A/N: I am sorry that this has taken so long, but this chapter just wouldn't behave. I actually started writing this about two days after the previous chapter, but I got a severe case of writer's block, also known as school. I think and hope that this chapter should be worth the wait though. Enjoy.

My head hurt. My head hurt a lot. I had absolutely no idea what had happened last night, but I dimly remembered imbibing a large amount of alcohol, and that new Nord Companion bursting into tears on my shoulder and wailing about how the Stormcloaks had killed her father, and how she had been training to be a housecarl her entire adult life and now the Stormcloaks had ruined that for her, all because her uncle was the previous Jarl.

I groaned as I shifted in the bed and suddenly became aware of another hurt, specifically one between my legs. I realised that I was not in my bed, and also that I was naked, and had quite probably just lost my virginity to one of the other companions. I screamed, waking up the person lying next to me, who promptly fell out of the bed and started cursing.

"Ria? What the fuck?" I recognised the voice as belonging to Ram-Ku, which didn't make it any better, if anything it made it worse.

"Get out! Get the fuck out!" I forced him out of the room and slammed the door behind him, before collapsing in a heap against the door, sobbing. I could hear him hammering on the door behind me.

"Ria! Ria! Let me in, I need to get my clothes. Besides, that's my room." Then silence, followed by, "Ria, are you okay? It's just that there's quite a bit of blood on me, did I hurt you?" Then the realisation, "Oh shit. You were a virgin weren't you? Shit Ria, I am so sorry."

"Icebrains, what the fuck are you doing?" Aela's voice cut across Ram-Ku's panic, "Why are you standing around naked out here?"

"Ria's barricaded herself in my room, and she's crying, and I think I just took her virginity, and I don't know what to do, and..."

"I'll tell you what to do, you go into my room, and stop Falin burning everything."

"Why is Falin burning everything? Wait, why is she in your room?"

"Same reason Ria's in your room."

"You had sex with Falin? I thought you were straight. I thought she was straight. I thought she was terrified of Nords."

"I was, don't know about her, she still is. Now calm down, grab something to cover yourself up and go talk to her. I'll try and speak to Ria."

I heard Ram-Ku muttering something about having to wrap himself in a rug before walking off down the corridor. Then Aela spoke again, "Ria, are you alright?"

"No, of course I'm not fucking alright, I just lost my virginity to a six foot lizard!" I shouted back.

"Ria, I know it seems bad now, but it's not the end of the world."

"It's the end of my fucking world. I was supposed to lose my virginity to someone I actually loved, and it was supposed to be special," I shouted, "Not to one of my friends after getting drunk. It wasn't supposed to be like this." I sobbed. I felt movement against my back as Aela slowed pushed the door open.

"Ria, I know what you're going through. I lost my virginity to someone who I thought was completely unsuitable after getting far too drunk for my own good. He was more than twice my age, and my superior. I locked myself in my room for a week and spent the next month taking jobs as far away from Whiterun as possible. It doesn't help. What you need to do is face up to Ram-Ku and talk to him about it, maybe not right away, but soon. Otherwise it'll just get worse, up to the point where you start hating each other. Besides, it's not like that's even the worst thing that happened last night." An evil grin crossed the huntress' face.

"W-what happened?" I whispered.

"Vilkas and Farkas apparently had a three-way with Lydia. She's absolutely fine with it, not the first time apparently, but the twins are both freaking out about it." She smiled at me, "Come on, let's get you dressed, and get you something to eat."

"O-okay. Aela?"

"Yes?"

"Who was it that you lost your virginity to?"

I could have sworn that the huntress was blushing, "Skjor."

Once I had found my clothes amidst the pile of... stuff... on Ram-Ku's floor, I followed the huntress, passing an unconscious Liedan who appeared to have had the entirety of his hair shaved off, beard, eyebrows, chest hair, everything. She led me to the charred remains of her room, at the centre of which sat a tearful Falin, being consoled by Ram-Ku.

"It's okay Falin, no-one's going to judge you or anything, everyone's had a night they'd probably like to forget. Yours quite definitely wasn't the worst."

Falin made a series of gestures that I interpreted as 'Says you, what did you do wrong?'

Ram-Ku had the grace to look embarassed, "I may have had sex with Ria."

Falin smiled slightly, 'That's not all you did, is it.'

"I'd rather not talk about this, it's slightly embarassing for me and for her."

"Damn right it is!" I shouted, "You fucking took my virginity!"

The look on his face was absolutely priceless, at least it would have been, if I wasn't too busy being furious at him. The look on Falin's face was possibly just as good, if a great deal more irritating. "Falin, Aela, could you please leave me alone to talk to shitbrains here for a moment."

Both women left quickly, with Falin still maintaining a large distance from Aela.

"Ria, look, I'm really sorry. I-"

"No! You listen to me! My first time was supposed to be special, it was supposed to be with someone I loved! Not after getting extremely drunk and sleeping with the closest male I could find."
"Is that what you think it was?"

"What in Oblivion else could it have been? You are quite definitely not my type."
"If it makes you feel any better Ria, you're not exactly my type either, not enough going on in the tail department." It was the grin on his face as he said this that did it for me, I slapped him right across the face in an attempt to wipe that shit-eating grin off of it.

"You're not taking this seriously, you're making fucking jokes about it. You don't have to live with it afterwards. It's not real to you." I stormed out of the ruined room, leaving a disorientated Argonian clad in a rug, sitting on his scaly backside, rubbing his cheek.

I stormed up the stairs into the main hall of Jorrvaskr to be confronted by a broadly grinning Athis, whatever joke he had planned, I was not in the mood for.

"What!?" I snapped at him.

He carried on grinning, "Oh, nothing Sera, nothing at all, nothing that I find even remotely funny whatsoever." Still with the grin, it seemed like everyone was privy to some enormously funny joke apart from me. Apparently Njada understood the joke as well, as she too was grinning. I finally snapped.

"What!" I demanded, "What, is so Divines-damned funny?"

"Mama?" I heard a small voice from the other end of the room, "Mama, what's the matter? Why are you so angry?"

Oh shit.

I recognised the owner of the voice as being Lucia, the beggar girl from by the Gildergreen. All of my fury was gone, and instead replaced by an overwhelming sense of bewilderment. "Hello Lucia. Did, did I adopt you last night?" I said weakly.

The girl smiled happily, "Oh yes, you and that scary-looking lizard man adopted me last night."

"S-scary-looking lizard man?" Please don't let it be Ram-Ku, please let it be some other random Argonian who just happened to be passing through Whiterun. Unfortunately my hopes were dashed by Lucia's next words.

"Yes, the big black and red one. He looks really scary but he's actually quite nice isn't he?"

I was slightly dazed, "Erm, yes, I suppose he is. Look, Lucia, I need to go and speak to, to the scary-looking lizard man, so why don't you…" I looked around the room at my fellow Companions, all of whom seemed to be trying incredibly hard not to burst into laughter at my predicament. Falin in particular seemed to be finding this incredibly funny. I grinned internally, I would at least be able to have some fun at my friend's expense. "Why don't you go and play with Falin, she won't say much, but I'm sure she'd be glad to play some games with you."

I almost grinned when the look of glee on Falin's face was replaced with one of sheer horror as Lucia quite happily bounced over to her and started talking about anything and everything that went through her mind. The child thus distracted, I returned to the living quarters to have a serious conversation with a certain scary-looking lizard man.

The lizard man in question was no longer wearing a rug wrapped around his waist, but instead a pair of ragged trousers. He was cleaning up the mess that Falin had made of Aela's room.

"If you've come to gawk, then you can piss off," he grumbled, his back turned to me, "If you've come to help, then grab a brush and start sweeping."

"It's me."

"Oh." He carried on sweeping.

"Look, we need to talk."

"Oh, I'm sorry, I thought it wasn't real enough for me to warrant talking about." He hissed.

"Look, this is not about that."

"No? Then what is this about?" Still not looking at me.

I decided to just spit it out. "You adopted a child!"

He stopped, "I did what now?" He finally turned to face me.

I took a deep breath, "Last night. You. Adopted. A child."

"I adopted a child?" He sounded confused.

"More accurately, we, adopted a child, but I thought that you'd be more likely to pay attention to something that directly affected you."

"I adopted a child." He repeated slowly, ignoring my jibe,

"Yes, yes you did. Her name's Lucia, and she's currently upstairs being distracted by Falin."

"I have a daughter..."

"Yes, you do, and you need to go upstairs and talk to her, right now. So put some clothes on."

When we returned to the main hall, I could barely prevent myself from bursting out laughing. Falin was sitting, cross-legged on the floor, her hood down, whilst Lucia braided flowers into her hair, singing some sort of nursery rhyme. It was the look on Falin's face that really rounded it off. It was a look that said, 'I am really not enjoying this, but I have no way of telling her that I don't enjoy this, someone help me.' It was brilliant. Ram-Ku clearly thought so as well as he burst out laughing.

"By the gods Falin, you actually look pretty."
Falin then made what Athis would later inform me was and incredibly obscene Dunmeri gesture in the general direction of me and Ram-Ku. Lucia had clearly recognised the voice as she abandoned Falin'shair and ran towards him with a cry of "Scary-looking lizard man! I mean, papa."

Ram-Ku looked at me and mouthed 'Scary-looking lizard man?' in obvious confusion.

Flinging her arms around him, Lucia looked up into his face, "Good morning papa. Did you sleep well? I did, it was the first warm night's sleep I've had in months, it was a bit uncomfortable though because I didn't have a bed, but at least I was warm and dry."

Much like me, Ram-Ku seemed to have absolutely no idea how to deal with a small child.

"What is going on here?" I looked towards the stairs to the sleeping quarters. Kodlak had woken up, and he didn't seem to have slept with anyone, set part of Jorrvaskr on fire, or adopted a child.

"Good morning, Harbinger." Aela said, "We're very sorry about the state of Jorrvaskr, we're working on cleaning it up and fixing the mess."

Kodlak acknowledged her statement with a wave of his hand before he noticed Lucia.

"Oh, who do we have here then? You're a little young to be joining the Companions, aren't you girl?"

Lucia took a deep breath before launching into another stream of consciousness, "Oh wow, you're Kodlak Whitemane aren't you? My name's Lucia, Ria and scary lizard man are my parents, at least they adopted me anyway, I've heard lots of stories about you sir, is it true you once fought a hundred and one Orc berserkers? Did you really clear out an entire bandit fort by yourself? Did you-"

Kodlak held up a hand to stop her, "Calm down child, you said Ria and Ram-Ku adopted you?"

Lucia considered this, "Is Ram-Ku scary lizard man?" She asked, pointing at Ram-Ku.

"Yes, yes he is."

"Then yes, Ram-Ku is my new Papa."

I heard a snorting from the main doors, I turned to see Gakken standing there.

"Is that right?" She asked, "You and Ram-Ku adopted a child?"

"Indeed it is," Athis butted in before I could respond, "Rather funny isn't it?"

"It is that," Gakken agreed. Now that she was no longer wearing her Orcish armour, which I noticed in a pile by the door, I could see her face a great deal more clearly. She had flat, heavy-set face, with large, prominent tusks and a flat nose. She wore her red hair in a sort of ponytail, and had matching war paint around her eyes leading down towards her neck. She also had a great number of tattoos covering both her arms. She turned to Athis, "So how's your tattoo elf?"

"My tattoo?" Athis looked confused.

"Yeah, it was either you or that other Dunmer, you wanted some big design done on your back, some fancy foreign writing, no idea what it said, I just tattooed it for you."

Athis. Gakken was right. There was indeed a large, heart-shaped tattoo on his back with some stranger symbols running along his spine. Falin took one look at the writing and immediately began laughing silently.

"What is so funny? What does it say?" Athis panicked.

Falin stopped laughing long enough to tell me what it said, I also began laughing once I understood it.

"Athis, you have a declaration of love for Njada tattooed on your back."

"What!" Athis and Njada both shouted at the same time. Gakken grinned lazily,

"I did a similar one for the lady as well." Njada and Athis both stood there shocked.

I decided to leave them to sort out their problems and headed off to speak to Carlotta Valentia about children.

When I arrived at Carlotta's stall, Mila was already running around Whiterun, and Carlotta was already fending off unwanted advances from guards. "Good morning Ria, how can I help you?"
"Morning Carlotta, I really need to talk to you."

"Oh, what about?"

"Children."

"Why? Wait, you're not pregnant are you?"
"What, no, no. I might have adopted Lucia last night, and I have no idea what I'm doing."
Carlotta could tell that I was being serious so she spent the next half an hour patiently explaining to me exactly how to care for a child of Lucia's age, it seemed even more complicated than Vilkas' greatsword lessons, but when I headed back to Jorrvaskr, I was fairly confident that I would be able to handle childcare. As I swung open the doors to Jorrvaskr, I heard a thick, familiar Nibenese accent.

"Where is she? Where is my daughter?"

...

...

Shit.

A/N: And that is what happens when you party with Sanguine. On another note, I now have the PC version of Skyrim, therefore I also have pictures of all my OC's if anyone wants to see them. The pictures should be on my deviantart page in a couple of days.