Mayoral Manor: Skogurheim Trade Village, Skyrim

-= Later that night =-

At around 3 hours after midnight I woke to the sound of a scream. Fumbling round, I leap out of bed only to have my foot catch in the sheets bumping me out onto the floor. Scrambling back to my feet I raced to the source of the scream and was confronted by Belle rushing out of the guest room catching sight of me in my leather kilt she raced around behind me I turn to enter the room only to be confronted by my guest, with a sharpened bone and obsidian awl.

She stood there in a threatening manner, as she catches sight of me she growls moving the blade in a threatening motion, wincing as she drew the blade in front of her body she hissed softly and grunted out a cursing threat.

As she winced, I slapped her wrist in a downward motion. The obsidian blade stuck into the floor and shattered, cracking the bone grip. She backed away from me in wincing in pain and fear placing one of the beds between us.

I scowled and gesture at the floor, "Gah my bloody floor... ugh."

I step into the room and pick up the splintered bone grip and tossed it onto the bed between her and I and tugged the obsidian blade tip out of the floor boards looking it over and rubbed the chip in the floor, irritated. Ignoring the woman I took the obsidian to the window, opening it up I tossed the shard out of the window, "Belle my dear you my go home, it would seem our guest has recovered."

Peaking around the doorjamb she nodded and scampered away. Looking back to my guest, I ask, "I don't know if you can understand me or not, but are you alright?"

She hesitated, eyeing the bone shiv.

"Come now, if you can understand me and you are alright nod or something please. I will not be considered a poor host. Now are you alright or no?"

I could see that her eyes were tearing up, her tears glistening in the light coming from the coals of the fireplace. I held up my hands in a peacefully submissive gesture, "I am going to get you more firewood. Run or receive medical attention it is your call, I swear to the Aedra you will not come to any harm. But it is your call."

I backed away from the nervous woman and left the room wandering down to the door out back, and the large pile of split wood stacked out there. Loading up my arms I returned to the room, to find the woman fumbling with the bone shiv in the back corner. Carrying in the wood I caught shook my head at the sight of her and went about my task of feeding the fire, calmly appearing to ignore her. I fed the fire slowly building a slow but steady flame, stacking the remaining wood in the sling beside the fireplace before returning my attention to the flame coaxing it just enough to shed more light within the room. Sitting back I warmed my hands before the crackling flames almost missing the near silent tread of the woman approaching my back.

Turning quickly I caught her wrist on my forearm the remaining obsidian shard sliced across the skin of my arm, bringing a hiss from between my teeth as my other arm swung around her side to catch her as she fell forward, caught off balance. Spinning her around, my open hand cradled and protected the back of her head as she fell to the floor while my other arm pinned her shiv hand to the floor. She hissed in pain as her wounded shoulder hit the floor, before I gently tugged the arm under her back out from under her, "That was rather foolish Miss. Brave but foolish."

She squeezed her eyes shut tight and whimpered softly in an accented common tongue, "Please, don't. Don't hurt, please."

Reaching over I tugged the bone shiv from her hand and gave it a quick look before tossing it in the flames, "As I said Miss, I am not going to hurt you. You are a guest in my home. What sort of host would I be if I allowed those in my hall to be harmed, by my own hand none the less? Now I am going to let you up, please don't try to fight me I just want to make sure my Medicae's stitches haven't been ripped out, ok," I asked, she opened her teary eyes and nodded hesitantly as I let her up, "Roll over please, the blade is in the flames so you've nothing to worry about, I just want to have a look at your wound is all."

She rolled over to her belly hesitantly doing her best to keep me in her line of sight as much as possible. Lifting the furs covering her shoulder I gently moved the bandages to the side exposing the stitching, "Damn you Bjor, this is a terrible stitching, even I could stitch you better than this," I stood up slowly, "rest here for a bit Miss, you are going to need better stitching and my Medicae seems to have an issue with your people it would seem. I will be back in a moment, so just rest here by the warm fire and I will return in a moment."

She looked up at me in a mistrustful manner but settled into a more comfortable position after apparently deciding to trust me for the time being. I turned and went to the bathroom and pulled a standard Legion field dressing kit from one of the shelves then went down to the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of rather expensive mead along with a pair of horn pints and returned to the guest room in which she lay. I placed the mead and pints on the floor near the fireplace before setting down the field kit off to the side and sat beside her where she lay and poured us each a pint of the mead, "Here have some mead, it will help with any pain." She lay watching me unsure whether it was safe or not until I drank some of my own and turned to open the field kit, "So if I understand it right you are one of the... Forsworn tribe or something like that, is that right?"

My question seemed to dumbfound her for some reason, causing her to cough some of the mead she was sipping back into the pint, "Y- you say like, like you outsider to this lands..." she replied.

"Aye you could say that, I was born in the city of Bruma, down in Cyrodiil and spent most of my life in the Legions down in Valenwood. Come to think of it I think I've only been here in Skyrim for two years or so."

"Go home, this our lands," she stated bluntly before taking another sip of the mead.

"Our lands? ...Ah you mean the Forsworn, well that may be I suppose but as I see it you seem to be without a people at this point," I brushed her hair back exposing her facial markings which caused her to flinch back, "judging by those marks on your face and that of the one man who threw himself on my guards blades. It would seem you are being hunted by your own people. Though I could be wrong," she scowled at me before deflating just a bit.

With a laden sigh I continued, "No worries my dear, my guards have run off the other two, though I would not be surprised to find that they are still out there lurking in the shadows. I have my guards on the alert, so for now you are safe within the walls of the village," I poured some of the mead onto a cloth I pulled from the kit and warned her, "careful now this may sting a bit," and gently began to pat the mead soaked cloth on the wound bringing a pained hiss to her lips, "I know, I know. I'm sorry but we must clean the wound."

She put down the pint and tugged the wolf fur shawl off her shoulders giving me a clear view of her now bare shoulders allowing me to see the wound clearly, "My name is Vorm by the way, If you need anything please do not hesitate to ask."

I began removing the stitching, tugging the strands free as gently as I could. As I did so I made sure to clean the wound with the mead soaked cloth after every stitch was pulled free. As I worked, she relaxed there on the snow bear skin rug the tension leaving her save for the odd twinge every so often as a stitch was tugged free and cleaned, "Vorm.... this name is old."

"Hmm, yes, yes it is very old if I understand it right."

"It a good name."

I chuckled softly, "Sadly it is a very descriptive name."

"Oh? Why this?"

"It means 'Iron' in the ancient Nordic tongue. As a Legionnaire I have been wrapped in more iron and steel than is likely to be healthy and have become very proficient with it's use."

She rolled to the side slightly and scrunched her nose at me, "On outside maybe. On inside you just puppy."

I sat back with an eyebrow quirked and snorted, "A puppy huh?" I shook my head and fumbled through the kit taking up a skip of leather with words burned into it, and read it over mumbling the words softly and sighing, "Well lets see if this babble works.

"No, not like that. I not sick, I hurt."

Gave her a suspicious look and asked, "Oh is that so? Well lady Stendarr how exactly am I supposed to say it?"

"Sil-me, on-coi."

"Silme oncoi?"

"Yes, but hands be on hurt..." she gestured to the wounded area.

"Fine, fine whichever you say."

She scrunched her nose at me once more and insisted, "You MEAN it."

"Right, right mean what I say got it..." I placed my hands over her wounded shoulder and spoke, "Silme oncoi," nothing happened.

With her eyes closed she reached around and slapped my calf, "MEAN IT."

"Anyone ever tell you you're kind of bossy?"

She stuck her tongue out in a childish form of defiance which made me laugh warmly. As she insisted once more that I "mean it."

Placing my hands once more over her wound I closed my eyes and repeated warmly, "Silme oncoi," this time a silvery golden light shone briefly beneath my hands causing me to start in shock pulling my hands away and revealing smooth golden skin marked only by a very pale cross shaped scar, "Wha- how- the fuck just happened!?"

She weakly lifted her head from the fur and scrunched her nose with a soft smile and seemed to curl back into the rug, falling to sleep while I sat there looking from my hands to her shoulder, then to the piece of leather, then around the room with a confused look on my face. After perhaps ten minutes of repeating this over and over I shook my head tiredly, packed everything up, drained the remaining mead, rolled her over and scooped her up. I carried her back to her bed and tucked her in before staggering with exhaustion back to my bed where I promptly passed out, halfway beneath the covers.