Always Lost, Always Hopeful (174) I'd Rather Sit Than Kill

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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 inevitably reveals a lot about the game.
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previous day






4-202-02-08 06:04
Uthgerd's House, Hviterun, Whiterun, Skyrim


I leave Lucia sleeping and go have a bath at the inn. The marketplace is abandoned at this early hour (if you don't count one guard):

When I meet my followers, I'm surprised to see they're not hung over at all. We can't be bothered to wait for the three sisters to wake up and come out of their bedrooms, so we leave without saying goodbye. We do say goodbye to Lucia, though. She has told me she absolutely wants me to wake her up before I leave the city.

The shops won't open soon, but a Khajiit caravan has arrived last night. The trader Ri'saad looks so cool and calm and wise that I'm close to asking him if he knows how I could get my lost memory back and why there aren't any female dragons.

I'll ask him if everything else fails.

I could hang around with the Khajiits for hours if it wasn't for the nasty drizzling rain and my followers' obvious disinterest. Even so, this brief encounter has energized me to the point that the run from Hviterun to Blackmoor under the gray sky feels as if I were in the midst of the lush grass and palm trees of Summerset.

However, by the time we reach Blackmoor, I'm fed up with the rain, so we sit a while at the inn. We hear a rumor that some Redguard warriors have made camp in Swindler's Den a little way to the west. That's what the people are saying – "warriors", not "bandits".

This gets me thinking. Maybe they are the same ones who are looking for Saadia? I recall they told me the Roriksted inn will be a contact point if I have information for them, and the said cave is not far from Roriksted.

I planned on remaining neutral in this case, but recently my determination has been shaking. We can at least go and take a look. Flimsy as it may be, this is the best lead to Saadia's harassers so far (apart, of course, from that man in Hviterun jail), and it's not much trouble to go and check it out.

As soon as the rain ceases, we go out and a dragon appears.

Fortunately, he chooses not to attack and flies away. Maybe his fire glands had gotten wet or something. Come to think of it, dragons generally seem to shun the rain.

Whatever. We do some shopping and then head towards Swindler's Den. We were in its vicinity four months ago, so we know the way.

We are received by a large number of quite common, quite hostile Nord bandits. For some reason, I'm a complete mess today, but fortunately my followers are perfectly efficient and we come out as winners, whereby almost a half of the bandits choose to surrender. Grateful they didn't make us have to kill them, I let them go free and I don't even strip them of their gear.

In one of the caves, we find a book wanted by Rustleif, the blacksmith of Dånstar. I pick it up, since we've already come all the way here.

The bandit dungeon is followed by water passages. There is a group of dark-skinned men in foreign-looking robes.

There's half a dozen more on the left side.

They are indeed alikrs. Their leader's name is Kematu. When I ask him why they're after some mysterious Redguard woman, he tells me she betrayed a city in Hammerfell to the Aldmeri Dominion, and that's why she is wanted alive to be tried and punished.

This throws me off balance. His story is certainly more plausible than Saadia's who told me she was being persecuted because she opposed the Aldmeri Dominion. Jenassa has assured me that's not something you get persecuted for in Hammerfell.

Wait, you would if Hammerfell was occupied by the Aldmeri Dominion. Is it? Me and my followers,we have no idea. People in Skyrim don't know much about the goings-on in Hammerfell. Rayya might know, but she is no more.

Well, the point is, there's no way of telling which one of the two adversaries is telling the truth, so there's no sensible reason for me to take sides. On the other hand, if we just left, it would mean we killed all those bandits for nothing.

I walk away into a dungeon branch where the alikrs can't hear us, and sit down on the ground, utterly unable to decide what to do. I'm completely lost here.

It's Jenassa the Mature and Sensible who cuts the problem into a digestible size, so to speak. She points out that there's no way of judging over those past happenings in Hammerfell without conducting a proper hearing where both Kematu and Saadia could present their case and be cross-examined. We can't arrange that. Therefore, we ought to disregard that part of the problem completely.

What we can judge is the situation at hand here in Skyrim. I am a thane of Whiterun and Saadia is a law-abiding member of the community. She is making herself useful by doing honorable work as a waitress. Alikrs, on the other hand, are roaming about Skyrim harassing innocent citizens just because they happen to be female and have a dark skin, as we have repeatedly seen with our own eyes. Therefore we must destroy the group of Kematu, so Saadia can get on with her life. If the alikrs were legitimately pursuing a traitor, they could approach the jarl and ask him to extradite her. They may not take the law into their own hands on our territory.

Yes. This makes sense. We'll do it.

We sneak closer and attack without warning. The men clearly didn't expect any danger from us. On the other hand, it's rather dark here and there's very little space, which makes it very difficult for me. We still win, but I'm not feeling too good about all this.

Shockingly, two or three enemies beg for mercy during the battle, but then attack again after we've turned our backs on them. I've never seen such dishonorable behavior before. My decision to help Saadia was evidently right. One enemy surrenders for real and we only take all his gear. He's really handsome, at least from behind, but never mind that. We're leaving.

Our general destination is Solitud. The most convenient route goes through Roriksted that is to our west. We arrive there under partially cloudy but still sunny sky after having been attacked by two sabercats and seen a nice elk on the outskirts. We rest a little and let the children playing on the street tell us the news.

It's still early enough for us to get comfortably to Dunstad Grove and probably even Dragonbridge by tonight. However, I suddenly feel like going to Morpork. It's not too far and we haven't been there for some time and there might be a place or two we haven't yet explored.

My followers point out that it would make more sense to go to Solitud first and visit Morpork on our way to High Hrothgar.

I agree. It does make more sense to inform General Tullius about the peace negotiation plans without delay, and then travel around some, leaving him time for his journey down southeast.

So, we head for Elisdriel.

blue marker – Elisdriel; orange marker – High Hrothgar

Halfway there, we end up having to kill a group of highway robbers, and then we follow the familiar route down the hill and across the streams.

In Elisdriel, I am deeply touched by the sight of a hare who is sitting on the wooden walkway and lets me get very close and take this amazing picture:

Even though I'm not wearing Spriggan Soap today, the cute little animal doesn't seem afraid of me at all. Eventually it still gets up and returns to its hare affairs.

Then we ascend the stairs and admire the view from the platform in front of the entrance. You will probably laugh, but after we've stood there a couple of minutes looking down at the river, I feel I don't want to go anywhere tonight.

The place is so beautiful and soothing. You have no idea.

It's past six in the evening and it's still light. We go back down the stairs to the ground, sit down around a small table, admire our surroundings including that friendly wild boar who lives near this house, and talk late into the night (with each other, not the boar).

next awakening






return to the table of contents

Always Lost, Always Hopeful (7) Pleasing Myself and Others

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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






4-201-08-23 08:23
Uthgerd's House, Hviterun, Whiterun, Skyrim


I summon my followers and we head for the Silent Moons Camp to destroy another group of bandits.

That gang is a little tougher, but my group has grown stronger and we kill the bandits without much difficulty.

Today is my lucky day!

They have a mysterious smithing forge which allows you to craft weapons that absorb health from your enemies at nighttime. Or was it at full moon? Doesn't matter, I don't really care for such lunacy.

In a short distance to the southwest, there's another bandit nest called Redoran's Retreat. That's where we might find the sword stolen from Amren. I was told in Hviterun he had a bad conflict with his wife Saffir... okay, sorry. I meant to say we are going to check that place out before returning to the city for the night.

Around noon, we arrive at a cliff overlooking the entrance of Redoran's Retreat. There is no one about.

Excuse me? You don't even have sentries outside? Guess we'll have to take you by surprise inside then.

We enter the cave and encounter a few bandits whom my followers kill quickly. I'm growing really uncomfortable with having to do practically nothing apart from choosing where to go. However, with the chief of those bandits, I get a chance to prove to myself that I'm not entirely useless. I bring him close to death with two shots and I would certainly kill him with the third if it wasn't for Vera who runs past me a split-second before I release my shot and gets my arrow into her back. I speak very sternly with her afterwards. I explain to Vera that I don't give a rat's ass about time-honored Skyrim fighting traditions. She doesn't need to prove her manhood, I tell her. She needs to work as a member of our team.

Vera seems to understand.

Too bad all the bandits were much too aggressive to be captured and interrogated, but we find a sword that looks like the one Amren described, and the spell indicates it's stolen, so I'm taking it to show Amren.

On our way to Hviterun, we pass by two giant camps with mammoths and we make sure to keep our distance from them. Lydia informs me giants keep mammoths as domestic animals.

Back in the city, I notice I'm really filthy, so I have a bath at The Bannered Mare. When you rent a room, the use of the bath is included, but bathing alone costs 1/3 of the room rate.

After bath, I have a little chat with Olfina Gray-Mane, Thorald's sister:

Jon Battle-Born notices us. By now I've had a chance to learn that I am nowhere near the only woman whom he always greets with a bright smile and disarming cheerfulness. He and Olfina clearly don't care about the conflict between their families – which still doesn't keep her from rebuffing his suggestive wisecrack with a witty retort, apparently a habitual occurrence between the two.

I head upstairs to see if Saadia has mended her ways. She has. No more daggers. She tells me a story of political intrigue which may be true or not. I don't care all that much. What I care about more is that I'm a thane of Whiterun now, that is a member of the local government. I have a responsibility to do my part in keeping public order here. I can't just deliver an inhabitant of Hviterun to some shady outsiders. What she has or hasn't done in a foreign country called Hammerfell is none of my concern.

However, that doesn't mean that I will kill those so-called warriors for her. Maybe I will, maybe I won't. I haven't made up my mind yet.

I go to the palace to report on the destruction of the Silent Moons Camp bandits and get my reward.

Then I meet Ysolda on the street. Once again she talks so sweetly to me, and once again I find her charms irresistible. I ask her if she has a boyfriend. She says she hasn't found anyone suitable. Besides, she feels like having some adventures before settling down. Unfortunately, she is not a warrior like me, but she imagines the life of a traveling merchant can be very fascinating as well.

I take a chance inviting her to my house, and succeed in luring her into bed with me. It's wonderful.

It's probably because my higher self is male that I'm bisexual. I generally much prefer to have a strong man towering above me, but every now and then I find myself fancying one or another attractive woman.

In general, lesbian sex is looked upon very badly. I mean, you don't get stoned to death or anything, but people find it shocking. Sex between a man and a woman is something they can at least understand – that's what people do, it's how we all came to be. But two women getting naked and caressing each other's bodies is something decent people just aren't supposed to do.
However, the beautiful thing is that when you make love to a woman in a house one of you owns, your (and her) reputation doesn't suffer at all. It may seem illogical first, but it isn't.
The thing is, people can't see through walls. When you spend time with a man behind closed doors, people won't actually know what it is you do. All they know is that you lock yourself in, just the two of you, for a sufficiently long time to have sex, so they assume you're up to no good. But a woman visiting another woman in her house is something perfectly normal. When it's in your room at an inn – now, that can set tongues wagging. With a follower, you don't need to worry even about that, because followers, male or female, can be expected to be near you at any time.
Outdoors sex within settlements is, in turn, always risky, because in that case sex is precisely what people can see. No matter how secluded you believe a place to be, you are never 100% safe from children playing hide-and-seek, assiduous guards and such. It's only away from settlements where you can have careless intimacy outdoors.
Unsurprisingly, people are more relaxed about sex in cities than in small villages where everybody knows everybody, but the principles are the same everywhere – as far as I know.

I'm sorry for bothering you with all this, but one needs to keep those things in mind all the time. A woman has to be very careful to not come across as a slut.

Ysolda kisses me goodbye and goes home to sleep. I can't do the same, profoundly happy and relaxed as I may be. I want to take care of that Battle-Born business tonight.

That's the house.

Right now, it's too early, though – quarter past 11. I want to wait at least another hour, to make sure the people in the house are sleeping when I break in. So I walk around in the city and pay a visit to the guard barracks. There's a guard or two who are quite likeable, but I think I prefer Avulstein. I feel kind of sorry for him, and the way he looked at me yesterday, I have no doubt he desires me. Either that or he hasn't had any for a long time. Let's presume the former, okay?

On my way to the House of Clan Battle-Born, I step into the temple of Kynareth. There are several sick people here they are evidently taking care of. The priestess Danica is not yet sleeping. She asks me if I noticed the big tree outside. It's called Gildergreen and it's holy. It stems from an ancient tree called Eldergleam which was blessed by the goddess Kynareth. Gildergreen was planted as a seedling in the early days of Hviterun. Unfortunately, it's dying. Danica believes that in order to revive it, she needs some sap from its parent tree. And the sap can only be obtained by using a very special knife called Nettlebane and it's in a place called Orphan Rock south-southeast of Riverwood.

I don't understand much of Danica's explanation, but I promise I'll try to get that magical knife for her. Then I leave the temple and head for my destination along an empty and quiet street.

My break-in is a complete success. It takes time to search the place and I'm very scared, but I finally find a letter that contains information on Thorald. He is (possibly) kept prisoner in Northwatch Keep, a place unknown to me. No matter. Avulstein will probably know where it is. I'll visit him in the morning.

I return home and go to sleep, very pleased with myself.



next awakening






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Saadia or Kematu?

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SPOILER INFO
Major spoiler as far as the quest In My Time of Need  is concerned. Unless you already know very well who Saadia and Kematu are, please do not read this article.
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In my first game, I sided with Saadia. In the second game (that is, as Deflorator), I was really unsure as to whom to believe. Too bad the quest writer has left his work unfinished – you talk to Saadia, you talk to Kematu, and that's it. There is no way to confront Saadia with Kematu's story. Because of the gaping holes in the quest, I decided that I won't be taken for suckers. Let them fight it out their own way. I shall have no part in it.

After some time, I began having second thoughts. As to the question who was telling the truth and who was lying – I realized the game was giving me no chance of finding that out. But the question relevant to me was – whom I should support at this moment in my game? As to that second question, there were weighty arguments in Saadia's favor:
1. She is a woman, pretty much helpless as women are – her pulling a dagger on me was clearly a laughing matter, and she, a former noblewoman, is leading the modest life of a waitress. Even if she has committed horrible crimes in the past, at the present moment she appears to have neither means nor intention to do anyone any harm. She's a law-abiding citizen who makes herself useful to the community by doing honorable work.
2. The alikrs not just abandoned, but, as it would appear, sneeringly disavowed one of their own (that man in the Hviterun prison) who was "too stupid to get caught". That means the alikrs have no sense of loyalty. They may have a legitimate interest in selecting only the best to serve with them, but nevertheless, decent people don't turn their backs on people close to them. Honorable warriors don't abandon their comrades in arms. The alikrs' behavior shows that they are savage fanatics following nonsensical rules. Even if they are fighting against the Aldmeri Dominion, they're not someone whom I could respect.

So I figured that in the imaginary reality the optimal solution would be to have a serious word with Saadia. (Her refusal to discuss this matter with me was obviously due to the quest writer's sloppiness.) I would tell her that there is no point bullshitting me, I don't believe her story, I think that she is no less dirty than Kematu. But this is Hviterun and I am the thane, and I don't like some shady bandits (they may call themselves mercenaries or a holy order or a secret army, but to me they are a robber gang like any other) harass people in my city. That's why I am going to kill Kematu for her, but she and I will have a life-long agreement that she will, firstly, refrain from doing anything suspicious, and secondly, let me use her body without any grumpiness or back-talk whenever I require it. Either that or get out of my city. And in case she thinks on agreeing to my terms now, but going back on her word sometime in the future, she certainly realizes that I am perfectly able to kill her myself. (I have killed Mikael, a bard at the same inn, inhabiting the room next to hers, haven't I?) And I wouldn't hesitate to wipe her out instantly, should I find evidence of her associating with the thalmors.

My decision practically made, I still got curious and did a web search to find out if the quest has a solution after all. I found this most interesting discussion which makes things very clear.

Firstly, the quest is indeed unfinished and deliberately ambiguous. There is no way to know for sure if Saadia is guilty or not.

Secondly, circumstantial evidence points overwhelmingly at Saadia's being guilty:
1. Hammerfell is hostile to Aldmeri Dominion, so it's not believable that she would have been condemned to death for criticizing the latter.
2. If she was an enemy of the thalmors, it is unlikely that she would have chosen Skyrim (where the thalmors are rather powerful) as a refuge.
3. It is very unlikely that the thalmors would have hired Redguards to hunt down an enemy of theirs.
The third argument is weak. Her story makes it very clear that she is not hunted by the thalmors but by the powers in Hammerfell loyal to the thalmors. Nevertheless, if she is an enemy of the thalmors, the latter should be after her independently as well.
The second argument is not necessarily deciding – it is perfectly thinkable that she found someone who would help her get to Hviterun and she had no chance to escape anywhere else quickly enough, and now she's stuck in Hviterun and it would be too risky for her to travel.
But the first argument is damning. I have to trust the writers on the forums to have told the truth about the Hammerfell-Aldmeri relations, as I am certainly not going to research that. But it sounds credible, because several people said it and no one argued against it.

Overall, there were some very interesting arguments in that discussion which I would like to comment on.

Some people wrote that Saadia pulled a dagger on you while Kematu talked to you in a civilized manner. It is quite amazing how some men (for men they are, of that I am certain) understand people's behavior so poorly that they base their decisions on formal external circumstances. One of them actually wrote "Saadia acts very hostile and aggressive". How psychologically blind can a person get? Is there really a player in the world who actually feels threatened by Saadia in that situation? That dagger thing is comparable to a small child hitting you with a fist. It's cute, not threatening. You laugh instead of taking offence. Saadia's pulling the dagger is an obvious emotional reaction of a cornered, frightened, panicked woman. She knows she has no chance, and once you tell her calmly to put that thing away before she'll get hurt, she apologizes and pleads for your help. Her saying that there is no one she could trust is a rather obvious lie, but it sounds like a normal thing a woman would say to a man whom she is asking for help, so that's not a ground for suspecting her either. As to Kematu being civilized (one retard in the forum siding with Kematu said outright "it comes down to manner[s]"), he is faced with the obvious fact that you have just killed a caveful of rather strong bandits (the ones camped between his location and the cave entrance). He knows he's in big trouble, so he tries to talk his way out of it. Neither Saadia's nor Kematu's behavior has nothing to do with the presence or absence of hostility. To bring an analogy from the real world, when an Italian man is shouting at you and a Japanese man is smiling at you, it doesn't necessarily mean that you have more to fear from the former than from the latter.

Someone wrote how it was so suspicious that Saadia knew about one of the alikrs being imprisoned, and how that was one of the reasons to suspect she was a spy of sorts. That is an outright idiotic thing to say. Of course the imprisonment of a Redguard intruder would be town gossip and as a woman working at an inn she would inevitably get to hear it.

It is incredible that several people suggest that the alikrs are kind of honorable warriors, at the same time admitting that they are mercenaries. Mercenaries kill whomever they are paid to kill. They have their useful purpose, but they are very loosely connected with the concept of honor. "The [alikrs] are definitely more organized than a rabble of bandits" is an irrelevant argument. Mafia is very well organized. That doesn't mean they're not thieves and murderes. On the other hand, those repeated references to alikrs in connection with the nouns such as "values", "honor" and "loyalty" remind me of an otherwise extremely interesting book whose author, a British soldier in Iraq, makes a bombastic remark or two to the effect "I'm a proud Brit, I'm a loyal soldier of my country, I will give my everything to do what I'm paid for ". So maybe that is what the English-speaking world understands under honor and loyalty.

My final verdict is that I will (in the imaginary reality) have that talk with Saadia and kill Kematu for her, but not too soon. Let her fret a bit. And I totally admit that if she weren't a pretty woman, I would put this matter to rest. It just is a biological fact that pretty women can provide for us men significantly more value than men or ugly women, so they correspondingly get more from us. It's life.


P.S. In my next game where I played a woman, I followed a different kind of reasoning.



[originally published 2017-02-21]