Key

Italic writing = Third person not in the book

Normal writing = Dareio's perspective written in the book

CAPITAL LETTERS = "Anonymous Dunmer's" perspective written in the book

It took me this long to realise that it would take longer than a day to sail from Alinor to near Cyrodiil, so I altered the last chapter slightly. Thank you for being patient, and I hope you enjoy this chapter!

Chapter Five

I bolted up and screamed, before doubling over forward and throwing up due to my senses being overwhelmed: the air rushing out of my lungs, the loud sound of my scream drilling into my ears, the sudden usage of muscles, weight being abruptly put on my stomach as I sat up, and the flooding of blurry light and colour into my eyes. That was the graceful entrance I made back to consciousness after my near-death. I honestly don't understand where the fictional idea of fluttering eyelashes and slow, beautiful wake-ups after being washed up on the sea came from, because, I am telling you, I'm quite sure it is impossible. I stayed leant over my own stomach acid dashed upon sand, coughing out the taste of bile and blinking away a couple of pain-induced tears in an attempt to make a picture out of the blurs in front of me. Was this death? It certainly the god-spirit sensation that the Thalmor teachings promised it would feel like. After a shiver and a few more coughs, I rocked back to sit on the sand, before I noticed a shape to my left. Glancing over to it slowly, I rubbed my eyes and blinked, only to make out the shape as a satchel. Reaching out stiffly, I dragged it across to me, plunging my hand in and feeling around. Soon enough, I pressed my palm into a recognisable object, which I curled my trembling fingers around and pulled out. When I turned my palm up and unwrapped my fingers, I identified the object as a pot of oil-kohl. My pot of oil-kohl. A shadow then grew from over my shoulder, prompting me to look behind me.

"You look different without that shit on your face," the recognisable voice of the Dunmer notified me with his recognisable use of curse words. I noticed he was holding a blanket, one of its corners stuffed in his hand while the rest was dragged behind him, but I didn't really think to ask about it.

"Well, I seldom take it off," I replied, a slight slur to my words as I slowly recovered from the previous events. "I'm surprised you took the time to point that out."

"I meant you got puke over your face and you look different without it."

I immediately frowned, before wiping my mouth with the back of my hand and turning away to look back to the view that was originally presented to me when I woke, now clearer due to my vision recovering to full clarity. The sky was overcast, light grey stretching all across the horizon with only a few holes in the cloudy blanket where rosy morning sunrays gently speckled through. The main body of the ocean was a dark ultramarine in hue, but where it lapped upon the golden sands, it came off as a light azure. A coastal wind swirled directly into my face, pushing back my salt-heavy hair, which I had only just noticed was mostly dry. "How long was I passed out for?"

"About ten hours," he replied simply, taking a knee next to me before falling back onto his bum, bringing his leg around. I could tell he was stiff, and I thought I detected a slight limp too, but I figured he'd get touchy about it if I pointed it out. "We got here just as the sun was rising."

I turned to look at his face, only now able to realise just how rough he looked. Even with his skin as being as dark was it was, you could make out the bruising under his eyes due to lack of sleep, and the heaviness weighing his eyelids down slightly. He still had a light frown as I thought was permanent to him, but now his lips were parted ever so slightly as he breathed heavier than normal. It felt very unusual, since it had never occurred to me before that he was able to be vulnerable until now. He'd kill me if he knew I ever thought him as vulnerable at all. SOON. It was a figure of speech. IT'S BECAUSE I TRY TOO HARD, ISN'T IT? Of course, dear. "How do you know that?" I asked, realising it was a bit of a dumb question but not caring enough to change my words.

"I know because I was dragging your ass here," he replied, bluntly.

My eyes widened, the tone of my voice sharpening with seriousness. "You what?"

The Dunmer sighed lightly. "Do you remember anything that happened before you woke up?"

I squinted into the distance, as if it would help me remember. "Let me think…" I began, tilting my head to the side, "we were playing Go Fish, when there was banging overhead, so we went in the crate. Then, there was another bang, so we got out of the crate, then-" My brain then jumped ahead to my last memory of the night, causing me to shout, "I fell in the ocean!"

"You did," he confirmed. "So I dived in and pulled you out."

"You what?" I repeated an earlier comment, too exhausted to think up anything creative to say.

He rolled his eyes, but didn't raise his voice, probably too tired to shout. "After you got thrown back into the ocean, I dived in after you. You were unconscious, so I hauled you up and found a part of the ship for us to help us stay above water, and let the tide and a bit of luck bring us back to shore." He paused, though, after a few seconds of unfilled silence, added, "you were lucky I was able to keep a hold of you and our satchels. You're heavier than I thought you would be." WHO'S THE FAT FUCKER NOW?! I hate you. THAT WAS A JOKE. I know.

I took a few more seconds to truly recognise and process what the Dunmer just told me, before asking: "Why'd you do that?"

"You ask far too many questions," he grumbled and pinched the bridge of his nose. At first, I thought he'd avoid the question, but he then spoke up again: "I pledged a partnership with you."

"And?"

"And?" He repeated, seeming a bit offended. "What more is there to say? That's the point of a partnership: you save my ass and I save yours."

With my memories of the previous night flooding back to me, I started to feel very bad. I doubted I could trust him because he was able to get up without waking me up, yet he saved my life… Again… Technically, again. I started to smile, small at first due to weariness, though it wasn't long until it widened, probably to the biggest grin I had ever had on my face up to that point. Not caring enough to stop myself, I started to giggle, which then melted into a laugh, before exploding into a cackle, throwing my head back as a cackled away into the crisp morning air.

The Dunmer didn't really seem to understand. "Something funny about that?"

"You know what?" I was in absolute hysterics by now, completely bonkers. "I've known you for, what, a few days or so? And you're still the best friend I've ever had! Isn't that sad?"

He glared. "We're not friends."

My smile faded just fractionally. "Well, what would you call us, then? If we're not friends?"

The Dunmer paused, before answering: "Associates."

Instantly, I burst out laughing- No, uncontrollably howling, in fact, so much so that I needed to lie back on the sand in an attempt to rest the ache in my sides. I think, by this time, I was so overwhelmed by my near-death experience that I simply did not care what I was saying or how much of a lunatic I was coming off as. After a few minutes of guffawing, I composed myself enough to ask him yet another question. "You're not being serious, are you?"

He stared at me silently, scowl ever-present.

I propped myself up on my elbow to look at him properly. "Well, what do your friends have that I don't, then?" I asked, still with a titter of entertainment in my tone.

"I don't have any friends," he replied with a grunt, with such immediacy one could almost suggest that it was rushed.

My eyebrows shot up and my smile widened in tickled disbelief. "Oh, come off it!"

All the assassin did was deepen his scowl.

"Oh," I accepted his seriousness: I was beginning to think he was incapable of being anything but that. For some time, I stared at the ocean and sat wordless, contemplating the words just spoken (and glares given, in the case of my Dunmeri "associate"). I questioned myself as to why I was striving for a friendship. It wasn't as though I, at that present time, was losing anything by staying as "associates", and it didn't seem like the Dunmer wanted any friends anyway. Perhaps that was the reason why, because I wanted to do what he did not. But surely that just contradicted the point of being a friend: friends should support what their friend wants, not strive to do what their friend doesn't want. I was starting to suck myself into a paradox, so immediately I did the only thing I felt like I could do to gain some clarification: ask another question. "What would you look for in a friend?" I asked him, turning away from the sea and back to the side of his face.

He paused, expression unchanging, and stared out indifferently to the ocean. I was about to assume that he was ignoring the question again, but then he shrugged and replied: "I don't know."

I smirked, gaining an upper hand. "Well, if you don't know what you look for in a friend, how do you know I'm not one?"

Just when I thought he couldn't frown any more, he did, his grimace mixing with a wince as he pushed himself up onto his feet. "You really do ask too many questions," he groused gravely, before turning away, but not before chucking the blanket he was holding earlier over my head.

"What's so wrong with-?" I started, protesting as I flapped the blanket off of my head and turning to follow him, only to have my legs give way beneath me. This is another thing about fictional tales of waking up from being washed onto a shore that I don't understand: if you're standing up for the first time after being drenched, frozen through by cold seas, and pushed around by the whims of a stormy ocean, you are not going to be standing up and dancing around happily! IT DIDN'T TAKE ME THAT LONG TO GET UP. Nobody asked for your input, thank you! Well, regardless of what certain other people think, my legs couldn't hold me up, and I subsequently collapsed, face hitting the sand. After blowing the sand away from my mouth and nose, and wiping the rest away with my sleeve, I glanced up from my lowered position to look at the Dunmer, who was still facing away, but was glancing back over his shoulder. From this height, and with his body facing away, I was able to see what was causing the limp in his gait earlier, tracing a long line of crimson trailing down a roughly bandaged calf.

"Are you ever going to tell me when you're injured?" I questioned him, slightly irritated by him brushing me off. He then made the irritation worse by not answering, instead starting to walk away from me for Magnus knows what reason. Made somewhat livid by him repeatedly ignoring me (again, I blame fatigue), I scrambled behind him as fast as I could on my hands and knees, before reaching out for his uninjured leg and yanking it towards me. "Why don't you-?"

The assassin reacted as fast and as violently as one would expect an assassin to react, but that doesn't mean I saw it coming at the time. As soon as he hit the ground, he instinctually swung around his free leg and booted me in the side, causing me to topple over. I clutched my side, letting out a groan as I tried to regain the what breath he knocked out with the kick. Only a second passed when I thought I heard a sound, causing me to glance up at the Dunmer. It was then that I discovered that he was clutching his leg, wincing and deepening his breath, having kicked me with his injured leg at full force. So here we lay in the sands of an unidentified location, having temporarily, indirectly crippled each other. It must have been a hopeless sight to an outsider; by Oblivion, I wouldn't be surprised if you were finding it pathetic now! But I remember finding the whole situation quite… Charming, in a way. Through the soreness, it reminded me that we were both only mortals, two souls lost together. Call me quixotic, but I'm quite sure it was at this moment that we were both made sure that we shared a friendship, even if the realisation was served with a streak of irony due to the fact that we had to cause each other pain to get to that point.

"Didn't I tell you not to touch me?" The Dunmer mumbled through a grunt, looking over to me as we lay crumpled up on the ground.

"Actually, I remember you telling me not to 'fucking' touch you," I chuckled, though it was in spite of my actual feelings. "I apologize," I added after a pause, not helping my tone softening with sincerity, "Though it would be better for the both of us if you told me when you were injured so I can sort it out. You know, all the 'you save my ass, I save yours' business."

"Yeah, uh," he trailed off in thought, before focusing back on me. "Sorry."

I'll be honest, I never thought the assassin would ever be sorry for anything, and certainly wouldn't admit to it, so I found myself pleasantly surprised. With this sensation, I felt a renewed will to complete my original goal: heal his wound. After quickly fighting off a fading strain in my side, I pushed myself up so I was seated in front of him, before holding my hands over his leg. "Take that bandage off, and I'll heal your leg."

He was tentative, but eventually the Dunmer unwrapped the bandage, exposing a ragged wound. He never told me what caused it, but I suspect it was caused by a sharp rock or perhaps a splintered part of the boat. Luckily, he'd done a good enough job of cleaning it out, so all I had to do was cast and let the healing magic do the trick. While I was concentrating on keeping the spell up, I could not help but notice the Dunmer staring at the healing the whole way though, looking somewhat rapt by the golden wisps of magic that laced itself around and into his leg, glittering particles woven with luminous ribbons of smoke-effect light. It didn't take too long to heal over the laceration, leaving a line of lighter-shaded skin but little else, but the Dunmer continued to stare at his leg, mouth ever-so-slightly agape. Leaving him to that, I decided to try and stand up. Attempt one, I fell back on my butt. Attempt two, I wobbled, cheered for myself for staying up for longer than a second, then clocked my knees inwards as they gave in and crumpled into a heap like a baby deer failing to take its first steps. I drove myself back onto my two feet for my third attempt, I could feel myself quivering to the point where I swore the ground had hit my face, but then I felt a shoulder underneath one armpit, arm wrapped across my back, and a hand underneath my other armpit.

"Lean," the Dunmer ordered directly, almost as if he was so reluctant to say it that he couldn't even bear to formulate a full sentence.

I complied, quietly, if feeling a bit bad for using him yet again, even after all he went through to make sure I got out alive. Like this, we went about the general area, picking up our satchels and the blanket he was carrying earlier, wordless in our gathering. As we turned to walk inland, towards a wooded area that seemed to lead to a road, I opened my mouth to talk, probably about something pointless, when I found myself interrupted.

"Alva Lorsel." That was all he said.

"Pardon?" I asked him, made curious by the new formation of letters he just spoke, but also made slightly wary by the fact that I did not know what he meant by them.

"My name is Alva Lorsel," the Dunmer spoke plainly, if a bit quieter than usual.

I paused to consider, before attempting to pose another question: "Isn't Alva a girl's na-?"

"Don't," he enforced, "not now."

So we shuffled onwards, into the shadows of the trees as we tried to find a path to follow, not knowing where we were, what we were getting ourselves into, and what the future held.