Gibu
Summary: Kazahan is unfriendly.
Long ago I was young,
I travelled on my own,
then I turned astray in my paths:
I thought myself rich
when I found another,
man is man's entertainment.
— Wardruna, Gibu
"Ah, you're a big one, you are!"
He flinched, and drew his sword, and swung it through the air to his right.
"Eep! Hold on will ya! I won't try nothin', I won't!"
A red haired girl was on the ground, her back to a tree and one hand raised to forestall her imminent demise and the other covering her face. When a moment passed and she was not butchered, the fingers of the latter spread out, exposing one twinkling blue eye. When he continued to stand there and glower at her, the hand fell away to reveal a freckled, white face that could only be described as 'mischievous'.
He should know, being Khajiit. Their own counterpart to Talos Stormcrown being quite literally a god of mischief and cleverness instead of an Emperor turned God.
"Sorry for the fright," she said cheekily as she stood and brushed the dirt and pine needles from her legs and rear. "But you should probably pay more attention to your surroundings, you should."
He didn't move, and she looked a bit put out. She'd caught him by surprise, but he hadn't missed the slight red glow hidden by the grass at his feet. A rune.
Mages were troublesome to fight. So he avoided fighting them when he could, like now.
She looked up at him, craning her neck back.
"I didn't know they made Khajiit this big," she said in wonder. He looked down on her, sheathed his sword and turned to walk away. "O—oi! That's not very friendly! I really am sorry, you know; you're the first person I've seen in days and I couldn't help myself, I couldn't!"
He continued walking.
"Oh don't be like that!" her voice shook; she was trotting to keep up with him. "The night's coming on, don't walk in it, so many beasties and rude folk out and about you know... I'll cook you a supper!"
He stopped.
"This one is very hungry," he grunted and turned around. She was slightly red in her face now, but she was nodding quickly.
"You'll not be hungry 't all when you're done eatin' my cooking, you won't!" she exclaimed cheerily, her spirits now returning in force that she had found some manner of keeping him.
"This one is very hungry," he said again, for emphasis. She almost nodded again without hesitation and then stopped, her eyes widening a bit as she took in how much larger he was than her.
"All right, all right, point taken. I've enough to feed you though I'll be low on supplies I will," she sighed. "But I don't eat with strangers unless I'm famished myself: the name's Ursula Beirne, (Bear-nyuh, she said, and he could her the history of irritating mispronunciation she'd had to deal with) magess-extraordinaire."
She stuck out her hand, and he looked at it in bemusement for a long moment.
"Khajiit is called Kazahan Raihasin."
He did not take her hand. She dropped it and shrugged.
"You're not a friendly sort of fellow are you?" she said, her hands going to rest on her hips, but shifting her weight back and forth from one leg to the other. Kazahan wondered if it was the magicka in her system that made her so antsy.
"What warned you of this? The sword and knife at my hip, or the greatsword at my back? Or perhaps it was the bow? You are quite unafraid for this one to believe he is unfriendly."
She laughed. It was such a happy sound; he had forgotten that people could make such noises.
"It's the shield on your back, actually. I saw a bounty for a bandit-chief who'd become known for having a shield with a distinctive hawk painted on it. I suppose that's a little collection of fingers with rings and other parts in that bag on your hip," she said, pointing. "Mercenaries aren't the friendliest people. But they're usually a sight better than bandits."
She gestured, and led him back along the road to a trail that wound up into the mountains. He followed; she had offered to feed him, and she didn't look wealthy enough to warrant a robbery and murder. She kicked at something hidden under a bush as she passed it. It was a dead man, burnt and wholly charred.
He offered no prayers.
"On your way back to collect?" she asked while they entered her camp, clearly disliking silence. He wondered how she'd managed to sneak up on him with such a proclivity, but remembered that mages could simply cast spells to make themselves silent.
Troublesome.
"Oh come on," she said as he remained silent. "Don't be such a mud-crab."
"Yes," he said, irritation coming out into his voice. He sat on the ground by her tent and pulled a whetstone and his knife out to keep himself busy. "This one is going to collect."
"Huh," she 'huh'ed, and set a pot onto the spit over her fire. With a wave of her hand, a globe of water manifested over the pot and after a moment of hanging in the air it fell into the pot with a splash and hisses where water had missed and hit the fire itself. "You any good, are you?"
"Do you wish to hire me?"
"Nah," she laughed, cutting up a thick hunk of venison. "You're a big fellow, and I mainly clean out tombs and the like. You'd only get in the way down in those tunnels and small rooms. More'n a few times I've caught myself and my allies in the blast of a rune or gout of flames or ice — accidentally mind you, no matter what Vilnjar, that rotten worm-ridden son of a diseased nag and a clam with syphilis, says."
He grunted, revising his estimation of her skills. She knew what she was about at least.
"You are a bitter, unfriendly fellow," she said again. He looked at her nonplussed. "I can't carry on a conversation by myself! And I've been desperate for another soul I can speak to. Skyrim can be a desolate place it can. Tell me something about yourself. There's got to be something you enjoy talking about."
"No."
"What about your family? How was that?"
"Khajiit was born in a caravan that was destroyed by a sandstorm. I wandered for four days before being found by bandits who put this one to work."
"Oh. Sorry." A pause. "Well (gods no) what about your homeland? I could go on about High Rock. Where are you from?"
"This one is banned from his homeland. Khajiit is in exile here, completely alone, and memories of home are bitter and painful to recall. No."
She frowned, her brows pinching together in thought as she stirred the pot of venison stew. Silence finally fell, and Kazahan gratefully went back to whetting his knife.
"Wait."
His hand clenched around the haft of his knife.
"You're alone? You have no one? Not a single friend? That's not right at all!"
He looked up to see a large bowl of steaming stew held in front of his face, and Ursula's irritatingly cheerful expression behind it framed by the dimming sky and the glow of the fire.
"I'll be your friend, Kazahan!"
He took the bowl and looked at her and her thoughtless grin.
"No."
"What?" she asked, looking as if someone had knocked her brains loose with a blow to the face for a short moment before her eyes began glittering and her brows fell over her eyes and her mouth puckered into an angrily disbelieving expression. "What do you mean, 'no'?"
"You do not know me. You are a foolish, naive little girl who will get herself killed sooner rather than later. Khajiit will not be killed also because of your foolishness."
Her eyes widened, her face flushed, and she screeched wordlessly. He handed her the empty bowl.
"More."
Three days later, in Falkreath, he found a note in his bag after he'd been paid for his bounties:
Thanks for the company! Here's to a long and prosperous friendship, you ugly mix of a cross-eyed sabercat and a mentally deficient troll with the intelligence of the troll and the grace of the sabercat. I'll be by Falkreath in a day or so; wait for me and we can travel together!
Ursula.
Three weeks later he met Ursula again outside of Solitude, and she tried to pluck out one of his whiskers when he told her he'd thrown the note away without a second look.
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