Rolling and swirling, the mist clung to the ground, covering the land in a blanket of chill, and deadening all sound within. It rolled and heaved, swirling with clutching tendrils, reaching out and seeking for material forms within its immaterial mass. Whispering beams of morning sunlight poked and prodded, piercing the grey-clad depths that gave birth to the hints of rainbows, filling the land with peace and serenity, if not for the movement within.

  Rolling down the ancient, Legion-made road towards the collection of buildings were a pair of wagons, no different to the hundreds, if not more throughout Skyrim. Wheels and axels were groaning in protest, occasionally grinding and squealing as the draughthorses hauled it along. One in particular had been grinding upon Sofia's nerves, giving her the distinct impression of a terminally ill skeever with brainrot, and she was certainly glad to see their destination appear through the haze.

  "Hey Kaius." With some difficulty she managed to hook her legs over the bundle of carpet and the handful of chests that had been stacked on the back of the wagon and kick the figure lying on the other side. "Wake up. We've arrived."

  "Arrived? Where?" Laying as comfortably as he could manage, with his pack jammed under his head as a pillow, a gauntleted hand flicked away the hood covering his eyes, and Kaius blinked several times at Sofia and the surrounding area.

  "Where do you think?" Sarcasm dripped from every word as she gestured to the collection of buildings they were approaching. "The end of the line."

  Kaius had never been much of a morning person, it was something that the two of them shared, and Sofia highly appreciated, but the dark expression that he suddenly wore, was enough to wipe the smile off her face. It wasn’t directed at her, or the town that they were approaching but instead seemed directed at her words instead, something within them digging up a memory or emotion that he obviously preferred buried.

  Slowly, as he lifted himself from his laying position in the back of the wagon jammed with various goods, his expression softened slightly, gazing over the mist covered buildings clustered between the rolling hills. While the dense trees and thickets of the marshes beyond the city’s limit, blocked the view for much more than a few hundred metres the city was densely packed, hundreds of buildings clustered together and built next to and onto the nearest marshes and riverbanks. Cooking fires, damp wood and the subtle, earthy smell of peat and deep bogs could almost be felt, more than smelled through the oppressive fog that clung to their bodies.

  The strange sense of tension in Kaiuss’ body was shared by the third figure seated in the back of the wagon, sitting almost as still as a statue while looking around with the intensity of a hawk. Steel armour carved and engraved with flowing, nordic runes, and solid, honest chainmail and thick woolen cloak hid any traces of femininity, not that Sofia considered their new companion was overly feminine to begin with. Lydia’s eyes were hard as flint, mouth pursed tight as she tested the sturdiness of her shield’s arm straps before pushing her steel spectacle helm down tight onto her head.

  "Expecting a battle, are we?"

  Jingling, the sounds of Lydia attaching her aventail to her helm so that it covered her throat, jaw and mouth were the loudest sounds to be heard besides the ever present squeaking of the wagon’s wheel. The last traces of Lydia’s gender were gone, hidden behind the layers of armour and only her cold, blue eyes could be seen, staring out through the nordic spectacle helm.

  "A darkness dwells over this settlement, my Thane."

  "Well... It is Morthal." From the moment they had met, Sofia had taken a dislike to the grim huskarl. Less than a week previous, after she and Kaius had returned to Whiterun from their pilgrimage up the Throat of the World, Kaius had been ‘honoured’ by Jarl Bulgruuf with the title of Thane. The title was mostly honorary in his situation, but meant that he had become one of Whiterun’s nobility for his actions slaying the dragon. With the title came Lydia, being practically ‘gifted’ to Kaius as a blood-oath sworn protector.

  Sofia had seen steel bars with more flexibility than Lydia. She was quiet, stoic to the point of absurdity and in less than a day, Sofia began seriously considering acquiring some moon sugar from a khajiit caravan. Not for her own personal use for once, but with the intent of spiking Lydia’s waterskin in the attempt to loosen her up a little.

  The worst part right now though was that Lydia was correct. Unlike Whiterun with its colour filled markets, streets awash with sound, and children playing on every corner, Morthal was positively foreboding. The main roads slicing their way through the portions that weren't built into the swamps, were smoothed with moss and the hints of moisture, the only flowers that any of them could see growing were Nightshade and the rare few mountain flowers struggling for existence. For the most part the entire township was infested with creeping blooms of swamp lichen, and pustular pods of fungus that seemed to sprout like abscesses on diseased flesh.

  "Why would anyone willingly live here?" Sofia muttered just a little too loudly, cutting herself off all too late and quickly stammering out an apology to the wagon's driver.

  "No offence taken." Like many throughout Skyrim and as a means to fend off the climate, Bjorlam’s face was covered in a thick, braided beard and it twitched in a smile as he turned to Sofia. "It might not look like much, but Morthal has a lot to offer."

  "Besides the smell of swamp gas and the scenic views of hundreds of kilometres of bogs and marshes?" Kaius chipped in. In the week-long journey north from Whiterun, both he and the wagon's owner had gotten along well, and they shared a brief laugh as his sarcasm.

  "It's only sixty kilometres of marshlands and forty between here and Solitude. Give it a bit of time and it will grow on you though."

  "Like moss I bet." This time Sofia ensured that her voice didn't travel any further than her lips, glancing between Kaius, and the wagon driver.

  "Peat, pitch, alchemical ingredients, iron, lumber... Lots of cities in Skyrim rely heavily on what Morthal provides." There was a brief wave of an arm as Bjorlam returned a greeting from one of the few people on the street. "And if it manages to get on a barge to Solitude, then there's no telling where in the Empire it may end up."

  Morthal, while larger than most of the settlements, towns and villages throughout Skyrim, was one that could barely be described as a city. It was the capital of Hjaalmarch Hold, a hold that unlike most of the others was not of tundras, plains or mountains, but instead the vast, seemingly endless Drajkmyr Marshes. It was where the Karth and Hjaal rivers combined and met the Sea of Ghosts, a vast inundated floodplain, passable only by shallow bottomed boats, barges, and the desperate. Buildings here needed their stone foundations sunk deep into the sodden soil to provide any stability, their walls and roofs solidly reinforced with stone and tiles to fight back the ever-encroaching moisture of the marshes. Despite all this however, it was still home to many of the hardy nordic peoples.

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  "It is good to be home." There was no mistaking the truly enormous grin that split the wagon driver’s face, as he laid eyes on a particular dwelling further into the maze of streets.

  With a creak and groan of protest from poorly greased axles, the wagon and its snuffling draughthorse stopped outside the two story shack. A sign bearing a symbol of a set of scales creaked in the soft breeze and gleamed in the morning’s dew, but neither he nor the occupants of his wagon, or the other following closely behind paid it much notice. All their attention was drawn to the pair of squealing figures that ejected themselves from the second wagon, clambering down with all the agility and speed of youth.

  “Well…” A muffled clank of fur covered metal echoed dully through the mist and against the building as Kaius jumped down from Bjorlam’s wagon, looking around with a slight, grim smile. “It's a whole lot nicer than Bravil at least.”

  Laughing and giggling, the pair of tiny figures rushed him, and the grim smile turned into a true one as the young children attached themselves to his arms.

  "Logvorn! Bjanhilde! Would you leave the poor man alone for five minutes!"

  Hanging from his hands with both of theirs, the young boy and girl kicked their feet up off the ground, and continued squealing with laughter as Kaius lifted them by curling his biceps. Their long-suffering mother could only sigh and shake her head at the sight of the heavily armed and armoured warrior, lifting her six and eight year old children to the chorus of ‘Again! Again!’

  "I do believe that these belong to you." Oblivious to their mother’s displeasure and annoyance after a week on the road, their giggles and laughter was cackling and echoing through the morning fog. Almost as though ignoring them or their weight, Kaius simply lifted them higher, holding them aloft while walking over to their father with his giggling luggage.

  "They are more like their mother..."

  "Oh no!" A braided ponytail swung about as Bjorlam’s wife, Hafine, lifted her and the children’s travel bags from her wagon. "You can blame your side of the family for their behaviour!"

  The moment that the two children were returned to the ground and the door to their home and parents’ business was opened, they scurried inside as quickly as they could. There was a discrepancy between their size and the thunderous footsteps they made, thudding and thumping louder than what Kaius or Lydia in their plate armor come through the building's wooden interior. Within seconds, Bjorlam's wife had quickly followed them inside, calling out to their children to stop running, to calm down, or to do anything, other than make her hair turn grey from stress.

  "Need any help unloading?"

  "I can handle a few boxes and personal possessions." Grimly smiling, Bjorlam turned and met Kaius's gaze for a moment before shaking his head. Almost to prove a point he grunted slightly, lifting one of the chests off the back of the wagon and placing it on the ground. "The rest of the cargo is what the locals are for. You and your friends have done more than enough to help me and mine."

  “Especially against those bandits. With my skills and abilities, they never knew what hit them.” A laugh of her own mirrored the children's echoing from within Bjorlam’s two story home and shop, as Sofia shouldered her travelling pack. “Oh. And having a living Dragonborn with us helped a little.”

  “Sofia, is it at all possible for you to be any more conceited?”

  “Conceited? Me? That’s impossible.” Normally such words would have been insulting, but she knew Kaius well enough now to see the amusement in his eyes and hear it in his tone. “I can’t be conceited, because conceit is an imperfection, and as everyone knows, I’m perfect.”

  "I know my wife had concerns letting the three of you come with us." Bjorlam continued, ignoring their sarcastic, amused exchange as he rummaged through another chest on the back of the wagon. "Between dragons, the skirmishing between the Imperials and Stormcloaks, and now bandits everywhere... We were lucky to have you with us."

  Tugging on some of the chest's contents, he managed to pry them loose and to Sofia's delight he began withdrawing several glass bottles wrapped tightly in bundles of straw.

  "Untill I sell this load of goods, I won’t have much in the way of coin. Hopefully these are suitable thanks for your help along the way."

  "Oh, these are the best kind of suitable." Reading over the label and seeing the vintage under the mark of the Black-Briars, Sofia's eyes were positively gleaming with anticipation.

  "You have my thanks, Bjorlam." Both of the bottles that Kaius had been handed were carefully placed into his pack, and there was a brief glance between him and Lydia, before the huskarl shook her head at her own offering. "Any recommendations for a place to stay?"

  “The Moorside. Rooms aren't too expensive and the mead isn't watered down. It's about two blocks away and to the right. Just head in the direction of the Jarl's longhouse and you can't miss it."

  Pausing briefly to shake each other's hands, Kaius lifted his pack off the age-worn cobblestones and slung it over a shoulder, looking around and seeing a pair of tiny faces peering out from the front door to the merchant’s business. Grinning the way that only youth and cheekiness could manage, the young boy and girl were smiling at him, and he paused for a moment to return their grins with one of his own, before waving them goodbye.

  "Can you at least wait until we find somewhere to stay the night?"

  "Booze not drunk is booze wasted." In the time it took for him to smile and wave to Bjorlam’s children, Sofia was already hard at work in the attempt to pry the wax stopper out of one of her bottles. Grimacing and picking a piece of dried wax from between her teeth, she stared at him for a moment before continuing “I’m certainly not going to waste Black-Briar mead either.”

  "Well, you might be willing to sleep in the gutter, but I'm looking forward to a nice soft bed for once."

  Drawing a dagger from its sheath as she turned to follow him, Sofia began digging at the stopper, but stopped as Lydia brushed past a little too close for her liking. Still dressed in her full armour, face hidden behind the spectacle helm and chainmail aventail, only her flinty gaze remained visible as she stared at Sofia.

  "What?"

  "Isn't it a little early to be drinking?" The glaciers of the north were warmer than Lydia’s tone, and despite themselves, their shared distaste for each other was almost potent enough to make the air shimmer.

  "It's surely evening somewhere. You're even worse than the guards."

  The snort from the huskarl as she turned and followed Kaius, made Sofia roll her eyes so hard she was surprised they didn't fly out of her skull.

  "I mean why do the guards discourage drunken behaviour, when they should be encouraging it?" Sofia continued, following after them and walking as close as she could to Lydia in an attempt to make her uncomfortable. "A drunken person is a happy person."

  Purposefully moving even closer to the huskarl, Sofia dug the point of her dagger into the mouth of the bottle, wriggling it for a moment before successfully pulling the wax tipped cork free with a pop. It was loud enough, and close enough that it made Lydia jump slightly, leaving Sofia to grin victoriously.

  "And I'm going to be a very happy person." Ignoring the venomous glare from within Lydia’s steel helm, Sofia sighed as the warmth of the first mouthful of mead seeped into her belly.