An Unlikely Alliance Ch. 02

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I think I'm going to have to make this a tad longer than the 3 chapters that I'd envisioned.

Same as the previous chapter, some names and places are property of Bethesda Game Studios, since this tale is set in Skyrim.

So if you're read that one, the previous chapter, I mean, I won't need to explain what Khajiit are.

Redguard are humans coming from a place known as Hammerfell. They're perhaps the most naturally talented warriors anywhere. They tend to have darker skin than the others and it has a bit of a reddish tone to it. Their name in general stemmed from a mispronunciation "Ra Gada" is a term out of their ancient tongue which means 'warrior wave'.

In this, a Redguard woman is getting well and truly tired of doing something that she'd never sworn to do. The person that she does it for is a character in the game.

Some name stuff:

Ysolde = Isold = eesold

Do'Tanaht = dough-tan-ought

Do'Mu-Jinn = dough-moo-gin

Those ones are spoken quickly.

This one piece will pick up in the start of the next one.

Which will be ... uh, busy.

Group um, sex busy.

Whoa.

0_o

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She stopped at the edge of the forest, pausing to catch her breath and to look ahead. She saw little, other than the meandering old road as it wound its way across open and slightly rolling plain land. There were mountains in the distance and off to her left, she saw the city of Whiterun.

That was where she was headed – if she could manage it.

She looked back, able to see through the trees back to the last large bend in the roadway. She would have groaned quietly at what she saw there only a year ago, or even two. It had been more than three years and so she had no groans left anymore.

This had to end sometime. Why not here? Why not today?

They were coming.

She looked ahead again and ran on, dashing from one bit of cover to the next, never going near the road, since in most places, one could see ahead a good way from it. She was so tired of having to do this. She just wanted to walk the road like any normal person had a right to.

Crouching behind some stones, she looked at her quiver, wishing there were more arrows than she knew that she'd see in it. Seven arrows, that was all. After that, she'd be down to using her blades against Alik'r warriors armed with scimitars.

There were five of them back there.

She sighed.

This time.

It had gone on long enough. She wasn't bound to this task and it wasn't her duty and never had been. She'd only agreed to try and anyway, there was nothing left.

She'd been doing that for all of this time.

She saw a place where a stream ran near the road, and from the nearest point all the way to that place, there were tall reeds and long grasses. She hoped that would let her get close enough while remaining undetected.

Seven arrows to kill five men and she knew that only the first would fall dead for certain.

After that, they'd all be in motion and the chances of attaining one-off killing shots dropped to almost nothing.

Not the odds that she would have preferred.

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He stood in the water washing himself. It took him a while, since it always did, being the way that he was. He didn't know what it was like to be someone like the others that he saw around here, the Nords and the Imperials and like that. He only knew that it probably took them a lot less time standing in cold mountain stream water to get clean.

He was alone here. Well, that wasn't true; it only felt that way a lot of the time. He was here to help guard the caravan like the others and to do whatever work the master needed done. He was being given a chance and he was determined not to fail.

But that didn't make it any easier.

He was a Khajiit, the same as the rest – but he wasn't the right kind, strictly speaking. The master had let the young niece that he'd been taking along on his journeys go a while back and so he'd needed someone to take up that slack.

He was that someone.

The Khajiit who traveled the known world were almost exclusively Cathays. He'd learned that most of the people who ever saw the Khajiit thought that there was only one kind, which was incorrect. It was just that the other types tended to remain in Elsweyr, where they'd been born. He wasn't one of those, not all the way, anyway.

When he'd been born, his mother had trouble passing him and the labor had gone long.

Long enough to have taken more than two days and in that time, the phase of the moons which favored the chances of the kitten being born a Cathay was passing.

So he'd been born not quite a Cathay.

He was a Cathay-raht, alike to the Cathays in many ways, but a little different.

Different enough to be thought of by many of them as slow, for he tended to be quiet and when he spoke, it was with care. Different enough to ...

Well, he'd been a large kitten anyway. He was larger and heavier than any Cathay alive. He only thanked the gods that he'd been given a good form to live in and not just a large, soft one.

Three hundred pounds.

He looked down as he scooped up a little more water. He saw his arm, quite usual to him. But the muscle there on that arm was wider than the waists of most pure Cathay females.

He sighed. All of his life, he'd had to live in a place where there were only Cathays. All of his life, he'd been the butt of jokes and laughter. The one time that it had gotten to him and exceeded his store of stoicism, there had been blood.

One fatality, two maimings and one completely crippled fool who now had to beg at the side of the road for the rest of his life.

He'd been cast out over it and for someone as large and easily identified as he was; the life of a thief wasn't a promising one. It had been the master who had taken him and given him work before things had gotten any worse.

But there was a downside and that was the sheer amount of food which was required to fuel his body. The others, pure Cathay all of them, just didn't see that it held any worth to them. The only one who cared at all about him was his cousin Dyla.

His train of thought came to an end when he noticed the ripples.

Looking over, he saw that there was something or someone in the reeds not far off. His ruminations had kept him still for a few minutes and he guessed that whatever or whoever this was, he'd escaped their notice.

He almost smiled at the thought. That didn't happen every day.

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She waded slowly, feeling her way with her toes along the muddy bottom, up to her knees. She could just hear the men approaching, laughing and joking as they came, dumb and happy, none of them knowing that at least two were going to die in the next little while and that was only if it all turned to shit.

Which she knew was the most likely outcome here.

She knew she could absolutely count on shooting one fatally and killing one with her blades. Everything else was a wild chance, and people like her – they never like wild chances.

It was a little bitter to her to have to think of. All of this time, spent mostly running her ass off to head these mercenaries off one group at a time, as soon as she'd become aware that they were out there searching. And just on the day when she'd decided that it was as far as she'd go, she was looking at the fair to just about certain probability that she'd die here. For what?

Someone who didn't really care, never had cared, and as long as she did her informal job, that someone never would give a thought over her.

She listened to them come for a moment longer, understanding their banter, since it was spoken in her mother tongue.

Mercenaries.

How many times? How many groups had she killed off single-handedly?

She almost snorted. Clowns might be a better term. The money offered must surely be good, since they kept on coming.

The wall of reeds before her parted and she tensed, wishing that she'd had her head in her game more than this. She saw someone and looked up.

And did nothing as her mouth began to drift open all by itself.

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A female, he thought.

The kind called Redguard by the look of her. He stared a little because he had to. She was in the water and since she'd been quiet about it, he guessed that there must be some reason. He saw that she had some light armour on under a dark and open cloak and he saw the bow on her back.

Was she hunting? Not actively, or the bow would be in her hand, likewise the swords on her back there, the hafts sticking up.

He'd seen the odd Redguard here, but not one like this. She ...

He'd never even thought of the females here that he saw now and then, the ones who came out of the gates of the towns that they camped near to look at the goods and maybe buy something. Most of them just looked at him like he was an unspoken threat and kept their distance.

He knew when that happened and he made sure to make himself a little scarce at those times, not wanting to hurt the master's chances of making a sale. He could hear the master's voice in his head even now.

"Come come, see the wares that I offer. Do not mind the large one. He is only here to protect you as you look. Nothing will happen to you while he is near, Ri'Saad gives you his word. Come and look."

She was ...

Not what he'd have ever thought of as someone who could ever appeal to him – and yet she did.

Her hair was dark, also her skin, just as his hair and fur was. Her eyes, so foreign to him and yet he was fascinated. He saw markings on her face, white ones which looked faded and he liked them for the way that they added to her beauty.

He thought of that suddenly. She was beautiful to him.

How could that be?

She didn't even have any fur.

Not that he could see, anyway, besides her very long hair.

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He was ...

She looked again and blinked a little in the sunshine.

Beautiful.

She saw broad shoulders and Gods – heavy, serious muscle.

The bright golden eyes which regarded her were most definitely feline, the vertical irises drawn down to thin lines as they regarded her in the bright light of the day – but she didn't see any malice or anything other than ...

She began to smile – and he did too!

Her eyes drifted lower, taking in the fur-covered, stone-hard ridges over his middle and his fairly narrow waist. Her gaze drifted back up a bit to take in the sight of ...

He was holding the reeds away and under his massive arm, she saw the checkerboard of the muscles there in that fur over his ribs.

He looked so ... powerful to her, like he ruled his world; he just wasn't ever pointed about it. She liked his ears sticking out of his long, dark hair and she looked down a little lower ... a little lower and –

She looked elsewhere on him then, not wanting to appear rude by grinning.

She liked that part of him too.

She saw his ears flick back for a moment and then his expression changed and he looked concerned.

"Those ones there," he began in a careful, low whisper which sent a thrill over her whole body just to hear it, "they are hunting this one?"

She nodded, but held up her hand, "Not me. They hunt for another. I protect her by hunting them."

She sighed, "But I will fail this day, I think. They are five and I am alone. I have only seven arrows and I cannot – "

"That one," he said, "Why is she hunted? Does she know that they come for her?"

She shook her head, "No. She lives in that city. I have never been there. They have been searching for her for three years and I cannot go on protecting her alone anymore. I wanted to go to her and say that I am done, but I found yet more hunters – and I do not think that I can win this time."

He nodded, "Khajiit works for someone, so he knows what duty is. You think to die for this?"

She shrugged ... and then she looked down and nodded, "I would have no trouble at night. Once they found where my arrows came from, most would be dead. Here in daytime, on the open road – one against five ... not good."

He leaned down a bit, wanting to keep his voice down. When he spoke again, she saw a little of his teeth and suddenly ached a tiny bit just to kiss him once to know what that felt like. It had been so long since ...

She pushed the thought away. A long-gone time. A long-gone Khajiit.

"If they were gone, then you would be free of your burden, once that one knows?" He asked her.

She nodded again, "Yes. I have given a long time of my life for this and it was not really ever something that I was sworn to. Her house is gone into nothing. Mine too. But while they lasted, my house served hers. That is gone and now I want to be free of this. It was never my own debt."

He regarded her for a short time and then he spoke again. "This one has a name?"

She looked up, happy to look at his face again, "I am Basmah Khajh. In my language, basmah means kitten."

He smiled softly and then he nodded as he picked up his swords, "Then Khajiit will help this sweet kitten to live longer."

Basmah stared, but he was gone.

She saw only the reeds and grasses again but she heard things as she ran after him, wanting to call to him to wait for her and that she'd help him and knowing that she couldn't get there in time. He was so fast.

There was the rushing sound of water exploding upward and then she heard shouts and cries from the men. Basmah ran on, worried now over what she'd unwittingly caused him to do.

When she reached the bank, she slipped and slid and almost crawled to get up and as she eased through the last of the heavy vegetation, she unslung her bow and nocked an arrow.

Almost directly across the road from her stood one of the men drawing back a bow and aiming it at the Khajiit, who stood looking down.

Basmah tore her eyes away from the cat and quickly drew back until the bowstring hit her lips and it was done then.

The man let out a small and short cry of surprise as her arrow slid in under his bow arm.

He stood for a moment, his arrow climbing skyward and the bow slipping from his fingers as his knees buckled so that he sank down. When she got to him, she saw that it was one of the very best shots that she'd ever made, the arrow going in through one lung, the heart and deep into the other lung.

She looked up and over, staring as she stood up.

He stood alone in the middle of four bodies which had been living and drawing breath only seconds before. From what she could tell, one of them had been cloven right in two and her mouth drifted open again.

The strength that it would have taken to do that in one swing.

He turned to her and began to walk. It was a sight that Basmah was certain that she'd never forget. He didn't act the part – at least he hadn't shown it so far ...

But she was looking at a proud, tall, incredibly powerful male – an absolutely naked one – walking toward her with a little smile, completely without shame.

"Ah," he smiled, "the fifth one."

Basmah laughed.

She couldn't help it.

They dragged the bodies off the road as quickly as they could and taking the hood from one of them, he filled it with water and ran back a few times to try to at least dilute the stains on the road. Deep in the reeds again, they worked together to strip the bodies and with a few stones that the cat brought quickly from somewhere as they were needed, the bodies were weighted down at least a little.

While they bundled up the swords and other effects in the clothing, she looked over.

"Please, mighty friend, please give me a name to know you by. What you have done for me is something that I will never think lightly of."

He shrugged as he squatted to wash off his hands and blades, "I am Khajiit. We have long names sometimes."

She stepped over and from somewhere, she found the courage to put her arm over his shoulders, though it looked so small there.

She leaned down, "You are the most mighty, fearsome ... handsome thing that I have ever seen in one body. I do not care if it takes me the rest of the afternoon to learn it. I ache now to know your fine name."

He chuckled, "The worth of this one's name seems to have gained a little, he thinks.

This one is Do'Tanaht Sharrine, the most important names for me, anyway."

Basmah worked at the first name for a moment and he laughed a little, "The first part – 'Do' – it means warrior.

It was earned. Almost the only work that I found was in the army. I left when I found that the Aldmeri Dominion controls it tightly."

Basmah knew about the naming prefixes used by the Khajiit, but she said nothing of it.

He looked surprised as he stood up and found her almost hanging from his neck, looking into his face – where she left a quick and soft little kiss.

"Then the kitten knows this one – the warrior - and she is grateful."

He looked surprised and happy, "But ... why?"

"I still draw breath, Do'Tanaht," she laughed, "I have met someone to know and like."

She sighed, her smile never leaving her face or even lessening, "And you called me sweet kitten. I have not heard this since I was a girl. My father would say it to me, when he lived."

He was standing now and so was Basmah. Her arms were still around his thick neck and she stood against him, not quite on her toes.

She kissed him again and after a moment, he returned it and they both sighed. It was a first for him and so it lasted for a time.

Basmah was trim from what she was and what she'd done, but she wasn't a thin birch sapling. She was about normal for a healthy, strong and fit Redguard woman.

But next to Do'Tanaht – against him, she was almost draped over his front and she looked small.

She sighed again and one of her feet lifted up behind her and she noticed it afterward, wanting to laugh.

Well it was that kind of kiss.

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"But I have seen Khajiit people before," Basmah said as they walked across the rolling land toward the Khajiit camp, "I have never seen one like you, Do'Tanaht. Not as big as you, and certainly not as good to look at."

He shrugged, "The wise ones in my village said that it was the moment of my birth and I understand it – as all Khajiit do. The moment of birth against the way the moons shine in the sky sets your life in many ways. The time for a Cathay birth was passing because my mother had trouble. The next way of the moons to that gives Cathay-raht. Larger than Cathays and stronger."

He shook his head, "I was the only one like me in the village. But I saw others in the army, and Basmah, I was larger still. My parents are Cathays, like the ones that I travel with. My cousin is here also and her blood comes from the same people – the same family – and she is as the rest. Only I am this way."

He smiled a little, remembering what Basmah had said, "As for how this one looks to you, he has nothing to explain it. Most of my kind think me dull and slow."

Basmah shook her head, "Then they are wrong. I do not find you to be either. Only, I think that sometimes I must try to pull your thoughts from you a little to get you started. What I hear then is fine.

There are far too many people in the world who talk and really have nothing to say. You are not like that, Do'Tanaht."

He chuckled, "Thank you, then."

She nodded, "I like it – since it leaves me plenty of room for my words."

It hung there a moment and then he laughed.

Basmah walked beside him and put her arm around his waist, thoroughly pleased at how the day had improved.

"Are you ... she began a little clumsily, "Does this one have anyone? I mean ... is there someone ... "

He smiled and shook his head, trying to speak more like the rest of the people here and less like a Khajiit, "I have my cousin Dyla, but it is only when there is ... I wish to say great need in us. We care about each other since we were kittens, but it is not what this one thinks that you mean. Is this trouble for you, Basmah?"