This is reaaaaallly late. I'm sorry, but my uncle recently got really sick and I've been going back and forth between his house, the treatment place and my own house for about three weeks. I don't think I'll have any more interruptions like that, but I can't guarantee anything.

Pyrophobia

Ralof and I head back home in the morning, as Ma'keer had forced us to stay in the city overnight. I hadn't been able to turn down my uncle, and Ralof was scared witless of him, so it wasn't as if we needed much convincing.

I toyed with the heavy piece of jewelry that hung around my neck, and Ralof's glances at the new addition to my apparel didn't go unnoticed. My uncle, upon seeing us leave Whiterun at sunrise, had stopped us and pulled me aside, giving me an Amulet of Mara and putting it on me. He explained that he feared for me, that I would be lonely forever because of all the hurt I've been through. He wanted me to find someone to marry and keep me happy, since life was short and all that. I'd taken it and promised him that I'd wear it until I found someone.

Frankly, I hated the idea of marriage. I found, shortly after Uncle giving me the amulet, that I'd never thought about it very much. Before my mother died, I was too young to think about it. Afterwards, I was a bit preoccupied with the survival of my village and myself. The more I contemplated it, the more I hated it. If I really did accept my fate as the Dragonborn and kill dragons for a living, I would be leaving my spouse at home to wander around like a lonely old widow, wondering if I'd even come home. I wouldn't want anyone I cared about living with that kind of uncertainty. It was bad enough that I had Uncle, Gerdur, and Ralof to think about.

"Stop staring at it," I said, still looking ahead at the trail. Ralof's head snapped forward and I sighed. "I realize it's strange, but Uncle insists I find someone. I don't even know why he's so bent on it."

"Have you…Ever thought about it?" Ralof asked hesitantly.

"Not until now. I really don't like the idea."

Ralof raised an eyebrow, "Why? Wouldn't you like to know…I don't know, you had someone to love you?"

"That's the point. They would love me and I would love them but…I'm the Dragonborn. I have to go with that. If I left them all alone, wondering if I was dead or alive every moment I was gone…" I shook my head and trailed off. Ralof nodded and patted my shoulder.

We didn't talk for the entire trip home, and Gerdur met us at the entrance. I wondered briefly how she'd know we were coming home today, but she just brushed it off as mother's intuition. I filled her in on all that had gone on: My preparation to brave the steps to High Hrothgar, my uncle being alive, my father possibly being alive, and, lastly, the Amulet of Mara that she'd been eyeing curiously the entire time I'd been talking.

"My uncle Ma'keer insists I wear it so I can find happiness. I won't live forever, if I can find that one person I should, all that."

"I think he's right."

I stared at her, and she stared right back, eyebrow raised in a way that was so similar to the way Ralof did it, it was scary.

"What? You're a man. You need someone to spend the rest of your life with."

"Can't I just become a monk?" I moaned, crossing my arms on the dinner table and slamming my forehead into them.

"No," Gerdur said firmly. "You will find a spouse and you will be happy, Godrael, even if I have to beat you into submission to do it!"

Something in Gerdur's tone told me that she could and would beat me until I bowed to her wishes.

"Fine. But I'll take my time doing it."

"It would probably ruin it if you rushed into anything, anyway," Gerdur said, satisfied that she'd won. "Now you two go hunt. I want some fresh meat to celebrate Godrael finally stopping his overly-emotional pity party."

I gathered my bow and arrows and my game bag and waited for Ralof at the door. We headed off to the forest. I tucked the amulet into my shirt and readied my bow when the scent of a big, fat bear nearby drifted towards me.

"I've got him," I muttered, handing Ralof my hunting bag silently and creeping up the tree. I had to hop a few branches, but eventually I had the bear in my sights. It was a burly male, storing up for hibernation. I notched my bow and aimed, ready to take the thing out.

"Godrael!" I felt the branch below my feet shake and snap before I fell to the ground. The bear became agitated and attacked. I stabbed a knife into its skull and pulled it out hurriedly, and even then the beast trashed about some, sending blood and brains everywhere. When he stopped, I spat out some of the grey matter and wiped my mouth. Ralof ran up behind me.

"That's just disgusting," He commented, rubbing away some of the carnage from my cheeks.

"It wouldn't be the first time I've eaten bear brains."

"I didn't need to know that."

"Of course you did," I said. I turned to him and crossed my arms. "Why did you break the branch? I almost had him."

"What?"

"You broke the branch. It snapped right under me and I fell. That's why the bear attacked."

"I didn't break the branch. It must've been a bird."

"Because there are many birds that can break a branch that thick by landing on it."

Ralof glared, "I didn't break it."

"Then who did?"

"I don't know!"

A grunt came from up the tree followed by an awkward cough.

"Ah, Cousin?"

I froze and looked up. There, on a branch, was an older, rougher version of the boy I'd helped keep alive in my village. His hair had grown out, he'd gotten taller, and he was more wiry than before. He was well-fed, just as he had been when I was at the village.

"…Lotus?"

OOOOO

Lotus helped me carve the bear up nicely, prodding uncertainly at the meat in an effort to get it separated from the bone. Ralof showed him how to cut it properly and I worked on cutting the head off. For a bear this fine, I might've kept the head as a trophy, but I'd ruined the skull with the knife. It wouldn't be wall-worthy, anyway.

"Um, Cousin," Lotus said. Like with everything else, he was terribly awkward, speaking like he'd interrupted us in our lack of talking. "Everyone at the village misses you. And I know it's probably none of my business, but we were all wondering…What happened?"

I sighed, "I went out hunting and saw a big Elk near the border. It was stupid to go after it, but we hadn't had fresh meat in weeks, so I did anyway. When I was about to kill it, I noticed an Imperial ambush of a group of Stormcloaks and tried to run, but they caught me and said I was assisting them. Then I was almost executed, a dragon interrupted that, I came to Riverwood and I've, more or less, been here ever since."

"That explains…Well, everything. When are you coming back?" He looked at me hopefully and I swallowed.

"Um. I'm not."

A look a fear crossed Lotus's face. The boy always looked scared, with his bright blonde hair that was almost white and his wide, brown eyes that flickered around like he was expecting to be attacked at any second. To make him even more fearful, well, it had always broken my heart.

"Why not? Godrael, we need you! Grandmother Jasha's been asking where you went off to. Please, you have to come back!"

"I can't."

"Why?"

I looked down, at Ralof, at Lotus, then back at the bear. Sadly, his face was the only one that wasn't expecting an answer in his favor. Dead things were always better to me than living things.

"I have things that need to be cared for here. I've been made Thane of Whiterun…and I have a trip to make tomorrow."

Ralof choked. I hadn't told him I was braving the path to High Hrothgar yet.

"I…I guess I'll just tell them that, then."

We finished skinning the bear in silence. When Ralof asked Lotus if he'd like to meet his sister, Lotus looked down and refused, just bounding into the tree and hopping away. I looked after him for a few minutes, before I turned back to Ralof.

"He hates me now."

"I don't think so."

"He wanted me to go back."

"I know."

"Should I have?"

"…Did you want to?"

I couldn't reply. Did I want to go back to the village? Life was harder there, but it was also simpler. If I left, if I didn't come back and just stayed in that remote little hamlet, I wouldn't have to be the Dragonborn anymore. I wouldn't have to worry about the dragons unless they approached my homestead. I wouldn't be a Thane, I would be a hunter. I could live in semi-peace until I died in twenty-odd years. I could enjoy life for once.

"No," I said finally, gathering the meat and skin from the bear. "I don't want to go. Lotus is a man now, I've trained him well. They'll survive without me for now. I'll visit when things in Skyrim aren't so volatile."

"And when they aren't?" Ralof asked quietly. "Are you ever going to go back and stay?"

I looked down at the dirt, kicking a rock and startling a butterfly.

"I'll cross the bridge when I come to it."

END

Okay, before I get any more comments on how Khajiit and Nords can't interbreed, I would like to remind those who kindly (note: sarcasm) pointed this out that I said I'd never found anything that said they could or couldn't. I would like to say that I was sent the link to The Imperial Library that says it is unclear whether or not they can produce fertile offspring. Doesn't say they can't, doesn't say they can, and I did say I never found a clear source for this information.
So you can kindly suck on that.
(And did you really expect me to care if they really couldn't? I've got 10 chapters up on this long bitch, did you think I'd change it? Take it down? Please, sirs or madams, don't overestimate yourselves. There are worse fics than mine. Go troll on them.)