From The Immigrant's Guide to Skyrim:
Taboos: There aren't many of these in Skyrim, which is very open-minded about some things that may surprise you, such as marriage. The Divine Mara, patroness of family life, has stated that love which leads to lasting commitment, wherever it may grow or whatever form it may manifest in, is never wrong . As long as both parties are happily consenting adults, gender, race, and age are meaningless. Likewise, whatever you do in the privacy of your home is your business and unmarried persons can live together under the same roof without causing a scandal or ruining anyone's reputation, again provided that everyone is a happily consenting adult.
Although good to know, that is straying away from the topic at hand: Taboos.
1. Milk. Once you have a full set of permanent teeth, being called a 'Milk-Drinker' is an insult. If someone calls you that, you can howl back 'Call me a milk-drinker, will you?' and then either punch them or invite them to the nearest tavern where you do your best to prove them wrong. Either way, you'll make friends. Of course, you can also ignore it, but that will gain you no respect. (This advice is situational and you should judge for yourself.) If you don't drink for whatever reason, caffee (called kahve) and tea are available in most areas, and there is always water, although in the larger cities it is wise to ask which source is safest. The one exception is Riften, where I would make sure to always boil and filter the water even if it comes straight from the well or risk becoming much better acquainted with your chamber pot. Alcoholic beverages may be safer. Eating milk in the form of cheese and butter is fine.
2. Nudity, partial and full. Expect people to be upset if you are not covered up between the neck and the knees in public. (Women can get away with low-cut dresses and men with partial armor, as long as they're mostly clothed.) This is as much a matter of common sense as it is a taboo: it's cold out there. People will think you are crazy. The exception is in the bathhouses , where you will sit around naked in a superheated room among people of both sexes and all ages, from toddlers to grandparents, before you then roll around in the snow or take a quick plunge in freezing water. For some reason, this offends nobody's modesty or sense of propriety. Few people have full-sized tubs at home, but most do have hip-baths or large basins for washing the essential bits. If you really want a private bath, you can go to an inn and order one. Expect to pay more for it than for lodging, especially in winter.
3. Necromancy, here defined as magic having to do with dead people or undead people and including but not limited to: reanimating corpses, bloodletting, killing and/or torturing people to enhance your own magical power, entrapping the souls of the dead for whatever purpose, including in soul gems for enchantments (the use of animal souls is acceptable), the desecration of corpses, the coercion or enslavement of ghosts, raising the dead for whatever reason, committing murder or exhuming bodies for the purposes of eating them or reassembling them into other forms, and doing any of the above to gratify your lusts. This one I stand firmly behind as a human being, a mage, and the head of the College of Winterhold. It's not merely a taboo, it's wrong, it's evil, and it will not be tolerated.
I woke the next morning with the alluring smell of bacon in my nose and hammering in my head. No, on second thought, the hammering was not in my head, it was coming from outside. The bacon was real, though. Better still, it was coming from inside the house, and I was in a house and not on a ship. Even better. I opened my eyes to see the underside of a pitched wooden roof. I was still in Skyrim, and more specifically, I was in the spare bedroom of Breezehome, Eryka's house.
I got up and dressed, noticing that my robe, having not only been torn by the bear but stained with spider venom, torn further still by pushing the carriage and fighting the frost trolls, had been dealt a deathblow by some sticky substance that smelled like honey. The question was, how and when had I managed to spill my mead? I remembered having more ale and more potatoes—people kept buying me rounds—then splitting an apple pie with Eryka. I had eaten a good three quarters of it and washed it down with mead. That last mead had a peculiar aftertaste, and after that events got murky.
Well, hopefully I would be getting some clothing today, and while I was at it, I planned to get something more practical, something that wasn't a full length robe. I was sick of them anyway. What else was I going to need besides clothing of all kinds? A comb and a razor sprang to mind as I ran my hand over the lower half of my face.
I went downstairs as Eryka tapped a spoon on the side of a pot over the fire. Today she wore rich green, but everything else was the same. Same pretty hair, same lush mouth, same figure that made my mouth go dry and my palms go damp.
"Good morning," she said cheerfully. "You're looking very well for someone who drank what you did last night. Everyone was impressed, most of all because you drank a whole tankard of Black-Briar Black Label. Usually Hulda only serves that up in thimbles. Since you don't have your head in a bucket heaving it all up now, I'll take it as a sign that you'll want breakfast, which is oatmeal, bacon and tea."
"You didn't have to go to all this trouble for me," I began, but she interrupted.
"It's no more trouble making breakfast for us both than it is to make it for just myself. You can do the washing up afterward; I hate that part." She scooped oatmeal into two bowls, set them on the dining table and sat down.
A wise man knows when to leave it alone, and we were busy with fixing our bowls, pouring tea, and dividing the bacon. "It smells wonderful. About last night—what was in that last mead? It wasn't just fermented honey." I asked.
"I'm not sure. Mead's easy to make, so everybody makes their own and everybody has their own special recipe. Some put in herbs and spices, others add berries, and then the honey itself makes a difference. People plant whole meadows of just one flower for their bees. Lavender honey is my favorite. Black-Briar Meadery is secretive about it, but if I had to guess there was some nightshade honey in it."
"Nightshade honey? That sounds toxic." I observed.
"It is. Anyhow, while I do need to go to Riverwood to sort out the person who goes around leaving notes, I don't plan to do it today. I've things to sell and supplies to buy." Eryka said.
"Like candles?" I waved my spoon at the chandelier.
"Exactly. Also, I want to visit the baths. I spent three days in that armor and my skin's crawling."
"All of that is fine with me," I said. "Especially since if the tears in this robe get any longer, I'll be at risk of indecent exposure. I don't want to find freedom as a mage only to be arrested for that."
She laughed—I have said nothing of her voice, which was a little deeper than that of most women, and a little raspy. It had changed, she told me later, when she learned to Shout. "In Skyrim, exposure's not so much a crime as it is evidence of insanity. Unless you're in the sauna, of course."
"Of course." We finished our breakfast, and I cleared the table. There was a big kettle of hot water and a bucket of cold, so I began scrubbing up while she opened the doors to the side room behind the stairs. Glancing that way, I caught a glimpse of a bookshelf with a chest on top. Eryka was standing on a chair in order to hunt around for something in the chest.
"About your staff," she said, her words slightly muffled. "Here staves need charging up every so often. They're only good for so many uses, just like any other enchanted weapon. Maybe yours just needs a soul gem or two."
"I don't know what a soul gem is," I replied. "I've never heard of a staff or a weapon needing recharging, so I've no idea how to go about it."
"It's very simple. I'll show you in a moment…Dratted scale, come unstuck, why don't you?" That last part didn't seem to be addressed to me, so I scrubbed the oatmeal pot.
"Here," she said a few minutes later as I was finishing up by drying the spoons. "These are soul gems. They're used in casting new enchantments and recharging weapons and staves." She unknotted the drawstring of a suede pouch, tipping the contents out on the table. A handful of iridescent crystals, ranging from the size of a thumbnail to the size of a thumb, wink up at us. Some were dull, others bright. "You use a spell or an enchantment to trap the souls of animals in a gem like these as they're dying. I'd show you enchanting works, but the table won't work without candles, and as you know, I'm all out. Just watch this."
She had her sword in hand, and unsheathed it as she spoke. Picking up one of the smaller bright crystals, she touched it to the blade, and the gem melted into it, leaving no trace behind, like conjured ice. "Interesting…So is the sword itself." I had seen her use it, but I had not examined it up close. With a surface like lava in the Deep Roads, black crusts floating on bright orange-red, it also boasted a spark, a sphere of living light where the guard met the grip.
"Its name is Dawnbreaker," Eryka told me, sheathing it again, "and there's quite a tale of how I got it. It involves a Daedric Prince, the Vigilants of Stendarr, nearly getting killed twice by a very powerful necromancer, and far too many defiled corpses. That last part is why I'm not going to tell you about it right now. If I think about it I remember the smell and it turns my stomach."
"I would think even one defiled corpse is too many," I said, going to the corner where I had stowed my useless staff.
"You'd think so, but you don't fully understand until you're looking at a legion's worth. Here," She held out a few soul gems.
"I'll be very surprised if this works," I said, accepting the crystals. "Here goes…"
I touched one to the shaft, and we watched breathlessly as nothing whatsoever happened. "I thought as much," I said, explaining about lyrium and the decayed potions, which interested her.
"I think you should show those potions to Arcadia and Farengar and tell them what you told me," Eryka said, sweeping the gems back into the pouch. "Arcadia is the alchemist here, and I told you about Farengar."
"Right…the disdainful court wizard?"
"Yes," she replied. "Oh, and before I forget, here's your pay." She put a large coin purse down in front of me. "Count it now or not as you choose, but don't complain about it being short afterwards."
"I trust you," I told her, hefting it—it was heavy—"After all, it's your choice to pay me anything at all." I did unlace it to have a look at what had to be more money than I had ever owned, or even seen, at any one time in my life…and discovered it was gold. I'd been expecting silver. "How much is this?" I asked, hastily tying it shut again. "I mean, in terms of how far it will go. Will this buy me a house or, or…? I don't know what."
"It won't buy you a house," Eryka said, putting her sword back on its rack. "You'd need ten times as much, at least. It'll buy you some clothes and a basic mage robe and some spell books and things. Don't worry if it doesn't seem like much. As I said, I have a knack for adventuring and whatever else you really need, I'll supply."
"Lovely. I always had ambitions of being a kept man," I said to myself, feeling a little dizzy. Luckily she didn't overhear.
A/N: I didn't mean to let a whole week go by between updates but I work retail, and at the holidays that means I'm exhausted and unfit to write anything.