~X~

Ashe Carvain

I slowly woke up to see I was in some sort of medical tent. There were soldiers and villagers covered in bandages and burns. I was still in my regular clothes minus my jacket, which was folded next to me with my katana on top of it. Though, I did have bandages on my left and right arms.

I got up from the cloth I was on, put on my jacket, grabbed my katana, and walked out of the tent.

Things were… busy, of course.

I could see soldiers and villagers looking through the rubble of the village for survivors.

"Ashe! You're awake!" I heard an excited voice.

I turned to see it was Elisif. She ran up and hugged me, and I hugged her in return. She soon let go. I saw Bell and General Tullius walking up behind her.

"How are you feeling?" she said.

"I'm fine. You know how good I am at healing," I said.

"Lady Ashe," another voice spoke up and I turned to see it was General Tullius. "Glad to see you up. I would like to personally thank you for fighting off the dragon. I'm certain more people would be dead if not for you."

I simply shrugged because I didn't really know what to say.

Elisif elbowed my side for my lack of answer and then answered Tullius for me. "Ashe thanks you for the gratitude. She just doesn't know how to accept praise."

"What am I supposed to say? I simply fought the dragon because I had the power to and I knew it would save more people," I rubbed my side.

"Yes," Elisif said. "Saying it like that would make you appear more heroic and selfless. Which you are."

"I… wouldn't call myself that," I slowly said. "I just help others because I can do so."

Elisif gave me a look I could tell was saying 'Really?' I looked back letting my confusion show. Elisif sighed and I heard Tullius smother a laugh.

Okay, what am I missing?

"So, what happens now?" I asked, moving on to a different topic.

"Well, after we gather the wounded and count the dead, my men and I will escort the survivors to Falkreath," Tullius said. "That Jarl won't like us dropping off refugees in his city but Helgen is a part of his hold. After that, we move on to Solitude so to prepare the Legion. If dragons are coming back, we'll need to be ready."

He paused for a moment and looked at me. "If you don't mind me asking, what will you do now?"

"Well… I was thinking of heading to Whiterun to warn them about the dragon," I said and looked to Elisif for approval. After all, I was in Skyrim because she asked me to come. So. I would hear why she wanted me here.

"Yes, it's a good idea for you to warn Jarl Balgruuf," Elisif nodded. "Afterward, come to Solitude as soon as you can."

"Got it," I said. "It's a three-day journey to Whiterun from here, so I'll leave soon."

"I see. " Tullius said and turned to the side. "Hadvar!"

Said soldier came toward us and saluted. "Sir?"

"If I recall, you're from Riverwood, correct?" Tullius said and Hadvar nodded. "With a dragon on the loose, they need to be warned. Our friend here is traveling to Whiterun and Riverwood is along the way. You wouldn't mind traveling with her, would you?"

"None at all, sir."

"Good. Get your pack ready because she's leaving soon."

"Yes sir," Hadvar saluted again and left to get his pack.

Tullius then turnd to me. "Good luck. Hopefully, we'll meet again under better circumstances. Until then, may the Divines watch over you.

"You as well, General," I said and Tullius walked off to talk to some other soldiers.

"Come back safe," Elisif said.

I nodded and motioned for Bell to follow me. After getting food for the road and waiting for Hadvar, we set off toward Riverwood.

~X~

It's been some time since the three of us were on the road to Riverwood. Of course, to fill that time, we talked about some stories. As much as I wanted to talk to Bell about Orario, I didn't want to do that while Hadvar was here. So, instead, I brought up some quests I went on.

"So, I went to Memorial Cave just outside the Imperial City and fought my way through undead and vampires," I said. "I eventually found Seridur in there and he confessed that he was the vampire all along, he said he lured me to the cave to kill me because he knew I would find out the truth."

"If he knew you would figure out he was a vampire, why did he hire you to find the culprit in the first place?" Bell asked.

"Because the other two members of his group, the Order of the Virtuous Blood, insisted. I was in my disguise as an arena fighter," I changed my hair to white and eyes to violet for a second with magic, then changed it back to its regular black and blue. "I was the Grand Champion of the Arena, so I was well-known as the most skilled fighter. Perfect for fighting a vampire."

"Grand Champion at thirteen…" Hadvar snorted at the thought, but he believed me. He'd seen some of my fights when he was on leave. He just didn't know I was only thirteen at the time.

"So, what happened?" Bell said.

"Well, like I said, Seridur was a vampire, and he was the murderer. He said he would kill me and then kill Roland since we knew his secret. Obviously, that didn't happen," I motioned to myself, who was still alive.

"Wow…" Bell said in awe at my latest story. "You go on a lot of interesting adventures."

"I'll say," Hadvar chimed in. "A murderous vampire, a graverobbing merchant, an Altmer that went mad with power, and an Imperial Guard Captain that you manage to prove was corrupt who broke out of prison so he could kill you in revenge… And all that happened in one year," Hadvar shook his head in disbelief.

"At least I can say my time in the Imperial City wasn't boring," I shrugged. "I'm still upset I had to leave after only one year at the University."

"Damn Thalmor…" Hadvar growled.

I also told them why I had to leave after one year.

"Who are the Thalmor?" Bell said.

"They're the ruling body of the Aldmeri Dominion," I answered and couldn't keep the disdain out of my voice, something my two companions picked up on.

"And… why do people hate them?" Bell hesitantly said. "I mean I only saw a few in Helgan and everyone on the cart glared at her, and you sound like you don't like them."

"Hah, that's an understatement," I snorted. "The Thalmor are racial supremacists. They believe in their superiority of Mer over Man. That's just one of the reasons people hate them. There's a long list of reasons and if you want to know more, I'll tell you when we have a chance to sit down because it's a long story."

"Okay," Bell nodded. "How about another story of an adventure?"

"Alright… This one happened three years ago. I was walking around Bruma because I was bored and saw a couple of guards standing outside one of the houses, so I went to see what had happened. One of the guards told me a vampire hunter had come to town and killed one of the locals saying he was a vampire…"

~X~

~ Riverwood ~

General POV

The group arrived in Riverwood with no trouble and met with Alvor, Hadvar's uncle, and the local blacksmith. They warned him about the dragons and Ashe's plan to tell the Jarl, which is when he asked if she could also convince the Jarl to send some guards to Riverwood. Ashe easily agreed.

It was almost dinner time, so Ashe decided she and Bell would stay in Riverwood for the night. But for now, Ashe wanted to get a measure of Bell's skill. They went to this small clearing between the blacksmith and the lumber mill. It was where Alvor tested some of the blades he smithed.

Bell was armed with a training dagger while Ashe used a training sword.

She tended to keep a lot of items in her own personal pocket dimension. The 'inventory' from the game translated into a spell, a Master Tier Alteration spell, that very few have mastered.

Of course, Ashe was one of them.

"Argh!" Bell was knocked onto his back.

He quickly got up and charged Ashe, who was still in her relaxed stance. Relaxed stance for her being her feet are not too far apart, one hand holding her sword in front of her slightly raised off the ground, and her left hand on her hip as if she had it on her sheathe.

As Bell tried to break through her defense, a small crowd had gathered to watch the sparring match.

"The lad is fast," Alvor commented.

"Aye, he's surprisingly faster than most soldiers in the Legion. He'll only get faster as he gets older," said Hadvar, who had changed out of his Legion uniform to some clothes his uncle gave him. "Still, it's easy to tell Lady Ashe is holding back, keeping her speed to just above Bell's."

"Oof!" Bell flew back again as he took a hard stab to the chest. Some of the spectators flinched at the hit.

Bell got up again and charged in.

Meanwhile, Hadvar observed Bell's fighting style. He's obviously a speed-type fighter, someone who tries to overwhelm his opponent with his speed.

But there's a big weakness to that.

"Urgh!" Bell flew back again as he took a slash across his face. Good thing these swords are blunted but that was going to leave a bruise.

A big weakness of Bell's style is that it won't work well against people who can keep up with his speed.

"Agh!"

Like Ashe.

Speaking of Ashe… She was powerful and she hadn't even hit twenty yet.

"Gah!" Bell fell on his back and this time stayed there.

"All right, that's enough, Bell," Ashe said as she lowered her training sword. "You're fast for your age and have good instincts, but very little experience when it comes to fighting. From what I understand, the strongest things you fought were goblins and kobolds?"

"Yeah…" Bell groaned.

With the spar over, the crowd that had formed started to disperse as dinner time was arriving.

Ashe knelt at Bell's side and started using some healing spells on him.

"I'll train you," Ashe said. "By the end of this long adventure, you'll be the strongest person in Orario."

Orario?

Hadvar had never heard of such a place.

"Get some rest, Bell. We have a busy day tomorrow," Ashe said and Bell fell asleep.

Ashe placed her arms beneath his knees and across his back and lifted him to place him on a bed in Alvor's house.

When she came back out, she had her sheathed katana in her left hand.

"Where are you headed?" Hadvar said.

"Embershard Mine," Ashe said. "The bartender at the Sleeping Giant Inn said some bandits have taken up residence there. He said he would give me the key to that shack we saw on the way into Riverwood as a reward for taking them out."

Hadvar remembered that shack because it was new and had never seen it before. Although...

"Why would Orgnar have the key? He has a room for himself at the inn," Hadvar said.

"Apparently, the previous owner got mauled by a bear. No one knew what to do with the house, so they haven't touched it since then," Ashe said. "Orgnar said he'd give it to me since no one was using it."

"I see… Well, good luck against the bandits."

"Thanks, but I'll be fine. This won't be the first bandit camp I've cleared."

~X~

~ Embershard Mine ~

Ashe Carvain

"Hey! Who are- Argh!"

"You-"

*Slash*

I flicked my katana to get all the blood off and slowly sheathed it as the second bandit's head flew off his body and to the floor.

Killing bandits was too easy, definitely easier than fighting Alduin. One well-placed strike and they're dead.

As I expected, Riverwood was bigger and more crowded than the game. However, that shack on the hill just outside the south wall was a small surprise.

I moved the lever that lowered the wooden bridge to the next area and two bandits came from the other side and appeared to check it out.

"The bridge went down!"

"I think I heard something over there."

"I thought we-"

*SWISH*

They didn't say anything further as their heads were separated from their shoulders.

I had shot a Mirage Blade from my elevated position that landed right behind them and used it as an anchor to teleport. I quickly drew and slashed my katana, taking off both of their heads from their necks.

All this happened before the bandits could even process they were dead.

I slowly sheathed my blade again and silently moved across the ground further into the mine.

As I shot a Mirage Blade through the head of the sitting bandit, I thought about my future plans. Mostly about what to do with Bell.

Obviously, I was going to keep him by my side as Bell would have a tough time by himself in Skyrim. But I needed to figure out how he came to Nirn in the first place.

I wouldn't mind joining the Companions or the College of Winterhold. I just don't know if they don't mind me wandering around so much.

I might join the Thieves Guild, 'might' being the keyword. Part of that questline had the player pledging to Nocturnal to be one of her Nightingales. I don't know if I want to pledge myself to a Daedric Prince.

While I enjoyed the Dark Brotherhood questline in the game… I don't see myself joining a group of assassins, and there is no way Bell would ever agree to that.

So… what order should I do things?

I entered the last area and didn't want to waste time. So, I fired multiple Mirage Blades at the rest, killing them all. With this, the mine can be opened up again.

Let's head back.

~X~

I went back to the Sleeping Giant Inn to get my reward and went to my new shack to check it out.

It was… interesting.

The interior was small but not uncomfortable. There was a single bed in the corner with some shelves above it, and a couple of dressers across from it up against the wall with an enchanting table and an alchemy table on top of them. Above those were some empty shelves. Finally, there was a small fireplace.

On the outside was a porch, and to the side of that was this wooden patio with all sorts of smithing things. I don't think the forge would work the way I want, but I can fix that with some enchantments.

For the rest of the evening into the night, I worked on a couple of daggers for Bell to use. Add some enchantments on them and he'll use those for a long while.

~X~

~ The Next Day ~

I just walked out of the Riverwood Trader with some potions and other items. I went to Alvor's house to see if Bell was awake but didn't need to as Bell walked out the front door with Alvor.

"Hey, Bell. How are you feeling?" I said. He did take a beating during the sparring match even though I healed him afterward.

"I'm actually feeling pretty good," Bell rolled his shoulders. "You're healing magic is really effective."

"Thanks," I said. "Anyway, I made some weapons for you."

I took out a cloth bundle from my pocket dimension and handed it to Bell. He looked surprised and excited as he opened it.

"Oh, wow!" Bell had a shine in his eyes at the weapons.

"Oh?" Alvor looked over. "That's an interesting design for a couple of daggers."

They certainly were. I recreated Jack the Ripper's daggers from FGO. However, they didn't have that magenta-colored metal for the cores since I ended up using ebony. The dagger with a serrated blade had a white core while the sharp edges were black, and the dagger with a curved edge was the opposite, with a black core and a white edge.

They were both made fully with ebony, I simply used Alteration to change the color.

Bell has an affinity for daggers and I wanted the ones he uses to be unique.

"Do they have a name?" Bell said.

"Hm?"

"Oh, come on! All the best weapons have names!"

Uh… I never thought of one. How about…

"Sol and Luna."

"What do those mean?"

"It's Old Nedic for 'Sun' and 'Moon.'"

Yeah, I think those are fine because I'm not really good at naming things.

"I like it," Bell smiled. "What are we doing today?"

"We're heading to Bleak Falls Barrow. You know, that ruin on the mountain we saw on the way here?"

"I remember it."

"There was a burglary at the general store and the thieves went up there for some reason. We're going to find it and bring it back."

"Okay."

…Hmm, it's maybe best to bring it up now.

"Bell, you know we'll be running into bandits there."

"Yeah?"

"Which means we'll most likely have to kill them because they'll be trying to kill us," I said with seriousness. "Killing humans is very different than killing monsters."

"I-I know…" Bell stuttered but soon his face became determined. "But these people, they hurt, steal, and even kill other people. My grandpa used to tell me stories about heroes… Sometimes heroes had to protect people from other people. He called them monsters in human skin. So, I'll be fine."

I stared at Bell for a little while and he still looked determined. That's good.

But still…

…It's good enough.

Anyway, we said goodbye to Alvor and his family and left through the north gate to go up the mountain.

~X~

As we traveled up the mountain, Bell asked me many questions about Skyrim and myself. He started with the prisoners in Helgen and that led to me talking about the civil war. If I talk about the Civil War, I need to talk about the context behind it, which meant talking about the Thalmor and the Great War.

That led to a conversation about all the different elves he's seen considering they're all so different from the ones in Orario. Talking about Orario gave me the opening to ask about it, and he went on to talk about the Dungeon and Hestia.

Bell had a lot of good things to say about his goddess.

Unfortunately, we had to cut the conversation short as we were coming up to the tower that had some bandits in it.

I led Bell to behind some trees and pulled out a spyglass from my inventory. There weren't a lot of them, only three, and I told Bell this.

"I'll deal with this myself," I said, handing Bell the spyglass.

I walked out from our hiding place and calmly walked to the bandit leaning on the tree at the foot of the bridge.

He quickly noticed and was about to say something but I used Reinforcement to increasemy speed and cut off his head with quickdraw. I then fired a couple of Mirage Blades at the bandit at the entrance of the tower and the one at the top. They were too slow to dodge and they died instantly.

I waved Bell over and when he came up to me, he had a look of surprise and awe. Although, he went a little pale when he glanced at the decapitated bandit.

"Wow… You defeated them so fast."

"I don't like wasting time in a fight."

We traveled further up the mountain and ran into three more bandits at the entrance. One of them charged us as two more spread out, pulled out some bows, and started firing arrows at us. It was easy for me to dodge or cut them down but Bell seemed to be having some issues with that. He's not used to dodging arrows, so I cut down the ones that were on a path to him.

"I'll get the archers, you get the sword guy," I said and took off before he could respond.

I really shouldn't have separated from him but I wanted to use this as a test.

I know he can kill monsters and he said earlier that he could kill other people if he had to…

But saying you'll do something and actually doing it are two very different things.

Yesterday's spar allowed me to measure his skills and he should be able to defeat the bandit.

But can he kill someone who is trying to kill him?

That's what I want to find out.

Is it a dick move to throw him into the deep end?

…A little.

But I think he can do it. It also helps that Bell mentioned that his grandfather told him about 'monsters in human skin.' That will help him a bit.

I easily killed the archers but the fact they were spread out over the huge entrance took more seconds than I would've liked.

I turned to see Bell dodging the last bandit's sword swing. Bell was taking his time. I noticed some counterattacks that he could've taken, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt. By this point, he only had two weeks' worth of fighting experience, and even less experience fighting people. In fact, the only experience he had in that was yesterday's spar.

Bell dodged a huge overhead swing, leaving the bandit wide open. Bell took the opening and lashed out with his knives, He used one knife to slice the bandit's wrist to force him to drop the sword and the second knife was then buried in the the throat. Bell quickly pulled out the knife and the bandit fell to the ground, grasping his neck, and bled to death.

Bell froze as I walked up to him.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

He stayed silent as he stared at the hand that was closed around the knife that killed the bandit.

"I'm fine…" he said. I could hear… confusion in his voice.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes… Let's… Let's keep going."

I stared at Bell and he stared back. His eyes were focused and alive, that's a good sign.

I nodded to him and started walking to the front door. Bell followed.

Part of me wanted to talk with him about his first kill and I was going to if he reacted worse, but if this is how he reacts, then I can wait. We can focus more on the quest.

…

I wonder what's going through his head.

~X~

Author's Note:

Chapter Done!

This took a while. Work sucked for the past month and a half, and all I wanted to do was try to relax on my off time as much as possible. I took a break from everything, including writing fanfics.

One relaxing thing I like to do is play video games. Playing through Modded Skyrim got me motivated enough to finish this chapter.

Though, it might be a couple of months before I write new chapters. I still want to keep taking this break from it.

I'll probably make a new story and upload some snippets, of stories I wrote that didn't go far. Only, one or two chapters.

Mods appearing in this chapter:

Beginner's Shack in Riverwood, By Elianora

As always, constructive criticism is appreciated.