User blog:PsijicThief/The Argonian Account Ch1

So they betrayed me, I suppose...no surprise there, right? "Honor amongst thieves," we call it. More like a big fat lie!

I awoke this fine morning...no, afternoon...actually, I have no idead what time it was. I awoke in a carraige surrounded by Nords - more than a little awkward to have a bunch of Nords staring down a lizard! I look around, I've been doing 'business' - as I like to call it - in Skyrim for a few years now. I noticed the immediately that all the Nords around me were Stormcloaks, some silly rebellion trying to oppose the Empire's rule in the land. One in particular, whom I came to know as Ralof, spoke to me and informed me of how unlucky I was to be there...apparently we had a date with the headsman. [sigh]

I feel as though I'm getting ahead of myself, allow me to explain how I got here. Or at least how I think I got here, some of it is a little fuzzy. So I was leading this group of bandits based out of Embershard Mine, just outside of Helgen and Riverwood. We had just got a pretty big score, and apparently they didn't like the way I was splitting the takes. They had expressed their distate for my methods, and decided to route me out of the mine we were bunkered down in. Obviously, there were some issues taken with that by your's truly! I hid my share of our plunder away in a chest semi-hidden in the cleft of a rock wall. The only thing left to do was to run out, I knew more about the caves than they did as most of the races of Men are seemingly afraid of the dark corners of things. I snuck out of a rear entrance to the cave and hid away in the woods. I saw the rest of my former band of rabal combing the woods for me, and searching the waters hoping to find me - I outsmarted them and hid in the tree like the Khajit, they'll never look for a reptile up there, rather cunning, if I do say so myself.

Next thing I know there's some Impirial General leading a caravan of Legion soldiers and carraiges down the road, he looks familiar like I should know his name, but I can't quite place it. Tius, or Tulliom, or something along those lines. My brother back in Black Marsh always had the mind for names, I just always enjoyed the stabbing, I didn't much care who they were. Obviously I couldn't take on these bandits and the Legion, so I opted to stay my ground - well, figuratively speaking - for the time being. I overheard some lie my former second-in-command (a Bosmer) was feeding the General about being a group of mercenaries hired by Riverwood to find a murderer and a thief...oddly enough with a description matching mine to the last scale! The General called for some Leggett to help them look for me. The short of it is, I was found, knocked from the tree with several large rocks, beat and bound, tossed in the back of a carraige, then blacked out.

Now that we're all caught up; there I am, in the carraige going into Helgen. Watchful eyes within the keep staring down our caravan, for once not because there was an Argonian in it, but because it was full of Stormcloaks, that was a different feeling - just not sure if it was a good one or not. Soon we're lined up in front of the Headsman in the middle of Helgen for all to see like some show or spectacle to awed over. Some officer who's only apparent job to me at the time was to hold a list of names realized that I'm not listed there and inquires about me, so I tell him that I am Nelfarion, an Argonian. He assumes I'm from Black Marsh in to visit family on the docks of Riften (racist bastard) and is told that lists don't matter just line me up to be done in.

As we're all waiting there's some strange noises coming from among the clouds and mountains. Now allow me to stop here for a moment to tell you that I'm not a supersticious sort, but there was something truly ominous in the air and the way the call sounded echoing through the rocks around us. I believe the priest there offended one of the Stormcloaks when in the last rites she called on the power of the eight, a rather humorous display of a final amount of rebellion was displayed by one of the Nords. He simply walked forth and called on Talos to end it all quickly, I had to stifle a slight giggle at that. The headsman renderred his justice - using the term losely here - and I was called up to the block next. "The lizard," the leggett called me.

I'm kneeling there, watching the executioner swing his axe in the air, I can almost feel the cold steel already drenched in the Nord's blood before me, then it happened...all at once, too fast for some of it to really make any sense. A dragon - yes, a DRAGON! - came swooping down and, for what it's worth, saved the day and my kneck. There was chaos all around us, nobody knew what to do or where to run. Ralof called for me to follow him into a keep tower, I did as I was bid. But I kept going, I ran up the tower only to see the path blocked, and a dragon's head punching through rock. I reeled back as he breethed his fire inward, searing the flesh of some Stormcloak. As soon as it was gone I ran up to the hole left by the massive skull and leapt to a now decrepid inn next door. Leaving the rebel soldiers behind me, not giving a second thought to their fate. I follow the inn to other end and find Hadvar, my new Legion friend, coaxing some small child to safety. I follow him for a little while running through courtyards haphazardly until we run into Ralof again - not sure where he came from or where the rest of the Stormcloaks are. I'm faced with a choice...do I follow a rebel soldier, a traitor, a likewise wanted man...or do I follow the Legion, the man that saved a boy, but a Nord who turned his back on his people? Honestly I was mostly just tired of being called 'prisoner' by Hadvar so I jumped in the keep behind Ralof. We encountered some Imperial forces there, but made our way to an underground cave where we faced minimal interference and eventually made our way out onto a roadway. It was brutal, to say the least.

He offered to meet me with his cousin in Riverwood, get food and shelter, maybe a better idea of what's going on. So off I went, but not before stopping by my old gang's hideout at Embershard. I had a bone to pick, after all...each and every bone from their bodies to be exact...