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]

haute ecole rider: Thanks - fixed that one.
Okay... this chapter is a little long...

Chapter 10: Homeward Bound

As soon as everyone woke up and ate, the Nord had them gather all the gold and treasures they could find and he split the wealth among them all, Mara included. He split the horses and wagons among the freed slaves, giving Mara a little black mare. He also sorted the clothes so they all had an extra pair.

“Gold is mine?” Mara whispered.

“Yes, this gold is yours. I would normally give you more as you’ve been through more than most here, but I intend to take care of you myself.”

“Take care?” she asked. “How?”

“I’m going to give you a house on my lands; we’ll be neighbors. You’ll never have to pay me rent, and I’ll always be with you to take care of you.”

“Give Four Ears house? Just for Four Ears?”

“Yes, unless you want to live with me. You can be my guest.” Mara’s eyes widened a little, so he quickly explained, “Mara, your mother was very good to me when I needed help. So now I want to help you, because that’s what she wants.”

The Four-eared Khajiit looked over at the Nord, a strange mix emotions dancing in her eyes. “Mara thank,” she finally whispered.

They set out at once. The Nord promised to bring the freed slaves to the next settlement they came to. They were lucky to have him with them, as they ran into danger several times along the way.

It fascinated Mara to see the Nord fight. Though they never ran into as much trouble as they had that one night when he saved her, they still were faced with several dangerous situations.

The Nord stayed awake most of the night watching over them. Some nights she’d wake up to the sounds of battle, but sometimes she would sleep right through it and awake to find a Minotaur or pack of thieves dead in the middle of their camp.

One night they were attacked by a pack of wolves, and her horse and a couple others were slain. The Nord killed every one of the wolves that stayed and fought, and chased after and felled the ones that ran. It was terrifying to hear the howls and yells echoing through the forest trees over the thick, foggy night air. When the noise ended, she and all the others were sure that the impulsive Nord had run to his death. But a few seconds later he slowly stomped back to the camp, bloodied and annoyed, growling and muttering about what a nuisance the lack of horses would make.

As everyone else needed the remaining horses, the Nord had Mara ride his big warhorse while he walked beside her.

The horse was a little frightening, it was so big. But the Nord insisted she ride it, so, rather than walking, she got used to the Nord lifting her up to the big saddle.

As soon as they arrived at a settlement, the Nord bid the others all ado, and he and Mara left.

“Now that they’re at safety, we need to move as fast as we can. I pray we get back in enough time.”

“But Mara tired.”

“Mara can sleep on the horse.”

“Mara hungry.”

“I just bought more supplies – eat something. Have some more jerky.”

“Mara hate jerky. Jerky hard and hurt teeth.”

“You’ll get used to it.”

“Mara scared.”

“Scared of what?”

“Being alone.”

“Alone? You’re with me.”

“Mara know. Mara afraid of being with just Nord.”

“But weren’t you scared of them? I never saw you talk to them or anything. You hissed anytime one of them went near you.”

“Yes, but Mara still scared of you.”

The Nord laughed a little at this. “We’ve been a week on the road. How can you still be afraid of me?”

“Mara is,” the Four-eared Khajiit told him. “Mara afraid take bread and cheese and even gross jerky away. Leave rat to fight. Mara afraid take pretty clothes away. Mara afraid make wife.”

“Mara you do realize don’t you that when they sold those women to be ‘wives’, they weren’t real ‘wives’ as the term is meant to be used. I mean, you can’t buy someone to make them your wife or husband.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” the Nord told, getting somewhat flustered. “Because when you meet someone and they become your husband or wife, it’s their choice. It’s because they love you, not because you’re rich enough to buy them. We only buy horses and clothing and furniture, not people.”

“But everyone does it.”

“No, not everyone. Even in the old days when slavery was legal, not everyone did it. Only scum did it. Mara, what those men do when they buy their ‘wives’ is what your father did to your mother.”

“But master told me there were nice ones and then mean ones, like Nord.”

“Me?!”

“Yes, master said Nord wanted to beat and hurt Mara.”

“Trust me, I don’t want to beat or hurt you… When you say hurt, do you mean…?”

“What man did to mother.”

The Nord nodded. “I would never hurt you, Mara, and there’s very little you could do that would make me hit you, never mind beat you.”

“What Mara do make Nord hit Mara?”

“Well…I don’t know…umm…threaten to kill someone.”

“What Mara kill someone?”

“No! You could never do something like that. Murder is wrong. When you killed your old master, that was one thing: he deserved to die. But you must not kill anyone else.”

“Mara killed Orc before.”

“Why?”

“Mara was sold as wife. Orc was nasty. Would hurt Mara. Master told if kill Orc, would take back. Mara killed Orc. Then Master said he would sell to nasty man like Orc. Sell to Nord.”

The Nord listened to this with interest, an eyebrow rising up at the end of the sentence. “Well, Nord isn’t going to hurt Mara,” he told her, noting how bad his sentences were getting as he kept trying to simplify them for her to understand better. “What would your master beat you for?”

“If Mara talk.”

“Well I like when you talk. In fact, after we go home, I’m going to take you to the temple where some of the priests will help you with your language. Have you been taught to read or write?”

“Master know how to read. Not write. Master no teach anything. Four Ears animal. Animals don’t know anything.”

The Nord nodded. “What else did he hit you for?”

“Mara no know. Mara hit all time. Mara get beat badly, though, when Mara’s bowl broke.”

“Well, don’t worry, I won’t beat you if you break anything. I just want you to be careful when you’re handling things. Especially glass.”

“When Mara was little, Mara stole. Food and doll. Little doll with big dress like Mara wears now. Master beat really badly. So Mara tried run away. Master beat again. Then Mara hit Master and bit.”

“And then your Master beat you really hard?” the Nord asked. Mara just nodded. “Don’t worry, Mara, I won’t do any of that. You won’t run away because I’ll treat you good. You won’t steal food because I’ll always give you food and because then you can get in trouble with the law.”

“Mara already stole.”

“What?!”

“Not from Nord!” she quickly told him, ducking from him. “From people.”

Stepping in front of his horse to stop it, the Nord looked up at Mara, demanding, “What did you take and where is it?”

Mara quickly took a piece of cloth from inside the saddlebag and handed it to the Nord. “See? None of Nord’s.”

The cloth itself was a rag of old, finer material. The Nord didn’t even want to know where she found it. There was a nice supply of food she had stolen from the little shops, and little trinkets she either stole or picked off the ground. Most of the stuff was completely worthless, but she did manage to snag someone’s ring.

“Where did you get this?” the Nord demanded.

“Finger.”

“Whose finger? And you took just the ring and not the finger, right?” he asked, cringing.

“Finger ugly and fat,” the Four-eared Khajiit told him, confused. “Old man had it. Have to take old man to get finger. No want old man. No want old man’s finger. But ring come off. Take ring. Not finger or old man.”

After carefully examining the ring, he declared, “Thankfully this is not worth much. However, it could mean a lot to him. Mara, what if this was the ring of the old man’s wife? What if this was all he had left to remember her by? And you just took it from him.”

The Four-eared Khajiit looked down at the Nord, her eyes displaying frustration and remorse. “But…”

“But nothing.”

“Do you realize what would happen if you were caught? They’d send you to jail. Do you want to go to jail?”

The Khajiit shook her head quickly.

“Don’t ever, ever, ever steal something from anyone else again. Do you understand me?”

She shook her head again, tears starting to form in her eyes. “Master no hit Mara?”

“I told you to call me Nord. Don’t call me ‘master’ again, do you understand?”

The tears fell down now, and she cringed slightly as she told him. “Yes master – Nord. No hit Four Ears.”

“Mara,” the Nord once again corrected. Sighing deeply to rid himself of his frustration – though it didn’t work completely – the Nord told her, “I’m going to leave these on the side of the road. Hopefully the patrol will find it before anyone else does. I can’t take it back, though, because then you’ll be in big trouble.”

“Yes mast-Nord.”

The Nord dropped the sack onto the ground and they walked on. Mara looked back at the beautiful things she had collected – the ring, the trinkets, the food. All of it was gone now.

“Stop crying,” the Nord grumbled. “You’d be crying a lot more if you were in jail now.”

“Yes Mast-Nord,” she answered through tears. “Nord hit Mara?”

“I think you learned your lesson this time. But if you steal again, I’m going to have to. Do you understand?”

“Yes master. Mara no steal ever. Promise.”

“Good,” the Nord told her, inwardly begging that she didn’t, for fear of how he’d have to get out of his threat.