Topless Saturday

This World-Building stuff is excellent. :D Imma read this week's FFF and get back into it!
I'll post some of the results tomorrow.

World Building Saturday

Today we're building worlds!  I have three (at least) I want to do... is that overly ambitious?  One already established, one semi, one not at all.
Do you ever look out from a height across the land and get this itch, this electric feeling like you want to populate the land?  Draw in all the infrastructure and people and challenges?
I've got a new story in the works (understatement of the week).  I'm thinking of doing the 30 day world-building challenge to give the story a solid setting.  Solid settings, liquid settings, gaseous settings...
Tune in again later, or join in the challenge!

Somebody Else's Adventure

Man, am I slack updating this or what?  I guess between the FB account for S&D (which I don't update either) and the FF account (which is updated constantly), this one falls by the wayside.
To compensate, this here is my brand shiny new short story, for anyone who isn't afraid to dabble in a little pre-graphics card gaming.  It's a little like the text version of an electro-dance track, so please listen to some Deadmau5 or Presets or Daft Punk while you read it!
Also, due to the special formatting, rather than post it here I'm just going to link you in.
Here it is: Somebody Else's Adventure !

Everyday I'm Shufflekiin 9

9 

Seven Thousand Steps

            Y’ever climbed the seven thousand steps to the Throat a the World?  Or seven thousand steps to anywhere else, fer that matter?  D’you know yer heart stops after three hundred steps, yer lungs explode after eight hundred, yer bones dissolve after twelve hundred, you become a blubberin wreck at fourteen hundred, and, at four thousand, there’s a troll.

 If Ivarstead hadn’t been behind me, I dun reckon I woulda made it at all.

 As we’re lettin our partly-detached souls haul our limp carcasses over steps 3997, 3998 and 3999, a bit of life refluxes into Lydia n she squints up at the white mountain face.  We could see mosta Skyrim from here if either’a us was game to look over the path’s edge.

 “Aw, look!” Lydia sings, staggerin onto step four thousand, “An ickle baby goat!”

 She points.  Squintin, sun spinnin in my eyes, I oblige.  I see the goat, n all I’m thinkin of is dinner.  Would you believe I useta look up at this bloody mountain as a kid and solemnly thank the Gods I’d never have reason to climb it?  Just goes to show you how dumb kids are.

 Ickle bebbie goat bleats twice n hops down the ridge.  Lydia crawls onto the snowy half-landing celebratin four thousand of the greatest agonies ever known to man.  There may or may not be a shrine there as well, but at this stage, who cares?  The goat meets Lydia by the pillar.  It’s bleatin, seemin pleased t’see her.

 Wait a minute.  How many eyes do goats have?  Three?  Lydia draws the thing into her arms. “Oh you’re so cute!  Sir Thane of Cuteness, that’s your name, oh yes, my ickle Thane.  Who’s a cutie ickle goaticums, hm?”

 “Um, housecarl-”

 Lydia has the goat on its hind legs in semblance of dance.  The goat bleats once more.  Then it smiles.

 Oh shi-

 “Troll!” screams Lydia as the ickle goaticums sheds its soft fleece to expose a fully grown fiercely salivatin frost troll.  Bellowin from its belly, its three wet giblet eyes limply affixed to us, it lumbers forward one huge crude foot after another.

 Both’a us screamin, Lydia throws herself into my arms then pushes me around ahead of her.

 “Go, my Thane!  Purge this blight from the land!”

 Me?  Was she talkin to me?

 “You’re the housecarl!  What was that nonsense about bein my sword and my shield, huh?  Huh?”

 Tears are streamin down Lydia’s face. “Forgive me my Thane.  I’m terrified of anything that could kill me.  Oh please, my Thane!”

 Ensuing is a brief, dirty scuffle in which I manage to get Lydia tween me n the troll.  Troll might’a kilt us both by now if it weren’t so dumbstruck at how dumb we was.

 “Oh, no-!”

 That’s as far as Lydia gets afore the troll swings its immense arm into her face.

 Someone hit the gong.  One-hit K.O.!  Lydia pivots once on her own axis and thuds to the landing.  My sword is caught under me belt.

 “Hold on,” I tell the troll, pacin backwards as it advances growlin n slobberin. “I’ve just gotta get this thing unstuck.”

 The troll steps over the crumpled form of Lydia.  She’s groanin, she’s alive.  Troll takes a swing at me n I knock its hand away with both’a mine.  It hollers n swings again.  I finally manage to rip the sword free’a my belt and slap it into the troll’s face.  It dun so much as blink.  Its vast arm pile-drives me into the landing.  I’m thinkin of dying when the troll’s other, equally massive arm picks me up n slams me into the pavers.

 Biiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnngggggggg goes my hearin.  I’m on the ground, I think, ears filled with ice.  Taste blood in my mouth.  The troll is loomin over me.  Lydia is shoutin, shoutin, shoutin, but my ringin ears dun wanna hear it and it only gradually becomes clear.

 “-not the chin!  Go for the heart, that’s its weak spot!”

 Oh.  Got it.  Thanks.  I stagger up, wonderin vaguely what living creature’s heart isn’t its weak spot, when the troll plucks me up in one hand n tosses me over its shoulder.

 I hit the stairs leadin up and slide quite unwillingly back onto the landing.  The troll picks up a trot as its comes t’wards me.  This is pathetic.  Two hardened warriors (okay, one, and that was me n Lydia put together) and we can’t even land a hit on this troll.  Where’s my sword?  It ain’t in my hand.  I spy it across the landing, partly obscured by the troll’s shaggy form and Lydia’s lazy ass.

 Oh, what the heck.  I stagger up, giddily dodgin the troll’s next swing, take a deep breath, n with my battered lungs utter the traditional Stone battle cry.

 Troll’s small wet eyes pop.  Literally, they explode into black goo n blood.  Dark reddish mush slushes from its ears.  Pink froth bubbles from its mouth, spillin onto its formidable chin.  It staggers back one, two paces, gropes at its face.  I remember trolls regenerate fast and gesture madly at Lydia who’s watchin, stunned.

 “Get me sword and let’s haul ass!”

 “Uh,” Lydia looks behind her.  She grabs the sword and climbs dizzily up.  Her nose is oozing blood, appearin quite broken.  Already both her eyes are blacking.  As she runs across the landing she trips and hits the troll.  Troll bangs into a pillar, which lets out an ominous rumble as its foundations crumble.  Troll spills off it onto the snowy landing.  I grab Lydia and drag her onto the stairs.  With a groan of failin stone, the pillar breaks, crumplin slowly to the landing, its huge loosed column flattenin the troll beneath it.

 “Would ya look at that.  Housecarl, you took out a troll!”

 Lydia only mumbles n lets me drag her up the stairs.

 Much later, as the sun is sinkin (considerably later’n it does at less altitudous climes), about sixty-three hundred steps are below us and Lydia n me’re little more’n withered husks of our former selves.  We find the next flat bit’a land and collapse atop it.

 I dun take my sword off and I dun take me boots off; I just lie on the stone and go asleep.

 Lydia, similarly exhausted beside me, finds my aching ribs with her elbow. “We ought to get off this path, case anyone else comes along wants to get through.”

 Yeah because the Throat a the World is a regular tourist destination.

 “No.”

 “Then we should make a fire to keep warm.”

 I pull Lydia a little closer. “No.”

 Waiting for the next issue on the list, I’m pleased to hear a snore.  Tonight, not even the roar’a dragons would keep me awake.

            “My Thane!”

 This can’t be – eleven boobies – twelve deer – hnnnngrraaall.

 “Skole, wake up!”

 Lydia’s frightened cry is punctuated by the screech of a dragon’s fire.

 I sit bolt upright and almost bust Lydia’s nose again.  She gestures into the night.  She’s lit a torch and set it at the end of our camp.  I can’t see a damn thing.  But then, my vision starts to clear, and I see it’s no torch but a fire, a fire a long, long way away on Whiterun Plain.

 Lydia passes me a fearful glance. “That’s Rorikstead, my Thane.  It would appear it’s under attack.” She pauses.  Then, “This is my first time seeing a dragon.”

 Aside from the odd burst’a flame from the creature’s mouth, it’s both too far and too dark to see any part of the dragon.  The silence between Lydia n me is heady with tension.  Awkward, I say, “There ain’t much we can do.”

 “We should be down there, helping.”

 If the dragon intended to hang about in Rorikstead another two days, then she was exactly right.

 “There’s no point.  It’ll be gone long afore we ever get on the Plain.  If you wanna be useful, get yerself up and let’s get onto High Hrothgar.” From the look on Lydia’s bruised face, she resents more’n a little my cold application of logic. “If it makes yer feel any better, we can go back to sleep,” I offer.

 She regards me foully. “No.” Takes to her feet.  Headed for the higher stairs.  She knows I’s right, then.  Dragons dun tend to hang around fer long once they’ve burnt down everythin and kilt everyone.

 That dun make her any less mad.  We rise the final seven billion and fifty-three steps in panting, breathless silence.  At last, as yellow dawn flows around the eastern lands, the rabbit road becomes dotted with structures, with blessed signs of habitation.  We come to a steep rise in the already harshly inclined path, where black stairs wrap around a tall central bollard.  There are baskets at the foot of the bollard, baskets filled with tomatoes n cooked goat n cheese n wine n bread.  We help ourselves.  Figure we can apologise later.

 It’s only on her third bottle a wine Lydia breaks her silence. “My Thane, I’ve been thinking.”

 “Yuh?”

 “Although it is true I am both your sword and your shield,” Lies, all of it. “I think it may be for the best if I return now to Dragonsreach.” Her blacked eyes slide to me. “Your business is with the Greybeards, here.  But mine is to serve Whiterun.  I should go, meet you there.”

 I tip my head to the eroded fortress peering over the stairs. “You dun want to climb just these last ten stairs?”

 “No.  Oh.  Well.” Lydia glances up at the final steep steps. “I guess so.”

 We climb like a couple’a rocking horses with broken legs.  Black fortress spreads out before us.  There is a small fire lit close to the tower; otherwise the monastery could be deserted.  We crunch across the frozen flagstones.

 “Hello?” I call at the partly-open door.  Lydia looks worried.  So am I.  A bunch’a old guys like these Greybeards are bound t’be could catch their deather the cold with such a draft.  No one replies, so with a hand on my sword I let Lydia n meself in, and close the door behind us.

 The monastery is wonner those older-style, open plan designs the my ancient cousins are famous for.  Tiles cut in patterns on the floor, not much in the way’a lighting.  It occurs to me if a draft did get in, then the place is likely fuller draugrs.

 “Halt.”

 A softly spoken word, a shadow detaches itself from the floor.  I start; four blokes are sittin on the tiles, a fifth approaches us.  He stops well short with his hands crossed in the sleeves of his long black robe.

 “You trespass on the territory of the Greybeards: state your business.”

 “Um,” I point at Lydia, “His Jarlness of Whiterun asked us to run up and see if you needed anythin.”

 Standy replies.  The other four are content to stare into the far wall and assimilate themselves into the pattern on the floor. “Our needs are attended by Ivarstead of the Rift.  We have no need for Whiterun’s assistance.”

 Lydia n me exchange a glance and a shrug.

 “Yes, okay,” she says, “No harm done.  We can only offer.”

 We turn and walk t’wards the door.  A massively deep, rumbling, and above all LOUD voice rolls over us. “I said HALT.  Did I perchance to stutter?”

 Lydia legs it up the hallway.  I’m sorely tempted to follow.  Just the thing is – the real bitch of a thing is – there’s somethin about the way the old man shouted that makes me want to stop.

 I turn to him.  His face is not the mask a fury I’s expected.  He smiles tween his knotted beard. “Ah, Dovahkiin.  We have waited too long to meet you.” He bows. “You may call me Arngeir.”

 The other Greybeards are suddenly on their feet.  Each nods to me as they are introduced. “Borri, Einarth, Wulfgar, Happy.”

 Happy bobs n winks at me.  I return a baffled shadow of his grin.  Only Arngeir speaks.  He ushers me deeper into the monastery. “Come along, Dovahkiin.  Let Borri fix you a strong cup of tea whilst you and I discuss the return of the dragons.”

 “Right,” I say, caught tween runnin after Lydia n lyin to an old man.  I open my mouth n realise I’m about to tell the truth.  Worse luck. “The thing is, there’s been a terrible mistake.  They all think I am down in Whiterun, but I’m not.  I’m not the Doh- the Dovahkiin.” There.  I said it.  Feel free to rewind time to the point this was not my problem.

 The Greybeards are starin at me, oh boy are they starin.  No one offers to comfort me.  My face on fire, I says, “I’m just a bloke who kilt some dragons.  I din take their souls, I din sign up to the Anti-Dragon Campaign.  I was just in the right place at the wrong time.”

 I expect the Greybeards, as monks, to take this well in their stride.  They do not.

 Arngeir throws his hands to the ceiling. “What!  Eighty years of waiting and they send us the wrong man?”

 Borri, Wulfgar and company are shrugging and shakin their heads, silently wrathful.

 I fall back towards the door. “I – I’m sorry.  I-”

 “SILENCE!” Arngeir roars.  What a voice!  Wind slams against me, dust trickles from the ceiling, the whole monastery trembles as if struck.  The other Greybeards fall deathly still as Arngeir rounds on me. “You, you!  You dare defile the peace of this place with no excuse bar ‘sorry’?  What-”

 Happy holds up a hand.

 Arngeir ignores him. “-in Nirn good did you think that would do you?  I’ve every mind to strike you down where you stand.  Imbecile!”

 Happy starts jumpin like the smartest kid in class.

 In his extreme ire, Arngeir wheels on the other monk. “Oh what is it, Happy?  You know you cannot speak without crushing this one’s mortal soul!”

 Happy’s lips wrap around a mouthful of square white teeth.  Words seems to pour through him from the very belly of Nirn. “HE IS NOT THE DRAGONBORN.  HE IS SOMETHING MORE.”

 I eyeball him, too frightened to move.

 Arngeir roars, “NOW YOU’VE GONE AND DONE IT, SLAYING THE BLOODY MESSENGER!”

 Taking advantage of the noise while they can, the other Greybeards begin to shout.

 “I WISH I’D BEEN A DUCK,” Borri remarks.

 “THIS HALL IS TERRIBLY DRAFTY,” Wulfgar whines, “AND EINARTH’S SNORES KEEP ME AWAKE ALL NIGHT.”

 “IT ISN’T MY FAULT, I SUFFER SLEEP APNOEA.”

 “WELL YOU BRING DOWN THE MONASTERY EVERY TIME YOU HAVE A SNOOZE.”

 Borri taps me on the shoulder. “WOULD YOU CARE FOR THAT CUP OF TEA NOW?”

 No.  No. “Shut up!” I roar, or rather, “SHUT UP!”

 The Greybeards promptly shut up.  Seconds pass in total stillness.  Then Arngeir’s eyes slither to Happy, who nods, and he glances to me.

 “Er,” he ventures, “Was that – did you just Shout?”

 “I TOLD YOU HE COULD,” said Happy happily.  He winks at me. “TRY SAYING THIS: FUS.”

 As softly as he speaks, an unseen force rolls over me, draggin me t’wards the door.

 “Fuss,” I say.

 “NO, NO, LIKE THIS,” Happy draws me aside.  He faces the wall. “FUS.  SHOUT.”

 Fus.  Force.  FORCE.  FUS.

 “FUS!”

 No sooner have the words rolled off my tongue than Happy explodes into red confetti, the wall ahead blows apart into the snow as easy as straw in a storm, mortar rains from the ceiling on every rebound of the echo.  When at last the noise dies I look around to see the Greybeards crouched in terror on the floor, but at least that’s better than Brother Happy, who is now a long red blowback streak on the tiles.

 Arngeir climbs slowly to his feet.  I dun dare speak.

 “BROTHER HAPPY,” Arngeir clears his throat, “I mean, Brother Happy was right.  You are not the Dragonborn.  You are something else again.”

 Like under arrest for the cold-blooded murder of a monk?

 Arngeir drops to one knee a short distance from me.  His old eyes are shining as he looks up. “Not the Dragonborn,” he says, “But the Dragon King.”

------------------

A/N: Pumped?  Psyched?  Stunned or shaking your head?

No, no, no, no!  Get pumped!  It's gunna be a hellova ride!

Beach and things and things

Shufflekiin has reached over 400 hits per week!  Whoohoo!
Today young Dog and myself are off to the beach.  It's Dog's first time seeing the ocean.  Surely this will be a fulsome experience for us both.
Please do a 400 hits dance to help us commemorate this wonderful occasion!

Everyday I'm Shufflekiin 8

8 - Shor’s Stone

How many wood elves does it take to screw in a guest bedroom?
 Turns out it’s two.  Two elves, one hero’a Whiterun, and one heckova disgruntled housecarl.
 So there I was havin the timer me life on my back with these two girls – neither of em even seen a flea the looker em – gigglin as they bounced n ground against me, and I was ten seconds from meltdown when the thin wood bedroom door bangs open and Lydia sticks her head in and says,
 “Oh.  Oh!  My Thane.” She coughs and coughs again t’make sure I can hear her. “Er, sorry to bother you in the middle of, ah, ahem, but your carriage to Riften leaves in five minutes.”
She was near enough shoutin so for sure I heard her, it just seemed right at this moment – this particular moment – I was havin trouble figurin why it mattered.  The plump wood elf with the big round hooters ushers her sister aside and slides down on my-
 It mattered because-
 The skinny elf sits astride me, tangles her sister into a loose embrace, and kisses her as she thrusts-
 Because Margeth-
 To Oblivion with Margeth!  He’d ruined near every other good thing fer us – the whitewashing business, the hunted-goods store, the horse-racing syndicate – he could damn well wait til I was done pleasin these here lovely young ladies!
 Lydia sings nervously from the doorway, “My Tha-ane.”
 Aw.
 Aw.
AW.
 “Geroff yer filthy whores!” With a grunt I pull from under the elf sisters.  As the girls coo their displeasure behind me, I stagger up to Lydia.  My face must’a somewhat resembled a wall sorely in need’a a coater paint.  The old bent-up walk weren’t doin nothin to hide anythin.  All I say to her is, “Clothes.”
 She hands me a pile and a sword.  I politely refrain from stabbin her.  Her eyes keep dartin downwards. “My Thane, isn’t that – that is – well, I’d heard a man loses control on approach to the event horizon.  To stop now must take phenomenal effort!”
 I’m no hormone crazed bull, but if Lydia doesn’t shut her mouth now, then Imma flatten her against the door and f-
 “My Thane,” Lydia calls with a wave, “You home in there?”
 Grumblin, I pull on my clothes.  Sunlight streams through the iron and glass window.  This one room is the sizer my family home.  Though if either of me sisters’d been half as cute as the elf girls, I’da moved outta home six years before I did.
 Done dressed, Lydia n I wave farewell to the wood elf sisters.  I think what the damn and rush forward and smooch the life outta one and then the other before hurrying after Lydia out the door.
 “Oh!” cry the sisters, reaching after me, “Mr Skole, we’re still so hot for you!”
 “Forget him, Miriam,” says one as I lament my fate in the hallway, “Come here and let’s finish this ourselves.”
 “Oh – oh – oh Vereiam!”
 I stare at Lydia as we rush downstairs.  She appears not to notice.  Farengar shouts as we pass him at the banquet table in the main hall.  He seems to be alone in not suffering from yesterday’s party.  Accourse he’s like as not t’be pumped up on illegal alchemical recipes.  Yep.  I’m close enough t’see his pupils are odd sizes.
 He smiles. “I trust you’re travelling to the Throat of the World to meet the Greybeards?”
 Gods no.  I nod. “Yeah.  I have a short stop in Shor’s Stone and then I’s be straight on to Ivarstead.  Would you like me to pick yer up a souvenir from the Rift?”
 He shrugs. “Only some creeper clusters if you pass close to the Marsh.  Be careful of giants, ey?  Dragons too.”
 Lydia shuffles.  Okay, so we’re behind time. “Sure,” I tell Farengar, “My love to the Jarl.”
And off we run, Lydia n me, out the castle, down the long stone stairs, fanging right at the upper plaza, cuttin past the Temple n round the Drunken Huntsman, down the stairs where Adrienne Avenicci is loudly protesting not being the bestest blacksmith in all Nirn, through the gates and onto the homestretch to the plains.
 Says the carriage master by the coach house as Lydia n me puff our guts out, “Carriage for the Rift, miss?”
 Lydia gasps and nods.  For a warrior sort she’s certainly outta shape, maybe like bein a housecarl without a Thane has led to her sittin round on her ass all day eatin cakes.
 “Right over there.”
 Benefits of bein late is the carriage is ready to go, and so’s the driver. “C’mon c’mon,” he piques, slappin the reigns against the sturdy draught mare as we load ourselves in, “Lucky yer the hero’a Whiterun or I woulda left without yer.”
 We’re the only people on the carriage.  Go figure.
 I’m still workin that one out when the driver rouses himself to cry, “All aboard!” and the carriage lurches off down the road.  We make ourselves at home amongst the sacks of pertaters n gourds.  The carriage bounces over one rut and then another, and by the fifth one we’re used to it.
 After a few minutes, the driver says conversationally, “Fact is Nirn is round, and Tamriel is flat, so t’edges of the continent all stick up hundreds a metres outta the water.”
 Now here’s a guy who’s never seen the ocean.
 Lydia leans eagerly forward. “Does it?  Wow!”
 “Yup.”
 Lydia pulls a face. “But then, how do the ships pull into port at the Bay of Solitude?”
 “Well that’s simple,” replies the driver. “Solitude’s merchants had the presence’a mind to hang great long ladders over the edge into the water.  Sailors tie their goods to ropes t’be hauled up, then off they hop up the ladders.”
 “Wow,” Lydia breathes.  Her bright eyes settle on me. “Isn’t the world an amazing place, my Thane?”
 It sure is.

Shor’s Stone rolls into sight into the early afternoon, its few small buildings cresting the long hill sloping south to Riften.
 It’s funny, bein here.  The feeling starts soon as we come off the tall ridge overlookin the red booger pit that is the Eastern Marshes.  Feeling like I know this place – accourse I do, I was born here – but more than that, growin as we drew closer, as if I’m a dollop of blood rushin through the body that is the Rift, like the trees n the earth n the water is my flesh, as if I was once a gleam in Paul Bunyan’s eye and now’ve come home to see Pappy.
 Well I’s have come home to visit Pappy, though he sure as dog shit ain’t no Paul Bunyan.  The carriage driver has been paid ahead; we call him farewell at the toppa the hill and off he rolls to Riften.
 “This is your home, my Thane?” quizzes Lydia, glancin nervously about her.
 I’ve had three n a half hours of my Thane yes and my Thane no, and I’m just bout ready t’drown meself before I have t’hear it again.
 “Look Lydia,” says I, catchin from the corner of my eye that shit geezer Odfel peerin at us from his window, “M’name’s Skole.  Skole.  Got it?”
 “School,” says Lydia.
 “Skole!”
 “Scald?”
 “Skole!  Skole, near the same as skull!  Talos be damned, it’s a Nord name!  Yer a Nord, aren’tcha?”
 I’m so outta breath it takes me a minute to notice Lydia is smilin.  She looks at me lookin at her, and says, “Skole.”
 By the Nine. “Yes.  Thank you.”
 “You are most welcome, my Thane.”
 -!
 I glance at Odfel’s place again.  He catches my eye this time n jerks away from the window.  Well, whatever.  My eyes slide over a circle of chairs round a fire pit outside my old place.  You’ve gotta be fuckin kiddin me – they still do that?  Bitchin by moonlight, s’what Margeth always called it.  Unbebloodylievable.
 The house what I was born, raised, and (if life is truly horrid as evidence leads one to believe) will die in is the first on the left.  Ya can’t miss it.  Just listen for the geezers whinging and follow yer ears.
 Flesh of my flesh...
 I stop Lydia short of the door. “Before we’s go in.”
 She gazes at me all expectant-like. “Yes, Skole, my Thane?”
 I’d take it.  It was a start.
 “It’s just – nothin.  Aw.” I lay hand to the doorknob. “It’s just my folks.” I glance at her, make some motion between us which ends up bein indicatin between her and my crotches, “We’re just friends, right?”
 Smilin like glass, Lydia provides, “Not even.  You’re my Thane, I’m your housecarl.  You’ll need an Amulet of Mara before I peel away the body for the soul.”
 But I could have the body any time?  Could I?  Really?
 I sigh. “The thing is, housecarl, my rents have been convinced fer a while now that I’m homersexual, and I’d kinda like t’keep it that way.”
 “Oh?” Lydia blinks, “Is that so?”
 “Uhn.  I tmakes it easier to explain why I don’t have a girlfriend.”
 She nods, understandin.  I push the door open.  Immediately somethin strikes me as wrong.  The smell.  The whole place stinks of-
 “Spit-roast goat?” The girl by the fireplace holds out a loaded plate. “No?  I overdid it with the salt again, unfortunately.  Father’s recipe said only two tablespoons, but I’ve simply got so much damn salt... you’re not Grogmar.”
 “And you’re not me mother, father or sisters,” I say, comin towards her.  The girl is small and dark haired, of an age ripe fer pickin, and about ready to fall from the vine the way her pert, tight little body-
 OKAY OKAY I got jilted, okay?  My balls are heavy as bruised grapefruit in my loincloth.
 Lydia, sensing drama or perhaps a salutation culminating in a rape, slips between the girl n me. “Lo and behold the Thane of Whiterun, the hero, Skole.  You may now bow in reverence.”
 I do, and Lydia thumps me with her elbow. “I mean her!” she hisses.
 “Me?” says the girl, and bows. “I’m Sylgja.  Um.  Nice to meet ya, yer Thaneness.  Um.  Are you lost?”
 “No.” I push Lydia aside. “This is my house.  My family home.  So where’s my family?”
 I look left, I look right, I look down and even up.  Maw, Pappy, Bodilla and Froda fail to transmogrify from bedside cabinets.
 Sylgja starts to look blank and stays that way for about fifteen seconds.  Finally, peerin at me closely, smilin like she knows what I don’t which she does cause I’ve no idea what she’s smilin about, she produces with a squawk, “Are you Skole Stone?”
 “Thane Skole Stone,” corrects Lydia mechanically.
 “Your parents left a note for you here somewhere.  You could say I’m house-sitting.” Sylgja wheels round n starts scratchin through chests n drawers n now I’m thinkin about sex again. “I inherited the job from your sister, before she went off to get married.  She took over from Grogmar, who was looking after the place for your folks – they’ve been gone a while.”
 Lydia nudges me. “How long since you were home last?”
 Dunno.  Six, eight, twelve years?  It’s pretty easy t’think’a ’scuses not to visit when yer mum finishes every sentence with “I’m so disappointed in you I could cry”.
 “Here we go.” Sylgja straightens from the drawer.  She passes me a shabby, poorly-aged letter.
 I dun like to read too often, as I’s heard it rots the brain n figure I’s gotta hold onto what little I’ve got.  I hand Slygja back the letter. “Just gimme the gist of it.”
 “I can’t read either,” Slygja admits, happily enough.  By Talos I’d love to bend her over-
 “Dear children,” Lydia announces, snatching the letter. “Your father an mother are left fer Morrowind inna horsecart wiv about ten years a food.  They say they’re on holiday but I know an you will too they believe their true people are the bilious Dunmer.  If yer sensible at all yerl hope they stay there,
 On beharfer Hassellis an Wand,
 Grogmar.’
 Lydia and Sylgja both stare at me. “Huhn,” I say.
 “Hm?  Something the matter?”
 I glance at Lydia. “It’s nothin.  Who woulda thought outta the whole village, an Orc was the only one who could write?”
 Lydia doesn’t really think this is funny.
 So my folks were holidayin in Morrowind, possibly forever.  Bodilla was off blastin out bebbies.  Froda?
 “Has m’other sister seen this?” I tap the letter.
 Sylgja nods. “She calls in every now n then.  She’s terribly kind for a woman with only one leg.”
 One leg?  I dun have no one-legged sister.  Least not last time I saw her.  Then again, Froda was always the clumsy wonner us. “How’d she manage that?”
 Sylgja shrugs. “She said she tripped at the sawmill.  Can I fix you anything – cuppa tea?  I don’t very often get visitors, you see, and I do get so terribly lonely...”
 She looks at me, all the way from my toes up to my hair.  Hot damn!  Ever since I picked all that deathbell on the Border I has been on FIRE!  It must be on account’a I’m so sensitive and considerate.
 “Well if yer not gun show us yer tits then we’ll go,” I tell her. “You’ll understand as a Thane I ain’t got all day t’be hangin round bitches not interested in puttin out.”
 I stare at her for seven entire seconds and she still dun lift up her shirt, so I take it there’s my answer.  I nod to the girl. “Right.  Thanks fer takin care’a the place.  Please,” I gesture to the goat burnin on the fire. “Continue.”
 We, Lydia n me, leave her standin there.  Unfortunately our short digression has opportuned Odfel to position hisself on the doorstep.  He squints as we see ourselves out the house.
 “I thought it was you,” he announces with a growl, “The Stone boy.  Didn’t you get the hint last time not ter come back?”
 The last hint was so long ago I’ve forgotten it ever existed.  I says to him I says, “No.  Come, housecarl.  We’re takin our leave of this quagmire.”
 “But your brother’s funeral arrangements-”
 “They can wait til we’s seen the Greybeards.” I drew Lydia past the shit geezer, beyond pleased at his scandalised gasp. “And perhaps once we’ve slain a few more dragons.”
 Odfel wheels on me. “You will not!”
 Okay, maybe he had me there.  Bugger if I know how I’d ever got the first two dragons, let alone anymorer the dopey green bastards.
 I was not, however, about to concede that to a man who had once chased me around the house with a leg of mutton.  I turn to him.
 “Pardon me.  I’ll have you know I is the Thane of Whiterun, and you are hinderin the path of moral correctedness.  So less you want to taste cold Dwarven steel,” As soon as I say this, Lydia pries the goldy sword from my hands, “Unless you want to taste cold Nord fists, then I suggest you address all your snide remarks in the form of kisses to my ass.”
 Odfel ogles after us.  I’ve never left Shor’s Stone in such style.  Lydia is almost joggin t’keep up with my brisk Thane’s strut.
 “Skole, my Thane, your brother-”
 “He can wait, housecarl.  Now, now, we’re off to see the wizards.”

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A/N: This first part of the story will go on for another three or four chapters, then move onto another part. If it's getting too long and you want it to end soon, or you just want more more more, let me know!  I'm sure I'll figure something out.

Wet Weather Tourist Destination Blues

Today I'm in Bathurst, hoping to move on to Moree.  It's raining heavily everywhere!  But from the looks of the weather radar, it only gets worse from here, so today will be the day to go.
Also, it isn't far between Moree and Lightning Ridge, but with this weather it may be better avoided. >_>
Thanks to Spiffy for putting up Dog and I for the night!
Also it was the best Australia Day on record. :D