Chapter 2
Perceptions
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Nevano slept deeply throughout the night, mercifully without dreams. He was no stranger to dreams both good and horrible though lately they tended towards the latter. The support he used to have from Azura, one of the patron Daedra gods of the Dunmeri people, was on the wane lately. Whether it was from the recent disasters in Morrowind or his abrupt departure from his former life he wasn't too sure but he hadn't found the motivation to find out quite yet. He just wasn't ready.
When he finally dragged himself awake it was well into morning. Again this was nothing new. When he traveled he slept very lightly in case something decided to creep up on him. In a bed in a mostly safe environment? He was a rock. He once slept clean through a hurricane in the Anvil Fighters Guild hall. There was also the time he slept for almost 36 hours before Modryn finally flipped his bed over. It had actually become a bit of a game; who could come up with the most elaborate way of waking Nevano up. It had gotten banned after, somehow, the rafters caught on fire. No one had been able to explain that, especially when no accelerant or even a heat source had been used.
With a yawn Nevano reluctantly pushed back the furs, grimacing at the sudden rush of cold air over his body. He was used to the agreeable weather in Chorrol or the heat and humidity of Vvardenfell. Heat being the key word. No Dunmer ever said they weren't cold in the snow and wind.
As Saadia promised, his armor had finished drying over night. He pulled it over and gave it all a very thorough inspection. It had gotten rather beat up on his way to the border and he had no idea just what they had done to it when they stripped him. Sure enough he found several rips, one of which had shiny glass platelets pushing through. All completely unacceptable. He rolled over and dug through his pack until he found a small leather case that housed his repair kit.
The only bad thing about sewing rips and re-linking glass plates was that it put him in an introspective mindset. He honestly didn't want to think. He headed north to get AWAY from those memories, away from the pain. But they kept resurfacing, like rust on a sword blade.
He missed them. He missed the guild. He missed his old guild mates. He missed his old life. Many of those he had grown up with were long since dead and gone, the downside of being a long-lived mer, but each generation had been unique and he always had someone he had partnered up with. Even when he had been gone for months, years at a time in Morrowind, they had always been happy to see him again. When Modryn died, he couldn't face them again. He hadn't been there in time to rescue him or many of the others that had died in the Thalmor assault. As he had stared at their grave markers, he realized that his time with the Cyrodiil Fighters Guild had died too.
"Vith!" Nevano cussed as the needle he was stabbing his armor with instead went through the flesh of his finger. Physical pain over-rode emotional pain for the briefest moment, allowing him to shove it back into a mental box. He couldn't allow that to well up now. He had a mission. He had a cause. He had to find his weapons.
He tossed his repair kit back into his pack and pulled his armor on. It was time to go.
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"Hail Companion!"
That was the fourth time Nevano had heard that greeting since coming out of the Bannered Mare. He couldn't tell if it was a standard greeting or if they were confusing him with something else. He still wasn't used to Skyrim mannerisms. He had heard a guard bitching about how he used to be an adventurer until he took an arrow to the knee. Nevano really hoped that that was an reference to something else and not an actual arrow in the knee otherwise he'd have to say that Skyrim was going to be completely overrun by dragons in a week. He quit counting how many arrows he had gotten struck with years ago. Most had been diverted or absorbed by his armor but there had been a fair few that had found their mark in his flesh, including one highly embarrassing one in the arse by a guild recruit. None of those injuries had ever once made him consider retiring from the road and taking up guarding. Especially not guarding. He'd give up his sword and be a mage first.
As he wandered the general direction to the gate, he thought back to the journey ahead. He was fairly positive that his weapons wouldn't end up in a random bandit cave. Weapons like that would be bragged about and, as with bandits the world over, they just couldn't keep their mouths shut. Undoubtedly he would have heard about it by now. This meant that they probably were taken by someone with far more influence and better guards in case he had to steal them back. However he didn't have the foggiest idea where to even start looking and Skyrim was a very large country.
"So YOU'RE the one the guards are confusing with our elite force." A Nord woman in rather…revealing armor and warpaint that was fashioned into three great claws marks on her face suddenly appeared in front of the mer, blocking his progress towards the city gate.
Nevano frowned. She was certainly pretty, especially with that armor, curves in all the right places and sinewy muscles that definitely appealed to Nevano's taste but her intense eyes told him if he tried any sort of move on her he would be short a few parts. "Excuse me?"
"Hmm, you certainly LOOK like a capable warrior…but looks aren't everything." She said, almost to herself as she looked him up and down.
Normally Nevano had no problem with a woman who checked him out. In fact he often encouraged it. But this woman…something just wasn't right. Everything about her seemed fairly normal for a fighter but something…just didn't smell right. Those intense predatory eyes of hers made his skin crawl. A flicker of a memory lapped at the back of his consciousness but he couldn't quite place it…
"What do you think about confirming the guards' chatter and joining the Companions?" She asked abruptly, her eyes meeting his with the shock of a whiplash.
"Right…" Nevano struggled to keep up with this strange exchange, "What are the Companions and who are you?"
"Come to Jorrvaskr. We'll answer your questions…and test your mettle as a warrior." She turned and walked back off east through the city streets.
Nevano stood dumbfounded until a man leading a horse drawn cart yelled at him to move out of the way. He was slow to respond but managed to move before the horse ran him over. His brain was really having a hard time comprehending this. He had never been just called out like that. That and he was a little insulted. He LOOKED like a capable warrior? LOOKED like a capable warrior?! A hard little ball of resentment settled in the pit of his belly. He had done far more than that Nord could ever hope to accomplish in her short pitiful human life span.
Also had he just been invited to join a guild eh…group? Whatever they called themselves. That was a first. He had grown up in the Fighters Guild in Chorrol so it was pretty natural that he was just assimilated in once he came of age. When he had gone to Morrowind he had gone to the guilds and proven himself to them through many messy, sometimes morally questionable, jobs. But never would a guild in Morrowind EVER extend an invitation randomly to an outlander. This was all very strange to him and a little unsettling.
Still…the Companions might prove useful if they wouldn't mind sharing information. After all he had no allies in Skyrim, no connections and no information network. Experience told him that he had to put aside his pride and start making friends. That and jobs meant money and even with the gold he had collected back in Helgen, he would run out of gold fairly soon.
He sighed and readjusted his pack on his shoulder. He needed something to drink to think this over and not that coyingly sweet mead. That stuff tasted like fermented sugar. He wanted something stronger. The Nords loved the stuff and he had always been under the impression that Nords liked actual alcohol. He wanted something that would go down hot and send liquid fire throughout his body until he was engulfed in a fiery haze. Mazte or flinn usually got the job done. A quick glance around and he saw the Drunken Hunstman. If that place didn't have alcohol then he was a blighted kagouti.
Unlike the Bannered Mare, this place was smaller and far quieter. Instead of mostly drunk Nords calling for more mead, the Drunken Hunstman was silent, save for the muttering of an old Nord man in the corner.
"Ah, hello my Dunmer friend. In the market for some hunting supplies?" A Bosmer man from behind the desk greeted him. That explained why it was so dead in here. By and large, Nords preferred to stick together. An inn run by a mer versus an inn run by a Nord woman? They would go to the latter every time. And they accused the Dunmer of being xenophobic…
"No, just something strong to drink."
Mead. All they had was mead. Azura damn this miserable frozen hunk of ice to oblivion and back…
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A/N: A short one I know. There's a few of those in here and my feedback reader often sends me scathing texts complaining of such. I make up for it I promise.
