O/K: She didn't need to pack

'Hey Ogmund - check this out!'

Kiara swallowed the huge chunk of pastry she had been luxuriating in chewing, leaned closely towards her skald friend's ear, her blue eyes alive with dancing mischievous sparks, and, ignoring the disapproving growl of her faithful hound, who lay dozing in the firelight at her feet, half-whispered, half-sang, almost burying her face in Ogmund's mangy mane of grey hair,


We drink to our youth,
To days come and gone,
For the elven oppression
Is just about done!
We will drive out the Thalmor
From this land that we own,
With our blood and our steel
We will take back our home!
Dominion's agents,
You aren't our kings!
In honour of Talos
We drink and we sing!


'The ending is same as always,' she concluded, drawing away from the old skald and allowing herself to raise her voice to its usual cheerfully shrill pitch. 'Me and my friends at the Bards' College made it up, all by ourselves! Boy, was Viarmo angry at us - because we kept everyone awake for hours, in the dead of night! They say brilliant ideas always come in the dead of night, but then again, I don't know if this is really that brilliant an idea; I need your opinion on this first... Personally, I never quite liked all that drive out thing - for me, peaceful life all together is the way to go. But I still think it's pretty groovy!'

Ogmund checked her flow of speech with a good-natured pat on the shoulder, the look of his only eye both amused and a little concerned, 'One thing I can say for sure, lass: if you ever sing this in the streets of Markarth, Ondolemar will finally have someone to roast at the stake'.

Kiara's expression remained blank. 'Ondole-who?' she asked innocently.

Ogmund made a vague gesture. 'You know - the head Thalmor here. Skulks around the Keep all day, plotting ways to hunt down every last true son and daughter of Skyrim. Been after me for a while now, but I will see these Dwemer towers turn to sand before he lays his accursed elven claws on me'.

Kiara giggled into her fist, 'Ah, I kinda suspected Mister Smirkie had a name! I call him Mister Smirkie, see, because he has this odd way of smiling - if you can call it that... He sort of lifts one corner of his mouth, and then parts his lips a little, and shows two or three of his teeth. He does that every time I bump into him in the Keep; it is actually kind of...'

She paused - maybe because all that talking had made her out of breath... or maybe because her throat was suddenly blocked by the heaving wave of red that rose from her collar bones to her cheeks. Either way, she never got to finish. For just at that moment all the familiar evening noises of the Silver-Blood Inn - the clutter of tableware, the monotonous scraping of Hroki's broom, the muffled hum of drowsy conversation, and, of course, the occasional acid remarks that Kleppr and his wife fired at each other like duelling mages - suddenly died down, silenced by a piercing gust of icy wind that came rushing through the half-open door and sent a proverbial shiver down the spine of each of the inn's regulars, even though the weather outside was unusually warm for this time of year in Skyrim.

The source of that penetrating chill was certainly not a thing you saw every day - a Thalmor soldier deigning to leave the Keep and coming down to the local inn, of all places. The air seemed to grow dense with mute questions as the gold-armoured mer hovered on the threshold, his lips curled up in a grimace of disgust - as if he was reluctant to step forward for fear of getting his precious self dirty. Finally, he spoke, 'Which of you humans is Kiara the Redguard sellsword?'



Ogmund frowned and muttered through gritted teeth, 'Damn stuck-up elf. Endon and his folks have already gone home. The pointy-eared son of a skeever can see perfectly well from where he stands that you lass are the only Redguard in the room. Must be showing us that human races all look the same to him'.


Kiara shrugged the old skald's hushed soliloquy off, too curious to find out what the Thalmor soldier wanted with her, and, leaping lightly from her chair, trotted up to him, followed at a small distance by the yawning, scratching, rather reluctant hound. For a few seconds, they scrutinized each other in silence, Kiara with her customary ear-to-ear grin of greeting, which she was ready to share with practically any inhabitant of Skyrim, the Thalmor with a look of disdainful incredulity, and the dog with a distrustful twitch of his nose and a small snarl.



'Kiara the Redguard sellsword,' the soldier repeated at length, clearly taken aback by the young human's cheerful, almost child-like expression - something which does not usually go with a calling such as hers.


'That's me!' Kiara's grin grew several degrees broader. 'Though I also go in for magic a little - I take a course at the College of Winterhold, in Alteration, Restoration, and basic Destruction and Illusion... no Conjuration for me, oh no! Making dead bodies do things for you... that's way too gross! Anyway, what I was trying to say is - this kind of ought to make me a spell-sellsword... or a sell-spellsword...'

The soldier's left eyebrow twitched in a not too promising way.

'You are to come with me to the Keep,' he said dryly. 'Justiciar Commander Ondolemar wants to have a word with you'.



'I thought we didn't do any task for the Thalmor' the dog grumbled, climbing up one of Markath's many flights of stone steps in Kiara's wake.

'Aww, Barbas,' she replied light-heartedly, 'You know how random I am! And besides, I've always been curious how long it might take to make friends with one of these guys.'