A/N: Apologies for the wait, I've had this and the next few chapters written since this summer but wasn't happy with them - still am not happy with them - but have finally decided to post them, regardless of my private opinions on my own writing.

Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy this latest instalment.

As far as staring matches went, this one was one of the creepiest and lengthiest Seifer had ever had the unfortunate experience of being part of. After pulling the woman's leg back into place (a lot of swearing, straining and tongue-biting from him and a lot of tears, swearing and ground-thumping from her) he had bound it tightly to his hand axe with what little remained of his cloak. He had then been forced to carry her – at her request mind you – writhing and screaming into the forest so she could, as she put it, 'water the forest'.

After what seemed like an age, she reappeared again, dragging herself backwards on three limbs with the fourth bumping along the undergrowth in her wake. She was still crying and requested rather rudely that he take her to the stream so she could wash herself. He acquiesced wordlessly because he was already feeling a tad guilty about her leg and the pain he had obviously caused by putting it back into place. The most effectual way of ensuring the bones sat well on each other, he concluded, was to grip her just above the kneecap and pull the lower half of the limb down away from her body until, with a nauseating squelch and a howl of agony, the bone slipped back into alignment.

When transporting her to the river, he didn't bother trying to touch the injured leg again, grabbing her round the waist and by the other knee instead, leaving the injured limb to dangle as he hefted her towards and into the water.

She had waved him swiftly away the second he had settled her down in the silt and he had originally turned to leave, but very quickly thought better of it. He was lucky she didn't decide to search for a weapon whilst she was rooting about in the foliage earlier taking a leak, but he would be blowed if he was going to hand her another opportunity to find something to shank him with. And here began the staring contest.

She was twisted around at the waist, one hand clutching the river bank, the fingers of the other hand tangled in the laces at the front of her bilaud, half undone. He folded his arms across his chest and shook his head.

"I'm not leaving."

"Go." She sounded firm, but slightly strained as the angle was hurting her leg. He wasn't surprised, but he still wasn't moving.

"No."

"Go!" There were very few women in Skyrim who had ordered him out of their bathrooms, trespasser or not, even fewer of those whose lives he'd saved. Still, there were very few occasions when he had actually refused to leave a woman alone to bathe. Bathing was a personal thing, he understood, but so was the preservation of his life.

"I'm sorry, darling," he shook his head, smirking. He was nothing if not stubborn. "But I don't trust you enough to let you wash in peace. Can't have you crawling off to find something to kill me with in the night."

"I won't." She said, giving the river bank a thump, "So go!"

He shook his head again, but turned around to give her a little more privacy. He heard her huff in disappointment and peeked over his shoulder to check she wasn't doing anything shifty. She wasn't. She was tearing her armour off like it was a hot potato coating. The buckles, he noticed, didn't cause much of a barricade. She was likely used to taking it off or putting it on in a hurry then, and she obviously did it herself or else she wouldn't be so familiar with the odd placements of the buckles. She was therefore quite close to rank and file, but far enough away that she had fancy armour and minions to lead to their deaths. Lieutenant then? Did the elves have lieutenants? He was too unfamiliar with the elven military to be able to name her rank, but…

He peeked again to find that she was struggling to keep herself elevated on one leg and take her kecks off with only one hand and keep herself balanced with the other. She was hissing in pain as well as her good leg slipped on the soft silt on the riverbed and put more pressure on her broken leg. He turned around again. Best to leave her to it.

Worry began to creep up on him about the condition his axe would be in after being submerged in so much water for as long as it was likely to take her to wash properly. Not to mention there would be no chance of drying it off. He certainly wasn't going to remove his armour in her presence so his shirt would do no good as a towel, and he doubted she would surrender her bilaud – which was folded neatly on the riverbank beside her cuirass – to towel-duty. What to do?

An aggravated growl caught his attention. This time when he turned around she was curled over; undressed to the waist, bare shoulders shaking spasmodically. That apparently hurt, whatever it was. He watched her for a few minutes, until she sat up again and sucked in a few shaking breaths before wiping a hand across her face. He deliberated for a few moments, but in the end could find no reasons why, other than her immediate and hostile revulsion, he shouldn't be a Good Samaritan and just help the woman.

As predicted, the protestations flew thick and fast the minute his intentions became clear. He stepped into the river, which only came to just over his ankles anyway and knelt between her legs.

"No!" She complained, taking her hands from where she had attempted to cover her bound chest and swiped his hands away instead when he went to grab the waistband of her kecks. "I can!"

"You clearly can't." He said, giving her a look and reaching for her kecks again – only to be thwarted for the second time by her less-than-gentle swatting, "Let me help you and this will hurt a lot less."

"No," She hissed, "Hands away, filthy Nord!"

His temper, which had been surprisingly resolute until this point considering the various methods of abuse he had suffered already at her hands, snapped when he received a slap in the face for all his trouble.

He seized her hands and wrenched her forward, eliciting a gasp of pain, "Look, woman, I don't particularly care about your life, so it will cost me nothing at all to cut your throat right here and leave you to pollute the river. But if you want to keep that pretty neck of yours in one piece, you'll refrain from striking me again. Let me remind you," He yanked her forward again when she tried to pull away and said as calmly as he could manage, "You're only alive because of me."

The look she gave him could have blistered a steel buckler, but when he released her hands and took a hold of her waistband again, she restrained the anger that was clearly sizzling just under the surface. She even levered herself up on her elbows on the bank so he could pull the kecks off under her bottom and down her thighs. After that, however, he was apparently on his own and all she offered him then was a raised eyebrow and that icy stare, even as his hand made accidental contact with the inside of her thigh whilst he battled with getting her ruined leg-wear around his makeshift splint.

Once the splint had been outwitted, the rest of the removal went reasonably quickly. It took him mere seconds to remove her boots and then the kecks were off and tossed somewhere else in the river. He would have to retrieve them before they left lest they be discovered by someone less savoury, but for now they were better out of the way.

She fumed silently at the indignation of it all. As if being supervised as she bathed wasn't bad enough, she had now been threatened and then undressed by a complete stranger. And a Nord at that. His fingers were rough on her thigh and it took everything she had in her not to hiss and flinch away. He had dirty hands.

Granted, she wasn't the cleanest right now either – her toilet break had been less than pleasant and there had been no opportunities to take her undergarments off at the time, the impromptu first aid had left her more desperate than ever – but she knew once she was clean she would come up pristine. She doubted his hands had ever seen a bar of soap in their lives. Did they have soap in Skyrim?

She glanced in the direction her kecks had been flung. She would want those back before they moved on, there was no way she was travelling with this bear of a man in only her underwear. He had already taken the liberty of removing her clothes, who knew what other liberties he might help himself to.

He shuffled a bit on his knees to get closer to her and began to gently smooth his hands over her injured leg, cleaning the blood and mud from the skin and she watched him with a critical eye. The throbbing left in the wake of his first aid had died a little in the chill of the water, but the swelling induced by the break had the skin bulging around the makeshift bandage he had swaddled her thigh in. Still tender, she twitched involuntarily when he touched a particularly sore patch and a pained whistle of air escaped her as his fingers slipped around the underside of her thigh, where the muscle had been crushed.

The other leg took very little cleaning and he was as brief about that one as he had been attentive to the first. He inspected a few nicks on her lower legs and then took careful hold of her hands, drawing them into the water before running surprisingly gentle fingers along the crusty wounds on her wrists. She scowled. She had lost her ring somewhere along the line and the delicate, frail looking limbs disgusted her. Everything about herself was round now, there were no graceful lines anywhere. Without the ring to shroud her true form she looked pudgy, flabby even and she was perhaps more put out about being seen in her true form than she was about being seen in such a state of disrepair.

She wasn't sure what he thought of her for being such a broken thing, but he must surely have thought her pitiful for having such round and bulky features. And flaxen hair. Like a Nord. The shame was nigh unbearable.

He reached to clean her stomach, but she stopped him there, that she could do herself. "I can." She said in his tongue. It was a cumbersome language, involving far too much phlegm and rolling of the tongue. Elfish was a beautiful language, each word slipping seamlessly into the next, why it had yet to become the common language of the Empire, she was sure she would never know.

He shrugged at her and stood. He did not, however, leave as she was hoping he would. He stepped out of the river, but then knelt at her back and began scooping water up to splash over her. She gasped at the cold, but then shuddered at how warm his hands were as he scrubbed the blood from her skin. Even after all that time in the water his hands were still warm. Her own hands were freezing, so much so that the fingers had started to turn blue and she splashed some water over her stomach and chest, shivering as she scrubbed at the blood on her shoulder. The daedric arrow had been removed while she was unconscious and a large glob of blood blocked the hole at the front, but it had evidently bled profusely at the time. The tide mark around her neck was thick and black with the mixture of mud and mountain dust and she seethed inwardly as she cleaned the dried blood from her cleavage. Hopefully he with his hot hands would have been too invested in cleaning her back to notice that.

The warmth of his hands was somewhat disconcerting. Elves were coldblooded creatures and no male she had ever been with had been anything other than icy cold. Her first time had been something of a ceremonial affair. Every elf maiden's coming of age was capitalised by her first night with the male she was promised to and her own had left her freezing cold and shivering by the end. To be touched by human hands – and warm ones at that – was extraordinarily bizarre. She shoved all questions of what a night with him might be like out of her mind as he moved off into the forest suddenly and left her alone in the quiet. It was best to keep such thoughts to herself, or not have them at all. She shuddered to think what he would do if he found she had ever even considered him in such a fashion. The big ugly brute would probably take it as all the invitation he needed.

Suddenly, a torrent of river water crashed over her head, washing her hair over her face. Mouth agape and lungs straining to suck in oxygen, she dragged her hair from her eyes. She blinked up, eyes alight with indignation as he bent to refill his helmet, "Warning!"

"Fine, here comes the next lot." He said glibly and upended it once again.

The shock of this lot wasn't as bad as the first, but she was still left gasping for breath and spitting water.

"No, enough." She spluttered as he went to fill the helmet again, quickly grabbing her hair and pulling it off one shoulder, blinking water out of her eyes as she looked up at him. "Enough."

He pulled a face, but stopped, trudging to the opposite bank and squatting down on it to watch. Still keeping an eye on her then. She glowered at him and ran her fingers through her hair. She had never had an audience for a bath before.

He forced back a chuckle and scratched his itchy beard. The look she was giving him was pure acid as she separated clumps of hair stuck together with blood. He had had a lot of fun actually, pouring the cold water over her. He used to get in a lot of trouble for teasing his playmates when he was a child. Pushing people in rivers was always his favourite trick, but Nords had a bit of an affinity with the cold so it was never as much fun with the native children. Seeing her sat there, gasping with her hair clinging to her like river weeds brought all the memories back to him. He highly doubted she had such an affinity for the cold.

Seeing her splashing water onto the ends of her hair with her hand, he picked up his helmet and gestured with it as an offer of semi good will. She stuck her tongue out.

As a rule, elves did not smile. She herself had had to learn to curb her emotions and not let her joy or amusement get the better of her as a child. The Nord apparently did not have that problem. The grin he responded with to her insolence was wide and made his eyes glitter.

It made her feel a little sick. Tummy sick. And a little sad too, for some unknown and inexplicable reason. Hell, she didn't even know why she stuck her tongue out, such displays of aggravation were not necessary in elven society. Everything was verbal and most of it carried out at speaking volume. Her shameless screeching and caterwauling earlier made her cringe in embarrassment. She was a bad elf.

Too cold to go on washing her hair she flapped the wet mop over her shoulder and made a valiant effort to lift herself up on three limbs. Her legs were, however, both numb and her struggle was entirely in vain.

Her legs, when they surfaced occasionally in her struggle, were a light, but distinct blue, the delicate veins shining clearly through the thin, white skin. He raised an eyebrow when she slid back down the wet bank and back into the water with a frustrated expression. But oddly enough, considering her previous outbursts, no noise.

He stood, still feeling contemplative and went over to pick her up and haul her onto the grass. He started off taking great care over her leg, but in less time than it took him to lift her clear of the water, found himself rather distracted by the fact that she was almost entirely naked.

Not a man used to having to keep alpha instincts under control, it had been a tough job to keep himself in line when he was washing her legs and he thanked the Gods he was in full armour and there was nothing to give his attraction away. Her figure then had been at least somewhat disguised by the rippling water and blood swirling around in it, allowing him some measure of respite. Those disguises were not a factor at present and the call of the flesh, however blue, battered and shivery were not lost on the ordinarily hot-blooded Nord. He was still a man and she was still affecting him.

Seifer hastily dumped the half-naked woman on the grass the second he could and escaped back into the water to retrieve her legwear, tossing it down in a sodden hump beside her before scurrying off to the safety of the tree that served as their sleeping arrangements, with nary a word. The less time he spent around those flaring hips and breasts the better. For a moment he wished she didn't hate him so much – he was sure he could be gentle…

He choked down the thought and stalked off to find some food. If the bloody 'elf' had enough spunk left in her to slap his face, then she could look after herself for a bit.

He returned shortly with as many apples as he could carry in one hand and a birds' nest in the other. To his immense relief, Blondie had re-dressed herself and manoeuvred around to be able to wash her kecks in the stream. She had piled her wet hair into a knot atop her head and had secured it with a stick to keep it off her back and seemed intent upon not acknowledging his return. This he was fine with and he set himself down at the entrance to their den, long legs stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankle.

He bit into one of the hard, bitter apples and despite himself began to consider the woman before him. The set of her shoulders was slight, diminutive, making her a mere slip of a girl when compared to the burly Nordic lasses he was used to consorting with. But despite the obvious difference in their stature – for the rest of her was equally slender – she had fought him atop Highbridge with little apparent effort. He supposed it was a good job her armour was elven, he doubted she would be able to lift, or walk in his armour, let alone fight a battle.

He also wondered where she had come from, and how she had come to be fighting in the ranks of the Dominion. It was perfectly possible that she be a citizen of some conquered territory and, displaying some proficiency in an art, been adopted as a member of the Dominion's military force, but that wouldn't explain the need for a glamour ring, or even her frosty attitude. Elves were never known for their people skills, but this was certainly pushing the boat out for social assimilation.

Though fairly sure he would receive no straight answers to his questioning, he called out to her. "Oiy."

Unsurprisingly, she did not respond.

"Oiy, you."

Nothing again.

"Oiy, elf."

She seemed to stiffen at that, but turned her head to the side to indicate that she was at least listening.

"Are you hungry?"

He watched as the little he could see of her face flipped through a variety of expressions, from surprised, to suspicious, to considerate and then hopeful, before finally settling on grim. The grim face turned to peer at him over her shoulder and he picked up one of the small, under-ripe apples he had gathered, gesturing at her with it.

She turned quickly away, looked down, back up; down again, gave him another glance over her shoulder, and then nodded emphatically. Yes, she was hungry. Very hungry by the looks of things.

"Good," Seifer said, tossing the apple up into the air and catching it absent-mindedly. Her eyes followed the apple's journey hungrily, "Then you're going to answer a few questions for me."

The hope in her eyes died almost immediately and she stared sourly at the river again with a shake of her head.

"Prepare to starve then," Seifer said jovially, biting noisily into the apple, "See if I care."

"Elves do not starve." She said with a hint of pride and no small amount of derision in her voice, "Puny Nord."

"You're not an elf." He spat, riling at being called 'puny'. "You're a human and in case you hadn't noticed, it's been four days since Highbridge. I don't know when you last ate, but you'll waste away before long, 'puny' human."

"I do not need to eat for seven days." She said, holding her dripping kecks out at arm's length and examining them critically. "I will not waste."

Scoffing a little at her poor grip of the common tongue, he took another big bite before hurling the remaining half of the apple in an arc over the river and into the reeds and plant-life on the opposite bank, directly in front of his frosty companion. "You'll waste alright, waste away for the sake of a few questions."

Voice sounding testy, no doubt as a result of witnessing perfectly good food go whistling overhead, she bit out a curt reply. "I do not answer the questions of dogs."

In an uncharacteristically diplomatic move, Seifer shoved aside the indignity of being called a 'dog' and asked, "What's your name, for starters?"

She shook her head and he tossed another apple into the air, enjoying the flinch in her shoulders as it slapped against his palm. "Come on, love," He grinned, "I could do this all day." And he could, as changeable as his mood was being, he was rather enjoying her annoyance. At least he wasn't alone in his detestation for his travelling companion.

"As can I." Came the terse reply.

He chuckled at the black look she shot him over her shoulder. In spite of the situation, he couldn't help but notice the elegance of her face. Her nose was very straight, but not overly long, it stood out in a delicate little triangle from her face. Her cheekbones were high, but ever so slightly flared giving her face something of a heart shape. Her eyes were almond shaped, lined in long black lashes and set beneath elegant blonde brows which appeared to have a perpetually haughty arch to them. The eyes themselves were a deep cornflower blue, almost violet he though, especially striking when the dappled orange sunlight shining through the forest canopy hit them just right. But hostile, ever so hostile. Were he a lesser man he may have balked at the venom being spat from those enchanting orbs.

The sensual lips, which were at present pursed in annoyance at his bravado were full, plump and dusky pink. Dragging his attention from her lips – it was entirely possible that he would find himself watching her mouth more than her eyes if he wasn't careful – he prompted her with another question.

"Alright, what were you doing fighting for the Dominion?"

"I am a High Elf." She said, matter of factly, "It is my duty."

"You're not an elf," He said, a little too blasé maybe, "You're human."

"I was raised a High Elf." She corrected herself, forcefully. "It is my duty."

"High Elves do not raise humans. They look down on other races. Think they're not good enough, not worth the mud on the soles of their boots. Why the hell would they raise you? I don't believe you."

She scoffed a little, "So, Nord, why do I fight for the Dominion? What is my life?"

He shook his head and lobbed another apple into the distance. "I don't know, that's why I'm asking."

"Then you don't listen." She said, turning with some difficulty to face him, kecks sat folded on her bare legs. He shrugged.

"You're not telling me the truth."

"No," She said, lips thin and grim set, "You don't listen. You ask questions but don't listen. You're like an animal, finding worthy things but throwing away because it is not food. Stop that!"

She snapped at him when he chucked another, whole apple into the foliage.

"Oh," He widened his eyes and put a hand to his heart in mock surprise, "Did you want that? Sorry, I thought you were going to answer my questions before you got anything to eat."

Ah, the steel blistering look again. Really, he was never sure how women managed to do that. He had been making fearsome expressions all his life, trying to be big and bad and had never really had much success. Women on the other hand seemed capable of constructing expressions of utmost evil with no extra effort.

He raised an eyebrow, comfortable in the knowledge that she couldn't stab him with her makeshift hair pin from there, and tossed the remaining apple into the air.

The possibility that the apple's currently simple trajectory could change rather dramatically at a moment's notice had the woman visibly on edge and she worried her lip as she considered his proposal. Seifer's eyelids drooped as he watched the colour rise in her lips, the skin looking soft… Kissable.

"My name is Quistis." She said at length, dragging his mind from the gutter and his eyes up to her own. "I was born to a High Elf father and it is my duty to serve the Dominion. My apple, please."

A little taken aback by the formality of her language, he tossed her the apple and looked at her again. A High Elf father? So her mother was human. A Nord? Or a Breton? The Bretons were known for their skills as mages so it would make sense, but she looked very Nordic, apart from the obvious lack of stature.

She turned her nose up at his apple in disgust. "It is hard!"

"Everything's hard around here," He grumbled, making to stand, "It's barely autumn, it's not my fault."

The shadows were at last growing long and the night would soon be upon them. It would be a wise idea to return to the safety of their underground sanctuary before the light left completely.

"Come on," He said as he stepped over to her and knelt at her side, "Time to get back to sleep, the sun is going down."

Instead of complaining as he had thought she would, she merely nodded and allowed him to pick her up, her kecks in her lap, and carry her over to the hole. He left her briefly to find a stick to disguise the evidence of their activity on the ground, raking it roughly through the grassy tussocks, encouraging anything which had been flattened to stand upright again and look lively. Upon his return they began the lengthy process of manoeuvring Quistis into the den.

As it turned out the best way to manage the broken leg was for Seifer and all their various possessions to back into the space first and to drag Quistis on her side in to join him. Getting both legs into the hole was something more of a challenge, but between them, and a few small, silent tears, the job was completed and the clump of bracken could return to resume its position as the barricade between them and the outside world.

The light faded very quickly and if it had been dingy before in their little hollow, it was now pitch black. So black in fact that the outside world seemed veritably glaring in comparison. Thoroughly uncomfortable, Seifer struggled to shuffle about in what little room he had, wishing he was able to take his armour off. Quistis' quiet voice was almost lost to his rustling.

"What is your name?"

Pausing in his fidgeting, he deliberated for a moment if he should answer her or not – it was not uncommon for some groups of bandits or other unsavoury characters to request the names of their victims before they killed them – before he replied:

"Seifer Almasy, the Monster Hunter."

Quistis was woken with a sharp thump and nearby sound of scraping. Her first instinct was to struggle against the thick branches that had snaked around her in the night, but recollection stilled her movements very quickly and she surmised in the darkness that Seifer Almasy, the Monster Hunter must be the owner of the branches come arms which imprisoned her. Elves rarely clung in their sleep, but children were known to so she dismissed the danger of ulterior motives.

She was set on edge again, however, when there was another thump and this time a gurgle. She realised with a sickening feeling that the bracken barricade had been pulled slightly from the hole and she now had an unobstructed view of the outside. And a horribly wounded, grey, slick foot.

Bile began to rise in the back of her throat as the most horrifyingly offensive smell reached her nose and she jerked back from the stench, inadvertently elbowing Seifer in the process.

He jerked in turn and turned his face into her hair, muttering something unintelligible. Fearful, Quistis watched as the foot lifted out of her line of sight and a shadow fell upon the ground as another figure approached. The foot which appeared this time had less flesh to it than bone and Quistis slammed her elbow back hard into Seifer's stomach.

He cracked his head on the ceiling with a curse and she elbowed him again, both shutting him up and gaining his undivided attention.

"What the fuck?" He hissed, but she shook her head, scrubbing her ear into the ground and carefully, so as not to make a single noise, raised a single finger to her lips. She hoped he could see it in the darkness, but she pointed as close as she dared to the gap in the entranceway.

Any disgruntlement he might have felt at his rude awakening evaporated with the apparent onset of danger and as the smell made itself known to him, he stuffed his nose back into her hair.

"Fucking stinks." She heard him mutter into the back of her neck, but his eyes were clearly fixed on the entrance because he followed with a small gasp when the rotten stump of an ankle slammed into the mud just outside.

A/N: More coming, but please tell me what you thought and if this was an acceptable chapter... I hope I didn't mess about with Seifer's character too much. It's hard to really do much with Quistis' character yet because there's so little to do with her, she doesn't have many options. Seifer on the other hand has all the options in the world...

Please review, you know the drill :)

-Lapin