Updated 11.04.15
3.
"No!"
Lio woke from her cold slumber. She couldn't feel her toes, fingers or nose and most of her body was numb. The sky above was light blue and the sun had not yet risen. She slowly got up, shaking herself to get rid of the remainder of the ice in her bones. Suddenly all her motions stilled; she heard an unhuman snarl from the campsite. Lio climbed up some stones and peeked over the hard edge of another.
Big, grey-skinned, disgusting and fat animals roamed around Deekus' now messy camp.
"Horkers…" she mumbled and dry heaved when she saw a green, scaled body under a horker's large mass.
"No… He was my only way to get away from this gods forsaken land…" she whispered and fell on her knees. Her trembling hands were trying to grasp for the dagger and axe in her bag and once she got a shaky hold on them, she pressed them against herself. She peeked over the rock once more and counted three horkers, two more further away.
"I have to do this," she said in a hopeless try to encourage herself, and stepped out from behind the rock. She crouched down low and moved behind the leafless, frozen bushes. She grabbed a rock and then threw it with all her strength in the opposite direction of her and away from the camp. The horkers shrieked in anger. They turned their bodies towards the origin of sound and slowly started moving. They flapped their short front limbs and bellowed in weird tones.
Finally Lio made her way to the camp and swept the gems into her pockets. Staying clear of the body, she moved to the chest and found a trap that had been activated. Horker skin and blood was splattered everywhere and Lio once again had to overcome gagging.
A small lock was guarding the chest in front of her and her shaking fingers pulled out a budle of lockpicks and a wrench. Half of them fell on the ground and in panic she grabbed them sloppily together with some mud and put them on the chest. Her cold and inexperienced fingers struck the wrench and lockpick in the wrong way. She broke many lockpicks until the wrench seemed to be placed the right way. Lio turned the picks in many ways and most of the time they broke. Finally she turned the pick in a right position and turned the wrench clockwise until she heard a faint metallic click. For a fleeting moment she felt her lips almost turned up into a satisfied smile. The chest opened.
Lio threw the satchel of gold and green-colored potion from the chest into her bag. Without thought and in growing panic she took a statue of Dibella and tried to fit it in there too, but realized how stupid it was and placed it back to its position quietly. The roasted fish left behind by Deekus was wrapped in a cloth and thrown into the satchel instead.
She heard bellowing from not far away. The horkers were turning. Lio took hold of Deekus' strange, soft armor. She tried to pull the body of the Argonian away from the camp for what seemed like an eternity, but his body was heavy and her arms only kept cramping. Finally she rummaged through his pockets, finding nothing. In a panic she tore off his bloody and torn armor, a surprisingly light-weighted handiwork, and hurried away from the camp as quickly as her painful legs could carry her.
Stealing from the dead was something she never approved of. There had been grave robbers in Jehenna once and Lio had wished an even longer prison sentence for them than normal robbers. How could they violate a person's memory like that? How could they allow themselves to steal from someone who had already lost their life? It was disgusting and made Lio's stomach turn.
But wasn't her life worth saving? she asked herself. Tears welled in her eyes as she realized she was betraying herself. Without armor, without any money death could be imminent in a land so strange and hostile. She had to swallow her sense of justice and ignore her regret.
Without a map or any sense of direction she passed through knee-deep sea and valleys between mountains. Old castle ruins were not a rare sight in Skyrim and she almost welcomed the thought of climbing up to one to make camp, but quickly erased it from her mind when she saw a figure standing on the walls of one such ruin high on the mountaintop. Lio could tell the silhouette of a bow in the figure's arms and that alone was enough to make her terrified. She kept low enough for the people high on the walls not to see her and crept along the shore.
There seemed to be no other dangers around. There were no horkers or notorious wolves that roamed Skyrim in packs, searching for the weak and lost. Her hands still gripped a dagger's hilt, trying to be ready for any scenario.
Once she found a small alcove in a mountainside she fell down, exhausted from the cold in her bones and the constant fear plaguing mind. She swapped her sweaty and dirty clothes for Deekus' armor. It was patched and layered, made of some black glass-like material and quality fabrics, dark blue in color and had a surprisingly noble look to it. The armor had a beige belt that could be set in many ways, making it suitable for both genders, although she had to roll up the sleeves many times. The many layers gave her warmth and nothing seemed better at that moment than comforting heat.
"I want to go home…" she mumbled after a break, but closed her mouth once she tasted iron. Her lips were dry and lacerated from the cold so much that talking hurt even through the numbness. Lio covered her mouth with the leather of her gauntlet, which quickly was imbued with blood, and she sighed.
She had no idea how long her aimless wandering would last. Her stomach was not used to starving and she quickly consumed most of the food in her bag. Dehydration was taking a toll on her body too. She pushed herself to continue, living only on the energy from food.
She shook and looked around in fear, repulsed by the cold and dull landscape in front of her. Waves were making cold, splashing sounds when it hit the coast and Lio shuddered. There was something on the shore far away, almost invisible. It was a tent, covered in furs that were painted white by snow.
Sudden relief struck her speechless. She packed her things and swiftly started running, seeing sleeping rolls in the tent already from far away. Lio couldn't even believe her luck and barked a laugh in happiness. She saw food and cups littered around the exit of the tent.
"Hello?" she hollered and looked inside. No one was there.
A hope remained inside of her that maybe the people who had been here were away somewhere nearby. Maybe they would come back. Lio looked around, searching for any signs of the strangers. Her breath hitched suddenly when she noticed familiar forms not far away on the shore.
Horkers were slowly moving around. Their fat bodies were turning slowly, looking for food.
Lio closed her eyes and sat on one of the sleeping rolls. She damned the horkers to Oblivion.
"Akatosh, Stendarr, Julianos, Arkay, Mara… Help me, please!" she mumbled through her bleeding lips and forced down tears.
She looked at the dagger in her hand. She had no idea how to handle any sorts of weapons, maybe except for petty kitchen knives. The dagger was too dull to make a cut in her frozen hand. There was no point in using it and she put it in her bag, taking out the axe instead. After swinging it in front of her randomly and almost hitting herself, she took it in both of her arms and stared at it closely.
"I've got to run for it," she decided and after a glance at the horkers' general direction, ran out of the tent in the opposite direction. They noticed her and she heard their disgusting roars in the background. Her numbed feet ached and didn't want to move, but she forced herself to move, to survive. Finally she fell down in the middle of two rocky cliffs, her legs unbearably painful and cold. The muscles in her legs cramped in the cold and it felt as if they were on fire. She couldn't move forward.
Fear made Lio look back and with relief she saw that the horkers were far behind. She let her head down in the snow and exhaled, blowing snow everywhere. She moved her feet; the cramps were slowly stopping and she pulled herself forward with her hands.
The cold wind from ahead carried sounds to her. Lio heard chattering from the other side of the small hill. She grabbed at the snow, pulling herself farther, until she saw the place she had been praying for – a small village. It wasn't far from her, just down the hill. She saw people working and scuffling around, doing their daily business. From the chimneys at the tops of the wooden houses rose smoke and she could almost imagine the warm rooms in there.
"Help!" she tried yelling, but her hoarse voice wasn't heard. Lio tried once more, but her throat was dry and her voice too quiet. None of the busy people noticed her lying in the snow, invisible.