"Stew and ale for me and my friend," Kris told the Nord, drawing a septim from her pocket and flicking it over to the woman. Elda made the coin disappear with enviable skill and turned to hurry of towards the hearth where a pot of pork stew simmered and boiled over the cookfire. Kris looked mournfully down at her empty purse. The priests were wrong when they said that revenge was not satisfying, but it certainly didn't pay well. At most she had a dozen septims left, enough to eat for a day or two if the fare wasn't too fancy. Well she had been broke before she supposed.

During the sea voyage from Morrowind she had spoken at some length with Halfdan at some length about the situation in Skyrim. Stormcloaks in the north and east, skirmishing with the central cities around Whiterun, Tullius with the three legions up in Solitude, trying to force his way east towards Winterhold to take the passes south to to Winterhold. Ulfric's navy, Nord pirates who had come down with patrotic fever when Ulric started paying and the raiding on the north coast grew too tempting. Halfdan had even spoken of Thaelmor around Markarth though that might just be rumor and fancy. Halfdan's opinion seemed to be that anyone who didn't sail the seas was a fool, a coward and a milk drinker to boot, which made his grasp of political matters colorful but less than reliable. Whatever was truth and whatever was fiction, people with swords would not starve in Skyrim and any Thaelmor agents looking for them after their adventure in Morrowind would have to tread very carefully indeed.

"Here is your stew Breton," Elga announced appearing beside Kris with a bowl of meaty broth and a generous crust of bread. She sat them beside the former legionnaire and then handed her a mug of ale. Kris took a bite of the bread, discovered it was mostly stale and then dunked it in the stew before hungrily devouring it. Elga produced the same for Dax, though she was a little cooler towards the Argonian. Kris moved her chair over closer to the Argonian hoping the food and drink would restore him to something closer to his former self.

"Eat," she encouraged around a mouthful of bread, "Its good!"