The Nord and the Four-Eared Khajiit, About 20 years after Martin's death, as crimes are spreading, a No Options

[sford564]

Okay, I already posted this on fanfiction.net, but I've revised it a little now. Soooo... here it is. It starts out a little dark and gets lighter as it goes.


Chapter 1: Fulfilling a Promise

The Nord made his way through the forest toward the traveling entertainers’ carts. There were all sorts of low lives of every race in this little gathering. Some of the scum wanted to see the bear baiting or to bet on the pit fights. Others wanted to buy slaves. Others still came to have sex with or buy some of the kidnapped girls the travelers had with them.

Sure, slavery was illegal, but it didn’t matter as long as you didn’t get caught. After Emperor Martin’s sacrifice, everyone’s attention was focused on cleaning their world up again from the Oblivion scum and rebuilding it again. Then, when things began to settle down, the talk of the new emperor exploded into several skirmishes, until most citizens didn’t care who ruled, as long as the deaths stopped. Now that the new High Chancellor took over rule, things were peaceful again for the moment. Alas, though, with all the strife that had taken place, the High Chancellor didn’t have enough time or man power to take care of every problem across the land, which meant that slavers began to rise up here and there in various parts of the world.


The Nord shivered a little and pulled the cloak further over his head so that no one could see him as he rode up to the camp. He had promised the dying Khajiit that he’d find her daughter, but he never expected to find her in a place like this. Still, though, he didn’t have as hard a time finding her as he had expected. It seemed that the sight of the four-eared half breed Khajiit made a lot of stir in every town she was brought to.

As soon as he entered the camp, he was surrounded by a group of dangerous looking men. “I’m looking for a Khajiit half-breed. Four ears,” he informed them.

“We have nothing like that here,” one of the men told him, not liking the looks of the Nord.

“Ahhh, so you’re the one asking around, are you?” another asked.

“What do you want, stranger?”

“I want to buy her,” the Nord answered.

“She’s not for sale!”

“She will be,” the Nord assured, slipping off his horse next to them. The vagabonds backed away a little, as the Nord towered over most of them. “Take me to her,” he demanded. No one moved.

The Nord slipped off his hood, and everyone backed away even more, horrified. There was no real face on the Nord; instead, there were two black eyes and two ears in a mass of scarred and torn flesh. He looked inhuman enough to be one of the Oblivion spawns he had hunted many years ago.

“Now,” the Nord growled. The group instantly spilt away from him and one vagabond, too scared to disobey, made his way through camp – nearly running to get away from the Nord – to where the Four-eared Khajiit was locked.

There was a small group of laughing, jeering people in front of the cage. They didn’t even notice as the Nord walked behind them.

This post has been edited by sford564: Sep 5 2010, 07:12 AM

[sford564]

Hehehehe. Thanks for the comments guys! Glad to see that people are interested so far. Oh, the slave master didn't really call her "mother of mine" - that was a censored word.



Chapter 3: Master and Slave

The slave master one time sold her to an old Orc whose name he found on a list of wanted men. Apparently the law began looking for the Orc after he killed his wife, so he went in hiding, somehow managing to get eleven other women, most of whom he bought from slavers.

The slave master gave her the choice of either killing the Orc or letting him “turn you into his wife and then kill you”. She learned how to break an Orc’s back and to tear out its throat. It wasn’t that different than killing a rat.

Her slave master then got the reward for bringing the Orc to justice, and she came back to him, though he always threatened that one day he would sell her to another just like the Orc, only he’d leave her for good this next time.

This was the next time. If he intended to let her be tortured and killed, she would kill him first so that he could not gloat over her fate.

She looked up at the Nord, bloodlust clearly written across her eyes.

The Nord was horrified. He came there to rescue a dear friend’s stolen child, but what he found was a wild, savage animal locked in a cage. He had imagined someone just like Jo Dar – kindly and nice, always with a big smile on her face, even when she was terminally ill; and a warm, loving, scolding remark whenever he was being unreasonable – but he never fathomed that she would be the skeletal creature in front of him, covered in her own, a rat’s and her slave master’s blood, hissing savagely, and surrounded by the corpses of the creatures she just killed.

The Four-eared Khajiit, hissing and growling lowly, was tense, as if she were about to pounce on him, too, to break his back and tear out his throat. The Nord slowly reached for the sword at his belt. Her eyes followed his hand as it reached lower toward the blade, but somehow also managed to stare directly into his eyes, making him feel as if she could read his every thought.

His hands grasped the hilt of his sword. She tensed even more, about to spring on him at any second.

Neither got to strike first, though, as the crowd that had gathered around them, at first too horrified to say or do anything when she had killed the Dunmer-Orc, now grew into a fever of rage and fear.

“Kill the monster!” they cried out to him.

Both the Nord and the Four-eared Khajiit jumped, so intense in their pre-battle that they had completely forgotten that anyone else was around.

“Kill it!” they cried.

The half-breed Khajiit looked through her bars, suddenly realizing that she was completely surrounded and outnumbered. Panic struck her face as she glanced down at the corpse beside her and then up again at the crowd around her. Her gaze then fell upon the Nord, the closest and most immediate danger.

“No,” the Nord told them after a second’s hesitation. For some reason, scared though he was of her, afraid that she’d leap upon him the second he turned his back to her, he could not raise his sword against her.

Perhaps it was because he knew and loved her mother, the very truest of friends. Perhaps it was because he had promised her – promised her – a Nord’s promise – something that he held dear as if it were the gods’ own words – that he would let no harm come to her daughter. Or perhaps it was because she looked at him in such a helpless, defenseless manner that it would have been against his principles to kill a creature such as this: beaten, wounded, and trapped in a corner, awaiting death. He might have looked and even sometimes acted like a barbarian to others, but he hated to see the weak and defenseless hurt.

“No,” he repeated a second time, this time a little more sure of himself. “I’ve come to save her – I cannot harm her.”

“Get out of our way!” they cried. “We’re going to kill her!”

The group of cutthroats and slavers were already armed, so they drew their weapons – whatever they each had – and began toward the cage’s entrance.

Afraid to turn his back on her, but afraid to let them near her, the Nord closed the cage’s door, making the lock spring into place and threw the keys into the cage for the Four-eared Khajiit, who scooped them up.


The Four-eared Khajiit stood in awe as the barbarian stood in front of the cage’s door, guarding it. There must have been a good twenty or so people ready to challenge him, and then another ten or so around the cage.

“Don’t go near her. She’s not to blame. I’ll pay for the damages that your friend’s death must’ve cost you, but the Four-eared Khajiit goes with me.”

“She’s a monster! She killed a man! She’ll kill more.”

“Get out of our way! We’ll have her head.”

“We’ll have yours, too, if you don’t move.”

“Fine then, get ‘em both!”