Always Lost, Always Hopeful (250) Revitalizing Revisits

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SPOILER INFO
This fanfic novel is largely based on the events that occurred in an actual game of Skyrim I played. Therefore, it's inevitably a spoiler.
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previous day






4-202-04-26 06:19
Jerall View Inn, Bruma, Bruma County, Cyrodiil


I'm having a wonderful dream: Dar'taqto is lying on top of me and... doing what men do on top of women.

The dream ends abruptly. No!! I don't want to wake up!

Nothing doing. The dream is over. I open my eyes. Wait, I'm still seeing Dar'taqto's face... and feeling his thrusts. The dream is not over. I look left and right. Yes, it is. I must be awake.

"Is this real?" I ask Dar'taqto.
"I'm not yet quite sure myself," he replies.
With a jubilant shout, I hug his hips with my legs and grab the fur behind his neck.

"I didn't realize I had missed you so badly," he tells me afterwards.
"All of me or just my pussy?" I ask.
"Why, your pussy and your sharp tongue, naturally" he replies. With him lying on top of me, we rub our faces against each other like crazy until I say: "May I breathe now, please?"
Dar'taqto raises his upper body up onto his elbows.
"I'm sorry," I say, stroking all his body parts I can reach, "I didn't mean what I said." He smiles and says no problem. I'm so happy he's here!

I ask him if he wants to have a bath with me. He says: "No, but I can come and watch you." I shrug and try to keep a straight face and the next moment we both burst out laughing.

We have the bathroom all to ourselves. My followers are probably long awake by now. (Either that, or sleeping in big time.)
I bring the conversation to the Khajiit men's sexual preferences. It would stand to reason that they find Khajiit women more attractive than us. I mean, the gods have given us the desire to have sex so that we would have progeny, and since Khajiits and humans can't have children with each other, it wouldn't make much sense for them to even get aroused at each other.
After asking if I'm sure I want to hear this and me replying I believe I can handle it, Dar'taqto tells me Khajiit men generally don't fancy human women, but when you live in a foreign country, you take what you can get. More precisely, they do find human women attractive all right, but they still fancy their own kind more because it's not only the looks that arouse them in women. "There is something about a receptive Khajiit woman that is like a smell, except that you can't really smell it, but somehow you breathe it in and you become just obsessed with desire," he explains. "Our wisemen call it "pheromones". It's like an unsmellable scent that somehow affects you. Like, you want to drink water even though it has no taste."
I ask more questions and end up learning that a Khajiit man can have sex with a Khajiit woman something like ten times in a row, and so can Dar'taqto, except that he'll feel completely squeezed dry of all energy afterwards, and that's why he actually prefers to live among humans with whom he can just enjoy himself without such an awful strain. Sometimes, less arousing can be better.  ;-)
"Do your women have multiple children like the cats?" I ask.
"Yes, they do. They are really small when they're born."
"And can they be of different fathers?"
"Absolutely. Maybe that's the reason why we don't have the humans' obsession with having only one spouse and not having sex with anyone else."
I've dried myself up now and try on various clothes and ask Dar'taqto how they look on me, but he gets bored quickly. I choose a green outfit warm enough for Bruma's weather and we go out.

We walk together along the lower main street

and hug goodbye in front of the blacksmith's shop. I go in to say hello to Eddvia and, of course, see what they have on sale. Then I walk to Razzada's spot that is nearby. I have been planning on driving him out of the city, but now that I talk to him, I begin to doubt if it's right. He would just set up shop somewhere else. But his products are actually harmful. He's not like Grelka of Riften who is merely irresponsible and has a bad character. Razzada must be killed. A mere expulsion won't do. But I'd better try to find out who is protecting him first. The question is: who would know and tell me?

Stantus has told me in the past he has no idea. I don't think I can ask Afanna – for all I know, she could well be Razzada's benefactor herself. Maybe Ila? I can certainly trust her, but she doesn't necessarily know anything about what's going on in the palace. Would I dare go directly to the count? He has offered to help me with anything. Or should I ask Atul to try and lure some information out of Simund?

My thoughts are getting too wild. I guess I'd better go take care of that Underpall Cave business. Traveling will do me good and I will have time to think, and when I will have done Cadius a service, he might agree to tell me something. Under the Synod's protection Razzada is clearly not:

The College of Whispers is the other mages' guild, the Synod's rivals.

I pay a visit to Cedus's shop and try to talk sense to him, but it's in vain. There's no way he would consider letting Dar'taqto off the hook.

While I'm headed for the northwestern city gate with my girls, Janieta sees us and we chat some, and I ask him if she can possibly persuade Quatrius to drop charges against Dar'taqto as a favor to me. I mean, I don't know what the power relations are between the Bruma City Guard and the Imperial Army, but...
Janieta promises she'll do what she can.

After exiting the city by the northwestern gate. I can't avoid the blind man Balius drawing me into a lengthy and pointless conversation, but then again, his life is unimaginably hard, so I shouldn't hold it against him if he wants a little company. And at least I can be sure he's interested in me and not my looks.  ;-)

By the way, Rilja the Ancient Nordic weapons vendor has a house in this suburb. It's small but cozy:

Tedral, a Dark Elf refugee is not so well-off – or tidy. This is his house:

The even less fortunate have to live in tents – although they seem to know how to have a good time regardless:

Speaking of Tedral, after the girls and I have walked around a little and are returning to Balius's house to proceed towards Applewatch, we witness a rather nasty conflict between him and Balius. Tedral hates Nords because it was the Nords who forced him out of Skyrim, and now he is taking it out on Balius because he (Tedral) is too much a coward to confront any Nord who would be an even match to him. I tell Tedral as much, but that's all I can do, because I can't remain here and protect Balius permanently. Not that I would. Blindness doesn't mean one can't be a completely uninsteresting person. Although I'm glad he's getting along wonderfully with the boy Leo, the newspaper vendor. I've been told they met among a party of war refugees and now they share a house and make a great team – Leo has eyes and Balius has life experience.

I know. Time to stop talking.

On our way to Applewatch, we are attacked by yet another headless vampire. We admire the orchards outside Applewatch and talk a few words to a quite pretty woman Pelena. Then we head southwest and descend the very high mountains. I had actually hoped to find a normal path down (which we could have used later to walk back up), but we couldn't. So I think we'll return to Bruma via Greenwood and maybe pay a visit to Anga. I centainly want to go to one of the Ayleid ruins one more time.

Down the mountains, we have to fight a gang of nasty mages.

What's so funny, bitch?
(Yes, I know, it's really a mask.)

Then we enter the nearby Underpall Cave once again and explore the parts we gave a miss the last time. There is nothing interesting to tell you about, just chaotic skirmishes with mages and disgusting zombies who sometimes seem to be climbing out of every crevice.

We also see heaps of dead bodies, apparently used by those mages for necromantic practices.

It takes quite long, so when we discover a dormitory and kill its inhabitants around half past 9 in the evening, I decide we'll spend the night here.

"I remember how the priests came," I say when I'm already lying on my sleeping mat next to Lydia's.
"Huh? Where?"
"No, relax. I mean back home, in Camlorn. Before I came to Skyrim. I remembered just now."
Jenassa has gotten up from her mat and sits down next to ours. So does Jordis who has the first watch.
"I have that scene clearly before my eyes," I continue absent-mindedly. "I also remember I crossed from Hammerfell to Skyrim through Elinhir Pass. It's the same place where they wouldn't let us go to Hammerfell. You weren't there, Jordis, we were with Borgakh then."
"So you know with certainty you arrived through Hammerfell?" asks Lydia.
"Yes, I do. I was traveling towards Pinewood, I think, and I saw a group of Imperial soldiers before they saw me. I ran back, and then I turned into the forest and a group of Stormcloaks saw me. That's why they tought I was trying to cross the border from Skyrim to Hammerfell by sneaking past the official border post. I was appalled and scared. I had succeeded in avoiding all the traps and ambushes in Hammerfell, but in Skyrim I was caught in no time."
"So what happened? You didn't try to fight?"
"Get real. I couldn't have fought anything stronger than a stray dog back then."
"You did fight in Helgen."
"Not really. It was Hadvar who saved my neck. Several times."
"Never mind Helgen," interrupts Jordis impatiently. "What happened on the Pinewood road? Or forest, I mean."
"The Stormcloaks didn't do anything to me. Just asked where I had come from and if I had seen anyone. I was struggling to make up something plausible to tell them. And then the Imperials attacked us. I lost consciousness and woke up in the horsecart with amnesia. You know the rest."

I also have to recount the scene with the priests at my home in Camlorn, but thanks to not remembering really anything about my trip through Hammerfell, I get to go to sleep soon.



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