[center][h3][b]The Fear[/b][/h3][/center]


[b]5th of Last Seed - 05:45
Solitude, Skyrim[/b]

"GET OUT! PLEASE!" came the harsh and cracking voice of the bar owner as he tried to make himself larger, a failed attempt of course as the Redguard woman had at least half a foot on him in height. He waved a broomstick at her, jabbing the sharp bristles into her ribs as she staggered towards the door. Shakily, she turned on her heel - almost collapsing with the movement. She turned to face him. From what she could make out, his expression was pained and exasperated. This was a man at the end of his rope. 

She couldn’t quite make out if there was two or three of him stood before her. They seemed to be blurring together. She bit her lip in concentration as she tried to count the multiplying balding barmen in front of her. “Soommmeee straaange en-chaamen is at work here, my fren” she slurred, and for a moment the barman pulled back the broomstick, removing it from her being as he waited for whatever else she was about to babble out at him “I thing your twin brother has another twins and he has twins too…” she whispered (not very quietly) before giggling, and belching. It was that dangerous kind of belch which may or may not soon be followed by vomit.

The broomstick came up again and prodded once more - [i]away from the suddenly volatile torso region[/i], instead he started whipping at her legs with it. “Be gone fiend!” he slapped accidentally caught her bottom with a slap of the broom, which made her shriek and start up some coy laughter “had away with you!” as he managed to herd her out of the door at last. 

The Redguard woman just laughed at him, in a shrill and unflattering drunken roar. It was at this point that two of the Solitude Guards had gotten involved. She had only come for a good time, not a night in jail - so their presence prompted her to make her tracks. She could hear the barman explaining to the guards “I’ve never seen anything like it in my life….”

She seemed to be walking with a slight limp, and under one foot could feel the sharp ground - but the other she could not. She looked down to see that she was only wearing one of her boots, and then she remembered and noticed that she was carrying the other boot in her hand. She laughed again and continued staggering away, watching the people of Solitude start their day as the sun started to rise.

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[b]5th of Last Seed - 12:30
Solitude, Skyrim[/b]

It was the smell that woke her. The smell of bread baking drifting along the light breeze almost on purpose to her nostrils. She took it in, and started to open her eyes. The first thing she noticed were the trees looking at her. Judging her. [i]Did I fall asleep on forest floor?[/i] she thought over in her head, trying to make sense of her surroundings. It felt like she was lying on something soft, albeit itchy. She ran her hands through it. Hay. She had collapsed into a hay bale. Well, it was better than a body of water. Or up in a tree. Both legitimate places she had found herself the morning after the night before in the past…

She pulled herself up and recognised the shaking sensation throughout every limb, and the pain in the spot above her eyes. Oh how it hurt. She had landed in a hay bale, but had mistakenly picked a hay bale that was really in position for the bright light of the sun. 

“I need water” she croaked, her throat hoarse and dry. It felt like she had spent the night screaming and attacking her vocal chords with complete overuse. She rolled herself off the hay bale, landing with a heavy thud on the hard ground. At least it had been grass. She needed to make sense of where she was so she could locate herself some water. She was incapable of getting herself to her feet, and chose to crawl across the grass in search of anything to drink.

[i]Drink! Drink! Drink![/i] was a chant she was hearing over and over in her head. She’d been here before. This was a memory that was bubbling up to the surface to remind her of just how much a fool she had made of herself. Something else was bubbling to the surface too… She had no choice other than to open her mouth and let it fall out. The contents of her stomach splashed onto the grass. A small pile of stomach acid. The smell. The smell was enough to make her want to wretch again. She crawled around it. Carrying on toward Solitude, she could see it now. Just off in the distance. 

Before she made it too far, she seemed to feel that one foot was colder than the other, so she took a look. To see one foot comfortably in it’s boot - and the other was bare and now slightly dirty. She focussed back on the hay bale, and recognised the other boot propped up against it like one big fat joke. She sighed heavily and turned around to fetch it.

After a few minutes of desperate crawling in the direction of Solitude, she made out the sound of running water to her left. Flowing water! Off she crawled over to it, the thought of quenching her thirst gave her a slight second wind to make it over there. She dunked her head in, feeling the cool splash wake her up she took a mouthful of it. It was as refreshing as she had hoped, and it gave her the strength to pull herself up to her feet at last. It didn’t last long. She sat back down almost immediately after she had felt the entire scene before her spin. “Not ready just yet…”

She gazed down onto the surface of the water. Just able to make out her own reflection. Her hair piled atop her head, sprigs of hay poking out from in between her thick dreadlocks. She plucked at them to get them out, another intrusive thought entering her mind as she tried to just relax by the water, and pull herself together;

[i]She could remember herself dancing on top of a table. No, not dancing, just jumping up and down on it. But why? There didn’t have to be a reason when alcohol had been involved.[/i]

She took another sip of the water, and began to cling to a rock in some vain attempt to stop everything spinning. This feeling, this illness, drinking too much and suffering the next day was less amusing now that she was on her own and not with her bandits, or with Bjogar. She had nobody else to laugh at. Now, she was the only joke here. She closed her eyes and let out a sigh again. Solitude was not the Falkreath Hold, and Ashna was no longer a bandit. She pictured in her mind the gaping crack in Lisia’s head, illuminated by moonlight, spraying her with blood. A violent thought to have burst into her head today. She vomited again.

Some time passed along, and still Ashna clung to the rock, hanging on by a thread. She had remembered some more. She had been chanting some nonsense, and had been joined by a seedy bunch of men who were also drunk - perhaps not as many sheets to the wind as she had been, but they had enjoyed her jumping up and down, telling the stories of Bjogar the fierce Nord sailor. That’s right, they were Nord men. At some point they had all raised their tankards to Bjogar. Maybe more than once. Maybe it had been a handful of times. 

That was right, she had just been jovial… At the very top of her lungs. Which explained the hoarse throat. Didn’t explain the boot thing though. That hadn’t come to her just yet. 

She was going to have to leave her spot soon. She had to make it to the harbour very soon to her new life. A spontaneous journey to take, to join a group of mercenaries - full of strangers, full of people other than Nords. She had seen Khajit and Dunmer there, even an Orc. All of the races she had seen before - never had she worked with them. She was apprehensive about it. She did worry about how any other Redguards would take to her. She wasn’t exactly a traditional one - save for the [i]very, very[/i] Redguard appearance. It would only take her so far though. She hoped they would be nice about it.

Using every bit of determination in her body, she pulled herself up. The shakes taking over again, but it was time to move or she would be missing the boat - if she hadn’t already.

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[b]5th of Last Seed - 15:00
Solitude, Skyrim
The Kyne’s Tear[/b]

She had made it. 

The trek down to the harbour had been interesting. She couldn’t walk straight, let along sprint straight. But she had made it. Now, she sat on the deck, legs dangling through the railings, her face resting against the wood, smushing her cheek. She couldn’t quite face everyone yet but she listened passively to what was happening around her. Promising that this would be the last time she got so utterly drunk. She had managed to piece together much of the previous night. It had been all merriment, singing, arm-wrestling, dancing, drinking, telling stories, drinking, cheering, drinking. What she liked about drinking was that people who wouldn't even share a glance in the street would become best friends after an ale or two. It brought people together! Sometimes it tore people apart, but if that happened it would just be another ale until a make up. 

All the thought of drinking knocked her sick again, and she could hear somewhere on the boat that others were toasting, and drinking. Glass bottles clinking against each other. She groaned, praying it to stop before- too late, her stomach turned on her once more. It was quiet though, and she decided that nobody would have noticed that the hunched over, pathetic looking Redguard woman had just chucked over the boat and into the sea. 

She looked down at her feet. Something was coming back, a memory about her foot. She could distinctly see herself tearing off her boot, and slamming her bare foot onto the table of the bar while a Nord man ran off to grab something sharp and ink.

Oh.

OH!

She had dared a Nord man to tattoo the bottom of her foot. That had been why she was kicked out of the inn. That was why he was so repulsed. Her size and volume level would make her intimidating too of course. 

She had to find out if there was anything there, once again she found herself ripping off the leather boot, lifting her leg to look at the skin. She held herself in an elongated silence, and then for the first time all day, she let out a laugh, which set off an avalanche of raucous laughter from within.

She may have been the only joke now, but the joke was at least [i]good.[/i]