Disclaimer: I don't own Morrowind. No harm intended.

-----

But Dak didn't die. Instead, she lay on the cusp of death for close to a week. Jiub had laid her on the bedroll of one of the smuggler's she'd killed and did his best to nurse her. He wasn't a healer by any stretch of the imagination, but he did what he could.

The bodies, he'd stripped and dragged outside. The man—the one who had hurt Dak so badly with the warhammer—was the first to be removed. It'd taken Jiub almost the entire day to drum up the courage to touch the corpse, which bore the mark of Dak's staff on his temple. He hadn't lied in the swamps when he told Dak he hated dead people…but he hadn't told her why.

It was the smell, he supposed, since it never matter what race or age or gender the corpse was. The smell called to mind the swampy Deshaan Plain where he'd grown up, working as the child of free laborers on a saltrice plantation of House Dres. There had been plenty of death there, especially among the Argonian slaves who worked the land but without receiving pay. The smell never quite went away as the slaves collapsed daily from the heat and starvation and disease.

In the end, he'd managed to drag both corpses outside, and scavengers came in the night and removed them further. He didn't mind. The dark elf still got a clenching feeling in his gut every time he looked at Dak and saw the damage the warhammer had done. Her face was a mess of bruises, and he was extremely surprised that a close inspection of her skull had revealed no fractures. Her ribs though—they were black with bruises and cracked in several places. He'd fed the few health potions they'd acquired on the road to her, careful of her bruised and swollen lips. Now, all he could do was wait for her to decide whether or not she wanted to die.

Several times, his thoughts turned towards abandoning her. She certainly wasn't the easiest person to deal with—what with her rude, brusque manner, and her bad habit of getting drunk at every possible opportunity. And, she was a sloppy drunk, prone to passing out and vomiting. Jiub liked a cup of flin now and again as much as the next mer, but Dak took drinking much too seriously. It was like she was trying to lose herself in the bottom of a bottle.

But, for whatever reason, he couldn't just walk out and leave her to die. Unlike her, he wasn't a murderer.

Their map—a crumbling piece of parchment they'd gotten from an old Altmer woman in Seyda Neen—said the cave they were in was called Ulummusa. Four days and she still hadn't woken up. The Nord woman just wouldn't die, though her body was damaged to seemingly beyond all hope…at least in their current situation. Jiub traced the line representing the road that ran near the cave. She needed a healer. The closest one would be at Fort Pelagiad. To get there would mean backtracking, but he wasn't nearly that desperate to get to Balmora that he cared.

Swallowing, he rolled the map closed and looked over to where Dak lay stretched out on the pallet. Her white face was now black and purple with bruises, one eye swollen shut. He thought, perhaps, that her cheekbone was broken, but the swelling was still too bad to tell for sure.

She was too heavy to carry. Jiub fancied himself to be a fairly strong mer, but she was nearly a head taller than he was, not to mention more muscular. He'd have to drag her, he realized. The blanket she was laying under would work well enough. The thief laid it out flat on the cave floor and then gently rolled her into the middle. A moan escaped from her blackened lips, but she didn't regain consciousness. Mercifully.

Picking up two corners, he gave the blanket an experimental tug. "By the Tribunal, why couldn't you be a wood elf?" he muttered through gritted teeth. Suddenly, that little line on the map seemed to stretch on for forever in his mind.