He awoke with a sudden jerk. The carriage had hit some rock in road, causing part of it to nearly jump off of the icy ground. Riil sat up hastily, feeling around groggily for his covers. Had it gotten colder, and darker? It seemed not to matter, for in his sleep, he realized, someone had added an extra blanket onto him and made sure to tuck him in so he wouldn't freeze. It must have been Fandreigh's doing.
Remembering that he was moving, the elven boy looked around before attempting to lean out to get a better look at his surroundings – and was met with another face. Riil yelped and stumbled back into the cart just as the figure hoisted itself onto the back and sat wobbly on the edge. Rab was lucky he meant no harm; otherwise there would have been a fireball to his face rather quickly because of the scare.
"You're awake!" the dark elf before him squeaked, trying his best not to bend the bow on his back as he sat haphazardly sat in the shaking carriage. Riil huffed as he tried to sit again, but Rab seemed not to notice much. On the contrary, he kept right on talking. "You fell asleep before we even got out of the city! Man, you must've been tired!"
"A little," Riil yawned, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. "Have… Have we gotten very far yet?" Rab shook his head.
"The snow started coming down really hard," he squeaked in his high pitched voice. For a twenty-some year old male, he sure spoke strange. "And then it got really bad. I've never seen this much snow back in Morrowind!"
But of course he hadn't. The better half of Morrowind had been constantly covered by soot, lava and ash due to the eruption of Red Mountain over one hundred years ago. He wasn't going to mention that, though. He assumed – or rather, he hoped – that Rab already knew of that. Instead, he merely smiled and nodded. Rab almost – almost – looked like he was going to continue talking, when a voice called for him from somewhere to the side of the carriage. Squeaking, the man quickly propelled himself off, and with a short goodbye and wave, scurried off to whoever it was.
Again Riil began inspecting the carriage he was riding in. Haphazardly he threw the blankets off of him, putting one around his shoulders for warmth. Although daylight still poured through the fluffy grey clouds overhead, it was chilly out; large flakes falling slowly but in abundance from the sky. Having lived in Riften his whole life before traveling with 'the group,' Riil had only regularly seen rainfall and mist, along with the occasional fog. Snow had been rare, and often it was a thin sheet atop the cold, hard ground. He almost missed that place now as he thought of it. Almost. Stumbling through the darker part of the carriage, he managed to kick enough stuff over – on accident – to find his pack. A small thing, it only held some of his old books and an extra pair of clothes. He never carried it much anymore because it slowed him down, and Fandreigh and Ko seemed to take not mind in taking turns carrying it for him.
Grabbing a book at random, he shuffled towards the front of the carriage, where the seat for the carriage driver sat. Somewhere outside of the safe haven, Ji and Braizer were arguing about something. Probably Ji trying to get the lizard to do another heist of some sort, and Braizer was disagreeing with it as always. Hemor was joking about something with M'koteg, and Del was near the front of the carriage, probably talking to one of the noblewomen's guards. Speaking of which, where had she gone -?
"Oh, why hello there," came a melodic voice that startled Riil into almost slipping as he tried to climb his way onto the carriage seat by himself. "I didn't see you back there. Are you alright?"
After he managed to right himself and trying not to grumble, he looked up with a rather disgruntled and annoyed expression. The women looked Nordic, what with her blonde hair – which was long and tied up - and blue eyes akin to Braizer's. Her skin was pale, but not so much so that she seemed vampiric. She was smiling brightly down at him, hands in her lap and a shawl on her shoulders. She wore a necklace and a circlet, too. Riil made a mental note of their appearance in case they happened to 'disappear' while in Ji's presence.
"Yes, ma'am, I'm fine, thank you," said Riil as he finally managed to pull himself onto the seat and sit properly. Two guards walked along on either side of Titan, the black stallion, and if Del hadn't of been standing there, the horse would have surely been panicking.
"I didn't know they were bringing a child," the women went on, smoothing out her dress, "otherwise I might have brought more to accommodate you."
"It's ok," Riil replied with a shrug, opening his book to the bookmark he had placed in it, "I get used to it." The women gave him a near pitiful look, though tried to clear it from her face quickly. She smiled again instead.
"So you're living with them, then?" she asked. Riil nodded.
"Yeah, I guess," he replied with a shrug. "We don't really live anywhere, but that's ok." The women's smile faltered slightly.
"Oh, so you all travel around a lot?" Riil nodded again, setting his book on his lap to make eye contact with the women. It seemed he wasn't going to get much reading done at the moment.
"That's our job," he said. "Or, most of their jobs. I just help Fandreigh most of the time with organizing."
"Fandreigh…. He's the Imperial, yes?" Again, Riil nodded. "He seems….. Nice."
"He usually is, unless someone messes with his things. Or if someone throws pieces of Draugr at him."
The women hesitated, expression twisting in confusion – and some sort of horror. She looked down to her lap, and for a moment, Rill thought that his last comment had worked, and that he was going to get to start reading again. Right as he began to start doing so, however, the women began speaking yet again.
"So, aside from the… from throwing the dead at one another," she said slowly, "they treat you alright?" Riil was almost caught off guard by that question.
"Yes," he said, "why would you ask that?" There was another moment of hesitation from the Nordic women. Finally, after seeming to contemplate something, she spoke.
"Well, it's quite obvious that they aren't taking you somewhere, like to your parents, otherwise they might have remembered to mention you. That, and I've rarely heard of groups of people being assigned a mission to take a child anywhere."
"No, ma'am," Riil said, shaking his head. "My parents are dead. They've been so since shortly after I was born. I heard that they died in a house fire, but I don't know for sure." The women looked saddened, and seemed about to apologize when Riil spoke up. "It's quite alright," he said, "I've been used to it. I lived in the Riften Orphanage since I could remember. It was alright, I guess, for an orphanage full of Nordic children. I was the only elf since I arrived and Constance – she's the one who runs the orphanage – she said that I've been there since I was only a few months old. I just turned nine not too long ago."
"Oh, well surely if you were there for that long, someone must have tried to adopt you, yes?" Now it was Riil's turn to look saddened. He stared down at his lap for a moment, in thought, before answering her question.
"Ma'am, do you know what it's like to be looked down on because of your race?" he asked. "To have people judge you because of what others of your kind had done to them? I might not always be around to hear it, but I know that there are people who call my kind – Altmer – names, and ones I probably shouldn't repeat, as well as give me looks whenever my back is turned. And that's all because of what our ancestors did, and what others say of us."
"That's terrible," the noblewomen gasped, "and that's the exact reason why I left Windhelm. I'm sure that of all the places, racism is the worst there." Riil didn't seem too surprised, though paused to look behind him, towards the voices and laughter.
"And that's why it's nice to be with them," he said. "They were the first people to accept me for me. They don't treat each other any different than you might treat another Nordic person, and it's kind of nice. To say that all of them take care of me is an understatement, and I know I'm never forgotten like I was back at the orphanage. We're…. almost like a family." Smiling brightly, he turned back to the women, demeanor changed. "No, actually, we are a lot like family. We found it together, though however much traveling we had to do. We might be rather small, and broken, and we may seem odd and disagree on a lot. But together, we're family, and we're still good."
There came abrupt shouting from somewhere behind them; Titan slowly temporarily, Del trying to look at what was happening while at the same time trying to calm the beast. The noblewomen leaned over the side of the carriage, trying to find the cause. Riil was sure that something heavy was thrown around. Someone cursed loudly. The noblewomen looked rather shocked as she brought herself back up, though the child before her just kept smiling brightly.
"Yeah," he said with a nod, "still good."
"Well," the Nordic women said after a long pause, "it seems you really do have an interesting family." She hesitated on the last word, though it still made Riil nod happily.
"Like I said, they're alright," he said. "I never really had a family before – and I mean a real family – and if it's the best I can do, then I don't want anything better." Looking around, he first pointed to Del and said merrily, "That's Del. He's kind of like my older brother. He's a Sellsword, and sometimes he lets me practice my magic on him because he's so strong. Him and M'koteg and Hemor spar a lot.
"M'koteg – he's the Orc – he's kind of like my other brother. And he's the guardian of the group. He protects everyone and makes sure that we're all safe and sound. He doesn't like anyone getting hurt on his watch. It's fun to ride on his shoulders, because he's so tall. He doesn't mind at all. He always tells me I'm real small and need to start gaining more weight. He's always nice, though, and isn't mean like the other Orcs I've heard about. He doesn't say much, either, which makes him so intimidating. But when he does, he always has something smart to say.
"Hemor's the Redguard. She's a warrior, like M'koteg and Del. She's like my mom. She makes sure I stay out of trouble and don't get myself hurt, which, of course, I don't. She's very different though, because she likes women instead of men. I don't get why some people outside of our 'family' find that weird, though. I mean, so long as you're nice to people and aren't in their business, its ok, right?
"There's Rabdom, the Dark Elf. I call him Rab because that's easier to say. He's like my little brother, even though he's older than me. He can be very silly and weird and immature sometimes, but whenever he goes out to hunt, he takes me along to show me stuff. I even got to help a little fox that'd been injured. Rab was actually the one who found him, but he felt bad for it and wanted me to help it, since I know how to heal. He's really goofy, but he's also really nice.
"Ji and Braizer are the two you heard fighting. They're like the parents of the group, because they lead us and tell us what to do and the likes, and make sure that we have everything we need. Ji's the Khajiit, and he's really good at sneaking. No worries, though, he won't take anything from you. Sometimes he acts like he doesn't care about us, or that he doesn't want to be around us, but I know that he actually cares; else he wouldn't take care of us so. He just won't admit it. I heard he actually came from Skyrim, but I don't know where from.
"Braizer is the other Argonian. He's Del's father, I guess. He's good at trading and getting us out of messy situations. I've never seen him physically fight much, but I know he can hunt and use magic. He even sings me to sleep sometimes, or tells us stories he's heard at night while we're around the campfire. I have to admit, he probably has more logic and reason than Ji, but they're both ok.
"Then there's Fandreigh. He's really good with magic. He likes books, too, like me! He teaches me a lot of things, like spells he's learned, and reads me books at night, too, when I can't sleep. I've also gotten a few good books from him. I think I have some he bought for me, too. He's…. He's kind of almost my dad." Leaning over, Riil whispered, "But don't tell him I said that!"
The women had to cover her mouth as she giggled, but still nodded. "Why of course," she so happily agreed. "I promise. Your family does seem like an interesting bunch."
Riil nodded happily. He wouldn't really have it any other way.
