Chapter 6: Interlude One

[4E 525]

Wow! That was really interesting and fascinating stuff to read, Bha'jhan thought. He had just found an ancient looking and dusty old book when cleaning up old stuff in the attic, as the adults had tasked him to do, and out of curiosity he had started to read. The book turned out to be some kind of diary, and it had been a very fascinating reading to far. The first chapter had been quite confusing, and the author had used many words Bha'jhan did not know, but at least from the second chapter on the writing was less strange, and the references to the Civil War in Skyrim of that time were clear, although the adults had never told the kids many details about the time when the last Dragonborn had been around. Yes, it was well known that some of the family's ancestors had lived at that time, but while the children had been told some vague hints in that direction, they did not really know a lot about what happened more than three hundred years ago. Maybe, Bha'jhan thought, the adults did not remember all of that themselves, and judged by the amount of dust this diary had had on it when he found it, it had not been read for decades at least. Bha'jhan was so glad that he had been taught how to read properly. His ancestor's handwriting was a little bit tough to decipher in some places, but with some extra effort the teenage Khajiit managed.

Of course he could not be sure that the person who had written the diary was actually his ancestor, but based on what he had read so far in the first five chapters he assumed this assumption to be correct. The young Khajiit was tempted to read on further into the next chapter, when the dinner bell sounded from below, so that he closed the book, removed some of the dust from his clothes and hurried down from the attic. The family elders did not approve of children missing main meals, and he did not want to be chided for that.

On the main floor the teenage Khajiit found most of the extended family already seated around the huge dining table, and a few minutes later a maid started to bring in the warm food, supplementing the cold food which was already on the table. For about ten minutes everybody, adults and children, were busy eating, and they enjoyed the variety of food they always had. After all, they had to accommodate preferences of different races, and in addition, there were frequently some guests; the family liked to invite those who were in need when the opportunity came up, and it was not rare for a traveler to stay with them for the night, too. Eventually Bha'jhan found a break and told his neighbor:

"Hey, Jomund, come up to the attic with me later, I found something really interesting."

He nodded, and the Khajiit՚s tail twitched from excitement. He managed to find a good opportunity also to tell Alander, who was sitting a few places further down, and as soon as the teenagers reasonably could without raising suspicion, they excused themselves. At this time, they had managed to not get the girls interested; maybe they would share some information with them later, but for now this was exciting enough, and he was happy to only have brothers around.

Technically they were not really all brothers and sisters, but for centuries several families had lived here in this big house, and they all felt like one big family, even with them being a mix of Bosmer, Khajiit, Redguard and Nord, and half-breeds in between.

Bha'jhan, the Khajiit, Jomund, the Nord, and Alander, the Bosmer, were close in age, all between 14 and 16 years old, and they had been tight since many years ago, sharing secrets and adventures with each other and sometimes being partners in 'crime', plotting and doing the occasional mischief together. When they were all up in the attic and had the door closed behind them, the Khajiit, who also was the oldest, showed them the book he had found and explained:

"Look, I was cleaning up here as I was told to do, and I found this. It seems to be some kind of diary, from a time more than three hundred years ago, you know, the time when Alduin had come back and the Dragonborn showed up. We have learned about those times at school, remember? When the Dragonborn was revealed right here in Whiterun?"

That got the others interested, and the Khajiit gave them some time to start reading. Naturally, there were quite a few phrases and details they did not understand, and every once in a while one of them uttered a question, which none of them could answer, like:

"What is a car?"

"What is a truck?"

"What is a hospital?"

"What is a gaming computer?

"What is an NPC?"

"What is a Vulcan greeting?"

The person who had written this diary – B'lushona, obviously one of their ancestors, or at least Bha'jhan՚s ancestor, as he also had been a Khajiit, at least once he had been here in Tamriel – had used some terminology the teenage boys were not familiar with, and they had not been able to find a section with explanations so far. However, as all chapters beyond the first were more or less 'normal', they did not worry about that too much.

"We could ask one of the adults about those strange words!"

"Let's not do this; if they learn about this book, they might not allow us to read it any further, and that would be a pity."

"But this is really odd! How can this guy do something in Skyrim, like the Valtheim Towers he mentions, before actually being here?"

"Maybe that was also a dream?"

There was some nodding around, and a few minutes later another comment came up:

"So that's how they first met Alduin?"

Alander asked this with a raised brow when he was well into the third chapter.

"Looks like that" was Bha'jhan՚s reply.

"How can you be an adult Khajiit and not know how to fight?"

"Hey, even here in Whiterun not everybody is a fighter. And if he was really magically brought here, maybe they did not have a Civil War where he came from?"

"Yeah, he wrote that he was an engineer, but what is that?"

"I heard somebody mention that this is somebody who does technical stuff, like the plumbing in houses."

"Hm."

Many minutes passed with further reading, until the brothers had also finished reading the chapter with B'lushona and his companions arriving in Riverwood.

"So, Riverwood…"

"Sure, why not? When you need to run away from Helgen, it's about the next town, isn't it?"

"It sure is, and there are still nice people over there."

"They could have gone to Falkreath, too – at least it's the same hold as Helgen!"

"Yeah, but didn't you read? This Ralof had relatives in Riverwood, and he probably did not know the people in Falkreath too well, so…"

"Yep, that makes sense."

There were again a few minutes of silence, and then Jomund asked:

"Bha'jhan, can you imagine how it might feel when you had another body and suddenly find yourself to be a Khajiit?"

"Of course I can't" he replied. "I have been a Khajiit all of my life, and I hope that nobody insists on giving me a different body. But I can imagine the other way round – if I suddenly was a Bosmer or a Nord, walking would be a challenge for me, and I would sure miss my tail."

"Sure, and if somebody changed me into a Khajiit, I'd probably trip over my new tail all of the time."

All three of them laughed, and they looked at the book again. Eventually Alander asked:

"He mentions that he's from Germany. Does anybody know where that is? It's not in Tamriel, right?"

"No, he claims that he's from another world!"

"But what does that mean? Another continent? An island?"

"Not sure, but maybe not even on Nirn at all?"

"Is that even possible?"

"I do not have a clue, really. But if it was indeed Akatosh who brought him here to Skyrim, everything is possible, right?

The others nodded, and a quite a few minutes later Jomund had another question:

"So, how many chapters are there in this diary?"

"A lot, but I haven't checked yet."

"So we have plenty to read."

"Yes, indeed. But for now we better get back to cleaning and sorting. Remember, we were supposed to help sorting stuff which we want to keep from stuff to discard."

"Sure, but this is clearly in the first category. Hey, let's keep this a secret between us for now, okay?"

All of them nodded, and they got back to cleaning and sorting. The boys knew that they'd get back here to read further as soon as they had more time, but the diary would not walk away on its own. They only needed to make sure that nobody else could find it by accident; if one of the adults found them with the diary, they were likely going to take it away from them, and there would be no fun in that. Thus, for now, they selected a hiding spot behind a lose batten and carefully placed the wrapped diary in there, already looking forward to the next time when they'd meet up here to read further.

They got some fun from it, too, in their daily lives. When nobody else was around, they started to greet each other with 'Peace, Brother!', and the other one would then respond with 'Live long and prosper!'; without fail this made them burst out with laughter. They did not really know the background, but they had lots of fun with those phrases nonetheless.

[Author's Notes: I do not know if the fourth era actually lasts that long, but I have not been able to find lore with details on that. For the purpose of this story I just assume it does, but if somebody tells me otherwise, I will gladly correct that.

We will get back to the main story right in the next chapter. There will be more interludes coming up, but not too frequently. If you don't like the interruption of the story line, feel free to ignore the interludes; you are not going to miss anything important. I may even compensate and publish the next 'real' chapter sooner than usual...]