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]

Thank you, haute ecole rider, I’m glad you enjoy it. Hmm… I think it’s the Bosmer in her that likes the water more than anything. Lol. You know, I actually have one silly cat who won’t drink water unless at least one paw is in it. Lol. Hmm…
Acadian and mALX, thanks for the comments.
Rach, lol, thanks for the comment. “/Cat-itude.” You know I can’t write or edit anything, though, when I’m sick and I have Prince of Persia to watch and to make music videos with! WOOHOO! PoP FTW!! *Ahem* Okay, I'll shut up now....



Chapter 8: For the Love of a Dress


Her voice was soft and hoarse, as if it was very rarely used. She opened and closed her mouth a couple times before the words came again, “Master?” Again she called for him, this time much louder, “Master?”

She made her way to shore, once again searching the stream and forest for him. She ran past the clothes spread across the grass and past the little cart, looking around the nearly empty encampment, her panicked voice weakly calling out, “Master! Master!”

She didn’t have far to look, however, for right by their sleeping area, the Nord had already packed up their sleeping gear, had prepared a meal of eggs and some sort of meat, and was saddling up a horse.

The Nord looked up at the naked Four-eared Khajiit running toward him, calling his name. And he looked down, instantly, covering his face.

“Mara, what are you doing?” he asked, not looking up or uncovering his eyes.

The Khajiit, overjoyed to see that he hadn’t abandoned her, and suddenly embarrassed when she realized that she had no clothes on, stopped dead in her tracks.

“Mara, go get your clothes on. They’re back by the stream – I’ll wait for you here, okay? Now go!”

She stumbled backwards and quickly ran back behind the carts. The Nord let his hand slide away from his eyes as he heard her leave, and he shook his head. That was…embarrassing… He certainly wouldn’t tell her mother about that.

After several moments, the Khajiit came back, very slowly and fearfully, dressed in the dripping wet rags she always wore.

“Mara, you’re in wet clothes,” the Nord observed, reproachfully.

“Sorry,” she answered in a voice so low that he could barely hear her. “… All Four Ears have.”

“But what about the clothes I gave you?” the Nord asked. The Khajiit didn’t answer, but just stood there, not sure what he was talking about.

“Come,” the Nord once more instructed. He led her back to the stream and picked up a dress. “I have pants and a shirt or this dress. Here, feel the material,” he instructed as he held out the skirt part for her feel.

She very cautiously dragged her finger across the dress, awed by the soft, beautiful feel.
“You want it? Here, take it.”

The Khajiit took the dress, rubbing her finger across all the ribbons and lace, silk and satin. She had never felt anything so soft, so first her fingers ran across it, then her whole hand, then she ran it across her arms and tail, and rubbed her whole face in it.

“Umm, you’re supposed to wear it,” the Nord, his brows raised a little, told her.
The Khajiit’s head jumped up at his words, and she hugged the dress against her chest in a defensive manner.

“I’m not trying to take it away from you, but if you don’t wear it, I’m going to… Now, you need to put it on.”

The Khajiit shook her head and took to her heals. She ran alongside the stream a few feet and climbed to the top of a tree. The Nord, tired and annoyed, followed after her.
“Come down here now,” he instructed.

She shook her head again, as she clung tightly to the dress and hissed down at him. This wasn’t a ferocious hiss as she had given him before – her face did not distort into a mix of fear and anger – rather, this was a defiant hiss.

“Don’t make me climb up there and bring you down,” the Nord demanded. When her only response was to ignore him as she continued to rub her face into the softness of the rich fabric, the Nord carried out his threat.

Once again he surprised her. Being such a big man, she thought for sure that he would be slow to rise, but he leapt from branch to branch and was upon her in a second or two.
The little creature panicked. If she jumped down, she could hurt herself. If she jumped into the stream, she’d hurt herself and get the dress wet. He was too close to her to go down any branches without getting caught. She looked around not sure where to go or what to do.

“Come,” the Nord told her, reaching out his hand. “I will not take the dress from you. I’ll even give you another one if you come down with me.”

The Khajiit glanced around, seeing if there was anywhere else she could go. As there wasn't, she slowly reached her hand toward the Nord, the other still clinging to the dress. The Nord carefully brought her closer to his reach, scooped her up in his arms, and brought her down with him.

She jumped out of his arms before they had even reached the bottom of the tree, and she waited several feet away for him.

The Nord was not in a good mood now. He walked over to the pile of clothes and picked up the other dress. “This is also yours,” he told her as he tossed her the bundle of red fabric. She caught it and examined it, even more impressed by it then the other dress.

He grabbed the black shirt and pants, tossing them to her, telling her, “These are all yours. Wear whatever you want, but just get out of those rags and don’t play around with the rest of your clothes.”

The Khajiit nodded slightly and pointed toward the rest of the pile.

“These are skirts. This one has the lace – you always have to wear it when you wear a dress. This other one is if you want more of a poof to your skirt. Some women wear only the lacy one, and others will wear up to a dozen or so of these, depending on what the fashion is.”

The Khajiit pointed to the other two articles of clothing on the ground.

“Those are…you know…. You mean you’ve never had these before?” The Nord picked up the underwear, “You…wear it… You’ve had this before, right?”

The Khajiit shook her head in agreement, but pointed to the bodice piece on the ground. “It’s…you know… a girl’s thing… Kinda like the …thing… you’re wearing now. You wear it.” The Khajiit tilted her head from side to side to look the item. It was peach colored, and covered the upper chest and most of the stomach. She shook her head in disapproval at it, and squeezed her new dress and pretty black shirt close to her.

“No, you have to wear this,” the Nord told her. “It goes with the dress and shirt. You just wear the dress or shirt over it.” Sighing impatiently, he told her, “Look, I don’t know how to explain this. Just put on your underwear and then either one of the dresses or the shirt and the pants. I’ll be by the campfire waiting for you. Hurry up, ‘cause the foods getting cold!”

With that he left, leaving the Four-eared Khajiit to look over the new clothes she had.

It was nearly half an hour later by time she figured out how to wear her new clothes, tried on all three pairs, running and jumping in each to see which would be easier to escape in should the need arise, and finally came to the camp fire to eat.

Her food was cold, of course, but that wasn’t what bothered her. The new clothes felt very restrictive compared to what she had worn before, and the Nord wouldn’t stop looking at her. She didn’t know why he did, but it scared her. She suddenly felt more naked than she did with the shreds of cloth on.

This post has been edited by sford564: Sep 21 2010, 04:30 AM