"Do you get to the Cloud District very often? Oh, what am I saying? Of course you don't -"

"Nahzeem," I said, holding up my hand, "I'm going there, now." I looked away from him and to the wood chopper guy for Belethor's Goods. I really need myself a hunk of - y'know, I could get it going to Adrienne's blacksmith shop, looking at her bro or what not, not this scrawny dude of a woodchopper.

Anyway, annoying, dark, and mid-height Nahzeem had screwed his nose up at me and left by the time I could turn around and was done daydreaming about men. That stupid blonde woodcutter distracted me. Getting back on track from that, more or less annoyed that I could spot the beauty of men that well, and now that I was walking up the stairs of the Cloud District, I waved to the habitual people of the town.

"Get the cure yet?" A church lady asked, dressed in a cermonial, colory dress: she was priestess, really.

"Uh, sorry...I..." Putting my hands in my pockets, as I was saying it, "I've been a little busy. Will get to it as soon as I can -"

"Miss? You're awesome!" Then in a hushed tone, the little kid at my feet said, "Can you be my mother?" The woman looked at the kid with some crows feet in-eye and nodded with realization. Not that that was what I was busy with, but it was worth distracting me from the woman. I took the girl's hand in mine and walked with her all the way to the bottom of the castle stairs, which were a ways past this courtyard. We swing our hands there all the way. Then I said: "Maybe soon."

"Aw," the kid said, dissatisfied, and I couldn't even give her a single coin since I was trying to save up for the house she wanted: I needed every little I could get.

But this didn't dampen my spirits. It kinda made me happy that any little girl could think a killing machine like me any replication of a mother. But the jarl certified me to do his dirty work, anyway, so I'm not going to fuss. I could tell the girl, that. I was a hitman for the king. I'm sure it would only heighten her girlish fantasies. I walked into the door, and then blushed, looking at a guard on either side of me that already had preconception about me since I was barely a few gold away from being jailed. They were in on the joke, too, so they knew about me getting scared about it. Good for more than one to be in in case I wanted to retaliate then or now: but either way, all of them would jump on me if I was causing rickus. Could never be too sure around these guards. Lydia was my bro, though. "Hey, guards," she said, once again with her weapon's hilt at her hand. They nodded as we went through the doors, me rather cheekily. Just love it when she protects me like that. She's literally a better fighter than me. I should give her something for that - oh, yeah - like that orschich warhammer she still hasn't given back - I mean, kept away for selling? I didn't want it as long as she couldn't have it but for now it was tempting in her using it like that.

The nice sweeping ladies said hi to me once I greeted them. One of them replied, again, "If one of our [Nordic for brooms] gets in your way, let us know."

I nodded. "Sure." Lydia yawned. I copied her. She looked at me with a raised eyebrow.

"Go get yourself in the bed, you sleepyhead," I said, taking this big pile of stuff with me into the cooking room. I'd rather practice since I hadn't actually eaten in days, either. Because I barely had any food left to eat. And therefore, I needed to practice cooking. I took the spoon in my hands and stireed the hot water, aimlessly. Lydia came and sat down, yawning, and I frowned at her. "If you're not helping -"

"Some apple pie, please," she said, putting her feet up on a crate.

I turned back around, annoyed. I decided to do the necessary actions for the pie, and started it on the stove. Bread crust that was helpfully stacked in a paper bag, near, I placed atop the stove, and started chopping the apples. She sighed from their smell. I remembered Uthgerd liked green apples. I growled and cut myself a bit, then said "Gang of marsh thieves." She laughed at me for cutting myself. I turned around, pointing the knife in her direction. "No speaking. Laughing. Anything."

Lydia only laughed again and said, "Carry on."

I returned to the stove and picked a piece of apple up on my knife, chugging it - the apple slice - at her. She brushed it off, her eyes following it hitting her, then the floor, the whole time. I sighed loudly and went back to work. Until a bread loaf hit me in the back. I turned around to see her hand over her mouth, stilling her laugh. I couldn't take it: to end this, I took a sack of flour and dumped it on her mahogany tresses.

The flour smoked up and I coughed. Lydia burst out in laughs. I admit, it was funny I laughed, too. "Frost troll," I commented on her newfound look.

"Rawr," she made creepy hands and hugged my face. I pushed her away only to fail to her encompassing hug. If she was a real ice troll, I'd probably have died, laughably I realized.

"Fatality."

"It's not brutal enough," I laughed.

She grabbed my neck and twisted it slightly as if she was about to break it, but then stopped, laughing. I placed my knife under her chin. "Fatality...if I'd gutted you with this thing," I moved it, swiftly, to her stomach, now, thinking of ideas to end her. She twisted my wrist, pointing the knife at me.

"Or yourself," she said, then slipping it from my grip, getting up from her chair, and dragging me in front of her and whipping back my head like I did that bandit in the mine, "Then I slice you from throat to ribs," she tightened the steel into my epiglottis. I laughed while stuffed, my back to her, to her chest, and then grabbing for her scabbarded sword, I did, before someone walked in, and dropped a plate of what sounded like, I could tell you: turkey (leg), peas (sugar snap kind), and a steamed carrot (the big, whole kind that's unchopped).

"Your Thane is not getting murdered," I smiled, blindly to the guy paces behind Lydia, "carry on."

The guy stepped out slowly as Lydia's accidentally tight grip drew blood. That kind of thing, knives on my skin, was annoying. I slipped her sword from her scabbard on her left side and slit her fur armor, drawing some red stuff from her shoulder as I swung up the sword. "Ah," she said, letting go o' me. I couldn't believe I was better than her, however. "How about we fight less dirty," I said, turning around, now, to face her and dropping my sword. A large growling squirty sound ruptured through the room, making me stare at her. I regretfully got back to cooking for the sake of Lydia's stomach.

She was picking at her scar while I was cooking, and I mine, maybe because the wafting smoke irritated it. When I was done I plopped the golden pastry on her plate and picked the latter, up. I surveyed her calculating glance then put the plate down, lowering my obvious threat of pie-smashing her with her own treat. But that didn't mean I wouldn't hit her with my own pie. By the time I looked at mine, though, I'd gulped it all, and my pie was sadly gone before my eyes.

I burped silently, then she let out a loud one, looking at me, daring me to tell her to say excuse me. She picked the wrong time for a challenge. I couldn't fight on a full stomach.

What did this girl owe me? I just made her a nice, bold apple pie. Well, she could at least get some sleep. I pointed to the other aide of the castle, near Jarl headquarters. "Sleep, lady."

"Heh," she scoffed, "this ain't my place anymore. I can't just sleep here, anymore than you can. He gave me the ability to follow you and act as a second limb, just as he gave you the security of buying a house -"

"What'cha say, huh?" I dropped my erect index."You mean...?"

Lydia nodded, her arms already crossed. "Curse you, loyal dog," I said to her, walking out of the dining hall that we arrived in after the kitchen, and then storming into the mage's room. I pointed to his floor; Lydia raised an eyebrow - all the times she did that made my skin crawl - what, was she deaf?

"I always took you for a mage," the Court one said to me, his eyes alertly aware of us. More not "intruder" wise, but extremely high EI wise, and it didn't make me feel uncomfortable since I could feel where he was coming from. I had a high EI, too. He was on to me - or I to him - he was definitely hot, so I hope he didn't read minds. I loved hanging out in his office when I did for that sake. I placed my knocked-up knuckles on his alchemy desk and began to chant something under my breath. That's not how you did alchemy, chanting, but it helped me focus.

I'm making a healing necklace: from the times that I'd been transmuting ore and working at Adrienne's blacksmithing facility, I'd been gathering precious necklaces of my own work. Now, I was willing to sale them for as much as they were worth - 165 gold. Each. This ring I made, silver, was only 50 - so garnering it with a special enchantment was likely to boost it up to at most, 95.

I went to work, making all the unnecessary things like grunts and cries and jerks as if electricity was flowing painfully through my veins, and then I finally made it: enchanted jewelry. The mage glared at me, annoyed, then asked if I was going to buy something from him. I gave him my jewelry, detaching my hand from the green-glowing table, and plopping the shiny stuff in his hand. "This'll be 300." "All of it?" "Yes." He pulled his pouch flap open and dug in for the change -

"Wait," I held out my hand. "What about that necklace? I have three. Each is worth 160."

"No - its only worth 90. The ring is 75."

"Wha -"

"You want your money or do you want to spite me?"

Lydia, please chop this man's head off before I throw him into a pond of mudcrabs, I prayed to her in her deep sleep. She merely turned over on her self-made pallet on the floor and sighed. I turned back to the mage, smiling. Gripped his hand, hard, and scrapped the change into my hand: yes, his look at me told me he thought I was crazy. Good mage, to think that. Very good. I forced the change into my pocket and googly-eyed the jewelry that I worked SO hard on that was now resting in his spindly, ivory, authoritative hands. Figured I'd better get better bartering skills, fast, or...I mean what? Want me to beat it out of him?

I wanted him to live - he was live estate.

Sell him my soul gems? Please: he charged triple zeros to normal people like me to buy those things from him, and I'd rather keep mine. That's how I made enchantments, through soul gems: I wasn't putting myself out of business.

I could visit Adrienne and her hunky brother, now, to generate some cash. I usually made great profit at her store, making steel armor, at least two sets every time I visited: I had that much steel ore. I turned it into ingot, and hammered it silly, no, pretty, to sell. I was always looking for materials to add to my blacksmithery, and even jewelry.

It takes your own stuff to make your own stuff: good for a hoarder like me, but even I couldn't collect enough stuff to make an actual living off of it, but I would today. I needed a house. Lydia's slobbery, onto the mage's pillow, denoted that much.

I slept right beside her, eyeing Mage.

* * * Zzz

I woke up, and Lydia was already awake. I blushed at the fact that I was more tired than her: perhaps she had more Zzzs than I did, however, from her head start. I grabbed my bags that I'd stripped of before I went to sleep, and then stifled a laugh when the Mage yawned, waking up himself, on the other side of his office. So that's where he slept.

Before really getting into how to play a prank (but I'd never steal from him even if he was asleep - he was a master mage, and so scary), I just stretched out my calves, with this stupid junk on my back, and cried silently to myself for not having a house. Lydia was filing her nails with the Mage's nail filer but clanked it back on his desk as he snatched a glance over to us. Picking up anything in Skyrim that wasn't yours was literally a death sentence, if you didn't know how to flee. Even sleeping somewhere you weren't supposed to was, but Mage was being nice to me (his name, too complicated to remember, I rather didn't, so hence the plain nickname). We headed out after I saluted the Jarl who sported another hilarious filament on his face - egg yellows (well, if they aren't white, what do you call them? And is filament a good word?).

We went and got a nice breeze outside, and I took off my helmet, stretching my jaw at the marks it'd made on my face when I slept in it, and then grimaced at a screeeam. Not from a human, a dragon.

Please don't mind that the last chapter was named Hilde, and there was no Hilde. We're getting there: right after I defeat this dragon.

Not edited, yet. Excuse. And carry on. :) And fatalities are totally Mortal Kombat's thing >.< Speaking of, anybody like Mortal Kombat X? XD I know nothing of the console it came out on. Hopefully it's not strictly new gen ^^ Cause I aint got a PS4444444! (Or Xbox 1, but I ain't got an Xbox anyway. I'm a PS girl. Mainly. Anyone else like that? XD. P.S. Did I tell you, @A_Wheeler is awesome? Not a fanfic author, but awesome. 

And comment about how much you liked this chapter, plzzz. I need to see who likes this inner weirdness of mine :)) Thanks...really. :D