To get buff and join the Companions, of course. What, you didn't know that's what this was for? It makes for a good training ground, I tell you that, and I picked up a battleaxe and grunted while heaving it up to my height. Farkas gave me a weird look before leaving me at the Jorvaskrr and telling me to hurry up and meet him at Dustman's Cairn for my test. It wasn't anything I haven't done, killing draugr, or dead, live skeleton beings as weak as my right arm (I was left-handed...but okay not a good analogy since both my arms were pretty strong as of recent because of all my heavy-hauling the big weapons.).

I felt a fever of some sort. Maybe it was the carrying the axe as I haven't done one in so long, except for in an adrenaline rush against the annoying dweebs of Joravaskrr. I placed it over my shoulder now and held my breath as my stitches chaffed my skin from the pull of them on my stomach. Aaggh, that hurt like heck. I switched the axe to my left shoulder. Still pretty normal pain, but it didn't pull on my stomach as much for me to hold the axe with my left hand. I exhaled, and noticed peole cracking up at me with their faces stuffed in the food I'd abandoned a while ago for anger purposes. "Yo, come at me if you got the strength."

"We don't need all that," said Aela. "Just do whatever you gotta do." Now I understood everyone's corrections. They were to get you straight, not mock you. I did what Aela said: I slept. In another bed (we didn't have names on these as newbies). I can imagine the groan someone made when they saw the only bed left to sleep on was my original one. Wet fur is comfortable in its own ways, though...

The lights came on because of some frightened dweeb that didn't know how to get up without waking the rest of the population, once it was early. I, too, woke up in the newbie dorm of crude hide bedclothes and no animal head platters of pride or drawers of fine clothes because they were all gone or any books on the shelves because no one dared leave their belongings they wanted to read and no one else steal...or these guys were either stupid and didn't want to read and therefore that absent stock of books. The room was so plain that it starkly contrasted a permaneant settlement rather than a temporary one. No one seemed to want to live in here. They were going to get their own place with the money these Companion contracts gave them.
Right...if most of them could even do most of the contracts instead of bailing out after one kill or on some shady deal someone gave the Companions.

But the seniors here were well prepared for any of that and willing to teach us, while giving us death looks if we tried to sleep in their beds, and constantly warned us against stealing any of their belongings. In Skyrim, people wanted to live and would do any of that to. But as you've seen, I ration out fun and food so that I only need more of then first to sustain me, and rest is almost nonexistent and unneeded when I can simply nod off at any time or simply go on until my adrenaline wears off...or something happens that makes me extremely sleepy forces me to sleep that I can't even go on without some rest.

So this rest today was really a healing and a sleep purpose that I took. For why would I want to prolong my healing process? And all that fighting and those injuries...they would make me sleepier while I was awake. So yeah. Sleep now and rampage later was my motto for now.

My mind raced to the weapons rack and I took on a hilt belt for this battleaxe I picked up at this same rack after Farkas talked to me yesterday...and today I strapped the belt over my chest and the axe on my back. The weight of it all felt good: like some sort of steady balance I hadn't felt in a long time, physically and mentally. I was myself again - I went to a mirror in a restroom in the facility and added on some warpaint on my face, around my eyes, thanks to whoever left warpaint on the sink. I haven't seen my face in a mirror in - whew. My hair was matted.

I combed out the naps with what I believe was a family comb...this was a public relieving area and not, say, someone's private bathroom. I put some oil in my hair (thanks to the convenient jar on the sink as well) to make my curls perfect. So when I looked at my scalp and saw dandruff, I understood that's why the oil felt so good. 'Cause I had needed some for a long time.

I exhaled loudly, expelling my tension in my shoulders and chest from the heavy weapon and apprehension I felt for my mission. I haven't swung an axe in...forever.

I was just as bad as a guy with performance anxiety in his lower region. Except my pleasure and pride in life was in my weapon and how well I could use it and protect my life. Going to a barrow, skeletons or not there, was a trap that would either backfire on me or the creatures within it. And I wasn't putting myself, or Farkas who's protecting me and not just sitting around, in danger, there. None of us need to be dying when people need us. And that was going to be my inspiration until I come out of there.

Until I could go there confident, I needed to rack up on my defense and offense. My housecarl rejected me when I went to talk to her because I was legally in service with another person right now: Farkas. I went to Uthgerd, next, with my business face on and she only stuffed her face with the hot Inn bread and spoke through her stuffed face that she couldn't accompany me on my trip to the Cairn, either. It would be wrong to take his place, was her excuse, the place of my Companion accompanier. I wondered how they knew anything about my situation I just happened to get myself in, but I guess its been pending for a while and they just found out. Or something.

So since my weapons and things were still at the Mare, I went back to it and brought a bag into there to pack what I needed, approximately necessary medicines and potions and some spell tomes and scrolls for the creepiness I'd have to face at the Cairn (which was a.k.a. devilish figures that walk around and yet aren't ghosts, there). And I just kept the weapon I already had. I had only so much ability to carry these things, so I had to be wise. Good thing my weapon on my back was the heaviest thing, individually, so far. Oh, yes, I also decided to take my Ancient Nordic Bow...

And I exhaled loudly at Farengar's efforts to make me his caged pet, however, when I had went back. The little annoying physician. He wasn't one, but he saved my life. As soon as I was done packing and left Inn the room, I guess the look of me inside of a dress eluded him and he didn't notice me when I first entered the Inn, he came to me and shook me, hard.

His hands on my shoulders, firmly, triggered a defense mechanism that I stayed because I new it was him. "Farengar? What are you are doing?" I told the man, and he brought me close to him, and I pasted my hands to his chest from the toddle side-to-side I just did.

"Where were you? You could've died!" he said, his nose a centimeter or less away from mine because he also bent down so that we'd be approximate, the tall guy, hahaha. "You know I'm over your dose - you can't just drink all the medicines you want. You could've killed yourself, being careless away from me."

I guess he was worried about all those things. I played with the fat under his arms that were in front of me, flicking it with my fingers in thought. He lessened his grip on my shoulders, now uncomfortable by my actions, and so maybe more willing to listen to me. "Can you get your hands from under there?" he said.

I just stared at him. It must've been his tickle spot. He let go of me completely, now. His scalp protruded slightly from his robe hood since his ebony hood fell somewhat off from his running to me; the frown lines in his face were more prominent than what I saw them to be, last time. "Look, Desraim: I will strap you to my table in my room of if I have to." And yes, his frown lines made his normal face look like a frown. Him saying that so desperately and frowning just made me laugh inside. So you know what I did?

I laughed, hoping doing so would set the mood higher. "If you were a necromancer with the whole set up, maybe I'd dig that."

"You sick...alright," he sighed, and his eyebrows only furrowed deeper. I knew what was coming next, though: he wasn't one for laughter in this state; his frustration was rather normal of this...artistic process that would be ending with me. "Maybe that sounded weird."

"Oh, wanna take it back now. No back sides, Farengar. Here," I stretched out my wrists. "I give you permission." I did so rather defeated inside. I knew he was going to operate on me - again. There was no escaping it. Farengar would get what he wanted because he's my doctor for goodness' sake, and he's done so much and wouldn't want to see it crumble. Who knows, he may find something vitally wrong with me and save me from death.

"Darn-it. Desraim, you bust your stitches. The perfectly good stitches I worked my butt off for while all that squirming...take off your..." he looked me up and down, noticing I wore some dress I just talked about. He went into the back of his room and pulled out a clothing item. "Dress in these trousers." I didn't roll my eyes or look surprised or any of the theatrics I'd normally do when someone would tell me to undress. This was protocol with Farengar. I came back with my bottom covered but the top was off. I had a bra on for goodness' sake, and am happy for that because I've been seriously contemplating if my wounds would be more comfortable without one in close proximity.

He began working on my stomach again but this time to remove the stitches he'd put on weeks ago and the area was chaffed and skin had begun to grow over the stitches. So it was more painful if not just as painful as receiving stitches. I ended up pushing his head away from my stomach, where he studied intently as he deftly cut away at his 'beloved' stitches.

"Danggit, Farengar. Don't you know I have other scars?" The way he readied his scissors in his right hand made me remember the needle he place in me for such injuries, and I regret letting him know of them.

"No pain, no health," he said in return, and only continued until I knew we were done. He used his clipper-thing to cut the remaining wire in me. If it were string he was pulling through and out of my dermis, then maybe I wouldn't really have...squrimed this time as much last time, and nearly pinched a hole in my hand with these overgrown fingernails of mine. My period just came yesterday and along with this spited me badly during this operation of his with included pangs.

"So," he placed his contaminated-by-my-wound hands on my shoulders, "I see you got mauled. Good job, Desraim."

I nodded, looking away as he now examined me in a fuller manner. I couldn't stare back at the healer-lust in his eyes. He tapped me on my shoulder and I got up, then. "Take off your pants," he closed the door shut on outside.

I did, and folded them and put them on his chair, thinking of what dirty thoughts he would have in his mind now though I knew he was a nun of medicine and magic...yet my own magic (and my potions) only helped me so much with my body and (my magic) took from me more than helped when my body was in such a terrible condition. Hence, the unhealed scars from the maulings (which I consider the frostbite spider and a sabertooth lion mauling I'd preservered, since frostbite spiders can maul in my opinion). I began to take my underwear off absently and he put his hand out for me to stay that action. Oh, right: I wasn't getting in a shower or anything for goodness' sake; where was my courtesy...?

"Now unless you were raped by whatever mauled you, we don't have to get...personal. Just -" it's funny how his words were cut off by my actions, whenever I talked to him (I 'd kept my underwear on so he continued with the process without speaking more is why I say this).

He wouldn't let me live that down. "Now unless you were raped by whatever mauled you, we don't have to get...personal. Just -" And it was funny how his words were cut off by my actions, whenever I talked to him (I 'd kept my underwear on so he continued with the process without speaking more is why I say this).

One minute later, and he emerged from a closet behind the map of...whatever..maybe Skyrim, I wasn't paying that much attention to it, to hold some cotton balls and some gauze. So that's what he kept behind that fold-curtain map of Skyrim-thingy...a closet and some medical items...he must've been an undercover medic. Explains why I never see the Jarl outside his palace. I only thought he did this for me, I laughed to myself at the thought.

"So I'm gonna clean you up. If there's somewhere I ultimately shouldn't reach, you can do it yourself and save me some chastity."

I snorted at that so loud, he jumped back. Cotton ball in hand and frown on face, he then took a bottle of clear liquid - "alcohol" he said - from the closet as well and, next, drenched the cotton in that. And then he started cleaning my various wounds - everything my underwear wasn't covering.

Now, I wondered what was the use in him cleaning me if I could do it myself to save the rest of his chaste nature? Farengar Secret-Fire answered: "It's a bit of a physical. This way I could be killing two birds with one stone, but you can start with bandaging yourself up."

I began with my charred hands: I used some of the creme he'd retrieved and placed it all over them. I winced, meanwhile. I wasn't that immune to fire, I guess. "Desraim," Farengar said while he soaked my back in alcohol, "you aren't immune to fire."

I must've spoken out loud. "Yes I am."

"That's not in your genetic code: it's in the high-elves' code."

"Hm? Really? I thought my mother told me I was when I was a little kid..."

"Disease and poison, Desraim. The only reason you are alive, now."

"Hm?"

He rose and dumped the cotton bowl in the bowl the refilled with alcohol for the rest of my body. I smiled at the dampened robes he wore, now. "Your stitches weren't the miracle. Your ability to refrain from infection during the period of time before I could get to you and afterward are the miracle."

I hummed...long and steady pondering that thought. I didn't understand the depth of his words at first...especially since I was so caught up on being something I wasn't. I didn't need a blessing from Talos...I actually pretty much had everything he could possible give me where resistance from disease is concerned. I was blessed by my parent's ability to heal. It felt great. And made me feel like I could do anything, and no longer have to worry about my injuries like I'd started to as of recent near-death experiences.

The pillars that surrounded it were the only way I recognized it. And of course there was him. At the Cairn, Farkas folded his arms upon sight of me and I, red from hard walking, looked as if I were blushing at him. I wiped the dirt off my face the best I could with this nordic helmet on and sighed long and hard. "Hey peachface," I said to Farkas as I neared the burial site-ish cairn that looked so because of the big pillars surrounding the spot in a circle, but thanks to Farkas standing there as well, I didn't have doubts this was the right place.

He looked about me, which made me wonder why he wasn't staring at me. "Y-you walked here all by yourself."

"Like a big girl, peachface," I laughed.

"W-why am I peachface? And why didn't you have a carriage ride you here?"

"The same reason you walked here on foot, Farkas. And you're a peachface...because your head is shaped like a peach."

"Oh...why, thank you."

"Did I mean that as a compliment?" I chuckled as I scouted the area about us and noticed a few gates under the bluff we were standing on. Honestly, I got too close to one of them and then something raspy began to attack my hearing. "Ugh, looks like a stupid draugr, finding the cave to be a little lonely." I killed the thing in one swipe. That's all that existed in this mossy, gated yet open area. A stupid draugr that thought it could protect whatever was over here. I picked a lock on a chest and dropped the lockpick on the ground since it was all banged up, now. I retrieved whatever I could carry that made sense to, like the garnet and ruby that were in there, and I closed the lid back, making some honorary gesture that Farkas questioned visibly. I guess it's because, as I said, I made the gesture up.

I noticed stealing from the dead could be defiling as much as it was practical. So what ever this Dustman's Cairn was, I'd remember to honor the dead in the best way I could. And dead necessarily didn't mean draugr to me.

Those skinny, bony creatures with little flesh and lots of grime didn't even resemble humans. If a daedra was real, I'd expect it to look like that. And I don't think I'd want to worship such an evil, creepy darn spirit.

We weathered the wave of draugrs that washed over us upon first footsteps into the dungeon. This catacomb-looking area held tens of them, and I prayed thanks to Akatosh or the god of the country of Skyrim, Talos, that the other dead bodies (or what was left of them) didn't wake up from their slumber draugr-like. Them down, Farkas and I continued through the dungeon.

There were too many rooms, too many opponents. To start, receding from the catacombs, we entered this vast area that didn't included the many thrones I'd seen scattered past the catacombs where I could sit and bark random orders at Farkas from. Instead, in this area, there was a wide vast space that I'd thought so dreamy and with its weird compartment in the wall that I ended up going to it and...well, it took nothing but me pulling a lever for an iron gate to slam down behind me. I turned around and grabbed the bars and asked Farkas to hit me out of here with his sword. He mumbled, "Sorry. I should've told you that this place had traps and such. But where there's a trap, there's a way out. Let me find a key."

What wonderful, encouraging words. I sat and waited until snarls came out of nowhere, including voices. What in the name of Talos was going on?

"Haha, I think we have some fresh meat."

"Which one is that?"

"It doesn't matter. He wears that armor, he dies."

The warriors circled around him, the five of them did, and lunged at him all at once. Farkas fought them valiantly, swinging his greatsword. He was plunged to the ground by the force of several pulling him, though, and pummeling him - not with fists, but with weapons. I cried out for him, but my tears didn't matter.

I watched them tear the skin from his bones. Then they gasped in fear as he then rose from them. But different. He rose with fur, and bloody matted fur at that. Was he an injured animal now? Was he a...a different being altogether?