An Unlikely Alliance Ch. 01

The guard walked Farren out in an arm lock, saying that he'd see to it that there was a whipping involved and not only a stay in jail. "I'll make sure that he's barred from Whiterun for this, don't worry."

Lucia found her courage then and ran up to the guard to thank him for helping.

Ferren growled that he would have his revenge and the guard put more into the arm lock with a cold grin while the bard screamed out in pain.

"And a beating as well, I think" he said, "Wait until I tell the others that we have a thieving bastard in the cells - one who doesn't know where the bottom is.

You'll see it soon enough. I'll even tell the chief of the guards. He's got children too. He'll want to have a kick at your little balls the same as the rest of us. Let's go."

Dhaerys and Khali walked Lucia up to Holda and lifted her so that she could sit on one of the barstools. "I'm much obliged to you, my friends. He had the whole night's income, by the sound of it."

Dhaerys handed over the purse and gave Lucia back what was hers.

Holda leaned over with a smile, "You didn't even get to eat your meal, did you, little flower? Well we can make up for that, me and Saadia, can't we, Saadia?"

"Yes Mum," the serving girl smiled.

"I'm going to watch you eat this time so that I know that it went in. Then you'll tell me when you're tired, little Lucia. You'll sleep safe here tonight."

She looked up, "You're thanes? I didn't know that we had any."

"We've only been thanes for less than half an hour," Dhaerys laughed, "We saw Lucia on our way to speak to the Jarl and I gave her enough to have a really good night for once. But when we came back, we heard her crying and I spoke to the guard. You know the rest."

"That was Thyssen," Holda smiled, "He's a really good man; clean, even shaven, most days. A lot of the women here in Whiterun dream of him at night. He's always so polite, too.

What did you do for Balgruuf for him to make you both thanes? It's not something that he's ever done before."

"Little things," Dhaerys smiled, "I came here from Riverwood to tell him that they were calling for aid there after what happened at Helgen."

Holga sucked in her breath, "We heard of it. That was awful, what happened there."

Dhaerys grinned after a long sip of her mead, "It's been a busy day. The jarl thanked me for coming to tell him and then he took me to his court wizard - who wanted to send me on a quest to get him a stone out of a ruined temple. It was supposed to tell where the old dragons were buried."

"Oh Fahrengar!" Holda exclaimed, "He's a great wizard. He must have really been on to something to send you for that - whatever it was."

Dhaerys nodded, "I guess so. But you see, I already had that stone, the one that he needed, so I gave it to him. My friend Khali and I did a few things for the jarl and he made us thanes for it. We've bought a house and were on our way to see it when we heard Lucia crying.It's been a busy day, I can tell you."

"You bought a house here?" Holda was surprised, "Why did you do that? I mean, Whiterun is a beautiful city to live in, but I don't know if I would have bought a house here - not with all of the dragon scare here lately."

"Dra-gon," Khali said with a smile and she pointed to herself and Dhaerys.

"What is your pretty friend saying?" Holda asked, "I think she's the loveliest Khajiit that I have ever seen. And what is she doing here? The city gates stay closed to them."

"Khali is allowed here," Dhaerys said, "She's as much a thane as I am."

"Well I'm glad that there are two of you. I like what you both did for poor Lucia. A shame it was when her mother died. Her uncle and aunt took the farm away from her and threw her out, the poor thing."

Dhaerys leaned forward, "They threw her out? Their own niece?"

As Holda nodded, Dhaerys shook her head, "This is allowed? Does Lucia have no claim on the land? It belonged to her mother. Should it not have come to her?"

Holda sighed, "She is a little girl and a commoner. If she had been of a noble family, then there would probably have been a guardian appointed - especially if the land was a large section.

We are talking about a small farmhold here. Enough to keep a small family alive easily and if it were to be worked properly, I think it could run as a good farm, producing enough to keep itself up from sales of the produce. That would take more hands than those of just our little friend here.

But these things take money, don't they? And the Jarl and his steward have their hands full just seeing to the lives of the people as it is."

Dhaerys nodded, ceding the point for the moment. "This injustice makes me a little angry to hear of it."

She sighed, "But I have had a long day and right now, I want some food for Khali and myself. We have already dealt with at least two of the Jarl's troubles and it is enough for us all in a day which began far from here. What have you got to eat, Holda?"

She smiled, "Your food comes highly recommended to us, you know. Thyssen himself told us of it earlier. Now I can barely hear what you say to me, my gut makes so much noise."

They listened to Saadia's spoken list of what was on the menu that evening and it was then that Dhaerys knew that the ruse of Khali's not understanding the common tongue had flaws to it. She had to ask Saadia to say one thing at a time so that Dhaerys could translate and then wait for Khali to decide.

The thing of it was that Khali nodded to every item.

"Where is she going to put all of that food?" Saadia grinned.

Dhaerys pretended to translate, but she asked the same question.

Khali made everyone laugh as she patted her stomach with a mournful expression. To Dhaerys, she said, "I can eat all of those things. I think of you. Get whatever you wish. We can share, no? Let us buy food that we can carry, since it is not far to the house from here. We will take it there and eat while we see what was bought."

Dhaerys nodded, turning to Saadia. "Let's start again. I'll order for the two of us. We'll take the food to the house that we bought and eat it there while we learn how foolish we were to have bought it unseen."

"Oh, I think that you'll be pleased, Holda smiled, "The man who lived there was very clean and he always kept it tidy. I used to buy my wine from him, my house brand, so I've been in there a few times. But his wines brought him a little fame and he moved to Falkreath a year ago. I think the wine vat is still there inside.

You might be a little lucky. He replaced the old vat with the one that's there, but not long after that, before he needed to really use it, he decided to move and left it there. It cost him a lot of money to have it made. The sides are made of oak, but he also wanted to use it for other things, so the bottom is made of hammered out copper sheet and it extends up the sides a little way to protect the oak that the rest is made from.

He had it made raised off the floor so that he could heat it with a fire from underneath if he wanted. He told me that in this way, he could warm the wine as he made it and I thought that he was crazy until I took home a bottle that he'd made with his old one."

"What will I do with that?" Dhaerys asked, "It would take days of marching up and down the hill to the well outside in the square to fill it."

Holda shook her head with a smile, "Old Garret was no fool and he was a bit of an inventor too. The vat is not deep," she said, indicating the depth with her hands, "And there is a small well on the other side of the same room. He had a cistern made that sits outside the wall and he made the eaves with little troughs to catch the rain. All of those troughs meet in one place over the cistern and the rain keeps the cistern full.

He hated to walk up and down the hill for water the same as you!" she laughed, "You could try making wine, if you wish, or you could use it to wash clothes in, if that is all that you want to do with it.

Fill it up, heat the water with the fire and your clothes come out clean with a lot less work, no?"

With their food packed in a couple of clean sacks, they said goodnight to Lucia and made their way "home." This one is curious, Khali said, "What is Dragonborn?"

Dhaerys shrugged, "I don't know, probably some old Nord tradition. I'll go to learn what it's about, but not right away." She looked at Khali, "They seemed to make to big thing out of it. I don't really care. I'm here to kill dragons, not talk with monks who yell to me from a mountaintop, if that's where they live."

It was pitch dark inside and Dhaerys cast a candlelight spell so that they could at least see well enough to walk inside without tripping over anything. It was a good thing, too. If they had just blundered on in, they would have found themselves standing ankle-deep in the cold and ashy firepit.

"Is there a light here someplace - or a lantern" Khali asked, looking around.

Dhaerys found the overhead lamps, an arrangement of hollowed-out cattle horns filled with tallow and set into a wrought iron frame suspended from the ceiling. She lowered it and had all four horns lit with a wave of her hand. As Khali hoisted it up and tied off the chain, they looked around and gasped.

"This is nice!" she said, "Not large, but enough, no?"

Dhaerys nodded, looking pleased. "Look around for some firewood. If we are lucky, we might also find a little kindling to get the firepit here started. That rain out there has soaked us both again."

Khali found the store of firewood quickly, piled under the ladder which led to the upper floor. Next to that, she found a pile of kindling, all of it nicely dried out from sitting inside and out of the rain and snow for a year.

As she set to building a fire, Dhaerys walked toward the back, noting the pleasing kitchen area as well as the rustic dining table with it's two long benches. Wandering farther, she opened a pair of doors and looked into another room. It was clean, though it was obvious that this was where the vintner had crafted his wine. There was a worktable and shelves, and at one end sat the large vat.

"Khali," she called out over her shoulder, "Come and see this. I've found the wine vat."

It was a large barrel-style tub and Khali began to laugh after she stared at it for a moment, "Maybe we can get warm from the fire as you told me. We can wash our things in this, but I have a different thought."

She burst out laughing and pointed, "I like to be clean. Right there we can have a little piece of the sea, Dhaerys!" She laughed again and Dhaerys laughed along, seeing what was meant.

"You're right!" she exclaimed, "Then all that we would need is the warm sun and a little hot sand for our toes! We can try to fill it tomorrow. Let's get the place warm first and remember - "

"I did not make the fire big to start," Khali smiled, "but I still want you to show me how big it is safe to have."

"Let's go upstairs," Dhaerys said, "I want to see how the rest looks now."

"I have found this lantern," Khali said, "and there is a small taper left inside."

Dhaerys lit it with a motion and Khali went up first.

"Come see," she called down, "There are more doors up here."

They looked inside of the first room, not far from the top of the ladder. It was a bedroom, though it didn't appear to have ever been used. There was a single bed, a night stand, a small dresser and a chair.

"A cozy place," Dhaerys smiled, "But there's no place to put more than a few clothes."

They walked out and around the rest of the loft toward the other set of doors. The walls in the loft were bare, though there was another dresser or cupboard there with a pair of chairs.

Dhaerys opened the set of doors and they walked inside, "We're going to need to buy a few more of these lights made from horns," she said, "The old man must have liked to live in the dark or something."

The main bedroom contained a double bed and there were other pieces of furnishings there; a table at one end with two chairs and there was a night stand on either side of the bed. Aside from a large trunk on the floor over against the wall, that was all.

Khali leaned down to touch the straw on the mattress, "Dried out, like the straw on the bed in the other room. We will need to buy fresh straw for bedding."

"And some cloth sheets to lay on the straw," Dhaerys said. "I won't have you waking up in the morning with straw stuck to that beautiful fur.

I can see some goat skins piled on the table over there, so at least we won't freeze tonight. But there's only the one large pillow on this bed. The other one has nothing, so we'll need to get one for that.

Leave the doors to the rooms open so that the heat from downstairs can get in. Let's go see to the fire and eat our dinners at last."

As they walked down the flat steps of the ladder, Khali said, "I can sleep without one of those ... what did you say? ... Those pill-things. I am used to it."

But Dhaerys shook her head, "You asked me about 'bed-sleeping' as you called it so nicely. A part of that is having a soft place to rest your head at night - and I don't mean by using your arm. You also wanted me to teach you how to sleep this way - and here is a bed large enough. So a pillow for Khali goes on the list for tomorrow."

Khali looked shocked, "But ... the other bed ..."

"If you want to sleep there, Khali, I don't mind and you'd still need a pillow. I was just having a ... "

She sighed, "I can't stop thinking about that girl Lucia. She was so polite and she needs someplace to stay. It's too early to think like this, but I find that I want to help her if we can. If you could sleep with me for now, maybe we can give her a place that's safe and out of the weather.

There's space to spare in the room downstairs where the vat sits at one end. We could buy her a bed later. What do you think?"

"Khajiit is bothered by the way that everyone knows this girl and they are mostly kind to her," Khali said, "but no one gives her a home, not even a place to sleep. Everyone might have their own troubles; I know this, but ...

It is not right. All Khajiit take care of lost little ones in Elseweyr if they can."

Dhaerys nodded, "My trouble is that we will need to travel - a lot - and we can't take a little girl along all of the time. Also, what if something happens to us? She would be right back where she began then."

Khali nodded, "It is too much for one night, Dhaerys. We can think some more tomorrow. Khajiit is tired and hungry now - and still she is cold and wet."

They stoked the growing fire together and after a little time, Dhaerys pulled out her only towel, not much more than a large rag, but it was soft and clean.

"Untie that long mane of yours," she smiled, "You'll warm faster without it wet. I'll dry my hair after you."

Khali was surprised, but agreed and stood still as Dhaerys towelled her hair. The motions of it caused her to bobble around a little, "You are making me dizzy," she chuckled.

"Then put your hands on my shoulders, if it will help," Dhaerys smiled, "I'm almost done."

They changed places and Khali inspected the place at the back of Daerys' head where she'd been clubbed, "There is a little dried blood here, but I think that you were lucky. It is already dried hard and it will heal."

With their hair at least towelled off, they looked to their dinners and Khali grinned, "You were right! It is almost warm here already."

Dhaerys watched as the signs of a thought crossed the cat's features, "The warm sands of Elseweyr are far from here, but you have made this a nice place for Khajiit."

She sighed, "I used to love to sit by the water at night and make a little fire to dream into. I would spend almost all of my days there when I was younger and wear nothing, for it was too hot for that, unless I had to be somewhere else. It was so nice - especially if I had some good food for the last meal before I slept on the sand."

"I've done that," Dhaerys nodded, "But I was there on a short leave from the army. It felt so good to be able to go without my armor - without anything at all but the warm breeze against my skin.

Most of the time, I had to live in my armor. I hated the way that it made me sweat and how I always thought that I must stink because of it. If we were not too far away, I used to love to go to the coast when we were in Elseweyr just to be able to wash in the sea and live without anything on for a little while."

"We are not there," the Khajiit grinned, "But it is warm here now. Is there something warm to sit on here by the fire? I want to feel like I did there, long ago now."

Dhaerys nodded, suddenly wanting the same thing. She set her meal down on a small table and began to search. She came back laughing a little with a pair of clean goatskins. "I will if you will."

Khali laughed to hear the little challenge in her friend's voice. She took one skin and laid it out on the floor next to the firepit and Dhaerys laid the other one out right beside it. When she looked up, she gasped softly.

Khali had somehow managed to squirm and wriggle herself out of her armor in the time that it had taken Dhaerys to lay out her goatskin. All that was left were the boots and they didn't look as though they were going to stay on for much longer either.

"Now you!" Khali laughed, but Dhaerys walked to the door and locked it. She was already unlatching the clasps on her cuirass as she walked back.

They sat together, side by side with their hips touching as they ate, often with one or the other offering something from her meal to the other if she didn't have some of it. They sipped mead and smiled at each other with slightly bulging cheeks.

"You know what would go so well like this some night?" Dhaerys asked, "This food tastes grand to me tonight, for I think that all I've had to eat today was an apple as I set out to walk here.

But to do this really well, ... perfectly, I think, we'd need some good ale, fresh bread and ..."

"What?" Khali looked over, asking past a mouthful of food.

Dhaerys held up one finger and spoke slowly, lasciviously, almost sinfully, "Fish.

Fish fresh from the sea, cooked in a pan with herbs over a beach fire. And if the gods were really smiling on us, you and I, well then we'd have crab legs!"

Khali moaned to think of it, "That would be sooo good, almost perfect, Khali thinks."

Dhaerys looked a little shocked, "What do you mean, almost perfect? How could something like that be improved on? What have I missed?"

Khali chuckled a little wickedly and leaned against Dhaerys as she looked over, "It is really good, as you say it. But on a night by the shore all alone with someone, the best thing ever would be to begin with the good ale, but only to drink a little, one bottle between us, I think.

With the water warm and the sands under us feeling even warmer, then as we eat, we put down the empty ale bottle and finish with a large bottle of Argonian bloodwine."

Dhaerys knew what it was and she'd had it before. It was murderously expensive stuff and it was just the thing to set the stage for a bout of sex.

"How did you come by the bloodwine?" she asked, "It's very costly everywhere that you go - if you can even get some."

Khali's eyes were closed and she was still leaning, "I am the niece of a wealthy trader, my friend. Such things are possible for me sometimes. But it would be wasted here, most places, for it is too cold and miserable here.

I just had it in my mind, remembering the times that I sat on the beach on just such nights with my dearest friend - before she was married off. I have not seen her since. We would talk about anything and after some wine, we would make love. We learned about that from each other and it was always special to me with her."

Dhaerys understood. In her own past, it was common for girls who were close friends to experiment with each other first. She sighed, nodding.