Chapter 25: Muiri

[12th of Second Seed 4E 202]

Since I had met Ferwen, the athletic young Bosmer lady, I had not been able to stop ogling her occasionally; in my opinion she was very attractive, and she was clearly one of the very few female people yet who got me to think about more than just friendship. When Mia, Ferwen and I had gone out on the tundra to collect some special herbs Arcadia needed, Ferwen had shown considerable skill fighting against the bandit boss from Halted Stream Camp, but she had suffered a few injuries, including what I assumed one or more partially fractured ribs. As my restoration magic was much better than Mia's, who had her main focus on Illusion, I had worked on healing the Bosmer, and her body had reacted strangely to my restoration magic, making her moan from, I was not sure, but it had sounded like pleasure rather than pain, specifically when my glowing hands had been very close to her upper chest. That effect had confused me a lot, but neither of us had been willing to talk much about that so far.

One day later, after a somewhat fitful sleep, I went on my normal jogging round around the city again, early in the morning, and to my surprise Ferwen waited right at the city gate, with her pet, the elytra nymph, next to her. The Bosmer looked uneasy and like she had not slept much, and she asked:

"B'lushona, do you mind if I join you for your morning run today?"

I had actually planned to be alone with my saber cats and my thoughts, specifically after yesterday's events out there in the tundra, and my face probably showed that I was not really eager to get company, so that Ferwen added:

"Look, I have heard that you prefer to do your morning run alone or just with one of your housecarls, but I really want to join you, just today. Please? Pretty please?"

I had a vague inkling what this might be about and I could not really deny her wish; besides, it was very hard to resist when a pretty young woman with really alluring eyes said 'pretty please'. Thus, after a moment of hesitation, I nodded and replied:

"Sure, why not; but please keep in mind that I usually go quite fast."

"That's all right; my muscles can use some extra work."

The young Bosmer was not quite as short as Fiona and Mia were, although still shorter than most Nord women, and her body, or at least the few parts not covered by her light scaled armor, clearly showed muscles, which appealed to me as I had to admit to myself. One of the city guards also looked at her in an interested way, almost like checking her out; I even heard something which sounded like a wolf whistle, and I could not blame him for that. The Bosmer followed me when I jumped over the wall, and for some time she jogged silently at my side, while we used the almost invisible path I had used so many times before; Hanni and Nanni were frolicking around, as usual, and did not mind the company. I glanced to the side a few times and admired Ferwen's athletic body; although the sun was still below the horizon and just a glimpse of early dawn was visible in the sky, my Khajiit eyes allowed me to see reasonably well yet. We proceeded without talking for some time, and about half way to the Whitewatch Tower, when we were northwest of Dragonsreach, she called out to me:

"B'lushona, can we please talk?"

I had a hunch about what might have been on her mind and nodded, and while she still panted a little bit – her legs were considerably shorter than mine after all, but she had coped amazingly well with my speed – she told me:

"B'lushona, first of all, my elytra nymph needs a chance to catch up; she is not quite that fast."

Indeed, I had not payed attention to the Bosmer's pet, and when I looked, she was some distance away and apparently struggled with the pace. Ferwen continued:

"Second, I wanted to apologize for my behavior yesterday when you healed me. I should not have behaved like I did, and I am not sure what came over me. My body… kind of betrayed me, and I assure you that I do not normally act and react like this at all."

"You just recently became an adult, right?"

"Yes, indeed, and Fiona probably told you about me. I grew up in Kynesgrove, and after my parents had died, my uncle and aunt took care of me. Fortunately I got a chance to learn about combat, and traveling with the Dragonborn has been great so far. In the last couple of years, there had been a few males of different races who would have liked to court me, including your housecarl Antonius, by the way, but I had never had any feelings for any of them. Now, with you, something happens to me which I do not fully understand, but I barely can keep myself from looking at you, and I have those feelings I can't really sort in; I am so sorry about that. I have seen male Khajiit before, mostly merchants traveling with their caravans, but you are very different."

I was kind of socially retarded, or at least I had been in my previous life, but I thought that I understood at least part of what was going on here, specifically as I had similar feelings:

"Ferwen, first of all, please feel free to use my short name, Balu; this is what my friends call me. Second, there is no reason to apologize; after all, I feel about you in a similar way. Already when we were on the road from Granite Hill to Whiterun, I kind of ogled you, and I feel attraction towards you. So, if you like to look at me and have some feelings for me and my body, I appreciate that, as it implies that my own feelings are reciprocated."

I did not think that I was in love with her, but I could not deny that I felt a lot of attraction to her body, and it appeared that she also felt something like that for me, or maybe at least for my body. A few other ladies, like Adrianne՚s assistant Doria, also sometimes looked at me in a similar way, but had not talked about that to me yet. In a way, I was actually glad that the Bosmer talked, as I would have felt very uncomfortable about taking the initiative in such a situation. I recalled what Ulfberth and Antonius had told me some time ago, and I understood that love or deep feelings were not really required to have fun in bed or at least to enjoy a real good make-out session; bodily attraction on both sides was an excellent starting point. Of course, I still was not sure at all if that was where I wanted to go, but I had to admit that I felt a certain temptation, although I still believed in not having sex just for fun, but only as 'making love', as an expression of love, and I sure wasn't there (yet?) with Ferwen.

The pretty Bosmer noticed that I was kind of absent minded for some time and looked directly at me with her captivating bright eyes, until I found back to reality and her presence; she looked relieved, and once she had digested my statement, she said:

"This is great to hear; I have already started to wonder what's wrong with me. Now as you mention it, Fiona has been telling me once or twice that it's obvious I like you, but I have tried to ignore that. I want to be in charge and in control and decide whom I like rather than having that dictated by my body! Besides, I'm not sure if I'm ready at my age, ready for whatever this implies. I mean, it's of course all right to like people, but this is a variation of 'like' which makes me slightly uncomfortable, as I don't know where I am heading with it."

"Yes, I understand. Same here, but sometimes it does not work like this. I have been in that situation before, with my body showing some reactions towards a lady, but then this lady turned out to be not interested in me at all; this can be quite frustrating, believe me."

"But, you like me, too?"

"I do, Ferwen, I do indeed. I consider your body very attractive, but it would be unfair and incomplete to just consider your body. I would not mind at all to spend more time with you and find out how well we get along with each other, though."

"Yes, that sounds great. Balu, can I hug you?"

We were still standing, and she did not look into my eyes now, but rather somewhere downwards. I hesitated for a moment, but then I nodded and stepped close to her. We wrapped our arms around each other, with her arms around my waist and my arms around her shoulders from above, and she rested her head against my chest. Even if she wanted to kiss me, which I doubted, she could not have easily done that due to our size difference, and for now, just hugging was good enough. I liked to feel a warm female body so close to me; there had been a few quick hugs from Janina, but this one was somehow closer; she pushed her body into mine, so that I could actually feel her small but firm breasts on my lower chest even through my armor, and I would have enjoyed resting my chin on her head for some time, but our difference in size prevented me from easily doing that. We stayed like this for quite some time, until eventually she removed her arms and stepped back:

"Thank you, Balu. I feel a lot better now."

We both smiled at each other, and I also felt better, as I had not been entirely sure how to interpret the elf's behavior. We would see and find out where to go from here, and for now, my two saber cats also demanded hugs from me, which I gladly provided. We continued the morning exercise, but at a more moderate speed than before, allowing the elytra nymph to stay close to us. When we arrived at the Whitewatch Tower, the sun was already up, and one of the guards there told me with a smirk:

"Hey, B'lushona, you are late today! The sun has already risen!"

I smiled and replied:

"Yes, true. The lady with me has slowed me down a little bit, I guess."

Ferwen kicked my chest, but with my light armor and the amount of my muscles – I wondered if this was what some people on Earth had called a 'sixpack'? – I barely felt anything. For a moment I got distracted and confused; why had the punch to my chest almost been unnoticeable, but I had clearly registered her soft upper chest on me earlier? Oh wait, due to our size difference said softness had been much closer to my own soft parts and… I made an effort to snap out of those thoughts, saw that today's guard complement was all male, and did the introductions:

"Gentlemen, this Bosmer lady is Ferwen of Kynesgrove, and she will likely be around for some time."

"Pleased to make your acquaintance, Ferwen" one of the guards replied. I could see that he looked at the pretty Bosmer for longer than needed, and his view seemed to drop down to her chest a few times, too, but this was probably a normal male reaction to seeing a pretty young lady, and the guard did not overdo it either; I certainly could not blame him. Besides, my own glances had gone there too a few times.

As usual, we stayed for some time, before we moved on down to the road and turned south; the Bosmer and I looked at each other occasionally, but did not continue our conversation. We passed the farms to our left, and when we reached the crossroads at the bridges, one of the guards posted there, actually a Dunmer lady in Stormcloak armor, who shared the duty with two male guards in Whiterun armor, told us:

"Have you heard the latest news from Windhelm? The one about that swindler who framed other people for thefts and such?"

"No, I guess not."

"They found that a good looking guy cheated and lied to some women, and he somehow managed to frame a few of them for a number of thefts he did. A courier brought the news, and I think that there is a bounty now on his head. If you want to know more, Steward Proventus Avenicci should have most of the details by now."

"Thank you for letting us know; have a good day!"

A swindler from Windhelm? Was that something I should know about, like related to a quest in the game? Maybe not, but I was sure going to ask for details.

Once we were back in the city, I was getting curious about that person the soldier had mentioned, and while Ferwen went somewhere else, I decided to head up to Dragonsreach first to learn more about what the guard had mentioned. When I had entered, I met Mia and Muiri, and they had the same idea, as it turned out, so that we decided to join and ask together. We had to wait a few minutes for the steward to be available, and then he told us:

"Yes, indeed, there was a male Breton called Alain Dufont – not sure if this is his real name, though – in Windhelm, and for an extended period of time he made everybody believe that he was an honest and wealthy person. As it turned out, he was a swindler instead, and he sweet talked several people to do heists for him or help him with his own heists."

When this name was mentioned, I heard Muiri gulping and yelping, and we all looked at her. When she had recovered from her surprise, she asked:

"Did you say Alain Dufont?"

"Yes, indeed, that's the name the courier mentioned. Something wrong here?"

"I guess that… I am one of those women who got fooled by him, then. I… think that I helped him to steal something from the Shatter-Shields in Windhelm, and when I left the city a week ago or so, the guards seemed to believe that it was all my fault."

"Oh, that's interesting. Yes, the Windhelm guards only found out a few days ago about this guy's schemes, and they try to get statements from everybody involved. Apparently, this Dufont was more or less responsible for a large number of thefts, but he managed to leave for an unknown location before anybody got an idea about him. Steward Jorleif in Windhelm wrote that there is now a high bounty for retrieving his person, dead or alive, and the items he stole. People who knew him are asked to provide information, but as it is now known how this man worked, you don't need to worry about getting arrested or so, I guess."

"This is good to hear, thank you. I may be able to help with finding him, actually. A few days ago before I realized that he was a fraud, when I stayed with him in his home, he was busy with something. I was bored and looked at his collection of books, and by coincidence I found a note between two books; the note said that he and a number of partners in crime were setting up a hideout in a place called Raltar or something like this; I have no clue where or what this might be."

"Hm, this could be the Dwarven ruin Raldbthar, east of here in the hills. There have been some vague rumors about bandits moving in, but nothing specific. I guess that somebody will need to look into this place, better sooner than later. Was there anything else mentioned? Does he know that you read this note?"

"No, I'm sure that he did not realize that I found the note, but this made me start to think about his person. And I do not know much else to help, except maybe one detail – he boasted once or twice that some of his friends had found a way to control some of the Dwemer automatons."

"If this is true, they may have a significant advantage in such ruins."

A Dwarven ruin! Automatons, like spiders, spheres and such! So far, I had not had the opportunity to visit one of those places, except for a small section connected to Shimmermist Cave, and of course I realized that it would be quite dangerous, specifically as there were likely bandits there as well. However, Fiona and I had also talked about Dwarven ruins, and it would be good for both of us to learn about the Dwemer automatons and how to fight them; sooner or later there were going to be places like Blackreach on our agenda, and some training would not hurt at all. I did need to focus on making money for my house construction, sure, but a Dwemer ruin was also likely to have some loot which could be sold off later, like Dwemer struts, cups, and hopefully more. I wasn't greedy, but I always needed money for my building effort. Thus I told the steward:

"Proventus, let me talk to a few people and get back to you later; I believe that there might be a good chance to find a team to go there."

"All right, B'lushona, sounds good; please let me know when you have something. Let me show you where the place is on a map."

I got my map out, and the ruin was actually marked there already; obviously the location was well known. The steward also provided some useful advice on how to get there:

"See, from here it's about a day's travel to the main entrance. You best go north first, and after Korvanjund there is a small trail east. You will pass south of Lake Yorgrim, keep closer to the hills than to the lake shore, and there you will find another trail into the hills, which will guide you directly to the stairs. As an alternative, you can also head east first past Valtheim Towers, and find your way cross country past Gallows Rock; from there you should also be able to get to Raldbthar, though I have been told that the area around Gallows Rock is unsafe for travelers."

"Thank you, Proventus; I will get back to you."

So, I had a vague plan what I would like to do next, and I'd need to ask Fiona if she wanted to join. Knowing her, I expected that she would, but I needed to ask anyway, and I headed out of Dragonsreach to see where she might be.

[Author's Notes: So in my story Muiri ends up in Whiterun rather than in Markarth, and one does not have to be in the Dark Brotherhood either to trigger her story and quest.]