Two Tigers from Hammerfell

[Akasha]

The bear was far too heavy to move it more than a few yards downhill from where it had fallen, but that was enough to get it off the path and into the shelter of an ancient, naked fir tree while they began dressing the kill. Ashira crouched down with a hunting knife and bled the beast out from the throat while Akasha gathered wood for a fire and a curing frame. On the way she found a bloody haunch of the elk Ashira had shot - hardly the bounty they'd been celebrating, but better than nothing. They set the meat roasting under Wulthgar's care while the two Khajiit sisters attacked the bear pelt, painstakingly carving the hide away from fat and muscle and tendon, then scraping off the ichor that remained.

While flies gathered over the carcass, Akasha peeled off her armor to reveal a bony frame in a gray, knee-length, sweat-stained shift that was slit up the back to accommodate her tail. A life of agrarian labor and five years' training with a sword had wrapped her in a sleek sheath of muscle, but she was still gangly and awkward like an adolescent wolf, all limbs and ribs and coarse fur that hadn't quite come into full coat. She stooped into a cold brook that tumbled down the mountain nearby and scrubbed furiously at the spikes of blood on her hands and arms, then dipped her muzzle in to drink deeply. Then she returned to the fire and sat down cross-legged, relishing the waves of dry heat, which reminded her of the winds that blew out of the Alik'r Desert in her homeland.

"This one could eat a whole sand buffalo and then sleep for a week," she said, closing her eyes. "How far is it to Falkreath? This one has lost track."

[Ashira]

Having allowed herself a moment of rest from the grisly work of skinning, Ashira leaned back against the trunk of a smaller tree. Her bow and quiver had been placed at her side, and amusing herself with the bearclaws that they had removed from the kill, she sent a look from over the tops of her eyes to Wulthgar. If any of their small party were to know, then it was him.

As it was, the scent of the elk as it cooked was something that tugged at her stomach with a fierce vengeance.

A moment later and she had set the claws down, and leaning forward, the Khajiit used the motion to roll herself into a crouch while gesturing to Wulthgar.

"That one would know the answer to that, I would wager," she spoke, lifting an hand up to pull at the straps and buckles holding her own leather armor on her frame.

[Wulthgar Milk-Drinker]

"Indeed I do."

Upon hanging his dampened pantaloons across a branch nearest the open fire, Wulthgar walked bare-arsed to his pack donkey, retrieving a fresh pair from his wardrobe duffel, and spending a moment to fasten the buttons and draws with his back facing the sisters, offering some modicum of decency.

"It is but a small distance down through the valley to the southeast. Follow the gentle slope through the forest, and it is unmissable. But, curious..."

Returning with fresh pants and a pair of wineskins, the diminuitive Nord sat at the fire, offering one of the rations of libation to his Khajit companions.

"Did you not travel through Falkreath? It is the most efficient means to make the journey from Elseweyr, by means of Cyrodiil."

[Akasha]

A glob of fat dripped off the elk haunch and into the fire with a hiss and a plume of smoke. Akasha's eyes opened, and her belly groaned. She reached for her pile of armor and supplies, drew an iron dagger, sliced off a strip of fibrous meat from the bone, not caring that it was still red, and juggled the smoking venison in her claws until it was cool enough to eat.

"But these ones did not come from Elsweyr," Akasha replied. "Our home is in Hammerfell, near Elinhir. We crossed the pass at Knifepoint Ridge just hours ago. This one has never seen Elsweyr. Or even Cyrodiil. Or anything but Hammerfell, really."

Only then did she see notice the light of warning in Ashira's eyes, and she remembered her sister's warnings about being too free with strangers concerning their business in Skyrim.

[Ashira]

The glance had been sent in caution, and no words were needed. As her outer layers of leather armor were stripped off, Ashira was meticulous as she placed each piece upon the ground, folding along joint rivets and making sure that nothing was out of place. A tan under-linen clung to her own frame, and stepping past the fire, she paused only long enough to grasp a small bit of still-sizzling meat between two claws.

She crouched at the bank of the small creek, popping the elk into her mouth before sending both hands into the water. It was cool and invigorating, A few moments later she cupped a handful, bringing it up to drink eagerly. Three times this process was repeated, until she was satisfied. The Khajiit shifted then, angling herself so that she could look back at her sister and the Nord.

[Wulthgar Milk-Drinker]

"Ah."

A dawning understanding filled Wulthgar's eyes as he gestured across at Akasha casually.

"It would explain the mismatched scabbard, then. A curved curiosity quite native to the lands of the Redguard."

He watched Ashira with bemusement, noting she took no offered wine, but rather drank directly from the creek.

"You do not take wine? You have the admirable temperance of a Vigilant, please excuse my debasement. The recent and most intimate reminder of my own mortality has made me doubly fond of excess."

With a rose-cheeked smirk, the Nord quaffed from his skin, and occasional dribble of purple dropping down his chin before he lowered the skin, and wiped his chin clean with the back of a hand.

"Have you traveled to Skyrim seeking fortune and glory?"

[Akasha]

The wine tempted Akasha, and her eyes lingered on the skin that Wulthgar offered. But if her sister was abstaining, perhaps it was best that she did as well. The Nord had offered no offense, but he was a man who dealt in poison, after all. She turned the leg of elk on its spit and set about slicing more portions from the side that was properly cooked.

"Yes," she said, not trusting herself to say more without saying too much.

[Ashira]

Ashira rose from her crouch, and moved back to the fire once more.

"Fortune and glory," she started, lowering herself to sit cross-legged beside Akasha, "is certainly one way to look at it."

Reaching over to take the second wineskin, she hesitated for a few moments, then uncorked it with ease and turned it up for a quick sip before handing it to her sister.

"For now we simply travel."

[Wulthgar Milk-Drinker]

Wulthgar was not accomplished at reading the tells of a Khajit's mood, though his imagination might interpret their stiff postures and jerking puffed tails to be a symptom of minds ill at ease.

"If my questions bring offense, I apologize. As I mentioned, my true trade is that of a bard and a wordsmith. It is my nature to ask such things. Litter Maidens of Hammerfell of Ebony Sword and Bow, already the seeds of a song I imagine some may wish to hear. Though I, like my audience, do not yet know your names."

[Akasha]

Akasha's ears went up like signal flags at the mention of a song. She'd expected there would be songs, of course, but she'd never dared to imagine it happen within hours of crossing the Dragontail Mountains - already the small Nord's silver tongue was weaving a verse about them, and she found herself wanting desperately to hear more.

She only just noticed Ashira passing her the wineskin, and when she took it, there was a glint of mischief in her topaz eyes. She threw back her head and let the wine flow freely down her throat - three large gulps, and she lowered the skin and wiped off her whiskers with the back of her arm, grinning like a crescent moon.

"It is only polite," she said. "This one is called Akasha. That one is Ashira. Our family name would mean nothing to you or your audience, as we have done nothing of any real note. Yet."

She inclined her head meaningfully toward the dwarf and held out the wineskin, asking implicitly whether he wanted it back.

[Ashira]

Leaning back so that she was propped up on her elbows, Ashira let her head fall back and her eyes close, breathing in deeply of the air. The scents of nature and the cooking elk, the sounds of birds and foliage rustling all around, it was all still so new and very nearly intoxicating. This northern land was lush and fresh, crisp and airy.

That Wulthgar professed to being a bard was enough to cause one ear to tick in his direction, and the Khajiit let out a long breath from between pointed teeth.

"Share these song seeds," she spoke easily, lips pulled back in a sly grin as her eyes remained closed.

[Wulthgar Milk-Drinker]

Wulthgar politely deferred receiving the wine skin, indicating to another full one for his own enjoyment. At Ashira's beckoning a gleam seemed to sparkle in his eye as he retrieved his lute from his pack, giving a few tuning strums as he considered the request.

"And that is what these words shall be, Ashira. But seeds, are they. Given freely, I only ask they are well-watered and nourished with tales to make them grow. That, my good ladies, I leave to your capable hands. But if your deeds are true, and by the mercy of the Divines, what a wonderful creation shall spring forth from this humble seed. Now..."

The Nord cleared his throat, and began to put together an opening melody.

"O lovers of heroes, gather forth from the cold
Come hear of two Khajit so beguiling and bold
From far Hammerfell did our shield-maidens hail
Both stout of courage, and nimble of tail
Akasha and Ashira, much laud do I bring
May your arrows fly true and your swords always sing
To Skyrim you answer the adventurers call
And fore long shall this song play in ev'ry mead hall"

[Akasha]

The fur on Akaha's neck stood up as Wulthgar began to sing. She had no talent for words herself - certainly not like her older sister, who had been reading since she could hold a book, and who could speak like a man or mer when the mood took her. But this was something else entirely. It was nothing like the low, crooning mantras their mother had sung over the cookfire in the evening, or the rhythmic, lilting chants their father and brothers and cousins used to keep time while swinging a scythe or a rake or a mattock in the fields. It was a little closer to the raucous songs raised by the Redguard warriors in the guild halls in Elinhir, but their voices were coarse and off-key, and they struck all the notes like a warhammer crushing skulls, to the point that the tune not so much carried as gang-tackled.

But Wultghar's voice was clear and bold like a hunting horn, rich like wine and sweet like honey, and the melody was heroic and haunting all at once. A real bardic song, and they were in it. And he'd even put her name ahead of her sister's!

Ahem. That was inconsequential, of course. One of them had to be first.

"These ones will make it a song worth sharing," Akasha said with confidence. "And as you have spent your precious poison, this one would be honored to accept the other terms of your bargain. Lodging in Falkreath for our company and our arms. What do you say, sister?"

[Ashira]

Eyes still closed and her head angled up to the sky, Ashira let a silence hang in the air as she considered the deal. It was much more palatable than the original fifty septims, and as neither had been to Falkreath yet, it seemed the most prudent course of action. Finally, the Khajiit leaned up and forward, deep yellow eyes coming open as her head dipped back down to look first at Akasha. A small nod in agreement to her sister.

"That is agreeable to me, yes."

She turned to regard the dwarf, and taking up the second wineskin, took a healthy measure from it. She swallowed.

"We shall go to Falkreath then."

[Wulthgar Milk-Drinker]

Wulthgar's eyebrows bobbed conspiratorially as he glanced from one Khajit to the other, and his grin could not be contained.

"Are we well sated, then? Bellies full, and both skins and pantaloons suitably dried? The travel should be agreeable, so long as we stay fast to the road. There are threats that loom larger than wildlife in the deep wood, so staying thy adventurous souls may be prudent."

The little Nord stood, hoisting his wineskin on high to quaff down the remnants until it was depleted. Finished with the wine, he stowed the empty skin and proceeded to inspect the state of his previous pair of pants. Suitably dried, though no-doubt they would require a fuller's attention once in town.

"Then let us sojourn on. I fear my trusty steed only carries so much liquid merriment, and we shall wish to continue our good cheer in a more suitably enclosed venue."

With a grunt and a heave, Wulthgar once more saddled upon the ill-tempered ass, and goaded it along towards the roadway. The Khajiti bundled their haul and doused their fire, following the bard's lead along the road. Through the sloping wooded hills they traveled as the sun moved past it's zenith and headed down toward the horizon. What little good sunlight they enjoyed on their travels was soon hidden behind a thickening soup of mist as they continued to traverse the foothills.

"Across the distance there, that great body of water is Lake Ilinalta. I imagine the Khajit appetite for fish eclipses even the Nordic affinity, and you shall find no shortage. Be mindful of the ruined keep at the northeastern shore, if you take to water. It has become an abode for those with a taste for fell magics."

Wulthgar tsked, shaking his head.

"And towards the north, further through the mountain passes, you shall find Helgen. An agreeable enough hamlet well provisioned with mead made of juniper berries. Even better provisioned with comely Nordic girls with hair of straw and bosoms of mountainous proportion."

He cast Ashira a wink as they continued.

[Akasha]

Akasha wasn't sure why Wulthgar thought they'd be interested in the distribution of Nordic girls or the proportions of their bosoms, but she made note of all the places he mentioned and compared them to her memories of the faded map of Skyrim that Ashira had packed among her supplies. It was another of their uncle's possessions, but it had been old when he'd acquired it, and she didn't doubt it needed updating.

However, the places the sisters were chiefly interested in were older still.

"This one has heard that Skyrim is littered with ancient ruins and burial halls," she said. "And that great treasures may be found in such places. Is this true? Or is it an embellishment made for songs and tales?"

[Wulthgar Milk-Drinker]

The bard gave Akasha a look of mock injury.

"You grieve me, my hirsute adventuress. To suggest the tales passed down from my forefathers - some as old as the warrior poets of Ysgramor's fabled band - are anything less than truth? Well..."

Unable to keep his feigned offense up for long, Wulthgar merely shrugged.

"The best song and stories alike are built upon truth. That isn't to say they are true throughout. No, then we wordsmiths would be consigned to the dustbin of historians."

The bard made a dour expression at the thought, then his expression brightened somewhat.

"If I may use a culinary metaphor. Consider the truth of a thing as the meat and potatoes in your pot. Filling and nutritious no doubt, but in and of themselves and the flavor is rather dull. To be a worthy meal, one requires a dash of spice and salt. If such a dash is a storyteller's own artistic invention, then the tales we hear and pass on are a prosaic banquet befitting both the hunger for knowledge and the taste of the fantastic."

Rather pleased with his explanation, Wulthgar's self-satisfied smile evaporated somewhat as his expression turned thoughtful.

"Ah, but I haven't quite answered your question, friend. To that, I can only say perhaps so. If you're asking if I've seen the spot where the traitor king Olaf was lain, and where his plunder was hoarded, you will forgive me if I am light on first-hand account. If such crypts are not ridden with draugr or fell enchantments, then I suspect they are thick with bandits and cutthroats. I am ill equipped to combat either, sadly."

[Ashira]

Listening intently, Ashira chose to remain silent for now. While his words were roundabout and flowered with great care, she both admired his knack for speech yet couldn't help but be annoyed at it. He could've simply said one sentence and been done rather than filling their ears to the brim. Either way, his answer - though long-winded - was still one that at least gave her some heart. The stories that they had been told weren't completely false, and the chance of ancient places to be found was marginally high. It lifted her spirits well enough, and the Khajiit rocked her shoulders back as the small group continued on.

She could smell smoke in the distance, carried with the gentle breezes that shook the foliage on either side of the well-traveled road. It was a mix of woodsmoke and something else - something with a hint of metallic that seemed to travel down the back of her nostrils and settle on her tongue. And while it was still a very faint sensation, it was still unpleasant. It also told her that there was a smith in Falkreath.

A sideways look to Akasha.

"Soft beds this night, yes?"

[Akasha]

"That will be glorious," Akasha said with a lopsided smile. The wine she had drunk so freely earlier was now sloshing warmly in her veins, and her steps were a little less even than usual, but she kept pace easily with her sister and the donkey. As the evening sky deepened overhead, she could make out clusters of flickering lights through the trees, which soon resolved into torches and watchfires at the edges of an ancient town of stone and wood, of sharply angled eaves that stretched to the sky, of crowded buildings that pinched the alleys in between into blind corners and secretive cul-de-sacs.

It was, as they drew closer, a good deal less grand than Akasha had pictured. The wooden walls appeared to lean just slightly out of plumb, and where they weren't pocked with knotholes they had been patched by planks that had weathered a different color from the rest, and the foundations of all the buildings were slathered in the same dismal gray mud that seemed to mire the entire Hold. No, grand was not the right word at all. Dismal, perhaps, unsavory, or rakish at a pinch. But to Akasha, it was first and foremost somewhere new, a town full of unknown quantities promising discovery and adventure in every crooked street.

She almost missed the guards approaching with their stag-emblazoned shields. "Hold there, Khajiit. Where do you think you ladies are going?"

[Wulthgar Milk-Drinker]

A small hand brushed Akasha's shoulder as Wulthgar wordlessly asked her to defer to him. Pulling his donkey up a few steps, the little Nord cast what could almost be a stoic image if he wasn't a dwarf and laughably sat upon a donkey. He raised a hand before him in greeting to the guardsmen.

"Well met, kinsmen. Be at ease. The sisters Khajit are my friends and guests. We seek respite from the road at the Dead Man's drink. A warm hearthfire. A spot of hearty supper. An indecent quantity of mead, and lodging sufficient to sleep it off."

The Falkreath guards were inscrutable behind their pointed helms, only glancing occasionally to each other and then back to Wulthgar.

"Wait...I know you."

At last, a flicker of recognition! The bard's expression turned smug.

"I'm sure you do. There's not a mead hall in the province that hasn't been held enraptured by my lyrical virtuosity. The clarion call of my flute. The aetherial quality of my lute hand. The..."

"You're that cherry-faced milk drinker what nicked the septims off Rolgeir Broad-Axe."

The smug expression evaporated on Wulthgar's face, replaced by a blank look, and then suddenly a face of bewildered recollection.

"Oh, that."

The guard who remembered Wulthgar promptly reached for the bard, plucking him from his donkey unceremoniously.

"We don't suffer no sneakthiefs in this hold, little man. Lucky for you, the jail is rent free."

Mind working fast, Wulthgar looked at his feet as he muttered.

"Weren't any measure of sneakthievery that sung Rolgeir's woe. Twas a fair game of chance that he lost. If this is how he should seek his recompense, then he's lower than worms, I say."

The guards weren't having anything of it, and began to haul Wulthgar away. The bard suddenly looked to his bewildered companions, a tinge of desperation rising in his voice.

"My good ladies...would you please find my purse well-hidden beneath my pack mule's saddle?"