always tending to the greenhouse or her private little garden.

They all still learned, of course, I made sure of it no matter how much they whined or grumbled. But years of training passed and they all developed their own specialties, coming to prefer one weapon over the others. But they all did learn and most even came to enjoy it."

The old man nodded then, seemingly to himself, and looked lost in thought for a long moment. Then his eyes slid along the piles of wooden training weapons before flicking towards the straw dummy in the corner and finally looking back to Ashe.

"In fact..."

Ashe collapsed on her butt on the floor, leaning back against one of the cellar support beams, and panted, completely exhausted. Even this brief training session had left every muscle in her body burned, and she was sticky with sweat to the point that her hair was soaked with the stuff. She reached up to smooth back some loose, messy bangs and winced, her face scrunching up in disgust.

"Uck!" she whined, "I'm going to need another bath!"

Mr. Kravos laughed, a touch of sweat on his brow shining in the light as he swung his own wooden practice sword down around his legs. "I did warn you, martial training is hard work. Did you enjoy it though?"

Ashe panted and tapped her fingers against the training sword she'd been using. It was the smallest on that had been in the chest, lighter and thinner than all the rest with a dark red handle and slim, narrow 'blade.'

"Yeah," she breathed, pressing her forehead against the cool wood of the support beam. "It was fun."

"Excellent," Mr. Kravos nodded as he turned and begun climbing back up the ladder. "Now, why don't you go and get washed up again? I still have to prepare our meal, and you should eat some meat after a work out like that. Water too! You should drink plenty of water after all that sweating."

"Okay," Ashe answered simply, already heading back into the washroom.

It wasn't until she was nearly finished did Ashe realize that she missed her chance to question Mr. Kravos.

After the meal, a hearty scramble of eggs, bacon, onions, mushrooms, and chicken with a side of leeks and jam with toast, and cleaned up, Ashe pursed her lips, folded her hands, and stared Mr. Kravos dead in the eye.

"Mr. Kravos, may I ask you a question?" she asked politely.

"Hmmm?" the man hummed as he dried off some wet plates. "Oh, yes, of course? What would you like to know?"

"I... I was wondering," Ashe swallowed hard and forced the question out. "I was wondering why you decided to train your kids and grandkids with all those weapons, with swords and axes in shields? Why did you train them to use guns? Those are far more common, wouldn't it be more useful for them all to learn to shoot?"

"Guns?" her guardian repeated, his voice sounding confused. The man hesitated for a long moment, his back still to Ashe, but continuing to dry the dishes. "Oh, well, I suppose I just trained them to use the same things I grew up learning to use. There weren't many... guns were I was born, so I never learned how to use them."

'More half-truths,' Ashe thought, her anger rising. "And where was that again?"

"Wayrest."

"I've never heard of such a place, which is weird since you said it was a big city," Ashe continued, pushing forward. "So, it must be pretty far away, right?"

Mr. Kravos let out a dry chuckle, "Yes, I suppose that is an accurate statement."

"Then how did you get to Far Harbor, to this island?"

The man froze once more before letting out a long, low sigh. "Ashe, I-"

"NO!" Ashe shouted, that bubbling anger finally rising to the surface. "I'M TIRED OF BEING TREATED LIKE AND IDIOT! NO MORE LIES, MR. KRAVOS! YOU EITHER TELL ME THE TRUTH OR I'LL... OR I'LL RUN AWAY FROM YOU!"

.

.

.

The old man let out another sigh, pinched the bridge of his nose, and said, "Fine."