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]

Chapter 19: Trouble at the Temple

The priests at the new temple listened to the Nord’s story with great interest and agreed to help Mara the best that they could.


It was hard for Mara to be around all those people. She only really trusted the Nord and only liked him and Igor. Most of the priests had stern faces and looked at her almost if she were some sort of demon in their midst.

One time when she was climbing on the beautiful dragon statue in the midst of some broken pillars in a plot next to the temple, they yelled at her so sternly that she was afraid to come near them. The Nord found her on the city wall staring out into the sunset, crying her little yellow eyes out.

“You’re trying to kill me…” he muttered as he looked beneath him at the many rocks and the steep fall. “Why did you run away?”

“Mara afraid.”

“Mara we’ve already been there four days. They haven’t hurt you in anyway so far. Why would you be afraid?”

“Priest yell at Mara.”

“I told you he has a name. What was it again?”

“Claudius.”

“That’s right. Do you know why Father Claudius was so mad? That big statue you were on, do you know what it was?”

“Rock? Dragon rock?”

“Well it was in the shape of a dragon and it was made of rock, but, actually, it was originally a man: our last emperor, Martin. He saved the empire from Lord Dagon nearly twenty years ago.”

“Emperor is dragon?”

“Well, he wasn’t exactly a dragon. He just became one.”

“How?”

After explaining the story of the life and death of Emperor Martin, the Nord told her, “Do you remember how important it was for you not to steal?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I want you to put this on your list of important things not to do: don’t climb on things. People think you’re weird when you climb up every wall and statue you come across. Do you understand?”

“Mara not have any fun. Mara never have fun. If no climb then no fun.”

Smiling a little, the Nord told her, “Don’t worry, we’ll find some fun stuff to do.”

“We climb this wall?” Cringing a little, he agreed. “We climb this wall,” she confirmed. “Just Mara and Nord. Look at sky. Talk. No one else bother. Just Mara and Nord.”

But it was not to be just Mara and the Nord. For right away, the priests realized that Mara clung too much to the Nord. Every decision she made had to be confirmed with the Nord: when she ate, when she slept, etc. They had a hard time teaching her when she tried to confirm everything they said via the Nord. It couldn’t be the proper way to write or pronounce something unless he said it was. And she would need his constant approval and admiration for everything she did. If he wasn’t there and couldn’t confirm or admire what she did, she’d fret and fuss and want him around.

The Nord agreed that he slowly had to work himself out of her life in order for her to become an independent woman. First he would tell her to obey Father Claudius, and then he would disappear for a half hour to an hour. If she was good when he came back, he’d congratulate her and listen to all the stuff she was doing: learning to write, learning to cook, learning to clean, learning to draw, learning to sew, etc.

If she was not obeying as she should, he would scold her. This usually made her obey again, and, after cheering her up a bit, he’d leave again.

Thus a few hours turned into half a day and half a day turned into a full day. And a full day turned into a week and then a month, and then a year. In the time he saw her, she learned to read and write. She learned to talk properly: no longer was she ‘Mara’, but ‘I’. The names ‘Four Ears’ and ‘Master’ were forbidden to be used, thus she never said them.