-Chapter X- Saria
-Open Skyrim
-23 First Seed
-6:51 A.M.
-Nicholas
I awoke to the smell of cooking venison, and my stomach pleaded for me to go to the aroma. I got up and saw the girl using three thick sticks as a cooking spit over a newly lit fire with chunks of golden-brown meat spinning over it, dripping with blood and grease. "Good morning." she said happily, handing me a thick piece of meat, which I gratefully took with both hands.
"Thank you very much." I told her.
"It was no trouble." she replied, placing another spit over the fire with more meat on it. "It didn't take long for me to find a field filled with game."
"Well done," I said, astounded to what she had done so quickly. "Did you sleep at all?" She shook her head. "Not even a wink?"
"Not really, after you fell asleep, I decided to go out and clear my head. I accidentally found an elk, running across the woods. I followed it, and it led me to a field filled with its kind. Really it was my stomach that did the rest."
"What did you use?"
"That knife I found in my sleeve last night."
"How'd you get so close to them?"
"I threw it." My eyes widened in surprise. I wouldn't have expected to be so skilled with such a tool as a throwing knife, especially since it wasn't even a throwing knife at all, making it all the more difficult. I sunk my teeth into the tough meat, filling my mouth with the juices of the well-cooked flesh and diminishing the hunger in my stomach. "After that, I skinned them, prepared them, things like that. It surprised me that I knew such things in the first place, too. That also gave some time to think, as well."
"What about?" I asked, figuring it out nearly as soon as I did. "Your name?"
She nodded. "Saria."
"Saria." I repeated with a smile. "I like it."
"I should hope so, you came up with it."
At first I didn't think I did, but the events prior to me giving in to sleep came back, and I remembered my listing of names for her to choose from. "Oh, yes. I'm glad you liked it."
"I also gave some thought about what you asked." she said, turning to me from the cooking fire. She took a deep breath, "I would be honoured to join you on your travels."
Again, I didn't know what she was talking about, not realizing that I must've asked her about accompanying me. "That's great..." I said nervously.
Her joyous smile quickly turned into an uneasy frown. "Did you not want me to come?"
"No, no, it's not that at all." I said quickly. "It's just that...you seem to be able to care for yourself just fine."
"Oh..." she said, looking down nervously at her feet.
"However," I said with a grin, "I would be grateful for the companionship."
She looked up at me, and offered a grin back. "Thank you..."
"No, thank you." I said, wondering if I had just made the greatest choice in my life, or the worst mistake.
It wasn't before long that we departed from the campsite, with my things gathered and she her dagger and the meat she had procured from that morning, we left for the east, and soon began to angle northward. But my back still was never turned away from her. I kept my wits about me, still cautious of her presence at every second with nary a moment without my eye on her. While I watched her, she noticed that she watched me, too, although, not with the same conscientiousness as I, but with...more of a curiosity, as though I were a template for her thoughtless conscience.
One thing about being out in the open fields that covered Skyrim, at least, the warmer, sunnier regions, is that is isn't all that difficult to become overexposed to the sun, and it wasn't too long before both Saria and I were sunburned. Due to most of my time prior to my departure being spent within Jorrvaskr, I hadn't been as...exposed to the sun as most others would have been, leaving me somewhat more vulnerable to the sun's rays and heat. Saria, on the other hand, was sunburned nearly as easily as I was, which I couldn't quite understand, seeing as how she must've been open to the sun much more than I, that is, assuming.
When we began to penetrate the colder regions of Skyrim, it was then I realized that I had begun to relax, and I wasn't quite as cautious, which made all that more afterwords. I still wasn't sure that what she said was truth, and that was what worried me, all the more that I felt a strange bond to her, possibly the cause for my desire, that I wished not to share, for her to be around.
Her cloak had begun to wear out, and she was becoming more susceptible to the cold more often, which was yet another worry of mine. More often than not, I gave her my tunic to wrap around her for warmth, leaving me shivering behind her in the building up snow that constantly fell from the clouded skies. I only concentrated on staying warm, and where we were heading at this point. If she wanted to kill me, she would've most likely done it already. This was what I repeated in my head nonstop as we trekked the freezing land.
"Are you okay?" she asked that night.
"Yes, just a bit cold, is all." I replied, trying not to show the fact that I was practically frozen in my boots.
"Do you want your tunic back?" she asked, outstretching her arm to offer the thick leather back.
I waved a hand in declination. "The sunburn is actually keeping me quite warm. Thank you, though." She pulled it back to her, and stared at it for a minute or two as I began to start the fire, and replaced it around her shoulders.
"We've made quite the distance today, eh?" I asked, watching smoke turn into a miniscule flame.
"Aye." she replied simply. "I didn't think terrain could turn as quickly as it did."
"Yes, Skyrim is a strange place indeed." I fed the flame tiny sticks that were practically cloaked in snow as soon as I wiped it off. The snow hadn't stopped since we entered the region, but shortly after the fire had built up and sat on the frozen earth beside it, the precipitation abruptly ceased. I threw a hand into the air, nodding as it had proved my point. Though the snow had stopped, the ground was still frozen and covered with a thin layer of it. Saria set up another cooking spit, very similar to the one she had constructed that morning, and placed the meat that had yet to be eaten on them, and began to turn them constantly. She stared at them desirably, watching the venison gradually turn over. I then realized that I didn't see her eat that morn, for she gave me what was prepared, and saved the rest afterwords. "You haven't eaten, have you?"
"No, probably not."
"'Probably'?"
She shrugged. "I'm not completely sure when the last time I ate was, to be completely honest."
"How's that?"
"I still don't remember a lot before last night."
"Who's there?" I heard a deep voice call.
"Who was that?" Saria asked.
"Who are you?" I heard again. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a Stormcloak guard appeared from the dark veil that began to overtake our site, causing me to jump in fear and unsheathe my sword, followed by him revealing his axe. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm-" I began.
"-Who are you?"
"I'm..." I began again, trailing off.
The guard shook his head in confusion. "What are you doing?"
"Making sure I can speak before you cut me off." A moment of silence followed with the guard looking at me through his helmet, which hid his face, and Saria looking at me expectantly.
"Speak!" he demanded.
"I am Nicholas Swiftsword the Fifth."
"And what is the dovahkiin doing out here in open Skyrim like this? Aren't you supposed to be in Whiterun, Swiftsword?"
"Let's just say there was a change in plans."
"What?" Saria asked.
"And who is the girl?" the guard asked again in his deep Nordic accent.
"My companion. Might I ask why you are treating us like criminals?"
"Probably because the fact that your father was the leader of the Thieves' Guild. And that I don't usually come across a young couple camping about in the middle of Skyrim for no apparent reason."
"We're not..." I trailed off, "we're not a couple."
"We were on our way to Windhelm." Saria said. "Could you take us there?"
He looked at Saria, then at me. "I can, if you can keep this one," he pointed at me, "at bay."
"I can." she said, looking at me with a smile.
"And put your sword away, boy." he commanded.
"You put yours away and I'll do mine." He heeded my words and put his gleaming silver axe away on a loop in his belt, and I replaced my blade in its sheathe.
"Thank you." Saria said appreciatively.
As we began to near the walls of Windhelm, the guard began to look over at me more and more often, making me feel somewhat uneasy, and though I did my best to ignore it, I found it beginning to annoy me. "Is there something wrong?" I asked.
"Not yet. Just be sure to mind yourself, Swiftsword. I'll have you know High King Ulfric will have none of your bull shit." he said angrily. "Even if you are the son of his once third-in-command."
"I'm perfectly satisfied with that." I replied.
"Who was your father?" Saria asked me in a whisper.
"He was a great warrior...but a terrible father." I said bitterly, then quickening my pace to the gates of Windhelm, leaving the subject where it lied.
The guards that stood at the gate agreed to grant us passage, and one place his key into the lock of the massive doors, and we watched as they slowly slid apart, revealing the city of Windhelm, covered with a fresh layer of snow. Saria and I walked up the stone steps to behold the grandeur, and she gasped in awe. I looked at her, and she was much more than awe-stricken, it seemed, and I, however, merely walked straight through the Stone Quarter to where the Palace of the Kings stood, looming over the rest of the city.
"What a beautiful city..." Saria commented.
"May we speak to High King Ulfric?" I asked the guard, still following us.
"And why would you like to see him?" he replied.
"A good reason." I said sternly.
"How good a reason?"
"Good enough for us to travel half the country."
"Please?" Saria asked.
He sighed, and, very reluctantly, agreed upon the request of an audience. He turned to me. "Fine. But I swear by the Nine, if you do anyth-"
"Why would I?" I asked irritably.
"I don't know with you dovahkiin. Your father was a strange one, and I can only see you making hell for us guards."
"Then perhaps you should have stuck with nursing the young, eh?" I retorted. Although I couldn't see through his helmet, I could only imagine the scowl drawn across his face as I walked away triumphantly. I moved quickly up the seemingly endless stone steps to the Palace of the Kings to get out of the cold weather, and when I reached the entrance, I bothered not to wait for Saria or the guard, and I forced the doors open to be met by three guards, two men, one woman, and three long swords pointed to me.
"State your name and business." the female guard demanded.
"Nicholas Swiftsword, I am here to have audience with High King Ulfric." I said, moving past the unsheathed weapons to where the dining hall of the palace was.
"Hold on there." one of the two male guards said as he grabbed my shoulder rather tightly, and forced me to face him. The second man held me in place and the first held his blade's point to my throat, forcing my chin up to avoid the iron the best I could. "We cannot let you in there."
"And why is that?" Saria asked, walking up to the woman.
"First off, he hasn't an audience scheduled, second, he is armed and forcing his way to the High King." she replied with arms folded across her chest.
"I am a Swiftsword, dammit! By the Nine, let me through!"
"Let him go, he's nothing more than a pathetic milk drinker." our "friend" of a guard said as he came in through the front doors behind Saria.
They all let me go at the same time, and I pushed them away, rubbing my throat where the blade point had been. "Thank you, thank you. I know I'm beautiful, but one at a time, please. I just can't stand a crowd." I probably was having way too much fun with making the guards angrier than necessary.
I turned again to where the throne room was, and I began to hear a faint, familiar voice. "I. Want. To. Know. Where. I. Am!" it said irritably.
"Why do you speak such gibberish?! You make no sense whatsoever you...what are you?"
"I've told you already! MY NAME IS RAYMAN AND I'M LOOKING FOR NICHOLAS!"
"Rayman?" I called.
"What?" Saria asked. We walked into a long room that sort of resembled the mead hall in Jorrvaskr, where Ulfric sat on his throne at the opposite end, looking down at an enraged Rayman.
"Nick? Finally! These guys haven't been able to understand a word I say all day!" he said, relieved and enthusiastically running to where Saria and I stood.
"How long have you been here?" I asked, kneeling down to his height so that we were eye-to-eye.
"Since this evening...er...this morning. I dunno, the nights and days are completely different on this planet. Anyway, Ly sent me here earlier to look for you. She said 'Nicholas will be there eventually'."
"And it looks like she was right, eh?" I looked up at Saria, who looked down on us in complete puzzlement. "Oh, I almost forgot." I stood up again. "Saria, this is Rayman. Rayman, this is Saria."
Rayman bowed over, "Nice to meet you!" he said with a smile.
Saria, however, still looked at me in confusion. "W...wh-what?"