Author's note: Hello everybody! I really was planning to be a bit more productive this week, but some things are not meant to be. This is the product of an hour of sleep, a lot of caffeine, and a very physically taxing morning. It's a bit all over the place, and I'll likely be continuing in the same vein for a while, but for now just enjoy the random snippets of insanity. (I'm working on three art commissions, two challenge fics, as well as actual life and two other fic collections. It's a bit nuts.)
I take requests regarding dialogue, prompts, and literally everything else, so please PM me if you have an account and an idea, or leave a review if you... don't have an account. I'm free to beta as well.
I appreciate reviews, since honestly constructive criticism and positive comments are the only thing keeping me alive at this point, so leave some feedback if you can. ANYway. On to said insanity snippets.
But wait. Disclaimer: Not mine.
Adapting to a new environment is something that humans, and most of Skyrim's races are good at. Unfortunately, none of them seem to care much for said adaptation, or any of the side effects that come with it. In this case, Aranel isn't to happy about what exactly she has to do to adapt to her new lifestyle: that of a mother and wife. She's always been a fighter, Sylgja reflects, and settling down probably wasn't on her "to do" list. But then they met, and it's pretty obvious that their world was going to turn upside down from there on out. So their parenting can be described as… "haphazard" at best, and nothing short of laughable at worse. Of course, it's difficult to adapt from an old lifestyle to a new one, with a beautiful but absent wife, two somewhat (maybe very) rowdy children, and the endless parade of visitors, salesmen, priests (someone thought it would be funny to hire an exorcist to "fix" her wife), and everything else that seems to be vaguely humanoid and capable of sentient thought.
She was a miner before this, so of course she's had her fair share of working with people. Cruel overseers, kind guards, and everyone in the morally grey area. She remembers (very vividly) the one time she hid three illegal skooma smugglers in her house. They had been sentenced to death in Riften, and had come across the mine on their way out of the place. Despite being convicts, and perhaps not the most savory of characters, all three had been very sweet, and had even paid her for her hospitality. She sometimes wonders if they managed to evade capture. Sylgja hopes they did, though with the people in charge of Riften, she isn't very confident about it. They were nothing compared to the orcs who had come through the week prior, and the girl who claimed to be the last of a dead race the week before that. So when she is forced to deal with people who want to talk to Aranel, or the occasional salesmen, or the wandering prince on some noble quest, she takes it in stride.
Aranel isn't as good with visitors, and since the children idolize her, they follow her example when it comes to dealing with people. The last one went running down the street on fire. Sylgja knows because she was on her way back from the blacksmith's when it happened, and she was the one who made sure he didn't burn to death. Despite that, they do have a fairly healthy relationship with the people of Whiterun, and since Aranel is a Thane, most of her activities are conveniently overlooked. Such as the time that the neighbours witnessed Aranel chasing Lucia down the street, apparently screaming something about weaponry. But Sylgja doesn't want to know about that, and so she makes sure to deal with everyone else who may come their way. Aranel may be kept in the dark (most of the time), and Lydia may suspect what is keeping them quiet, but the civilians are far too frightened of her to say anything about their family's odd antics. And so, life goes on.