Hum along to Ezio's song on Soul Calibur while I write to you this wonderful Skyrim chapter...

I prepared to go on this next adventure with Lydia...I don't even know how I made it out of the store of Belethor's. I felt like I was going to puke and sleep at the same time. My bags were looser on my back, not dragging at me with all their weight.

Lydia yawned and I could tell she had a good sleep. Not me. My mind was too active, and simply because my REM got distracted in the middle of the night when a little kid, namely the Jarl's son, Nelkir, came in a gave me a wet willy - I finally remembered, it was not a dream! - and so I couldn't get into REM anymore. My body just didn't want to dream. And that effected me badly. It meant my mind had not finished sorting through my mental problems during the night, and I had become half-more crazy. Great.

Lydia, I whined, pouting, and happenstancely bumped into another little kid while I was leaving the Cloud District - a little kid that literally told me she'd bite me if I was messing with her. Brat. I shouldered the bags onto my back again properly and moved on, wondering to the Alduin - danggit, that's the wrong dragon - um...the God over everything - Akatosh - dragon - how he create me to do such things such as fight and carry heavy loads all at once? Or did he even create me? And who put this dragon breath within me? My mind really couldn't revert to anything else, though I tried.

I watched Lydia hum a tune as her shiny, off-beat-clanking steel plated armor clang in the background as we walked. "What'cha singing?" I asked.

"It should be familiar. The Age of Aggression. You ask Mikael to play it every day."

I blushed at that. "No...I don't go in there everyday."

"Oh, well you used to, before -"

"How do you know what I used to do?"

"I get to the Could District very often, but also the Bannered Mare as well -"

"Stop quoting Nahzeem."

"Um, okay."

I shivered, the unsavory memories of Mare-happenings shirking off my countenance that easy, if you'd call it easy. "I'm gonna see...if we can sell this stuff...at y'know, Riverwood."

"Really?"

"Yeah..." Lydia smirked at that.

"What?" I asked.

"Hahaha," she started, above my reason, laughing.

I turned back, incidentally bumping against her with the pointy-in-some-areas-loot, which I hope didn't hurt her. "I'm tired of my housecarls laughing at me!"

"You're funny, really funny," she replied, smacking me on the shoulder and continuing walking past the blacksmith Adrienne. Then she looked back at the cultists on the side of me, in thought.

I didn't look back once I past them as well, but now that she was turned back and making eyes at them, "They really helped me out yesterday," I said, walking in front of her now.

"Yeah." She didn't say much else, after. Oh, wait. She, then, did: "We should use them to fight with us..."

"Someday," I agreed superficially unbeknownst to her. Honestly, they wouldn't last the treks that we take from here. I would leave 'em. I can get dead corpses from elsewhere.

***OOO***

Riverwood was always a very important, yet safe walk away from Whiterun, the "middle city". I'm not the only one that came to Whiterun for everything. Travelers usually came here as a pass-though travel area, and I'm surprised the town's not rich. I mean, where would anyone settle if not Whiterun and its Bannered Mare Inn? Anyone could reach anywhere from that city. So many cities like Windhelm and Helgen...which is not a city, and, well, just many places, I haven't been to them all, link to Whiterun, as if all roads led there...could be why its symbol is a horse. Speaking of, I blushed from the remembrance of the guards policing me. "You didn't see me rough-handled by guards, did you?" I said as an afterthought.

Lydia raised an eyebrow. "...No."

"Uh, okay."

She stalled her speech. "Y'know I'm looking out for you, right, even if it's against that old lady Hilde."

"What'cha mean?" I asked, and my voice raised pitches.

"Uh, found out via the guard personnel," she said. Then raised a corner of her mouth, aware that I was annoyed she knew.

"So you're in lieu with the lawkeepers? Should've known...this makes me very uncomfortable, Lydia..."

"Yeah, I don't call most the things you do 'legal' however, I'll go with you to the death, doing whatever. I mean, I have to. So just consider yourself lucky. I'd rather not make myself in trouble like you'd be, by telling on you, because I'm gonna have to follow anyway -"

"You won't need to report it if we have those tattle-tales like Hilde," I said, scrunching up my mouth. I leaned against a tree, tired. I had just slept. What was wrong with me.

"You don't look so good," she folded her arms and looked away as soon as she said it, as if a 'sick' person could get on her case about being called out on that.

I turned to her, my chin drooping slightly to my chest. "Dude...how did you do it? After so many days of not having sleep?"

"It was only two," she said.

"So. I can't even stay asleep and when I do, I'm exhausted, later..."

"Maybe you should get more sleep. When you get used to it, you'll feel better."

There wasn't really much to do or think on the journey to Riverwood. I flinched at the entrance near where I'd killed the chicken and a family had attacked me, forced my eyes to stay glued ahead and not at the parentless kid on the side of me due to that incident, and not trying to stare at Hilde, either, on the other. As I walked deeper into Riverwood, I saw her wrinkles clearly, decorating her face like a crumpled leaf. She was tanning leather. "You wouldn't dare hurt an old lady," she scraped the connective tissue and fur-skin off the hide of what looked a used-to-be generously proportionate deer, "would you?" she finished her sentence, the knife amusingly not threatening either me or Lydia as she worked.

"Uh..."

Lydia cut me off by asking how much it would take to buy that fur off her. Hilde said she wasn't selling anything but, Lydia was free to use the tanning rack herself, and left. I stared at the woman go. "So I guess that's forgiveness?" Uthgerd can come back, then, I thought, since I'm okay with the old woman. There's nothing for Uthgerd to be mad for. That's the sole reason I'm in Riverwood, anyway, to appear and have her give me millions of tight squeezes, however meaning to welcome me and just be glad I was back or just for odd reasons, like making Lydia jealous, I laughed to myself, not even sure if that was possible. I hated Lydia to the core, really...but there was no sight of her, my 'previous friend', however. I went down its alleys and side-streets, and yards, yelling furiously at ferns that managed to cut me, or maybe it was weeds for goodness' sake, my alchemy logic had gone down lately - bad me - and I saw nadda, but greenery. I sighed, mashing my tips of my fingers into my skull and facial bones, preferably me frontal and zygmatic ones - in order to calm my body as a whole, and rotated them into my tense, sweaty, and muddied flesh. Why was I freaking out over an enemy?

The cool brush of her lips against my mind went zipping through my mind like reels of parchment getting fed into a mechanical printer, which weren't very common here in the section of Riverwood, but I'd seen some in the castle of Whiterun and in Windhelm, and I think...mechanical writers just liked it there. But anyway, it was unceasing, the rate pulsing with my own heartbeat, graduating faster and faster precision, the touches we shared, the memories I relayed, that piece of knowledge she ha that could potentially blackmail me, the love she stole from my heart and the closeness she earned, and...Every step I took I was thinking of her, and it was painful.

Like an arrow in my - not knee, but my side...which I think is a lot more vital. And it was too weakening, too weak of an answer to even be weaker than I was inside without relationships like these that I was forced to having. I just didn't know how I did it, got partners. I met Uthgerd at the Mare, while she was drinking. I wanted a fight. I was never the mingling type...I mean, the type to string along friends, which is why my mingle meter was probably so high, because I figured every being a thing of intellect, to feed into me and then leave, imparting an experience I never had and never will...her hair. Softness...her...

I didn't have anywhere to go, had nothing to do, and so I let Lydia decide while I sat in sulk -

The breezes whipped across my face, and I hardened it to the feelings that wanted to rush through the windows of my soul. My eyes couldn't let up any of this, however. I wonder if Lydia knew more about me and Uthgerd than I realized:

Well, who cared. It was just a relationship. I mean, what's so bad about those: in reality, besides what I've been taught? Relationships is why the Stormcloaks and the Imperials couldn't get along, what hardened them against the other, but also protected them, in a sense. It's just that I could never be loose about mine, because as a Stormcloak, everything had to be kept in secret, my alliances, everything, and that's what I grew up thinking. And is why my parents grew up to be my only best friends. And why I couldn't wait here and let my newer best friend go away like that. She was my only friend on these plains and mountains, the only one left alive, really. I can't believe I let her get so attached to my psyche, however - 'cause I really mean, I'd only really known, compared to my parents, her for -

"Cough. Allergies," she introduced.

"Are you trying to tell me to move?"

"Of course not," she drawled it out sarcastically. I puckered my lips in vexation. She only turned around to look at the downed log in front of us. "You usually take Fly Amanita," she said of the amount that was sported on its wood surface. "I'm surprised."

"I'm thinking..." I said, absently, slipping back into my original train of thought. My friends could be friends for a few hours, here. Really anyone in Skyrim that dared give you a look and a smile you should trust, I thought. While everyone's taking care of themselves, it's nice to know that someone cares, so it really doesn't matter how long I've been with her, she can be my friend, and the other woman my housecarl. "Okay, I got an idea. We're going to look for Uthgerd."

Lydia sucked in breath. "Okay," she said, anticlimatically, hiding it.

I turned to look at her on the side of me, and red crept into my cheeks, my voice squeaking. "You know something I don't?"

"No," she said, shuffling her feet on the dusty, ferny ground, about to walk away, and unaware kicked a pebble at my feet...

"I know you do. Something about your tone -"

"Look, if you really want to know, I'm not the only one that knows what you and Uthgerd were doing," she looked at me over her shoulder that sported a river of flowing brown, yet albeitly dirty, locks. Ewww, we oftenly didn't shower and that was a bad thing. I don't think I ever showered since I'd been with Uthgerd...hey, you weren't supposed to know that...I frowned a bit at that thought, but then remembering what Lydia said, I widened my eyes and my mouth just drooped. She continued, "You've been bounty hunting. It's very important to know that when someone goes on a hunt with another, some sketchy thing happen. I don't know if it became about the money, or if one of you vowed to kill the other, but I know you got a bounty in Riverwood for hurting Hilde. It could've been uglier than that, I can just imagine. I don't know why you even came back here...it's a lot going on, and you need to be careful or I'm going to be shedding some really innocent blood." I scratched my mowhawk in thought at her words.

"Yeah, you're right," I unsheathed my weapon to feel its familiar weight. It always felt comfortable, and I safe, when I was holding it, and I hoped could support my argument perhaps by making me look super-attached to my weapon like a blood-crazed warrior. "Whiterun needs me," I said, staring into her eyes, "to wipe out the bandits."

"You already did, in Halted Stream Camp, Valtheim Towers,

and also signed up to do a mission in Broken Helm Hollow -"

"I did it for the people," I said, biting the dry skin off my lower lip.

"And what about the Barrows? Yngol and Bleak Falls -"

"Ah, girl. Could you stop talking about my past? I'm sure you've done some pretty unagreeable things." I bounced the blade in my hands -

"Not as bad as kill a member of the Companions -"

"Stop talking about her like that -" I intercepted -

"But it's true. I mean, you can be a criminal if you want -"

"I'm not. I'm a traveler. That's all -"

"Been to about three cities. That's not it -"

- I got in her face, after that comment she made. "You really don't want to do this, do you?"

She exhaled in a scoff-like manner and turned away. I arched my brows downwards at her, menacingly, hopefully. I couldn't tell her to leave. I just kept walking, letting my axe dangle at my arm for a point.

I couldn't believe I was traveling with someone that totally disagreed with my options - again! Well, she said she didn't want to get in trouble, but her argument made it hard for me to believe that she wasn't also against criminality itself. I mean, what did you expect from me, lass?

I have no house - this is how I live. I never thought it bad - my parents killed people all the time, acquiring forts and hoping to rival the King someday. I could only look back and scrub dirty wooden floors. I couldn't get involved in that until someone forced me to. And now that I was involved, my old home was uninhabitable for now, unless the Imperials were obliterated...

I let the stupid tears run down my face as I traced the Skyrim terrain. "Hey," I said to Lydia. "Isn't that Embershard Mine?" I barfed on some grass beside me before she answered, rather interrupting her with it. Dang, this killing was starting to catch up with me, and not making me smell any better with all this liquid mixing, blood and barf? What was next? Don't...answer that, Skyrim.

"What's wrong with you? Maybe you should go see Arcadia -"

"I already did, remember?"

"Uh...she could give you a better diagnosis. You just went to sell and make some more potions -"

"I'm alright, okay?" I cut a glance behind me at her while we were in front of the ambiguous Embershard entrance. She bit her inner jaw as a reply, and I accepted the fact that she didn't have one, even though the preventative action for simply speaking her mind whatever the retort annoyed me to the core. Secondarily, I wiped the stupid vomit off my slightly hairy chin and promised my glazed eyes that if they cried again anytime today...I'd be poking them out.

I particularly should've gotten therapy for what's happened so far. I realized finally I was actually treading on a thin line without any friends. My parents died. Died, I tried to make myself understand the reality of it. I carried this axe angrily, now. Really wanting to implant it into someone's skull at the moment.

But this behavior made me sick, yet satisfied at the same time. Something I couldn't do to save my parents I was now doing 24/7. I had trained to protect, at least in my parent's home. But now one shouldn't mess with a dragon killer like me - I wasn't only sparing the humans and killing the dragons. I was inexpressibly capable of killing everything, even if it was through a word. Fus. Got'cha guys. No, you're not going to fly through your monitor, breaking the glass, I promise.

The dragons flew through my mind, their ceaseless killing, their aim for conquest and torture and havoc-wreaking. Was I becoming...one?

This really delved into Desraim's psyche and literally Lydia's very well...I didn't know Lydia was so...I don't know :) Anyway, let me know if you see any errors (conceptual rather than grammatical). I made it guys. Literally. *Applause, applause, 'Cara makes another chapter, hoot hoot! I feel like I gave away a big secret giving away part of my name...looks so foreign on Wattpad's white-pasted monitor pages, sniff sniff. But that's why I didn't post it all you suckers! Now Fus away!* And look at our friendly Bethesda Universe's inspirational power, of course, through a fanfic titled "Diary of a Wasteland Wanderer: Icarus Garland", by SparrowFoxe. Creepy laugh: enjoy your weekend ;))))) Mwaaahhhsssss...wait, no, I didn't finish the Cairn yet! So...swaszzzzz, not mwah. I need to stop saying mwah, None of those, yet, y'all! I must finish it first!