Glimmers-in-deep

Basics
Race: Argonian female
Age: 20 born when Last Seed was under the sign of the Serpent.
Appearance: Sinuous body, sleek features with undersized horns. Skin the green reminiscent of ferns in a shady dell.
Profession: Alchemist, (hobby jewelry making).
Personality: She Is used to a tight knit community that endures a harsh life. However she still is young enough to dream, and her kin allow her to try. Hardship teaches strength, but will she hold onto her hope of freedom from daily oppression and poverty? Alignment Chaotic Neutral
Religion: I am guessing the Hist seems like a fading story to her. They are exiles from their roots. She looks beyond their lives only as far as the waters of the Sea.

Events leading to this story.
The young argonian turns her back on her mother's life on the Windhelm docks. (Her family and kin originally from Morrowind). She accompanies an old Saxheel artisan as he returns to his place in southern Skyrim. Before they left the snowy Eastmarch roads, their carrage is ambushed, the adults fight and die, the old one is put down, the young one is picked up,as fodder for the wolf pits maybe. Despite cruel bindings and an aching belly, she sleeps, unaware of the lurching of her present prison.
In her dreams sparkling streams and poisonous mires are her home. She sees one who passes like a will-o'-wisp over the swamp, like a shadow in a deep still pool.
One spreads poison on whispering arrows, pours a fountain of life over the halls of the undead. One delves for secrets and treasures in the roots of the mountains and in the fathomless seas.

Skills
Covering survival- poison in the dark-the secrets-the artisan
(Major)
Sneak
Alchemy
Restoration Spell healing

(Minor survival)
Archery
Light armour
Speech
(Minor fun)
Smithing
Alteration

I wanted her combat/survival skills to fit into the duality of the water enviroment, the cycle of rot and decay and life and growth. I hope that poisons will be the killer/crowd control, archery just the carrier. I'll try to make her a burglar, not a hero. Her path that of an explorer of the deep waters,  to find and take new treasures, craft beautiful things, and  it would be nice if she could just slither past a few of the enemies.

Scattered along, or close to the Skyrim waterways are various things of interest, which she'll get to when she gets there. She will taste for alchemy knowledge (Experimenter at 30 gives knowledge of the four ingredients.) Pick up random spells, use workstations where she finds them to follow in the footsteps of the old artisan and make beautiful jewelry.

My inspiration for this is Andrew Robinson's Deep Diver
https://www.tamrielvault.com/groups/topic/view/group_id/3/topic_id/5339

I chose randomly, for her to start as left for dead, and as Argonian.
Because of where she ended up, I have replaced lockpicking and enchanting with light armour and speech. No time for  playing  around in this life!

My first Argonian, I don't know much about them. Except they swim!

Adrift

17th of Last Seed 4E 201

She woke, huddled against a fallen tree trunk, the grey sky lightening. Across the sea, she could see a single great mountain, cloud drifting up. She could smell the sea, and something else. Her body ached from bruising, and she felt frail and alone. No other sign of her captors and murderers of kin.
No food nor fish on her small islet. But the frigid sea was hers, the recent nightmarish past gone, and the future blank ahead of her. The sea.
A large boat anchored close the nearer shore. She would rather there be just her and the sea and land.
Swimming, white shells on the ocean floor, succulent clams. Then, danger on the beach, the same as what she'd known so recently, cruel men. Dive and swim...one way. And further, those ...could it be....was she in Morrowind ? Those creatures there...the old one's drawings of creatures he said sounded like soft winds blowing through great stone pipes. Her gratitude for the sense of place turning to dismay. Morrowind was no place for her, worse than inside Windhelm city would've been.
The creatures....closer...she had to Know if they were safe . So alone she was, but the sea was her shelter, her fort. As she thought these words, she came across a different shell, opening to colours as if night glories were on painted on a day sky. And cradled under the soft white meat was a small glimmering stone. A promise.
A hawk flew high. A great stone towered clear of the sand, workers, as she reached the beach. The sea was at her back. A worker, a dunmer,was singing a slow chant, vibrating with an edge of harm. Under her boots, the sand was gritty and coarse, drifts of a finer deposit in the hollows. Ash it smelt of, ash and salt.
Sea was still at her back. She saw a flower she recognised, their healer on the docks once said that the nightshade likes damp and freshly turned rich soil. Not snow of course, but there was no snow on this beach.
She retreated to the cold sea, away from the voices. She knew she had been noticed, but it didn't seem unsafe, yet. There was a town in the distance, further along the beach, and the great mountain funnelling cloud into the murky sky. And at her foot a nirnroot, a plant from home. Behind the town, she saw tall logs or stones standing, a bulwark against the sands, and there was jetties and boats. She feared the coming night, but she had food....four bruised apples and fresh white clams. Dunmer looked at her, amoured ones too, and made no move towards her.
"Walk slow," she told herself, shoulders back. "Sea's just a step away."
Her boots clunked on the wooden wharf. Boats looked like home, but smaller. A blacksmiths hammering sounded not far away.
A sudden joy, deflated after a breath. The boat, the boat there, and the captain, she knew it so well, seen it for so many years. Northern Maiden. Solsteim of course! Praise Hist it wasn't Morrowind,she hadn't been cast over the edge of her known world.

Suddenly she felt empty and frail again. Towns don't open to destitute strangers. The captain told her of abandoned buildings. She found a place, a shelter from the dark night, and a place to sit, upstairs amongst crates. She didn't sleep, but she knew the difference between spending the night as an unwelcome guest, and being alone outside the walls. There were no Nords downstairs, but she was still afraid of what -may- happen.
The dunmer seemed different here, still the same harsh people, yet...different. And a town with no Nords! Well, a few, but not those in charge.
Dawn almost present,she left the ramshackle building, and ran and plunged into the cold sea, swam and dived until she was clear of the boats, and back. Sitting on wet wooden steps, she watched the day lighten, and nibbled on her collection of unknown leaves, testing for bitterness or warmth. All different, though she didn't taste the Nirnroot. She felt free, and empty. The presence of Northern Maiden was her sole anchor to what her world was, only a few days and nights past
She lingered too long in one place. A dunmer soldier, cased in his strange armour, approached her, to remind her she was watched. She daren't do wrong.
She met the alchemist, Milore Ienth, she was from Morthal, though to her that seemed too unreal. She was allowed to use the alchemy table, as they talked of Raven Rock. She made and sold a poison. Eleven coins, she now had eleven coins and an ocean of clams between her and destitution.
Then she moved to the blacksmith, Glover Mallory, a Nord from the Rift, but just a hardworking man. She was beginning to feel different around these smoothskins, mer and men.
An evening plunge took her to a small islet close to the town, and she had luck. There was a dead smoothskin there, heavy armoured, with a sword and pocket to empty. Her "luck" turned when bugs emerged from sand like crabs from mud, their claws like knives tearing at her hide. The Healing of the waters passed over her rent skin as she dove into the sea, clinging to her bag of armour. Mallory was still at his forge, and 100 gold was hers! It opened the doors to a cave like tavern, and a bed raise clear of the floor....when had she ever seen the like.
That night, she had her first wakened nightmare.

Looking forward to hearing your Mage's story :D

More Solstheim

NO!!!!!!! Nightmare holds her fast.
A high snow basin in the mountains, a clear view of the sea and the Ash Mountain far away. The shell of a great round stone structure around her, open to the sky like an arena. Sing song chanting and the vibrations felt through her arms as her heavypick hits stone, the Stone, a Stone.
She breathed deep, ice burning her throat. Dropping the pick, she turned to scan the bright white slopes and the edge of the open coniferous forest on the further side.
Shoulders hunched, she slunk down the wide stone stairs, passing those working on flanking arches. Fear burned into her chest and clung to her back. The lookout structures were empty, only workers inhabited the area.
The sea, the Mountain.
She scurried downwards to hide in the shadows cast by a rocky outcrop. Then, across open ground, there was a choice, a nearer gully or a hint of a path through the trees. She chose the path, which seemed to more directly line up with the distant Mountain. She knew that could be seen from the approach to Ravenrock.
The shadow of the pines closed about her, shielding her. Her eye was caught by a crawling plant, similar to an Eastmarch herb. Now, looking ahead, she saw only the next needle strewed ridge, the sight of sea and the conical outline of the mountain lost to her.
The smell of smoke of a wood fire, maybe behind a ring of standing stones, directed her route to avoid it. A gust of wind stirred the sand and the smell of ashy dust tightened fear's grip on her again. Then, to the side, over some boulders, sea and mountain become visible again, still distant. She stepped cautiously, making her way down a gully that seemed to open, like a trap.
A shaft of cold magic struck her back. She ran, the sound of magic, and some yelping, behind her. Ran hoping that over the edge of the rocks in front of her would become a fast escape route. Hands ready for her own healing magic, she leapt, then scrambled and relief flooded through her as she found footing on a curved entrance arch of a dwelling, Raven Rock before her.
It was scarcely mid day yet.

The cold sea closed over her. She lingered on the sea floor, allowing the salt water to cleanse her of horrors. She sought deeper channels, thankful to what god claimed the sea, that no slaughterfish lived here.
She came to the beach near the Stone, trying to be reassured by the proximity of the soldiers. Until she saw what they were doing with their pickaxes.
She picked the nightshade near the Stone, made some potions, sold them to cover bed and ale for the night. Before heading for the inn, she climbed the ramparts, and gazed over the ash sands. From scavenged goods, she now had 500 gold.
Should she leave this place now, and return to the home of the Nords? Would Morthal be easier to live in- she must ask Milore Ienth. Should she wait, collect plants that this alien island grow, scavenge from the dead who seem to offer good pickings, earn the right to call this Dunmer land home?
She doubted the latter. She felt that one more nightmare would be all it would take to see her on the Northern Maiden.
Should she sleep tonight?
Eventually she did, scrunched in a tight ball on her inn bed.

Morning came, and she decided she'd stay, as long as the nightmares stayed away. She asked her aquaintances, even found courage to ask the mer outside their Temple, but none gave -any- answers about Stones or nightmares. No mention of Vaermina or other Princes or Ancestors or curses. Nothing, and she was too timid to ask again.
The morning was spent in the sea, she found nothing of great worth, but found some more pearls and watched a clan of Netch for a time, came close to some old watchtowers that had signs of ancient Nord stonework. Not too close, because she heard the harsh sounds of bandits.
The afternoon, after being nagged once again by Mallory about a pickaxe she'd agreed to reclaim from a miner, she went to find the Raven Rock Mine, that which had been closed with great harm to the local economy.
She found the man, Crescius Caerellius, and his dunmer wife. Persuaded him to give up the pick he'd "borrowed", agreed to go deeper into the mine looking for his grand-sires body and took the Mine key with her
Scarcely stirring the ages of rock dust, she crept down the levels, slithered past three spiders and was gone before they knew. Broke through a wooden barrier, opened the grilled gate that had been locked by the Company to prevent the likes of her from passing.
Crept, barely breathing through a cavern draped with more greenery than she'd seen in the whole of the island, She saw the sleeping undead, knowing her Skyrim stories, she knew how not dead they were. She felt doom close as she crept past thrones holding the creatures, then her nerve failed her as she saw one standing silouetted at the top of stairs.
Of course, she knew that there were more convincing causes of death of a miner, than a rock fall, in these depths. And there were no reasons within her to prompt her forwards.
She slunk back past the sleepers, scrambled past the spiders, cowered against a rock as a skeever had her cornered. Made a break for it when she realised the exterior door to the mine was only a few steps away.
Shaky, but in one piece she passed through Raven rock, found some ease in the sea around the jetty. Her nerves were still frayed when she settled for a night. A Sujamma borrowed off a shelf helped to put her to sleep.

"Oh HIst another nightmare!"
It took her only to the Raven Rock Stone.
Once back in town, she smelted all the corundum ore she'd scavenged off the Ash remains and sold the ingots to Mallory, he told her to keep the pick so she sold him the first one she'd found. Sold the merish arrows she'd collected, and the leather armour she'd never worn.
She visited Milore Ienth for the last time and paid her 200 coins for all the alchemical help she'd given. Sold one poison, kept the remaining. She decided to keep it for her own arrow.
She paid Gjalund Salt-Sage 250 coins, asked him to pass on to her mother, or Scouts-Many-Marshes, the fact she was alive and well and had coin, and was following the waters of her fate. As the Northern Maiden manoevered into the Windhelm docks, she slipped under the rope railings and into the icy waters, and continued on upstream.

Level 3 Sneak Mastery 1/2
24th Last Seed

+ I have been thinking about her levelling. She is the least combat orientated character I've had, even my thief has found his claws.
At high alchemy, and with lower level enemy, she can kill some stuff, or stop it killing her. At high restoration, she can deal disease and other afflictions to undead, again, maybe fatally if their levels are managable. High perked sneaking will get her past some of the troubles.
So.
In my background meta, I am going to try hard to only level the three perked skills, RP permitting, until I hit combat levels with them. Obviously, she will still need to buy and sell on occasions and I won't stop her from making what she will out of gold and silver she finds. And play with enchantry, I suppose. I just won't encourage it.
For herself, her goal is to explore deep places and collect strange and pretty things. And maybe she will be able to sneak past all the gatekeepers. :P

I am removing light armour, she can't fight at this stage, only run. I was planning to replace it with enchanting,  when she comes across her first out of the way table. I am tempted to give her lockpicking instead, and perk it to deal with automatons, but masterly fiddling with dwemer technology doesn't "feel" like her. Alteration may become my fourth perked skill, eventually. Staves may be an answer to downing a centurion. One day, (in my dreams) I'd love her to get to Blackreach, and wear Miraak's robes, though I suspect she may always be good at getting only half way to anywhere.+

I started not using the in-game map at all, because I wanted to extend the feeling of not knowing where she'd landed. Back in Skyrim, I'll continue to do that. Though I have spent untold hours walking the paths, my brain is very bad with picturing maps, and knowing west from east. S = No snow and Riften. Middle = Whiterun. N=Snow. I know that much, and she will too.

Upstream

From Windhelm
The waters closed over her head as she dived between the ice. She faced into the current, rejoicing as the freezing water scrubbed ash and salt from her scales. She left the ice behind as she chose the nearest fork in the river, keeping close to the bottom where the river's course allowed it. Past barren land on the left, and high rocky cliffs on the right .
Where a forest started and the barren lands ended, she found shelter for the night. A dwelling built for absent workers, the mill owner was the only being in the locality. For a day she fished and swam . Swam against the rushing waters and felt so clean.
Fishing, playing and walking downstream on either bank though still staying within a few strides of the waters. Picking golden flowers and creepers like those that could live even in Solstheim. In Skyrim she had never before seen the plants she knew, their flowers and stems and leaves and roots, she had never walked close to where they grew in their wild home.
She endlessly rode a small rapid amongst the leaping salmon. She feasted on the wild fish of the river. She chased after insects that existed only in moments, their wings golden as the evening sky.
Another day was one for exploring up stream. She remembered then how to run and call upon the waters healing. She ventured into tall fortress, seemingly caught halfway in a torrent that cascaded between high high cliffs. Crept down stairs oozing with moisture, fled from a vengeful weapon swinging spirit.
Above the high falls was a river and a forest, air cool and damp and smelling of life. A cave at the waters edge opened into a tunnel of rock and greenery. She fled that too, when she saw its inhabitant, a troll. The first live one she'd ever seen, but a thousand tellings of stories told her all.
She returned to the cottage below the high falls. Alone. It felt strange and empty to be sleeping here, the sound of waters and the turning of the mill wheel, the distant howling of wolves and wind in the trees the only sounds. She had never lived away from houses and ways full of people.
Then again, it felt like a promise, a promise of places where she was not the alien species, she was not in a place owned by smoothskins.
Mixwater mill, her first home in Skyrim, for a few days. She would journey up stream, knowing there was one place she could return to.

Level 5 Restoration 1/2; Sneak 2/2

From Mixwater Mill
Her choices were always towards the higher falls, the waters that rushed between tall forests. No hurry, she chased small fish and tried to catch a dartwing, frolicked in rapids and never caught a leaping salmon, batted a slaughterfish to death and scraped their scales. She tried her poison arrow on a crab, and the hard-shell died. Crab meat and chitin. She remembered Milori's recipe to cleanse the vampire taint.....did Solstheim have the blood suckers?
She watched a crab annihilate a wolf, and learned.
She dodged the wolves of the upland forest by sliding into the waters, and found a road when the rapids were too swift. She came to a village and sat on the riverbank and watched, until night came. Then once again, she entered a smooth skin settlement. Riverwood.
It made her uncomfortable now, to eat and sleep with others. The promise and assurance of the waters within a stone throw of the inn encouraged her to stay. There was an alchemy table in the inn, and she stayed up late, working with her collection of dried plants and fish parts and insect wings. Guided by her tastings as she had collected each new alchemical element, she found her way to potions and poisons.
The new day, the new day promised everything. A fresh salmon was only the beginning.

From Riverwood
From the safety of overhanging banks, she gazed at the forest, watching wolves and deer. She tracked down a singing nirnroot. Out of curiosity, she crawled away from the water to position herself behind a rock and drew an arrow soaked in poison and aimed it at a lone wolf. The poison worked. She found tranquility below a rapid.
Another day, she swam to the source of the river, a glorious lake spreading between mountainous ridges. Days were spent here, exploring the landscape of the lake bottom, finding sunken barrows and small treasures, barnacles and even clams. She harvested slaugherfish scales by bashing them until they were dead. She found a great Stone, this one pure and safe to touch, a Stone of the Lady's blessings.
She floated on the surface, moving with the waves' gentle motions. She found a forbidding fort, half sunk, but it was late in the day. By the time the waters had swept her back to Riverwood the sky was dark and the waters darker.
Each time she entered the inn, she felt sicker. The stench of humans, the air thick with their noise. Yet the waters outside gave her everything.
One day she walked along the bank of the lake and river, collecting plants and looking. She was thinking of the pair of hunters on the other side of the lake, how good it would be to have a camp of her own. Never having to go back to the town of Nords. There were rough humans in the distance, so she veered to pass near a hut. Keeping an eye out for the men in the forest, she talked with the old woman. Alone she said. No company. Envy felt bitter in her mouth. That night, the noise in the inn was louder, the people more foreign. She didn't use the alchemy table, she went straight to her room and curled up in a tight ball.
Early in the morning, she was back at the hut, keeping out of sight. Alone was the woman, but awake. Her poisons were strong, she knew that, strong with the taint of the river fish. Her mind couldn't think of a reason that one old unarmoured smoothskin wouldn't die with one arrow. She could hear the soft roar of the river in the gorge below.
One arrow, and the old smoothskin was dead. Poison. The body was lighter than she thought, easy to drag over to the cliff and push over. She followed it down, and washed the woman's robe, weighting it with a rock while the swirling waters took away the blood.
A final trip to the town, to buy some lockpicks for the cellar door, and Riverwood was left behind.

Level 7 Alchemy 2/2  Restoration 2/2

(She was in sneak mode when she picked the lock, so You didn't see that :P   )

Lake Ilinalta
The first day of her new life she followed the southern edge of the Lake, moving among the trees to gather herbs. Always the lake near. Stalked by a skeleton, she hid behind a tree and watched as it fought off a mudcrab, barely remaining upright at the end of the battle. Then she sent it clattering to the ground with a swipe of her dagger.
She crept close to a ring of standing stones, picked the  nightshade there but let the floral offerings on a grave remain.
A stream, with a mill on its banks, left the lake at the far end. Too small a river offer to safety, but she still followed it. An unoccupied camp sat near a pond that sang with many nirnroot, and was watched over by many mud crabs. Under the trees were multitudes of mushroom. She went to clamber down to a lower pool, then caught a glimpse of movement, a swirl of leaves and insects. Spriggan grove. She could imagine where the former occupant of the tent was now. She picked up a Direnni book, interesting reading about the power of alchemy. She knew.
Back to the lake, and turning for her home hut, a sense of uneasiness grew. She'd thought the hut would bring her contentment. Maybe, like being alone, having a place of her own took time to adjust too.

Another day. A cave, set in the slopes above the lake. Maybe mushrooms close to the entrance? A high, carved cave, and some red Amanita Then she had to hide, then run from the skeletons. Her healing poured through her as she escaped back to the lake.
The sunken fort. She looked, listened, looked some more as she advanced slowly into the deluged stone structure. It is hard to escape the gaze of a watching skeleton. Once again her feet and her healing carried her safe to the lake, while a clutch of mages of death remained in their fort.
She found the depths, and peace, as she drifted back to the inlet near her home hunt. Her peace left her as she entered the hut. Downstairs at her table, she worked late into the night.

One morning, as she entered the lake she turned, and swam to find the current and let it carry her back to the river. Downstream she swam and drifted and clambered, past Riverwood to where a smaller river entered. She investigated briefly, but found its source was a city overlooking an empty landscape, so returned to the river and downstream to the rocky gorge, bridged towers guarding the opening to the cliffs.
As she paused in the shadow of a boulder, watching the bandits' patrol, she wondered at herself abandoning her own hut, and the lake itself. Did she not want to belong to a place, a place to belong to her?
She hissed quietly to herself as the bandits' arrows found an elk instead of her. Once they were satisfied that no prey was out there, she moved to the carcass, cut meat for the Mill, and velvet for herself.
It was at Mixwater mill she spent the night. Not a place for ever, but here she felt relaxed and clean. Tomorrow she was to climb back past the low falls to the forest and chose the left fork of the meeting of the rivers.

Level 8 Restoration Descending Light :during combat, +magicka regen/sec =1/2 restoration skill level

Belatedly, I have the feel of her alignment. Chaotic. Low maintenance benevolence and loyalty towards her own kind, indifference to smoothskins, if she is free to live her own life. I guess that balances out as Neutral morality.

I swear my "good" ones let her live !

To the source of the great falls.

The cataract plunged down stone cliffs impossibly vertical, impossibly high to attempt to scale. While clambering in the pools around its base, she found a fallen bandit with jewels in his pocket. In the end, she attempted the steep hill face within sound of the waters.
Sidling around a rock, she caught the attention of a pair of wolves, and as they attempted to close in, she slashed with her dagger dipped in distilled nightshade sap and each was almost dead. She allowed the first to flee, but it returned. She watched their bodies plummet into the waters.
Far up ahead, she could see a great fallen tree spanning the falls. Could she get up there?
Swirling leaves and the hum of insects and the spriggan found the wolf killer. She backed and crept around boulders, one carefully placed step at a time until the humming grew faint. Within sight of the fallen tree, she quickened her steps and a wolf caught her scent or the sound of her boots. She guessed it wouldn't follow over the trunk, and her balance was good.
A smoothskin stood, mid trunk, a bow drawn. Her arrow was coated in an extract of deadly fish flesh. The bandit fell into the waters below.
On the far side was a small woodland terrace ,caught fast in the stone cliffs. With wild flowers and a goat and a Nordic tomb, but no way up. However, she could see a path back on the other side zigzagging its way up the precipitous slopes, so she returned to the tree trunk, preparing her dagger.
The wolves were waiting They fell as they came one at a time. And the spriggan returned.
She retreated to the safety of the other side and waited for night until she crossed back.
The rocks were silver and the track grey under the light of Masser when she recrossed and crept along the edge of the bluff until she thought it might be safe to join the track. Each shadowed corner was a small cave of shelter as Masser brightened.
She felt she was nearing the top when the slope of the track flattened ahead. Ahead where wisps of bright lights were arching. Expecting nothing good, she squeezed between two rocks trying to distance herself from the track and the lights. Above, the waters seem to be falling away in a different direction ...had she crossed a saddle? Could she find refuge in the pool ahead ? Which stream should she take, the one flowing away on her left, or the small rapids ahead?
There was a figure lurking near what seem to be a cave...was it a bandit? She needed to get off the rocks to reach either path. She had only one poison left, for an arrow. Not enough for safety.
With a roar,  the figure shambled towards her. Troll! She dived into the pool and cowered half submerged against a boulder. She waited.
"Now," she told herself. Over the rocks. Keeping low. Then RAN as her pursuer found her. Lost, directionless, she could see the shallow stream below her but she daren't risk being led back down to the last morning's valley so she climbed beside the small waterfall ahead past the last rock.
Past the last rock outcrop was spread still waters. She was found, and the troll has been left behind.

She saw that the sheltered basin of water was only an inlet of a bigger expanse, but for now she was content just to linger. As the day broke through the overcast sky, she slowly swam around the circumference of the inlet, stopping to eye the trees and stones and open ground around the water, and the jagged snowy peaks in the distance. Then she turned to chase fish and snatch at the elusive dartwings.
Past one rock outcrop she could see the roofs of a small settlement. On an islet, she saw two smoothskins digging. They grabbed their weapons when she approached, so she dived away. A larger island held what appeared to be a sunken Nord barrow, or a cave. Another time she would return, today she only wanted peace and safety.
That night she slept in the inn of the settlement, Ivarstead beside Lake Geir. No alchemy table, but she'd ask in the morning. No door to her room, and a smoothskin sharing her room,  but still she felt more relaxed here than she had in the confines of the Riverwood inn.