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The walk to Riverwood was about as long as Hadvar had told him it would be. However, Arga thought as he wiped his new sword off on a bandit's armor, the soldier had never mentioned anything about any ambushes that might have been part of the trip.

He took the belt that the bandit had, pulling it around his waist and putting the sword through the gap the belt had for blades as Hadvar caught his breath, doing the same with his sword. "I didn't think that there would be any bandits so close to town," the soldier said.

The Argonian shrugged, resisting the urge to rub his bandaged arms. Despite bandaging them and washing them earlier, the burns beneath the wraps of cloth still tugged at his attention, hot and painful, making it hard to move his arms. They were lucky that there had only been two bandits, and luckier still that the bandits had been as surprised to see them as they were to see the bandits.

At least one of the Nords had a sword on them, and one that he could actually use. The blade was made of iron, as best he could tell, and the grip at the base was a little big for his hands, but it was the first sword he'd found that had a decent balance to it. Better still, it wasn't too heavy at his waist, something that he had been worried about. Of course, he would have to wait until his arms healed until he would be able to use it with any skill, but at least he had a weapon, and a visible one at that. Hopefully that would do something for scaring others off rather than having them think he was an easy target.

Giving in and rubbing his burns through the bandages, Arga turned to the soldier. "So, how much further to Riverwood? We must be close, from what you say."

"It's...not far," Hadvar said, pointing back down to the river. "We just need to go back down the hill to the road, and then follow it a little further. Should be just a little ways down the road and around the bend."

Nodding, Arga turned towards the path, hearing the soldier fall in behind him. The Argonian didn't say anything, keeping his eyes on the road as they rejoined it, following it.

The last couple of hours with Hadvar had not been among the best in the Argonian's life. While he believed that he had made the right choice, leaving with the soldier rather than following Ulfric and his Stormcloaks out through the keep, it had become increasingly clear that Hadvar was as staunch an advocate for the Imperials as any of the Stormcloaks were for their cause.

Another time, Arga might have agreed with him, that the Empire was a needed force in Skyrim, and that Skyrim needed to stay with the Empire to keep the Thalmor from doing more damage to the continent of Tamriel. But with the memory of near execution so fresh in his memory, and the way that it was the Imperials that had decided to execute him despite him not being on the list of people to be executed, it was a little bit difficult to be sympathetic to the cause.

Of course, the burns along his forearms didn't make pleasant thoughts too easy either. Those were his own fault, though, an attempt at a different spell to break himself free of his bonds. The end result had been good enough, but he was going to need some practice before he tried that spell again. His scales still burned, and Arga was pretty sure that the black would be somewhat red-tinted if he took off the bandages to look.

Thankfully, the rest of the trip was accomplished in silence as Hadvar seemed to understand his mood, giving him the quiet that he preferred as they made their way along the river, and then to the gates of Riverwood.

The place was a little bit different than Arga had expected. With a name like Riverwood, he had thought that it would be a fairly tiny collection of huts or small houses, no walls, no real defenses. But not only was it larger than he expected - at least from what he could see from outside the gates - it actually had a large barricade against creatures and bandits. A sheltered path along the wall was patrolled with archers, and the gates themselves, though made of wood like in Helgen, looked pretty sturdy to him. Someone had obviously sunk a fair bit of thought, effort, and coin into making this a town that would stand strong for a while.

"Come on," Hadvar said as they reached the gates. "I have family here. They should be able to give us a few supplies and put us up for the night before we head to Solitude and - "

"I'm not going with you."

His Nord shadow paused in mid-speech, turning to look at him in confusion. "What are you talking about? I thought that we were going to Castle Dour to tell them about the dragon."

"That's what you want to do," Arga said with a nod. "But that's not what I want."

"But it's important that we get word to the rest of the commanders there. What if we're the only survivors of Helgen? Someone has to tell them that the -" The soldier paused, looking back and forth before lowering his voice. "They have to know that there are dragons in Skyrim. They have to prepare."

"Then you tell them." The Argonian held up a hand before Hadvar could argue. "Look, I'm just a newcomer to Skyrim. I don't want to get involved here; all I want to do is find a place where I can make some coin, maybe find a home, and make a life for myself. I am not a soldier. I never have been, and I never will be. If it's so important that people up north need to be told, you tell them."

Hadvar shook his head a few times, almost like he was trying to dismiss what he was hearing. The look in the Nord's eyes was confused, like he couldn't believe what Arga was saying, like the Argonian was supposed to have said something else.

Arga didn't really care. He was exhausted, in pain, and he just wanted to find a place to rest for a while. He turned, but he only made it halfway around before he felt Hadvar's hand on his shoulder. Suppressing his immediate instinct to reach up and torch the soldier's hand, the Argonian gritted his teeth, growling through them. "Let go of me."

"Not until you listen to what I have to say," Hadvar said.

The temptation to burn the hand grew again, but he slowly pushed it back. It was the pain and tiredness talking, wearing on what patience he had left. Hadvar hadn't done anything bad, he forced himself to remember; it was the Captain back there that had wanted to execute him. Hadvar had helped him escape. Hadvar had helped him get out here, and pushed him to get to Riverwood, and helped him survive the ambush at the mine outside of town. He could extend the soldier a little credit...a little.

Slowly, he nodded, and Hadvar pulled his hand back. "Look. Right now, we're both exhausted. We just survived something that should have killed us, by all rights. Come with me; I'll take you to my family, we can get some supplies and a place to rest for the night. Then you can decide whether you want to come with me in the morning, when we've both recovered a bit."

"I told you -"

"I'm not asking you to change your mind. Just...sleep on it," Hadvar said. "Can you at least agree to that?"

Everything in Arga's mind told him to just walk away from the soldier. Things were complicated enough without being involved with the Imperials and dealing with a dragon threat; getting sucked into the whole situation would only make things worse. He was just a traveler, someone who did odd jobs to survive. This was not something he needed right now.

But...

But he owed the Nord. Not much, but enough for his favor to be something he couldn't ignore. With a small sigh, Arga nodded his head. "Fine. But only one night. And then I'm going to go back to doing what I want to do. Got it?"

"As long as you're willing to sleep on the decision, I'll take whatever I can get," Hadvar said with a nod. He walked through the gates, and Arga followed him through the town.

There was a wide cobblestone path that crossed through the center of town, forking off towards the south about halfway through Riverwood, and the other route going straight through the town. Several buildings reached up to a second story, but most of them were only single level buildings, covered with thatched roofs.

Roofs that would burn up in seconds if the dragon made its way here, Arga thought. He pushed the thought out of his mind as quickly as he could, not wanting to think of that, but it was too late. His eyes flickered between the different buildings, noting just how many of them were made of wood, of straw. There was so much here that could burn from the dragon's fire; the people here were living in an inferno waiting to happen.

Arga nearly stumbled over his feet when he heard an old woman mention a dragon, and only just caught himself in time to keep from stumbling to the stone road. He turned to look at the skies, but could see nothing.

"I tell you, I saw a dragon. Flew right over the town, then over Bleak Falls Barrow!" the old woman said. Arga turned to look at her, and sighed softly as he saw she was just talking to one of the other townsmen, another Nord with a lute on his back. "It was there, I tell you."

"Mother, you're seeing things," the other Nord said. "The dragons have been gone for centuries. They're just legends."

"Well, see what you have to say when it comes back and burns your mother's house down, hmm?" The old woman shook her head, turning away from the townsman and going into her house.

"Looks like the dragon passed over here after it was done in Helgen," Hadvar said with a shake of his head.

"I think that if it passed over here, more people than just the old woman would have seen it," Arga pointed out. "It was a rather big creature. I don't think you could miss it flying over your town."

"We missed it flying over most of the countryside before it reached Helgen, remember?"

The soldier had a good point, and Arga nodded his head, just following him again. However, the Argonian remembered the rumble on the wind, the building roar, and the sights of the scales through the clouds. There had been signs of the dragon before it had come down and ruined the whole town. There just hadn't been anyone but him looking at them. That, or everyone else had been ignoring them; both were equally possible.

They passed a few other buildings before they came to a house with a burning forge attached to it. Other smithing equipment was laid out around it, including a table for hammering, a skin-stretcher, a grindstone, and even a smelter. The heat coming off of them irritated Arga's arms, so he folded them behind him as Hadvar led him in closer.

There was only one man working the forge, a giant of a Nord that stood a good bit taller than Hadvar. He had a dark red beard, cut short to his face, and his arms and neck bulged with muscle, thick and strong. He turned as Hadvar approached, a small smile drawing his beard up in a new pattern. "Hadvar! I hadn't thought that you would get leave to visit so soon," the blacksmith said in a surprisingly quiet voice compared to his physique.

"I'm not on leave, Uncle Alvor," Hadvar said. "There's some bad news. Can we go inside? I think everyone needs to hear this."

The smile fell from the smith's face, and he slowly nodded, pulling the metal in the fire free. "It'll keep for now," he muttered as he set it aside. Waving, the big man gestured them towards the door of the house. He gave Arga a glance of interest, but said nothing as they stepped inside.

Arga had the chance to see a child and a grown woman before Hadvar was grabbed by the little one, the young girl hugging him around the waist tightly. The lady, a little grim faced in the firelight as she stirred a cooking stew, looked up with a smile. The smile faded, though, as Alvor stepped inside behind Arga.

The smith pushed the child back from Hadvar before crossing his arms, leaning against the door. "Alright, Hadvar, we're all here. Why are you here, if you're not on leave, and who is your companion?"

Hadvar gestured at him. "This is Arga. He was with me in Helgen...when the dragon attacked."

Everyone fell silent, and Arga could feel everyone's eyes turning to Hadvar, staring at him. He couldn't blame them; seeing the dragon was something that had shocked him to the core. Hearing about a legend coming to life, particularly from someone that they trusted, was probably more than they could accept, at least immediately.

Alvor was the first to speak. "Are you sure about this? It wasn't some Stormcloak trick?"

"There's no way that it could have been a trick; it killed as many of them as us," Hadvar said with a shake of his head. "It came without warning, through the clouds. Helgen...is gone. By the time that we managed to get out, most of the homes had been razed to the ground, and the damage to the stone was nearly as bad."

"How did you get out?" said the woman at the fire.

"That's where I came in," Arga muttered. Everyone's eyes turned to him, and he shrugged, wincing softly as he did so as his burns were rubbed the wrong way. "I opened the gate, while he watched my back. That's about all there was to it."

"Opened the gate?" Hadvar smirked. "Arga, you burned a hole in it big enough for us to run through."

The girl took a few steps back towards the woman, and she arched an eyebrow. "A mage?"

Alvor spoke before Arga could answer that. "Even if he is a mage, Sigrid, I think that we should be grateful. I'll accept any help from anybody, if it means keeping my family alive. Even if they do need magic instead of their own muscles," the blacksmith said. His heavy hand slapped against Arga's shoulder, and the Argonian just barely kept himself from buckling under the pressure. "For saving my nephew, you have my gratitude."

"I'd trade the gratitude for a trip to the river, if you don't mind," he muttered under his breath. Sigrid looked at him with her head cocked to the side, and Arga lifted his arms, showing the bandages. "Not every spell works so well; I'd like to cool my burns in the water."

"Oh...I forgot about those," Hadvar admitted. He looked to the smith. "Alvor, do you have a few spare Septims? He needs healing, and if I remember right, they sell some healing potions over at the Trader. I'll pay you back as soon as I can get in contact with my superiors, I promise."

Alvor reached into one of his pouches, pulling out a small purse. Bouncing it up and down in his palm, filling the air with the sound of jingling coin, he then tossed it over to the Argonian. Arga just caught it, and lifted an eye-ridge.

"You're a friend of my nephew. And he promised to pay me back, so go and get yourself healed." The smith looked past him, back at the soldier. "Besides, I think we need to discuss family business for a while, and that will be boring to you."

Arga recognized the request for privacy when he heard it. Nodding his head, he stepped around the smith and out into the town again, keeping a tight grip on the pouch of coin as he did.

It only took a second for him to find the Trader. At least, he assumed that the two level house with the sign sticking out, reading "Riverwood Trader", was the building that the smith had meant. He walked across the street, avoiding the chickens wandering around, and pushed the door open.

The sounds of conversation ceased as soon as he pushed the door open, and Arga found himself being stared at by the two Nords standing in the store. One woman, one man, on opposite sides of the store counter and so close to each other that their noses had to have been nearly touching before they turned to look at him. The man glared at him, while the woman chuckled a bit before turning her head. "Looks like we might have someone willing to do a little work for us here, if you can part with some money to pay him."

"Wait, what are you talking about, Camilla? It's too dangerous for anyone other than the guards to go up there, and besides - "

"Besides what, Lucan?" the woman - Camilla, Arga supposed - asked. "That Claw was just about the most valuable thing in here, at least by itself; I know enough to know that you're lying if you say that it wasn't worth all that much. Wherever you got it, it could have brought in some more gold to the store, and EVERYONE would know you're lying if you say that you don't need more gold here."

Looking back and forth between the two, Arga couldn't help but wonder what he walked in on. "Um -"

They both held up their hands as they continued to argue, Lucan arguing against sending anyone, whether a hireling or someone else, to go after this golden claw, while Camilla was telling him that he needed to do it, regardless of the cost or danger.

The argument went back and forth for minutes on end, until Arga growled and stepped forward. He leaned on the counter, tapping on a potion vial he recognized. "A healing potion please," he muttered through his teeth, adding a growl to his tone. It was just violent enough to get attention from most humans, particularly those that saw Argonians as dangerous animals rather than normal people, and this time was no exception. Both of them stopped arguing, and Lucan quoted him a price, "Seventy five septims."

With a nod, Arga reached into the coin purse. He counted out the septims, and passed them across the counter to the Nord. They disappeared faster than fire in water, and the potion was pushed over to him, the pinkish-red liquid inside rolling around inside for a few seconds before settling.

He uncorked and swallowed the potion then and there, feeling the invigorating effects running through his limbs immediately. Ripping off the bandages from his arms, Arga watched the burned, pink scales slowly heal over, the black scales regrowing over the burned tissue beneath. While it was still somewhat uncomfortable, not completely healed, it was enough for him not to have the burns calling his mind to them with their flaming heat every few seconds.

"Thank you," Arga said, bowing his head to the storekeeper. "If I might ask, just what were you and..." He turned to the woman. "Camilla?" She nodded. "What were you and Camilla arguing about?"

"It's noth-"

"It's this Golden Claw that my brother here got stolen," Camilla interrupted, crossing her arms. "Some thieves came through the town at night, broke in, and stole it from our shelves while we slept."

The storekeeper glared at his sister, but slowly nodded his head. "That's the truth. My sister wants me to send someone to get it, even after she went to try and get it herself..." Lucan shook his head a bit, and Arga noticed that Camilla's expression tightened for a second before she relaxed again. "Anyway, there's no way that I'm sending anyone else up there just for some trinket."

Even as Camilla started to talk about why they should send someone, Arga found himself thinking about volunteering. After all, he needed to start somewhere with earning his keep, so why not with getting something back that was stolen? As long as there weren't too many bandits along the way, he should be able to handle a simple retrieval. After all, he'd managed the mine near Windhelm easily enough. And it would give him an excuse to stick around here rather than follow Hadvar tomorrow.

Just as Lucan was about to open his mouth and say something else, Arga tapped the counter again. "If you can pay me a small amount, I'm willing to go up there and try to retrieve it."

Both Nords turned to stare at him again, and he shrugged. "I need to earn some septims. You need your claw back. If I fail, then you lose nothing, because I will wait until after I return to be paid. And if I can do it, you get your claw back without having to pay for the more expensive mercenaries or guards to come out here and do it for you," the Argonian said.

Lucan put a hand to his chin, slowly nodding. "Yes...that would work out better. And you are a foreigner, so it's not like I'm sending one of Riverwood's own to their deaths."

Suppressing his instinctive reaction to being categorized like that, Arga nodded his head in agreement. Anything to hurry this along so that he could get the shopkeeper to agree.

"Oh, fine. I don't have much choice if I want to get any rest," Lucan said, looking over at his sister with a glare before turning back to the Argonian. "You'll need to go up to Bleak Falls Barrow to find the bandits, though. That's just across the river, and then up the mountain. There's a path there, so you can't miss it."

He nodded, bowing his head once more to the shopkeeper. "I'll go up there tomorrow, and find your claw. Do you know how long it will take me to reach the Barrow from here?"

"About an hour, maybe two. It's not all that far from where we are; on sunny days, the shadow from the blasted place falls right on our town."

Nodding again, Arga bowed his head in farewell, turning to leave. However, as he stepped through the door, he heard footsteps behind him, following him.

As he turned, he saw Camilla had followed him out of the shop. She shut the door behind them, and leaned against it. "You know...You should hear a little more about the Barrow first. I'm not trying to convince you not to go," she hurried to say, "but I think that you deserve to know just what you're getting into.

"Bleak Falls Barrow is a haunted place. At least, that's what we know; there are undead Draugr in there, corpses that come to life when intruders enter. There's traps, and vermin, and other things in there that are all very dangerous."

Her arms hugged around her chest a little tighter as she took a deep breath. "But the worst thing is Arvel the Swift. He's the leader of the bandits up there, and he's the one that stole the Golden Claw. And he's the one that found me when I went up to try and take it back."

Arga could guess what had happened from there. Her face was tense, and her eyes were half closed as she seemed to relive whatever had happened when this Arvel had found her. Whatever had been done had definitely left its mark on her. "I'll be careful, and make sure that you get your Golden Claw back," he said with a nod. "And I promise that this Arvel won't be nearly so swift after I find him."

"I'd appreciate that," Camilla said. She nodded her head, and was silent for another second. After a moment's hesitation, she opened the door to the shop again. "I'll meet you tomorrow morning, show you where you need to go. Lucan's directions have a little bit to be desired, I know, so I'll take you to where you have to start, at least."

"Thanks,"Arga said as she disappeared into the shop. He shook his head lightly. The fact that she had chased a group of bandits to get that claw back...either it was worth a good deal more than either of the siblings wanted to admit, or there was something else about it that they hadn't told him. Either way, it should be brought back to them. If they owned it, they deserved to have it back.

He looked up at the sky. The sun was nearing the horizon, but he wasn't quite tired enough to go back to Hadvar's family house, and there was another hour or so of daylight left, anyway. "I wonder if they have a decent inn in this town," Arga muttered under his breath.

It didn't take much time for him to find the inn of Riverwood. The name was a little strange, he thought. The Sleeping Giant Inn. "Do they have giants here in Skyrim?" Arga muttered under his breath as he stepped through the door.

The inn was a fairly large one, even if it was all one level. A large fire pit in the center warmed up the whole place, and cast light across the walls. Tables and benches lined the walls as well, giving guests plenty of choices of where they might sit, as well as being laden with food for those that wanted to stay around. More light was cast by various torches held in hollowed out goat horns hung from the walls, and the air was filled with the sound of people talking, and the fading notes of the strings of a lute.

It didn't take long to see the source of the final sound. The Nord that he'd seen talking to the old woman at the entrance of the town was playing his music for the patrons of the inn, and he was only now putting his lute over his back, giving his fingers a rest as he started to slake his thirst with something from a mug. Mead, more than likely, Arga thought to himself; the Nords preferred that, he remembered.

Ignoring most of the other patrons, he walked over to the far side of the room, where an angry looking man waited. The Argonian approached slowly, and just as slowly sat down at the bar.

"What do you want?" the Nord asked him.

"Just wondering what there might be to do around here," Arga said with a shrug. "I am new here."

"There's no whores around, if that's what you're asking, lizard."

Arga suppressed a growl, and cleared his throat. "I'm not looking for that. Just wondering if there is anything to do around here besides eat or talk, that's all."

The bartender shrugged his shoulders a bit. "About the only thing that we do around here is listen to Sven there play his lute, hunt, and talk," he said. "If you're looking for a more exciting life than that, you'd be better off over in Whiterun or one of the other big cities among the holds. We have it quiet here, and we like it that way."

"I see." Arga looked back at the lute player. He was a pretty big guy, but then again, most of the Nords out there were pretty big. His arms were a bit thinner than those fighters and guards that he had seen, though, and from a few other details he could see of the Nord - such as the more slender fingers, the fact that he didn't have a scarred face, and the way that he carried himself - he didn't seem to have the same proclivities for fighting all the time that some of his kind did.

Still, he was trying to find something to do, not someone, and he didn't know much music to ask a bard to play anyway. Shaking his head, Arga looked around the rest of the common room.

After a few minutes, one person did catch his eyes. A pointy eared man, wearing a bow on his back and dressed in hunting leathers. A bit shorter than those around him, he had the smooth skin of an elf, and judging by the way that he carried his bow, Arga would bet that he was a Bosmer, one of the wood elves that lived far to the south in the Valenwood.

"Who's that?" he asked, pointing to the elf.

"Him? That's Faendal, one of our best hunters." The bartender chuckled. "Not that he's had much luck in hunting Camilla down at the Trader."

"Oh really?" Arga said, smiling a bit to himself. That sounded interesting. "She not interested?"

"Oh, she's interested," the bartender said, starting to smile as well, almost in spite of himself, but smiling. "She's just interested in another guy as well."

"Who?"

The bartender pointed, and Arga followed his gesture to the bard in the corner. He winced at that; a hunter and a bard, both trying to woo the same woman. They both were pretty good looking as well, he had to admit, so that wouldn't be as much of a quality to choose one over the other with. Both could provide, and both had interesting skills that would keep someone interested in them.

"Camilla's got her work cut out for her," Arga muttered under his breath, shaking his head.

"No kidding. But she keeps leading them on, keeps making them compete for her." A pause. "Well, until lately, anyway. After she went off somewhere, and didn't come back for a few days, she stopped bothering with them for a while. It was like she didn't want anything to do with anyone for a while."

He could guess what had happened then, so he didn't bother to ask when that was. Still, the fact that she must have gone back to teasing them, pushing them to prove themselves, it meant that she was at least doing better than he had thought she was.

The bartender went back to washing mugs behind the bar, and Arga was left to amuse himself again. As much as he was annoyed with the bartender for suggesting that he just wanted to find sex, though, he couldn't help but let his mind wander to the more carnal realms of his imagination as he looked over the different people in the inn. There were some real lookers here, too, though most of them were of the male variety. Nothing wrong with that, really, but there were times when he liked a bit of choice.

He got as far as imagining some of them - including the Bosmer - in a few positions before he shook his head and turned around. The coin purse Alvor had given him still had some money in it, so he reached in and pulled out a couple of septims. "Got any sujamma?" the Argonian asked.

"I don't carry any of that dark elf swill," the bartender said with a glare. "You want some elven piss, go somewhere else. All I have is beer and mead."

"A mug of beer, then," he muttered. The bartender took a couple of septims, leaving him with a small handful left in the purse, and then passed him a mug of the foamy drink.

Arga took it in hand before turning to look at the other people in the inn again. Sven was pulling out his lute again, and he could see that Faendal was sending the bard a fairly powerful glare. Several empty mugs were on the table in front of the elf as well, and he could see the signs of anger getting a little stronger in Faendal's face and arms. Muscles bunched, and veins stood out in the elf's neck.

The elf stood up after slamming his mug down on the table, and started walking towards the bard. Grimacing, Arga quickly took one more drink of his beer before putting it back down on the bar. He turned to the bartender. "Do you have someone to break up fights or anything?"

"Are you joking? This is Skyrim. Fights are part of the entertainment."

That was not what he was hoping to hear. He turned, seeing the slight glint of light off of metal in Faendal's hand. That might have been something innocent, but the way that the elf was advancing on the bard, there was little doubt that he meant something a little more harmful than a punch to the heat.

The door was too far away for Arga to get out of here before Faendal could reach the bard, and there was no way that he wanted to be part of the fight that would erupt if the elf actually hurt the bard; knowing how people in inns like this tended to be, the bard was probably better liked than the hunter, and a stabbed or bleeding bard would probably get everyone else around involved, and knowing his luck, he'd get swept into it regardless of his own feelings on the matter.

That left only one alternative. Leaving his drink on the bar, Arga rushed around the fire pit, moving around the different patrons. He was bumped back and forth by them as he ran by, but soon was right behind the elf. With a grunt, he leaped forward, and grabbed him around the waist, pulling him back and down onto the nearest bench.

The impact from landing on the bench sent some food into the air, only to come back down with a crash on the table. Some people looked their way, but most were too focused on the bard to see anything that was going on.

At least he had that much luck, Arga thought before turning his eyes back to the elf almost in his lap. The squirming, at any other time, would have provoked a different sort of response, but for the moment, he needed to keep Faendal still. A glance at the elf's hand proved that he'd been right; a dagger, steel, glimmered in the firelight. Squeezing the elf's wrist forced him to drop it to the ground, and Arga kicked it under the table a moment later. "What are you thinking?" he hissed, just loud enough for the elf to hear. "Are you insane?"

"Let me go!" the elf complained, pulling against Arga's grip. "Let me go! I have to teach Sven a lesson! He made me look like a fool!"

"How - stop squirming! - did he...do that?" Arga muttered back, tugging the elf's arms back in. He knew that to most people he would look like he was hugging the hunter, but he didn't care. If it kept Faendal from leaping up and murdering someone, then he didn't care. "Couldn't have been bad enough...to need to kill -"

The elf got in a shot that Arga hadn't expected, an elbow flying back and catching him in the chin. If the elf had managed to get any higher, getting his nostrils instead of his chin, the blow would have been enough to make him let go of the hunter. As it was, it just hurt, and he growled in the elf's ear in response. Only a great deal of self control kept him from flexing his fingers and bringing the blunt claws at the ends of his fingers to bear. They might not do much, but they would hurt, and he was pretty sure that if he pressed hard enough, they'd be enough to break skin.

But he held back, suppressing his growling after a second. Getting a better grip on the elf, Arga muttered, "Don't do that again, or I'm going to find some way to throw you through a window." The elf continued to mutter, and Arga knew that there was no way that he was going to get anything else out of him in here. Not around the bard.

Looking out the window, it was clear that the sun had already set. It surprised him, but apparently he had just misjudged the time earlier. It did make things easier, though. He stood up slowly, keeping his arms around the elf, but tried to make it look like he was marching a drunk out of the inn. "Too much to drink," he explained to the few people that turned away from the bard, and they nodded in understanding.

The elf muttered the whole way to the door, squirming against Arga's grip, but he wasn't sober enough to really get free. Strong enough, maybe, but he wasn't sober enough to try any tricks that Arga didn't anticipate. They did make quite a pair going across the inn, though, he was sure; the elf tugging against him, pulling on him, and Arga pulling his arms back. It was like some sort of diseased dance.

As soon as they were outside, and the door was shut behind him, Arga let himself finally return the favor of the blow to his chin. With interest. His foot came up and booted the elf right off the step, and with more than a little pleasure, Arga followed behind him, kicking him down the road to the eastern edge of the town. The archer on the top of the wall watched him with confusion as he pushed the elf through the gate, but didn't interfere.

Once they were a little ways out of town, Arga finally stopped kicking the elf. His foot was a little sore, and he imagined the elf's ass was as well. As they rubbed their respective parts, Arga asked, "Now, what did Sven do that made you want to kill him?"

The Bosmer glared at him, shaking his head a few times.

"There's a river right next to us, and I'm not in the mood to wait. I just ran all the way here from Helgen, and I am NOT in the mood for getting dragged into things that are none of my business. I only stopped you because you would have started a whole fight in the inn, and I would have gotten pulled into that. Possibly gotten my throat cut or hurt some other way. Now, tell me what the hell is going on, or we'll see if a Bosmer can hold their breath longer than an Argonian." Arga felt himself getting angrier and angrier the more he said, the frustration from the whole day of running, fighting, and general exhaustion and pain finally coming to a boil.

Apparently, it was fierce to get through the elf's drunken haze, because Faendal looked back at him with a fearful look in his eyes. "I...I was..." He sighed. "Alright, it was stupid. But Sven made me look like an idiot in front of Camilla. He was singing, and then I came around, and he turned it into some sexual ballad...about me."

"About you?" the Argonian asked. "That couldn't have been too bad, could it?"

"Well, not about me, specifically, but about Bosmers, and all the...things...they say about us."

"Oh." There were a great deal of things said about Bosmers, now that Arga thought about it. Not something that was said in polite culture, but just like the orcs were said to have some of the biggest dicks among the races of Tamriel, the Bosmers were said to have just about the smallest. It was a common phrase, 'hung like a wood elf', and it was usually used in a pretty insulting way. If the bard had made up a whole tune about the 'shortcomings' of the Bosmer, that would have been pretty humiliating indeed.

Still, that wasn't enough to kill someone over. Arga opened his mouth to say that, but Faendal stopped him, reaching down to his trousers, unlacing them. "Those tales are all wrong, you know. Bosmers aren't so tiny; we're just as...just as good as any Nord, at least!" Faendal stammered.

"Oh divines," Arga muttered, rubbing his head. He wouldn't have minded getting into the elf's pants, but not quite like this. "You don't have to -"

"Yeah, I do." Faendal grunted, finally undoing the knot in his trousers. Finally loose, he shoved his pants to the ground, revealing that he went around without a loincloth. "See? See! I got plenty to work with."

Arga had to admit that the elf definitely had a good bit to work with. Though it was soft, it had to be at least five inches already, and with the elf's smaller, lighter frame, the dick hanging between his legs looked even bigger. "You definitely put the stories to shame," Arga said, trying to keep his voice neutral, trying to keep his incredulity at the situation from showing through.

"What, you saying you got something bigger?" Faendal asked, his words coming out with something of a drunken slur.

Oh, this was not going where he'd expected it to. "No, no, I'm not saying -"

"Oooh, Mr. Big Lizard with his big dick! So much bigger than the itty bitty wood elves," the hunter said, wobbling as he stood with his pants around his ankles. "Take 'em off and prove it if you're so much bigger! Come on, show me!"

Arga groaned as he rubbed his forehead. He had wanted to have a little fun tonight, but this was not exactly how he was hoping to have it happen. For one, he had hoped that it would be with someone sober enough to remember it the next day. But...if this was the only way...

Shaking his head, he undid his trousers, taking significantly less time than the drunken wood elf to get his pants off, and he shoved them to the ground. He slid his loincloth to the side as well, showing himself to the Bosmer, though it wasn't an entirely fair comparison. After all, the Argonian was growing a bit harder as he looked at the elf, and that put him at a bit over five inches, and rising.

"Hey, that's not fair!" Faendal shouted. "You're getting bigger!"

"Well, you can start getting yourself bigger too," Arga said. "Why don't we measure them together when they're hard? That's when it matters, after all, right?"

"Yeah...yeah! You're a real smart...smart lizard, you know that?" The wood elf started stroking himself, and Arga rolled his eyes at the clumsy motions that the elf gave himself. If he was actually doing it, he was pretty sure that the elf would already be hard, but then again, the elf was drunk. He might not even be getting this much if the elf had been sober, so he couldn't really complain all that much.

He started stroking himself as well, taking his time to enjoy it, as well as enjoy the sight of the half-naked elf. Faendal really wasn't bad looking; his legs were well formed and muscled, and his skin was quite smooth. It seemed that the elf either had found a way to shave his legs like some women did, or the rumors that elves didn't grow hair on their legs was true. It was a rather nice look, he thought; it reminded him of the smoothness of his own kind.

It wasn't long before they were both quite hard, their cocks sticking up in the air, and they stepped a little closer to see just who was bigger in the dim moonlight. That was, Arga stepped forward, and Faendal stumbled forward before he landed chest to chest with the Argonian. Arga rolled his eyes again, but helped steady the elf before reaching down and pressing their cocks together.

They were actually just about the same size, he was surprised to see. Admittedly, he was a good bit thicker than the elf, and he had a knot at the base, but in length, they were so close that there was little point in arguing. "Looks like we're about the same, Faendal," he said.

"HA! Told you...told you you weren't bigger, lizard!" the drunken elf said with a grin. He stepped back, only to stumble. He spun around, landing face first on the ground. Either the impact was harder than Arga expected, or the elf had finally gotten the effects of all the mead he'd been drinking, because he was completely unconscious.

"Well...this is just perfect," Arga muttered under his breath. He looked up at the night sky, holding his hands out. "What did I do, huh? What did I do?"

Silence was his only answer, and a very smug silence it was. Shaking his head, Arga looked back at the naked Bosmer. The elf's ass was right up in the air, and he could see the tight pink hole there, just waiting for him. His hardness pulsed softly, and he could feel the need to actually take something, to get a little relief after the terrible day. It wouldn't be that bad, and he was sure that the elf wouldn't remember it when he woke up, after all.

Arga knelt down by the wood elf, rubbing a finger along his exposed ass. It was quite smooth, just like it looked. Sliding his finger between the cheeks, he felt the hole. It was firm, very tight, and even when he pushed his finger against it moderately hard, it refused to yield against him.

"Well, there goes that idea," Arga muttered. If the elf had been looser, then he would have been able to get away with using him, but with him so tight, there was no way that Faendal wouldn't notice having been violated when he woke up. He'd be very sore, and would know what someone did. And considering his luck, Arga was pretty sure that the wood elf would remember who to blame.

Shaking his head and trying to ignore his cock, Arga pulled his pants back up, feeling the bulge throbbing behind his rough pants. He slowly tugged the wood elf's pants back up as well, and tied them on, before standing up. "Well, might as well get you back to town," the Argonian muttered, slinging the archer over his shoulder. He slumped for a moment before standing back up straight, and then started walking.

The archer on top of the gate looked at him again, bringing up his bow. "What's wrong with Faendal?"

"Too much to drink. He's out cold," Arga called back.

The bow lowered slightly, but not completely. "Sven stuff?"

"Him and Camilla. Something about a song earlier today, I think."

"Oh, that...Yeah, that would do it." The bow lowered completely. "Go ahead. Just drop him off at the inn; Orgnar will deal with him when he wakes up."

"Thanks," Arga said as he passed through the gate. It wasn't a far walk to the inn, and the bartender nodded at him knowingly when he put Faendal down at the edge of the fire pit. Arga nodded back, and then left, wandering through the streets of the small town for a bit as he made his way back to Alvor's house.

Hadvar waited for him at the door, leaning against the side of the house with a relieved smile on his face. "I thought you had taken off."

"I said that I would wait overnight, but don't expect me to change my mind," Arga said as he walked up the steps, stopping at the door. He paused, then looked the soldier in the eyes. "Thanks...for helping me get out of Helgen. Sorry for treating you the way I have been."

Shrugging, Hadvar patted him on the arm. "We can't all be dedicated servants of the Empire," he said. He shook his head as Arga frowned. "That came out wrong."

"I think that's one way to say it," Arga said levelly.

"I mean..." Hadvar shook his head. "May I try that again, please?"

"Might be the best idea."

"Thanks." Hadvar took a moment to think about it, then started again. "Look, I have served the Empire almost all of my life. Even when things got bad here, after the White Gold Concordat, I continued to serve the Empire. It is the best force of unity in Tamriel, and under their rule, everything...at least, for the most part, everything has been better than when the lands stood on their own.

"The Empire has problems, but I still serve it over all other things. That means that I take a lot of abuse from people that don't see things the same way. You obviously think differently than I do, but I'm used to it. No harm done." Hadvar shrugged. "Anyway, there's only one free bed, so we're sharing tonight, unless you want the floor?"

"After that walk here? No thanks. I need as much comfort as I can get. Offer extends to you, though."

"And why would I take that?"

Arga chuckled. He couldn't resist. Very deliberately, he lifted a hand, and pointed down towards the still throbbing bulge in his pants.

The soldier slowly looked down. The quick shifting of confusion, to realization, to shock, and pale faced amazement were absolutely hilarious. Even as Hadvar muttered something about the floor not being so bad, Arga continued to hiss in laughter as he made his way to his - now solo - bed.