The clouds retreated behind the horizon so I couldn't see them. I turned to Lydia, fully. I was gonna stop this dumpfest of emotions. "Let's go," I suggested harshly, sheathing my weapon back up.

As we continued down the road from Riverwood, I saw a man. Alone.

He was standing near a cliff.

Who was this guy? Who does he think he was, guarding this little piece of land? An ambusher? He could have so many amount of people out on us in a second, and I was not about to let this loot go to waste.

I sighed - just when my mind told me to stop killing, here I was - and reached for Lydia's side, and she said "Eah" in an annoyed voice, then frowned when I took her steel knife, but she shook off the annoyance as we got closer to the man. I could promise I felt her smirk behind me, but it didn't irritate me, just made me cocky.

I steadied the shaking blade in my hand, aware of the messages of assassination running through my nerves. I finally...sheathed it back in her holster and, switched intention, grabbed forward for the guy, from behind, thief-like - "I hope you have a good reason for being out here." I jumped at his reply, putting my own hand to my weapon's hilt as he turned around, his sinewy, green arms folded. Lydia followed my actions. Something told us both he wasn't necessarily harmful, because he'd have harmed us, already.

"Yes, we're adventurers. And you?" I spoke tentatively, eyeing his features: dusty green, arched cheekbones...man, whenever I see those cheekbones, I always think their holders are relatives to me, or something.

"I'm just an old man, looking for a good death," he responded. I'd nearly stumbled back if it weren't for Lydia's breastplate stopping me, first.

"What has caused such an attitude from a fierce looking man like you?" I asked. His dirty face blocked some of his Orc features, but his face had high enough cheekbones for me to tell his race was different from Nordic origins, and his color giving away what he was in entirety.

"I've lived and all I long for now is to die a glorious death. Rather die when the world can call me a warrior than when I'm considered to have 'been' a warrior, instead. There's no glory in old bones, wrinkled skin, and grey hair, but if I were to die by the hands of a great warrior, today, I would be satisfied."

"But why?" Men just don't commit suicide because of old age...er, middle aging, do they?

"It is my time to take the lead in my community," he said, answering my question. "But I don't want to have children. I am to old to lead a 'tire community of people and have heirs. I'd rather die, now, while I can be considered useful." So he's mortified of not adding up to all that he needs to be? Or he's afraid of the failure to come, if he does? What does this have to do anything? Take a risk, old man. "So if you're not willing to grant me a glorious death, you might as well leave. I don't think that you would want to do it." Because I'm a heartfelt woman, right. You know, women like the Dragonborn have cold hearts.

I played with my fingertips, batted them against the rim of my armor. I just talked with Lydia how bad this killing is. I really wanted to stop - but this was the time to redeem myself. "Orc," I said to myself, but visibly, due to his contorted-in-laughter-features, aloud, "you really think I can't give you a glorious death?" I saved him the speech and withdrew my axe with Lydia ready to off someone, most likely the Orc, with the orschich warhammer we had found from Embershard instead, at the flick of my tongue.

He said nothing. I repeated myself, thinking perhaps the old guy had a bad ear. "Would you like me to give you this glorious death?"

"Malacath has given me a vision of this glorious death which awaits me at this cliff. It hasn't come yet," he looked over our shoulders and said finally, indifferent to out battle poses.

"Perhaps I could give you the death you speak," I shirked the bags off my shoulders, and Lydia did the same, except she put them down manually, seemingly unrestrained to wasting our time we had much of.

"Perhaps," he said offly, gazing at the sky, and closing his eyes, so unafraid of us, so much so that I really wanted to see the talent that lied behind his hands, what made him such a great warrior to himself. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

I could've yawned. I was being painstakingly honest when I said I was doing him a favor, and he was stretching it out with so many questions and making me wait to identify with my conscience. It was okay. I did this all the time. I swung out my axe. "Yes, I'm sure. Dude."

Lydia whispered 'no,' and pulled out her hammer before I could even my weapon. "We shall see," he said, his hand not even at his hilt.

Then I waited one good second. He said no words, and slowly, his hand finally crept to his hilt, but I was still too slow then to efficiently block the Orc, and suffered a cut stab to the arm from his battleaxe. I swung back at him, once, twice, him blocking the last bit of strokes, and then Lydia must've been impatient and socked him in the jaw with her warhammer orschich. He pushed the ground with his hands but couldn't manage to stand. He looked at me as I shoved Whiterun's axe in his face: never did it occur to me either that this is what Whiterun stood for, I thought ironically of the trouble-making bandits I'd killed for it. Then I thought of the random people Whiterun killed: vampires, cultists (they did help me day though I was too lazy to include in here and also too adrenalized to notice until later through small talk about the city). There was a reason for the cultists having been killed, but not the vampires. Vampire hunting I just could not understand. And a guard once told me he wanted to join Dawnstar, so...all this standing-for-stuff wasn't helping me. It made no sense. I just had to finish the job.

"Is this the glorious death you had imagined?" I asked, my wrists growing weak.

I didn't want, really, to hear his answer, and so I lobbed the Axe into his back. I didn't hear him gasp or cry. I walked it off, then looked back to see his carcass that was looking as guilty as a bandit for having lied there, but I knew that he only had wanted to die and nothing else. No crime had he committed.

I eyed Lydia as she slicked the blood off of her hands and neither could I hear a breath from her. But if an inspiration to go get a friend had hurt when it hit, this orc sitting on the ground, and Lydia's unchanging, unguilty face hurt me even more. All this talk of me being a criminal and look what she took part in. She had agreed to this. She had agreed to being a criminal.

I didn't know why I was mad. I had helped this man fullfill and ultimate duty. "Thanks," I replied, as I began searching the man's pockets.

"Oh, no, don't tell me you're searching the dead," I hear her babble above me. "Sure. You want this dead man's stuff or do you want me to keep it?" She shrugged.

I carried a handfull of flowers up and into my arms, from the ground. I thought about laying them over his 'grave' but thought that it wouldn't suit him much, and placed them in my baggie in my bag. Bag, bags, and more bags. Maybe I should give each one a name so it won't sound so repetitive.

I looked at her, not trying to meet eyes, so looked away when she started looking at me. Her face, though. It...didn't change. A bit.

It was one of expectation. "We're going to Windhelm," I told her plastered, silly face of withheld regret.