"So. Twilight, care to explain what that was, exactly? Djemir barely had time to size you up before you freaked out and scared his kid." Aendal sighed, smoke drifting from between his lips as he spoke. The Bosmer sat on a boulder, puffing on a long-stemmed pipe and staring down at the Unicorn as she lay in a ditch.

"I don't wanna talk about it. It's, i-it's embarrassing." Her face turned a lovely shade of red under her fur, her purple irises avoiding the Elf's gaze.

He smirked and quirked a brow at Twilight, more smoke drifting from his lips. "Twilight, I've bedded enough women to know what the look on your face meant. Maybe you should cover your horn up if it's so - sensitive."

This only made the Unicorn blush harder, curling up and hiding her face under her tail. "I'll just pay better attention to where somepony's putting their appendages." She mumbled something under her breath, pulling the wool hood of her cloak over her head and horn.

Aendal chuckled as he stood from his perch and dumped out the embers of his pipe. "Well, Djemir got started on your armor before I came out, so you should have it by sunset." The Elf slipped the pipe into the gear back in the small of his back, kneeling down next to Twilight. "Now, you've gotta be starving; you haven't eaten much of anything since you joined us. Let's go get us something to eat, shall we?"

The Unicorn looked up to him, a bright smile on her face as her eyes lit up. "Yes, let's! I'm famished." Twilight rose to her hooves and followed as Aendal turned, intent on heading for the inn in Rorikstead.

"I'll be taking that hundred gold now, son." Urgak grumbled, standing over a bruised-up Nord boy. The pale-skinned male couldn't have been more than twenty years old, his green eyes glistening with tears as he stood, running a calloused hand through his black locks.

"Fine. A deal's a deal. You hit hard, Orc; you've bested me." The pair of fighters shook hands, and the Nord handed Urgak a leather pouch that gave a cheery jingle as it changed hands.

"Yup; drinks're on me, boy." As Aendal and Twilight walked in, the Orc held up an empty, wooden mug, grinning at the pair. "Won us a hundred gold! Drinks're on me!" When his gaze fell on Twilight, Urgak's expression drooped into one of irritation. "What's the horse doin' in here? You want us t' get kicked out, Elf?"

Aendal very quickly made his way across the stone floor of the inn, bringing himself a mere inch or two from the Orc as he glared up into his green face, his finger jabbing Urgak's orichalcum armor. "She goes where she damn well pleases, Urgak. She's part of my team, and she goes where we go. Remember what happened yesterday, when we left her by herself?"

The Orc was unable to meet Aendal's gaze. Instead, he shoved past the Bosmer and made a beeline for the door; he stopped only to glare down at Twilight. "I don't like spell-tossers, an' I don't like you. You've brought us nothin' but trouble so far, an' I don't see that changin' anytime soon if you stick around. Sleep with one eye open, Unicorn." The glare he gave her was cold enough to chill the blood in her veins, and the Unicorn barely held in a yelp as the inn's door slammed behind her.

The bruised-up Nord cleared his throat and reached up to soothe a cut on his cheek. "So… Does this mean I don't get free drinks?"

Twilight sighed and turned her gaze to the gray, cloudy sky as she, Aendal, Urgak and Haran passed the crags and cliffs just outside of Rorikstead. Their trip was, for the most part, uneventful as they marched through the craggy valleys between Rorikstead and Morthal. Twilight removed her hood with her magic and withdrew Wabbajack from her saddle bag; a smirk crossed her features as she re-read it. "Haran?" She glanced up from her book to the hooded Argonian marching two meters ahead of her.

The assassin turned to look over his shoulder at the Unicorn, a scaly brow quirked upward. "Yes, Twilight?"

She turned a page in Wabbajack, a light in her eyes as she spoke. "You… Wouldn't happen to have more books on you, would you?"

Haran nodded and turned his face to focus on the road ahead of him, his boots silent on the flattened dirt beneath them. "Yes, I do. If you are done with Wabbajack, I will let you borrow my other book. Those are the only two I have, unfortunately."

Twilight nodded and looked back down at the text in front of her as she walked with the rest of the team. She had just gotten to the second paragraph when her hoof caught on a rather large stone in the road and she fell forward, a yelp escaping her as her face slammed into the dirt. "Ow!" She sat up on her haunches and reached up to rub at her head, a wince scrunching her features. "Dumb rock…" She rose back to her hooves and continued on, her new armor rattling only slightly as her weight shifted.

The Unicorn was clad in leather barding with thin iron plates lining her back, and leather greaves that covered her legs, save for her knees. The iron plates clinked together as her body shifted with her four-legged gait, and after a few miles of walking, Twilight had begun to sweat under her fur. "M-maybe we should stop for a breather, guys. I'm exhausted."

Urgak glared back to Twilight, the look on his face similar to one he'd give someone that just started vomiting Septims. The Orc shook his head and continued on, waving over his shoulder at the trio that stayed behind. "I'll scout ahead, then."

Aendal and Haran shook their heads at Urgak, a sigh escaping the Elf's lips. "Alright, we'll take a break." He climbed onto and sat down on a rocky ledge overlooking the road, his eyes focused Northwards. "There's a river about a mile up the road, and what looks like… A marsh? Morthal shouldn't be too far, then."

Haran looked up at Aendal from his perch atop a small boulder, a look of inspiration in his eyes. "I know a quick route to Morthal, Elf, if you do not wish to go around on the main road."

The Bosmer blinked and peered down at Haran, an inquisitive look plain on his face. "Go on."

The black-robed assassin brushed a bit of dirt from his clothes as he gestured to the marshes on the horizon. "Well, we could cut straight through the marshes – we would be in Morthal in less than an hour, as opposed to three hours. I know a safe route through."

Aendal watched as Urgak returned over the horizon and waved an all-clear signal; the Elf then turned his gaze to Twilight. "Alright. Going through the marshes doesn't sound like too terrible an idea – what could go wrong?"

"Of all the worst possible ideas, Haran, this is the. Worst. Possible. Idea!" Aendal's shouting was punctuated with the loud sucking noises the wet marshland made with every labored step he took as his legs sank into the muck. Twilight rode on his back, and the Bosmer found her surprisingly light.

"I did not hear any objections when I brought up the idea, Aendal." The Argonian had a much easier time trudging through the swamp, and took great pleasure in speeding past Urgak, Aendal and Twilight. "This is not much different than my homeland of Blackmarsh. A little colder, though."

Urgak glared at Haran, a grunt escaping him as he pulled an Orichalcum-covered leg from the muck beneath him. "When we get outta here, I'ma ki-AGH! GET IT OFF ME!" The Orc shouted and made a loud slapping sound as he was slammed into the swamp floor, a massive, brown and white spider having landed on his back.

"Azura, no! Haran, watch the trees!" Aendal drew his bow when he felt Twilight drop from his back and knocked back an arrow, letting it fly into the spider's abdomen. The hairy arachnid slumped from Urgak's back and let out a blood-curdling scream as it drifted across the marsh on the light current in the murky water.

Aendal lowered his bow and let a smirk cross his face when Urgak rose to his feet. "Good, maybe that was the only o-" WHUMP! Another spider dropped onto Aendal's back, sending the Elf into the muck with a wet smack.

"Elf!" Urgak began to trudge toward Aendal before a pair of spiders pounced on him; one sank its fangs into his neck as the pair dragged him to the ground, the weight of the pair of spiders added to his waterlogged armor too much for him to hold up.

Haran grunted as a particularly large spider pounced on him, pinning the Argonian under the water. Haran just smirked as he drove his dagger up into the creature's mouth and dragged it back, splitting the ugly monster's face open. He squirmed out from under the spider's corpse and rose to his feet, a glare heating his eyes as he witnessed his team fighting off a group of seven or so spiders – Twilight however, was still sitting in the cold water, frozen in shock.

The Argonian shook his head and pulled a small dagger from one of the pouches on his belt; the blade closed the distance between himself and Aendal, the sharp metal sinking into the flesh of the spider on the Elf's back. "Get up, Aendal! You are embarrassing the team!" His voice came out in a rasp as the cold air burned his lungs.

Aendal groggily rose to his feet and drew his bow, knocking back an arrow and letting it fly at the spiders on Urgak. The Elf and Argonian fought ferociously as another, smaller group of spiders crawled into the fray; Urgak finally climbed to his feet and drew his claymore, smashing and slashing spiders with the pommel and the blade.

A few meters away from the fight, Twilight still sat, stunned and muttering under her breath. "S-spiders… Spiders everywhere, they're massive… W-why are there so ma-OH CELESTIA, NO!" A spider's corpse floated into her cheek as she sat there, the Unicorn immediately sloshing to her feet and screaming. "Spiders! Spiders in my mane! Get 'em off me, get 'em off me!" The purple Unicorn blinked out of existence in a flash of light and reappeared ahead of the group, making her way to Morthal. "Get'emoffmeget'emoffme!"

Urgak grumbled as he scraped mud from the inside of his armor. The Orc, and everyone else aside from Twilight, was covered in bites and scratches from the spiders. They sat at the edge of the lake in the middle of Morthal, each either washing their clothing and armor in the lake, or scraping mud from their weapons. "We never speak'a this, get me? Not a blasted word."

Twilight sat on her haunches next to Aendal, fussing with a clod of dirt in her mane as she tried to smooth it out with a brush. She raised a brow at Urgak as a smirk crossed her lips, immediately replaced with a wince as the dirt clod pulled a few hairs from her mane. "Ow!"

Aendal shook his head and scrubbed mud from his shirt on a washboard, a sigh escaping his lips. "If I never see another marsh again, it'll be too soon."

The Argonian gave a toothy grin to the rest of the group as he laid out his robes to dry. He was clad in a pair of ratty cloth pants and a wool shirt, and let his feet dangle over the lake as he sat on the edge of a pier. "Oh, come now. It was not that bad, was it?" To their death glares, the Argonian simply shrugged. "Well, I suppose you Mer would have an issue with it, having not been born in a marsh." He glanced over to Twilight and smirked. "And, wherever you are from, I am assuming you are not used to swamps. Correct?"

The purple mare nodded and set her brush down on top of her drying saddle bags and armor, a soft smile crossing her features as she looked up at Aendal. "Equestria doesn't have many swamps outside of the Everfree Forest, and I never really spent much time in there. Too dangerous."

Aendal quirked a brow at Twilight as he laid his shirt out on a plank to dry. "Equestria? I can't say I'm familiar with the name – that across the sea or something?"

Twilight shook her head and frowned. "No, I don't think it's even on this planet. Or dimension, or… I don't know. Equestria only has one moon, controlled by one of our princesses. Same as the sun." The mare was met with a trio of confounded stares, and she simply cocked her head in reply. "What? You don't have somepony controlling your astral bodies?"

They all shook their heads in reply, and Haran stood from his perch on the pier; a groan escaped him as he leaned back and stretched, his yellow eyes fixated on the grey skies for a moment. "I am going to see about getting us a carriage to Winterhold as planned, Aendal. I do not wish to make the trek on foot."

Twilight turned to watch the Argonian leave, her brow quirking up as she glanced over to Aendal. "What's in Winterhold, Aendal?" The purple Unicorn laid out her armor on the pier nearby so it could dry, a frown creasing her features when she noticed that Haran's copy of Wabbajack was soaked from the marshes. "Oh, no! Haran's going to be furious!" She tried to shake the book dry, but to no avail. The ink was running from the pages.

Aendal chuckled at Twilight, pulling a dark brown, wool shirt over his head as he walked over to the Unicorn. He patted her on the head, careful to avoid her horn, and sat down on the frozen ground next to her. "I'm sure he won't mind much – we can always buy a new book for him at the College of Winterhold. They have a massive librarian, and my friend Urag might be nice enough to give us a discount. Especially after he sees a creature as curious as you." The Elf gave Twilight a wink and ruffled her mane.

The Unicorn giggled and gave Aendal a questioning look. "So, Urag is the librarian's name, huh?" Twilight stopped and blinked for a moment, a realization dawning on her. "Wait, the librarian's an Orc?"

Twilight smiled as she climbed into the back of the small passenger wagon and ducked under a pile of wool blankets. "Ah, finally! Warmth!" The Unicorn snuggled up into the blankets and poked her hooded head out, a smile on her face as she looked to the group as they piled on. "So, what's Winterhold like?"

Haran glanced up to the ceiling of dark grey clouds again, his yellow eyes narrowing as he took in the scents of the wind. "Cold. It is a small town on the coast of the Sea of Ghosts; the only reason anyone ever chooses to go there is for the College. Otherwise, the place is poor as dirt and full of Nords." The Argonian gave a raspy scoff as the wagon took off, his arms crossed over his chest as he leaned back against the wagon's side.

Urgak turned to Twilight and shook his head. "I heard the place is pretty, but it ain't worth the effort'a goin' there." His black irises roamed over to Aendal as he picked something from his tusks. "Speakin' of, why in Oblivion are we goin' to that Gods-forsaken pit, anyway?"

The Bosmer glanced over to Urgak and spoke as he fished a small loaf of bread from his pack. "Because I said so, for one." Aendal took a bite of the bread and pointed the rest of the loaf at the Orc. "And because we're going to help Twilight find something called an… Elder Scroll, was it? I figure the library in Winterhold should have one."

The hooded Argonian wheezed out a hacking cough, curled forward as he gripped his chest. After a few moments, the coughing lightened into a wheezing chortle, and Twilight could swear she saw a tear slide down the reptile's cheek. "What's so funny, Haran?" Aendal looked to their assassin partner, a genuinely confused look painted on his face.

Haran wheezed out another laugh before he waved his hand, his lungs rattling with another cough. "It is nothing, Elf. Nothing at all." The Argonian cleared his throat and jabbed his chest with his fist a few times, then leaned up against the wagon's side. "I am going to rest for a little while – alert me if there's trouble before we reach Winterhold." With that, he closed his eyes to nod off.

Urgak looked to Twilight and frowned, his brow quirked up. "So, mind tellin' the rest of the class what in Oblivion an Elder Scroll is?"

The purple Unicorn shrugged under her wool blankets, her huge, purple eyes looking up to Urgak in genuine confusion. "I'unno. I was sent here by Clavicus Vile after I wished for unlimited knowledge – he said that an Elder Scroll is what I should be looking for."

Urgak's eyes narrowed at Twilight, his armor scraping against itself as he curled forward in his seat to place his elbows on his knees. "You mean t' tell me that you were stupid enough t' make a deal with Clavicus Vile, an' he didn't kill you on the spot? Unicorn, you're one lucky soul, I'll give ya that. Either that, or he didn't think you'd last all of five seconds in Tamriel." A smirk crossed his features as he scratched at his chin. "Come t' think of it, y' almost didn't. Lucky you ran int'a us."

Twilight rolled her eyes and turned her gaze to the dim, grey clouds above them. "Yeah. Real lucky – I'm still alive, but I'm stuck wandering a strange dimension with a group of killer mercenaries, with no idea how to find what I'm looking for, and no idea of how to get home." Tears welled up in her eyes as she looked back to Urgak, a sniffle escaping her. "I just wanna go home." She missed her friends: Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie; heck, she'd even settle for Trixie at this point.

The Orc shook his head and turned his gaze from Twilight to the massive mountain range they were passing by. "You ain't much of a saint yourself, Unicorn. Remember, you're the unstable mess that burned a whole fort full'a men an' women. They were bandits, sure, but you burned 'em alive. That's worse than anything I've ever done."

Twilight shook as a sob hitched in her throat, memories flooding her mind. So many lay dead in Fort Greymoor; images of the charred corpses leapt to the forefront of her thoughts, the sounds of their screams filled her ears. Her first kill: Grolag was his name. The Unicorn shuddered as the memory of that axe digging into his throat tore at her skull. The wicked grin of the Dark Elf that wanted to cut off her horn to offer to Hircine. The charred, rotting corpses in the first town she'd passed through. The memories proved too much for the armored Unicorn; Twilight rose from her seat on the wagon and rushed to its side, leaning her head over the edge of the wagon so she could wretch on the snowy ground beneath them.

The wagon's driver heard the splash of vomit hitting the ground, and turned in his seat to stare at the hooded Unicorn. "Did that horse just puke?"

Winterhold was a desolate, snowy town on the Northern coast of Skyrim, nestled at the foot of a wide mountain range that spread out further into the Pale county. There was a single cobblestone road that was lined with three shops and an inn, along with a few small houses. At the edge of the town was a massive, stone arch that opened up to a long, winding bridge that led to the Mage's College off in the snowy distance. Beneath the bridge, snow-covered ice flows drifted in the Sea of Ghosts between Winterhold and the College's icy precipice.

Twilight yawned as she climbed down from the back of the wagon parked at the edge of the town, and her breath created a cloud of fog in the freezing morning air. Aendal thanked the wagon driver as they walked toward Winterhold, and turned his attention to Haran. "Well, that ride didn't seem so bad. Why'd you want us to take a wagon, Haran?"

The Argonian shook his head and pulled his hood up, his finger pointed to the grey curtain of clouds above the town. "You might wish to find cover, Elf. We are not alone." With that, Haran fished a bottle of clear liquid from his gear belt and downed its contents. Twilight watched in amazement as the Argonian simply disappeared, entirely transparent. "Hide!"

Urgak drew his claymore when the clouds parted, the wind from the massive wings of a dragon pushing the misty masses aside. The giant creature's white scales seemed to glow as they reflected the exposed sunlight, the beams of daylight filtering through the thin webbing of the dragon's wings as it descended in front of the group of mercenaries. The ground quaked as the giant, scaled monstrosity landed directly in front of Twilight, its nose a mere foot away from hers. "I thought I smelled a Unicorn…"

Twilight shrank back as the booming, guttural voice of the dragon shook her bones, the force of his breath having knocked back her wool hood. "I, um… H-hello, mister Dragon, sir. T-to whom do I owe th-the honor?"

The dragon's scaly lips curled up in what appeared to be a smile. "My kin know me as Lokahzoor, or Sky Hunter Legend in the common tongue. Tell me, Unicorn: your kind was wiped out by Hircine and his hunters over two centuries ago. From where do you hail?"

The purple Unicorn was taken aback at the massive creature's friendly nature, but quickly composed herself and stood up as straight as she could on her four hooves, a proud smile on her face. "I'm Twilight Sparkle, from the land of Equestria! It's a pleasure to meet you, Lokahzoor. The last time I ran into a friendly dragon was the last time I spoke to Spike, back home."

Lokahzoor quirked a scaly brow and tilted his head at Twilight, his blue hues burning a hole in her forehead. "Spike is an odd name for a Dov."

Twilight smiled wider at the dragon. "Spike is my number one assistant! He was granted to me by Princess Celestia when he was just an e-"

"He is your number one what?"

The Unicorn blinked and looked up into the creature's eyes, oblivious to the rage they contained. "My number one assistant! He helps me out around the library and keeps things clean for me, and helps me keep things organized. Not to mention, he's a pretty outstanding cook."

Aendal and Urgak looked on in horror as Twilight embellished into having a baby dragon in her employ, Lokahzoor's scaled lips twisting into an angry scowl, his massive, razor-sharp fangs exposed. "A Dov in the service of a Unicorn? Blasphemy! I shall do him a kindness, and release him from your service!" The white-scaled dragon then reared his thorny head back and parted his jaws, a wake of frost and freezing air blasting forth from his fang-filled maw.