Uthgerd held me for the moments she could. Like that last day I'd beheaded someone and wrecked myself for life because it would always remind me of my parents' (who were innocent in their beliefs) beheading.

"Uthgerd, why?"

"We know not why the Divines take our loved ones -"

"I mean why am I laying on your DD-sized breasts?"

Uthgerd took in a sharp breath. "I didn't mean anything weird by that -" she removed them from under me and resultantly I cracked my head on the bench we were sitting on at the Mare.

I groaned. "Nevermind." I rubbed my head, too.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Uthgerd rushed her hands to my forehead. I then shivered at her touch. My eyes lowered elsewhere (not like that, dirty audience).

She raised my head to hers. Her chest rose and fell faster. I noticed and it made me calm - I wanted to lay on her chest again just to feel the motions, her beating heart.

"I almost killed you."

You'd think I'd look at her weird now, the mood broken, but I ust looked at her succulent figure, curving in and out enticingly, gracefully. Her rough hands on my skin kinda made me shiver more, everywhere, actually. I bit my lip to suppress what I felt. "Yeah, you did, and you're here comforting me. It's confusing," I said, sporting a dead look, but she saw through it, noticing my own, albeit mutually, increased heartbeat.

"I don't want that to happen again, that random explosive I'm going to kill you thing. So I might as well explain -" She hugged me tight, cradling my head. "I'm dearly sorry. I..." and then she let go of me to look into my eyes and paste her hands to my sides of my face again, "I forgot how much we'd been through."

I bit my lip and arched my eyebrows low and smug. "And how you made me feel," she added, which made my smug look soften entirely, now. Was this crap or was it golden?

I removed my face from her hand and looked down at my glistening-in-the-Inn-light armor. Why was my body reacting in this way towards here? I didn't say anything, and she only rubbed my back, softly.

I teared up, trying to fight it. I understood these feelings outside the actions, but that was scary because it meant I could end up loving the very person that hurt me, albeit for her tried to steal my life. I guess we were both amateur, but that's why it made me mad. Amateur with something so serious was just a concoction of destruction. Playing with someone's heart, in other words, was dangerous, no matter the level of the player. But I turned around and slapped my hand on her face and pulled her towards me, kissing her with all my might. It might as well be obvious if there was something there.

And there was.

I groaned as we broke apart, and I blushed, but was able to look her in the eyes as I did, for once. She in turn stared at me with dreamy dark brown eyes, and the sincerity of sorry spread across her face from them. How was she so into me, so sorry? What had we been through, together?

Frost trolls, flashbacks remind me, and high, long, dispersed steps up a mountain, the evil minions of Miraak that wanted me to die when I'd first discovered my worth, dragons upon dragons (well, two or three, but enough), just the evilest bandits and the very highest of dreams - my own lodging. It all kept us together.

I blinked a few times and then fumbled with the keys that I'd kept from various situations and from various people I met or looted from. One of them was hers, I knew by its engravement of her last name...it not really written, but her nickname just engraved "The Unbroken". I could totally get a better feeling out of going to her house and not staying here for our romantic venture, something I didn't ever do, ever.

So I went to her house, and I merely got jealous of it when she opened her mouth wide and then asked why I didn't ever ask to come here. "Because the first time I entered someone's house at night, they tried to murder me. Mind you, the Inn is a wonderful place to sleep when I have to, especially as long as you're there and not at your house, either. Because why would I want to be bored?"

Her chuckle reminded me of some bubbling from an obscure water source I didn't find until now. "You won't be bored, tonight."

Her smile that fixed between her lips like some wedge of cheese on a tight shelf (yes, that's the culture here of us Skyrimians, wedges of cheese on tight shelves) melded with the mood of her swishing hair that did so when she turned towards me and I then noticed the weird scar that she tried covering so many times around me if not with other people.

How could I be around someone I did that to?

I sat down next to her, and touched it. She didn't wince, moreover, she leaned into my touch. "Uthgerd...does it feel better?"

"Sure. It hasn't been giving me problems since it healed. I'm okay and I'm sure you are, too," she in touched my stomach.

I laughed because embracing over scars we inflicted upon each other made me uncomfortable. Her spindly fingers trailed a symbol over my armor. I noticed what she was sketching, surprisingly. A heart. I looked at her and took her finger and with it, instead traced an axe in the golden armor. "There."

She laughed and pulled back her hand. "I know what that is."

"Sure. You owe me one, back."

She pursed her lips in a pout. "It's so expensive and beautiful."

"Yeah. My money. Mine."

"I helped you find it."

I gasped because I never thought of it that way. To myself I smiled until time went on by, and she suggested I take off my armor. But even strolling through Whiterun with Vilkas I didn't take mine off, so what made her think I'd take it off, now, in her house, mind you the very person that has (shown) the ability to kill me? It was, too, too early to sleep.

I had gotten back from Lydia many hours earlier. Now it was well into 3 pm. The adventure usually always came to me before now and 3 in the next morning. "I will have to say, 'No'." I said, smartly.

Then she began to unbraid her hair and step out of her own armor. I turned my face from her and began to count my fingers, absently.

"Don't forget, you're the one that wanted to come here."

I looked to her as she said that. "...So."

She was beautiful, the light thrown off her in beautiful ways since we were in her, more upgraded than an Inn, house. Besides curves and long hair, she had an arched, or should I say angled, face. Her limbs were proportionate but aesthetically long (or was I a short elf?) and her legs were chiseled for war. Her arms were, too, and both containing that grace that only heavy-wielders of metal sported. The deep veins that grew from excitement like now and the dents in her muscles that defined them, like the curve downwards that I could see dip into her shoulders surrounding bulging biceps. These details I kinda...liked.

I took my armor off because I would love to revel in her body, again. I'd love to feel her body's strength and hold. I'd like to caress every singl -

"You still aren't going to take them off?"

"Ahem," I replied, "I am..." I sat on her bed, speaking a little slower than I reacted, because when she spoke I immediately undressed, accordingly. Well, besides my layer of clothes. My shield was let down now. And all there was between her and me was a little distance, and eyes. Eyes made me feel threatened, whether or not the expression was otherwise. She couldn't stare at me if she wanted us to make love.

"I declare you the most beautiful maiden of all time, even before Mikael."

* * *

I watched Uthgerd's miniature frown escalate to reserved annoyance. I'd balled myself up into a protective position in a corner near her bed. "Maybe you'll understand not to mention him and his thoughts on me ever again."

"Why are you afraid?" She said, a trembling, vexed voice.

"C-c-" I couldn't even say anything because her tone caught me off guard, so I changed my words. "U-Uthgerd. I just...I am utterly embarrassed by that fool."

"Why?"

"Because I thought we were friends: I ugly, he single, and therefore us a good couple of buds."

A chuckle, "Your logic is...always alluding." She turned from her normal sit in her chair and stood, to straddle it from behind and stare at me. "You like to tell me what you are thinking now?" I knew Uthgerd well enough to know that she knew my weaknesses, and now that her staring at me was an (obvious to her) inferior-ating tactic. But I just pushed the cold, shivery feelings down for the competition that rose within me at that moment and turned completely to her.

"Of screwing you hard."

"With?"

"My finger."

We both laughed. "With which finger?"

"These nuts. I can't think of anything else, or what I'd do to you because the main author would get mad."

"What do you mean by main author? There's only one, right?"

"Well I'm second in command."

"Oh." Uthgerd got off the chair and walked to me and pulled me up by my fine clothes collar.

"Gosh, Talos, what are you doing?"

"I am making you understand the stakes here. If you want me, you have to show it. Tomorrow, we go to do whatever you want. You will remember to trust me like you did before."

I shivered at that point, and batted her hand away from my collar. I stood straight and I looked at her. "You will no longer boss me around, Uthgerd. If you are a follower, for now that's what you do'll do. But if you're my shield-maiden -"

Uthgerd winced a fraction. "Sorry, wrong terminology much? If you are my sister in battle -"

"Too close to shield-maiden -"

"If you are my freakin' protector -"

"Yes?"

"-then you must be willing to be on the same terms as me and boss me around as much as you want. With a price," I sneered the last phrase.

"Okay. By the way..."

"What?"

Her grin dressed this statement in possibilities before it actually came out, "I'm really thinking about how deep your screw is."

"Maaa?" That's all that would come out since my mouth was lost for actual words.

"Y'know, whatever you were going to screw me with. Your hand would be a little too short -"

"Not if I -" I grimaced at her as I tried not to explain what I was going to. Then as a good few seconds went by, I said, "I could show you."

"Alright."

For all you who wanted to know what the Lusty Argonian Maid was, feast your eyes way above (hint: picture).