Chapter 4: Road to Riverwood

"I think introductions are in order," Hadvar said. "I'm Hadvar. This is Ralof, and this fellow is Thor. We're all from Riverwood."

Thor of Riverwood, eh? Interesting...

"Ciri. Jonathan. Not from Skyrim."

I put the cub down and exhaled with relief when the splint seemed to let him walk. It was relatively slow, and he still seemed to hobble, but it was better than not walking at all.

"Any of you know any restoration spells that could help?" I asked.

Heads were shook all around, and I cursed inwardly. "Sorry; I can barely heal myself, let alone others," Hadvar said.

"Is that what they teach you traitors nowadays?" Ralof asked with a scoff. Hadvar's face darkened immediately.

"Oh, no; we are so not doing this," I growled. "Do I have to bash your heads together, so that you might gain some sense?"

Ralof and Hadvar stared at me with confusion and indignation, Ciri and Thor with a look of slight amusement, as far as I could tell.

"This whole civil war is so ridiculous. Who do you think benefits the most from prolonging the war? A war that keeps Skyrim in no condition to deal with outside threats, and a considerable amount of the Empire's forces occupied and weakened? Put those brains of yours to use, damn it. As long as there is a civil war in Skyrim, the Thalmor will rule over you."

Both looked at me as if they wanted to say something, but I was having none of it. I meant what I said; as so often with politics, it was facepalm-inducing. "No. Both sides of the conflict are at fault, and as long as neither can see that, the only winner is their common enemy. I assume you two grew up together if you're from the same town. Why are political differences interfering with friendships? Or have you Nords become bickering fishwives while I wasn't looking? You'll have time to think about that on the road. Now, are you or are you not ready for the trip to Riverwood?"

Properly scolded, it didn't take long for them to get ready, and we started the trip to the next village. I assumed they saw my point, because neither seemed to take any offense to my words. Or maybe they were actually thinking about what I said. It surprised me a little, I must say, but neither in this world nor in my own was I ever one to look a gift horse in the mouth. I fared well enough with it so far.

Our tag-alongs were a bit slower than us, which just meant that it was more a leisurely walk than the forced jog I had feared.

As expected, our path led us by three standing stones, which Ciri politely refused to touch. "How do they work, anyway?" I asked, inspecting the inscriptions.

"No idea, but we don't need to know how it works to use it, now do we?" Ralof replied with raised eyebrows.

"Fair enough," Thor said with a shrug, and laid his hands on the Warrior Stone. I watched the stone intently, but nothing happened, as far as I could tell.

The Nord stepped away from it and rolled his shoulders, a small grin on his lips. "Haven't felt like that in a long time."

"Did it work?" I asked.

He turned around and smirked at me. "Only one way to find out."

"Fine," I muttered, and imitated his gesture, laying my hand on the Warrior Stone.

At first, nothing happened and I was feeling kinda bummed out. Then my hand started getting warmer and warmer. I almost pulled my hand away in shock, but Thor held it in place with a small smile. The stone lit up, making my hand and shortly after that the rest of the body tingle like crazy.

The beam shot out of the top and skyward before fading after a few seconds. The Nord released my hand as I unsteadily stepped away from the Stone and stared in wonder at the residual afterglow that still clung to my hand. "That. Was. Awesome!" I exclaimed with a big smile on my face, looking back up to the group.

"Warrior, eh? Good choice," Hadvar said and nodded at me.

I shrugged, still smiling widely from the experience. "Well, I'll need it. I've never held an actual sword in my hand before today, and I have a feeling that won't do in Skyrim."

The Nords all nodded sagely and started walking towards Riverwood again, quickly followed by Ciri, my cub and me.

We spent most of the way in comfortable silence, with the exception of a small pack of wolves that attacked. I stayed with the cub, but I needn't have bothered. Half of them ran away after seeing their apparent alpha die in seconds, courtesy of Ciri. Thor took it upon himself to expertly skin the alpha wolf, which didn't take as long as I would have expected. At least it might bring us some coin.

"We're close to Riverwood now," Ralof explained as we climbed the last ascent.

"By the way, do any of you still have family there?" I asked. "We need supplies, and maybe a bed for the night. We shouldn't stay too long, or at least not all of us. If anything, the Jarl of Whiterun should be interested in what happened in Helgen."

Thor was an orphan, apparently, but the other two happily led us to their families. We had a brief discussion before entering the village and decided to get a room in Delphine's inn so we wouldn't bother the families after already asking for supplies.

Ralof offered to go to his sister by himself, to get some more food for the trip to Whiterun and for the cub, which we gladly accepted. It seemed easier to keep the two former friends separate, at least for now.

The rest of us made our way to Alvor, Hadvar's uncle. He took us in, although he seemed slightly wary of my bear cub. The splint probably helped sell his harmlessness. He did send his daughter downstairs though when the cub came in.

We traded the wolf pelt for a slightly misshapen iron armor for me; one of his daughter's better pieces, if her proud smile when I said it fit nicely was anything to go by. I had already written my shirt off, so it didn't hurt my heart as much when I had to wear it as underarmor. It was a fine, pure cotton dress shirt, woven to withstand the hardest office environment, but I had no illusions about its life expectancy under iron armor. It would get me to Whiterun, at least. Or so I hoped.

Alvor gave us backpacks as well, a welcome addition to our inventory. They weren't exactly the trekking backpacks I was used to in my world, but rather smaller and larger pouches worn around the belt.

Indeed, you could call them fanny packs. But the joke would be on you, because those fanny packs are damn useful. Or at least, that's what Thor said approvingly when Alvor plucked those out of a chest by his forge.

We spent most of the day getting supplies, and while we tried to keep a low profile, that didn't exactly work in a village of about a dozen people. By the end of the day, we were the talk of the village.

We were enjoying a light meal of fish when Camilla Valerius followed her brother Lucan into the inn, both siblings seemingly quite agitated.

"See, sister dearest? I am doing something about it. Now will you finally shut up about going there yourself?"

His sister put her hands to her hips. "Don't get ahead of yourself. They haven't even agreed to help us yet."

"Bah. Formalities, that's all."

By the end of that discussion, they had arrived at our table. "Is there something we can do for you?" I asked, keeping my amusement hidden as best as I could.

"Indeed, there is," Lucan said and threw his sister a look of 'I told you so'.

"I am the owner of the 'Riverwood Trader', and we had a break in a few weeks ago. Curiously enough, they stole nothing except for a dragon claw figurine out of pure gold. Well, I know that the claw's thieves are holed up in Bleak Falls Barrow, but I can't get there myself," he explained.

I chuckled. "Because it is borderline suicide, you mean. We may not be from around here, but we're not stupid. The barrow surely is crawling with Draugr, not to mention the bandit infestation on the way up." I saw him wincing as I mentioned the perils. "I, for one, really don't want to go, but if you can make it worth our while, we will at least think about it."

Ciri had been right of course; if we were to stay any considerable amount of time in this place, we needed supplies. And money. We'd need a bunch of septims for anything and everything, and doing the odd job for Skyrim's inhabitants had the positive side effect of not only filling our figurative coffers, but also adding the bonus of favors, connections, reputations and the like. Not that I had any intention to go near that wretched barrow; but a possible Dragonborn and a certified badass like Ciri should be well able to handle themselves.

"Well, I have still some money from a shipment that came through a short while ago," he started with no short amount of uncertainty. "If you can bring me the claw and deal with the thieves, those four hundred septims are yours."

Lucan Valerius looked like it hadn't been easy for him to bring this sentence over his lips, but as it were, it was a damn good offer and we'd be fools not to take it.

"That is very generous of you, thank you. We might take you up on that, but not today. We need to heal, and gather supplies."

Ever the businessman, Lucan put on a smile upon hearing that. "Well, if you need supplies, you're always welcome in the Riverwood Trader. We have quite the collection of items that might interest you."

Ciri chuckled at Lucan's business sense. "Very kind of you. If we need more supplies, we'll come to you. However, it is growing late. We will need to retire to our room now."

The Valerian siblings got the hint and retreated from the main room, leaving us to our own devices. We quickly finished the meal and made our way to the room we had rented, and I realized with a teeny tiny bit of dread that there was only one bed.

"You can take the bed, I can take the floor," I said.

I could feel the heat creeping up my neck and spreading across my whole face, which was made even worse by the fact that she could tell exactly what was going on, thanks to whatever training she had undergone.

She chuckled at my predicament and grinned at me. "If it doesn't make you too uncomfortable, we can share the bed. It is certainly big enough for two, is it not?"

I was this close to reply with, 'That's what she said', but I caught myself just in time. Not that she would have understood that admittedly corny joke, anyway. Or maybe it's a universal thing, but I was not going to test it out. At least the joke gave me back some of my confidence. And ultimately, she was offering a soft, warm bed instead of the cold, hard stone floor.

"Fine. I'm not above admitting that I enjoy the comforts of a soft bed, even if that means sharing. If you are okay with it, by all means. I promise I won't try any funny business," I added with a slight smile. She only shrugged and agreed to it.

We doffed our armor and climbed into bed; we kept our distance, naturally, but it was curious that I ended up as the little spoon in the morning. It didn't matter though, because it soon came back to me what was our target today.

Well, off to fight the undead then.