Well Rested

• Posted by Amornar August 20, 2017 - Filed in TSC: CB Story - #Scales-of-IronBLOG  - 1,492 views

   

    The Saga of Scales: Table of Contents

  Previous Entry: Reflection in Blood

   

  

   

  28th of Sun’s Height

   

  It has been nearly two weeks since we left Markarth. Exactly how Scales escaped the supposedly impenetrable fortress that is Cidhna Mine to this day he still will not tell me. I had been frantic, trying to bribe guards (not a good idea), bribe citizens (good idea but useless information), and demanding I have an audience with the jarl (completely pointless). While pacing outside Understone Keep for an answer to my audience I remember staring dumbfounded as Scales strolled right up to me on the street, a well dressed nord noble cutting off from his side as soon as I saw them. Who this was Scales would not say either. My fist stung with how hard I hit him, this time square in the jaw. I pressed him again for what happened and how he seemed to have magically escaped from jail and was labeled a free..err ‘man’ in Markarth. All he would give me was a sly smile, the first time I have ever seen such a thing, the shock of which ceased any and all questions from me right there on a spot.

   

  Without another word I fulfilled that stupid promise I made to myself seconds before he walked up to me and dragged the big lizard straight to the nearest inn, slammed a fist full of gold down on the innkeeper’s counter and dragged Scales to the closest empty room I could find before kicking him square in the chest right onto the bed. I am not ashamed to say that we did not leave that room for three days. At first the innkeeper kept knocking, one to tell us we were being too loud, and two to try shifting us to a different room, apparently this was someone else’s. On his third attempt I opened the door wide, threw out everything that wasn’t nailed down in the room, and screamed at the innkeeper (I swear he pissed his pants) to leave us alone. The few times afterward that he came to bring food he would look down and hold out the food, his face redder than a snowberry in summer. You would swear he had never seen an orc woman in nothing but what Malacath had given her before. I was sure to tip him extra when we left...mostly for all the blood...probably be a long time till they rent that room again….

   

  At any rate, after liquidating what we didn’t need, Scales and I happily left the Reach. Our first night outside the city and back on the road he told me of why he had come to the Reach. Though he was still very guarded, I can accept that while most of his past remains a mystery I am one of the few people that knows even something about him. His history, what I know of his enslavement, means little to me. Malacath is a patron of the spurned, the ostracised, the outcasts. Perhaps in time Scales will see how….orcish he really is. My only regret is not having joined in his battle with this Nepos, though I understand his reasons for needing to accomplish this deed on his own.

   

  We stopping briefly at Mor Khazgur on the way back to this small property in Hjaalmarch that Scales received as compensation of some kind from the jarl at Morthal. Seems like years already since I left despite it only being…....Arkay’s balls...only a month ago. The cabin is...small...but Scales’.....guard?...Valmi-something or other (nord names are ridiculous) has been working with some local builders to expand the cabin to something...at least more private I hope. The only...let's call it a disagreement was that when we arrived I was...less than pleased to see that cyclops Eola waiting here. Apparently Scales invited her back here to manage the homestead or some such nonsense (these notions of stewards and huscarls and other nord nonsense baffles me….though mother probably thought similar things when father married his second wife). Luckily I think I handled myself much better this time around, broke that tramp’s nose with one swift punch to the face. Velma-whatever guard apparently had taken well to Eola and her to him in the days before Scales and I arrived though...didn’t really feel bad for the nose though, bitch had it coming. If she keeps her eye...and other...creepy eye off Scales she’ll be lucky to have just the nose and not something else broken.

   

  Scales says he won’t stay long though, claimed more mysterious business in the Rift. Saw him talking to Voldo-man about it over the map earlier, plotting a route east and then south. I told Scales I was coming...he didn’t question it, just nodded. I have family in the Rift too, mother’s people at Largashbur. With luck I’ll see them...probably been almost five years now. Scales is blood-kin to Mor Khazgur, they should accept that...and if they don’t...I have a feeling our deeds seen by Malacath himself will herald our arrival….

   

  End of Act I