Uthgerd the Unbroken was now Uthgerd the Beautiful. She was unmatched in battle (except for by me) and a great, loyal person. I could be out all night with her and she'd be by my side.

She yawned, crunching the crisp, snow-infested Skyrim grass with her steel boots.

And I turned around, overwhelmed by all the beautiful things I thought of her, taking this time for granted. "You stopped. Is there something wrong?" she asked.

"Oh, nothing. It's just...I need you to do something," I improvised; I am the one that started this conversation. I thought of something to say, something to do to string her attention along. "I need to trade some things with you."

"Sure. What do you -"

"Rawr!" The ground rumbled beneath us and I stuck my hand out to catch her when she tottered. She exhaled and mumbled a thanks. I sobered up, thinking I was acting like a wuss by just standing there, and took the hilt of my favorite ancient Nord battle axe that contained an extra side of frost. The dragon swooped above, not even diving toward us, so we had to - okay - I had to wait for Uthgerd while she shot so I could slay the dragon with my axe once it landed. It never happened. That thick skin was too afraid to come down and get some. I turned to Uthgerd, casting my gaze away from the sky. "It just went away," I whispered, disappointed.

"Sorry," Uthgerd responded, replacing her arrow back in its quiver but retaining her bow in-hand. "I had the enchanted Nord bow of fear. Scared the poor thing away."

It glowed in her battle-roughened hands, light blue through the twisting vines of wielded bones I believe it was made out of. It was pricey, especially with its enchantment, but I wasn't selling it, having gotten it from Bleak Falls Barrow trying to retrieve the Dragon Stone, which the court mage didn't give me much recompense for, anyway, I still think. That adventure scared me silly: slashed through draughrs and stuff I did, to get this bow. So being my first scary one, what I retrieved from it was special. "The fear power was good. It prevented us from having to fight that dragon," I said gratefully enough to convince her. "And the frost - it's good for dragons," I relayed her my book smarts also for I've never slewn a dragon in my life, except for recently before...still with her help. Dragons were beyond my experience other than that.

She nodded giving a tired half-smile. "I'm glad you aren't dissappointed, Thane."

I sent her a soft gasp, though I didn't really mean it. "I am not your Thane," I said a little forcefully. She gave me an eye and resettled her position by folding her arms. "I'm the jarl of Whiterun's. My duty is only to the jarl, and has nothing to do with you."

"Okay, then." She swallowed, her eyes glazy with appreciation for me, worried that it may become rejected. I adored her as a battle-partner but I didn't want to get her in trouble. And I didn't want her leeching to me like a lapdog.

I walked along her stiff body. Only channeling a glance at her, the woman who was biting her lip, her eyes focused dead ahead. She was probably weighing her loyalties with me perhaps, since I was such a brutal, unexpecting person. I'd ask someone to come with me then tell them not to swear allegiance; oppositely, I'd kill a dragon and then cower when another opportunity to came; and I don't even want anyone speaking on my Thaneship or even consider myself one when I am, which is unexpected of someone who could have a rim of benefits from it. I liked her giving me the silent treatment, though. However, this particular instant this was the reason why she was doing it, and it was not just being a result of her being naturally antisocial - but my personality drew her away in a weird way that always had attracted her back at the end. It was hence why she was following me, now. Though I barely understood what I stood for in this world that tried to take me out a few days before, via a beheadding. That experience of near-death brought me to my senses. Senses that said: what the heck. I'm gonna do whatever. Before I'd been beheaded, I was nearly living, kindof like now. But I'd lived to survive. Now, it was different. I lived to just...not expect what would happen next. And people's expectations of me now, since I'd helped kill a dragon, were ridiculous. They made me self-conscious when I went to steal or simply kill someone to survive. Things that a hero would not normally do, in their eyes. But many Nords were warriors, so maybe I'd take back the kill part.

"You want -" I began, when I had rested on a boulder and pulled out at cheese weel bouncing around in my pocket.

I examined as she pulled out a green apple then and ate it, ignoring my advances to help curb her hunger. After chewing a little, she turned and asked me, "Oh, what did you say?"

"-uh, nothing," I said, peeling off the horker skin from over the cheese. I took the skin in my mouth and sucked it, glad for the beefy taste of it permeating the cheese as well, the whole flavor of which I'd sink into afterwards. It was an Eidar cheese wheel, with blue streaks in it which always amazed me. I then found myself glaring at her apple with envy in my buds: from the nice, green-apply smell that emitted from the fruit. I dug in my pack and seized the sweet roll and put my cheese down on the rock I sat on. I took some of the icing from the side of the roll and smeared it on my lip, tasting it. My eyes rolled back at its deliciousness. That cream...it was like someone poured a bucket of cane sugar into it, mingled with the buttery taste of the roll itself...mmm. It'd be to die for if it were warmed up at a fireplace.

She mumbled.

"Hm?" I looked to her questionably, but dreamily from the roll's after-affects.

"I'm sorry. I know you're dissappointed in me...adoring you and all -" she cleared the mumbles up.

"Adoration?" I coughed up my chewed-up roll. "You - uh - that's okay. I didn't know that -" I really didn't know she adored me. Adoration was a bit much for someone like me to down.

"You didn't? I do. Dovakihn, -" she disrupted me in my baffling spasm, "I mean, Desraim - I've heard things about you, wondrous things...It's just," the last two words she began in lower, hushed tone, "I never really believed. When I heard those stories about the," and she really sounded like a excited, wistful girl, "Dovakihn from early on, and then recently from the Bannered Mare of his return, I was shocked. And you're a girl, too. I was confounded; of course I would never put down a fight, but you were particularly awe-inspiring to me," then she began to rub her fingers, missing the 'to have won' part. That's why she was inspired...I'm sure she wasn't just inspired to fight me, a random person she'd never met before, but was inspired when to me she lost. That Uthgerd not admitting things, I thought. "I traveled with you to see if you were truely the one. I'm still not convinced," she said with a sly undertone and a crooked grin. What was that supposed to mean? Another challenge? I'd knock those brown locks right off the top of her forehead if so.

Or maybe she wanted me to show her my powers. The first time I'd done my thing, I was encouraged to: too unfortunate she wasn't listening, because she was there, too. This, however, felt like a set-up. Do it for everyone so they'd know you're Dragonborn and bug you forever. I sighed. "I'm not going to breathe for you. I mean, shout."

"I heard about you shouting," she giggled. "That shouting. It was impressive. You stood the hairs up on everyone's neck." When I'd done it I was in the middle of nowhere, not near the edge of the city. I was actually at a watchtower not to far from the city...the west one, maybe. And I had to tell the Jarl what I did, and he believed me. Nonetheless, I wasn't going to do this, since we were right here, right next to its 'gates'. We'd fought the dragon on top of a lookout on surrounding Whiterun stables, for goodness' sake. And we hadn't left, except for to get to leveled grown and munch on a light snack.

I sighed again, feeling like smashing my basically almost-eaten sweetroll into my face, since she didn't get it. "I am not the 'Dragonborn'. I am simply a person gifted with these abilities. I haven't even gone to the Greybeards yet for affirmation," I said the lattermost sentence as an afterthought, hoping she'd get the message since I just inspired myself with that new information to support my idea, myself.

"But I didn't even slay the dragon," I said, hoping I could convince her, more. "I ran around trying to find a good spot to strike. And struck it while my comrade was taking the flames -"

"Hahahahaha," her soft, sweet giggle sifted my mind from my anger, rather annoyingly. "Doubt. It's so strong in you like in other heroes. It shows something great, Desraim, so think at least of that as a hint of prophecy being done."

I turned an angry face at her. My sweetroll had lasted longer in my mouth and as a hunger-solving agent than I thought...had I not been chewing on it to a nub, it would've been smeared on my face out of pure vexation and because I would've lost my appetite by now had I not been teasing my tastebuds with this food, because this conversation is that taxing. It would've been weird, to, though, and a waste of a good roll, so I guess that's why it just didn't happen. "I'm not a prophet, or a propheted, or anyone special. I should've been dead if it weren't for that dragon. If anything, I should be saving dragons rather than slaying them," I said as a last resort. I meant the dragon that I'd seen attack the place I was at when I was about to get beheaded: didn't ever remember the place because I was too terrified to think of where I was going rather than how I was going to tense up the perfect way to not feel the axe crush me and the perfect angle to tilt my head just in case the axe was too dull to cut through the sinew and spinal chord.

Uthgerd said nothing. Munching on her apple's expended core, she looked a little put in her place. I sighed in relief. The argument was won for now. This wasn't an indecisive battle either, like the supposed Bannered Mare one (I won that). I'd finaly gotten her to see my opinion, and shut the front door. She finally agreed with me. I'm sure she'd find another way out of her house of compromised thoughts, though, to antagonize me.

I know one of two things; I had to get her to stop thinking I was the Dragonborn. If things were to get any better, and I stop fluking in every fight I'd ever fought because I was trying to meet a standard that I couldn't...which was utter perfection and absent cowardice...and,

I needed her to convince me, if she knew.

I also needed her to tell me her feelings about me. Other than that I was impressive just for being something like the Dragonborn, which I couldn't actually match. Because of...unheeded perfection and present cowardice, pretty much.

I touched her knee, attempting to ask physically since my words weren't quick...maybe they could use a push from my actions. The same thoughts roamed in my head every time I was beside her. It's only been __ days. Haven't even known her for that long. And I could only think this was day three.

Her reaction was to jump, and the core looked funny in her mouth, its wideness blocking part of my view of her and hers of me, a little. Don't know if that made me more confident to boast my feelings, or more shy that she couldn't really see me completely.

"So do you think of me more than the Dragonborn?" I didn't have much confidence that that sentence made any sense. To make it worse, I whispered it, forced it out of my mouth like I was forcing a turd from my butthole in the middle of constipation.

She responded most efficiently, most perfectly. "As a fellow comrade?" Yeah, exactly. Just like that. I sat back, and thought about it. Of course that's all that I could think of her as. It wasn't that easy. I was beginning to like this girl; and it was driving me crazy. Hopefully that vague reply was just a mask of hers to keep me from seeing her true feelings.

* * *

We'd gotten attacked by a hungry wolf. Now we'll see how much of a friend I am. Well, I pretty much was her friend. I watched Uthgerd struggle to keep up with me as she limped behind me. "Uthgerd," I said rather harshly from the cold, "we can wait." For her to heal, of course. She growled.

"Desraim," it was almost a pout, "I want to get there as fast as I can."

I sucked my bottom lip as I noticed red seep through and glisten on her steel mail. I stopped my saunter. "We can at least bind your wounds -"

"In the cold?" She turned her nose up at me, not an affect of the slope. "I'm Uthgerd the Unbroken, not Uthgerd the Wimp. I can weather this - ah," she held her knees and knelt over.

"Stubborn as a mule," I retorted, coming to her aid. She leaned on my shoulder, gaining breath. "A few more miles," she sighed, squeezing one of her kneecaps.

"Did you get bit there?"

As she removed her hand I surveyed the dented metal of her boots over her knee. A few punctures, four of them, retained in the metal and were stained blood red. "ouch," I remarked. "It must feel like needles puncturing you."

"C'mon," she gingerly spoke, audibly annoyed. he started hopping on one leg.

At first it seemed fine. Then it grew tedious, as the sloping upwards of the mountain grew incessant. We had to stop.