A Dreamer in a Dream (chapter 1)

Cold. Why the fuck was it so cold?

I’d hit the hay in my nice, cozy apartment and in my nice, cozy bed, so I was rightfully fucking confused.

Trying to feel around wasn’t helping my panicking any either, seeing as there were honest to God ropes around my wrists, and blinking the fuzz out of my eyes wasn’t making them go away.

“Hey, you. You’re finally awake.”

…

Those fucking words. Fuck, it was funny, but they actually helped with calming the fuck down. It was just a dream.

It’d been a few years since I’d actually played the game last, sure, but who knew how dreams worked anyway. They kept talking, though with how real they and everything else looked, it was kinda fucking with my head.

Though there was something or someone out of place. A giant of a woman, with strawberry blonde hair and piercing blue eyes.

Her armor, if you could call it that, was a haphazard mess that didn’t do much to hide her thick thighs, so I just chalked it up to some fetish fuel my sex-deprived brain produced. It had been a bit.

All of those thoughts fled as a wind so cold that I could feel it in my bones swept over me. It left me huddling in on myself, and wondering why a dream like that would think this was a good idea. I couldn’t pinch myself, so I tried bonking myself with my bound hands instead to try and wake up for real.

“What’s the matter with you?” Thunder Thighs asked. “You’re not a madman, are you?”

It was such a surreal moment, a figment of my imagination asking me if I was crazy.

I looked at her again, trying to think of something smart to say, when someone who could only be Ralof spoke up. “So, what’s your story, stranger? You don’t have the look of a Nord like the rest of our sorry lot here.”

“My story?” Blegh. It felt like I’d been gargling sand.

“Aye. We have the horse thief, and the lovely lass here,” Ralof commented with an easy smile. It curdled slightly when she just returned an intense stare back. "No secrets amongst the damned, is there?"

Something funny did come to me then. “Last I remember, I was sharing a few drinks with Sam. Next thing I know…”

I gestured around, drawing a chuckle from him.

"I can't say I know the man, but it sounds like a good time. Just a shame it landed you with us, eh?"

“Yeah,” I muttered under my breath, still hugging my arms to myself. This fucking cold didn’t quit.

Thunder Thighs was still looking at me funny, while Ulfric behind her was staring at nothing in particular.

“Look at him, General Tullius the Military Governor,” Ralof groused. My eyes followed his, and I got my first look at Helgen. "And it looks like the Thalmor are with him. Damn elves. I bet they had something to do with this." I could hear the disgust in his voice from a mile away.

I looked past the very Roman looking man at Elenwen, with her golden skin and dark clothes. Our eyes locked as if she noticed, and I gave her a wink that had her looking away with a small sneer.

It was always fun messing with her or the Thalmor in the game, bunch of wacky omnicidal elves that they were.

The cart soon came to a stop, where a woman with a familiar voice and a severe case of resting bitch face had them all dragged out. It was all playing out exactly how I remembered. Next the shifty looking guy would try and escape before being turned into a pincushion.

Though maybe I could stop it? It’s my dream, after all.

I nudged him in the side. “I wouldn’t try and make a run for it.” I nodded at the archers. “They’d use you for target practice.”

The fight quickly went out of him. “This isn’t right. We shouldn’t be here…”

"You there, the giant strumpet and the fool next to her,” a shrill voice shouted again. “Step up."

Said ‘giant strumpet’ turned to stare at her with eyes so cold they could strike a man dead.

Wait. Did she just call me a fool? Rude.

“Names?” A man asked softly, looking them over.

“Skadi of Ivarstead,” Thunder Thighs proudly answered.

“At the base of the Throat of the World?” Hadvar turned to me after. “And you?”

I almost told him Hadvar, just to fuck with him. But that would probably be too on the nose. “Leman Russ,” I said instead, the first name that came to mind.

He seemed skeptical. “Where are you from?”

“Fenris. You wouldn’t have heard of it.”

Hadvar dutifully checked anyway. “Captain, they’re not on the list.”

Captain Resting Bitch Face didn’t give a solitary fuck. “Forget the list, they go to the block.”

“Is this how Imperial justice is meted out these days?” a certain someone spat, staring them both down. “I am no Stormcloak. I swear it on my honor.”

Hadvar was sympathetic, maybe, but he didn’t have the authority to do anything about it, and Captain Resting Bitch Face didn’t look like she was likely to compromise.

“You were found with them; you’re as much a traitor in my eyes. The Empire has spent enough blood and coin on you oathbreakers.”

Then, like clockwork, there was a roar far in the distance.

It was Tullius that broke the stalemate. “What is the matter here, Cassia? Get on with it.”

The giant of a woman turned on him just the same. “Is this the Empire I remember, or a pack of bandits, eager for innocent blood?”

The older man looked deeply annoyed. “This is war.” His dark eyes were cold and pitiless. “You can be given your last rites, or you can be run through, here and now.”

I looked up at the sky, blue, with a few clouds. This might turn into a slaughter before Alduin even dropped in. But what did I care? I was still one step removed from a popsicle, and everyone was ignoring me anyway.

What a shitty dream this was…

Captain Resting Bitch Face had already drawn her sword as another roar sounded, this one closer. It seemed to have finally set off a panic, but it was too late now.

I looked up just in time to see a furious mass of black scatter the clouds.

"What in Oblivion is that?"

"It's in the clouds!"

Alduin landed atop the tower with a crash of stone, and then the words, the shouts, tore the sky asunder. Suddenly it wasn’t so cold anymore. It also looked really fucking cool, even if I’d secretly been hoping that it would be Thomas the Tank Engine instead.

Everyone proceeded to fucking scatter, their grudges forgotten. Well, almost everyone.

I was watching her just stand there, having switched from having a staring contest with Captain Resting Bitch Face to now having one with Alduin. Was this supposed to be a big damn hero moment on my part?

With courage born from all of this being a dream anyway, I made it to her, and not knowing how else to get her attention, gave her long hair a pull. Which, admittedly, was easier said than done with just how tall she was. But it worked.

She quickly looked around, taking everything in. “We can’t stay here.”

“You think?” But she had already thundered off, so what could I do but follow her? At least until some of the falling sky decided to—

FUCK! FUCKING FUCK ON A FUCK! My ears were ringing, and I was staring up at the sky again, more red than blue now. Just… fuck. I didn’t expect it to hurt that much. And why the fuck hadn’t I woken up yet?

It had to be the magic mushrooms I took a few days ago. Delayed bad acid trip, maybe?

I felt myself being unceremoniously tossed over someone’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and even the sight of an impressive backside didn’t do much to improve my mood.

My ride suddenly lurched up the stairs, and she didn’t even hesitate before jumping through the breach. I felt the impact of her hard landing, and then the impact of her kicking a door clean off its hinges with her fucking thunder thighs.

It didn’t end until I found my miserable body being unceremoniously dumped on the floor. “You’ll live. Arm took the worst of it.”

I took a deep breath and finally looked.

…

Fuck. My left arm looked like somebody had taken sandpaper to parts of it, red and blotchy, and it hurt like a motherfucker.

“Some didn’t get off so lucky,” she muttered again, and I saw what she was talking about. There was a guy lying face down a few feet away, his back and head completely covered in burns, his clothes almost fused to his skin. And the smell. I just noticed it.

I never wanted to know what burnt flesh smelled like, and I didn’t fucking feel like I got off lucky either. I shoulda already been sipping on a nice, hot cup of coffee right about now, but nooooo…

There was just one thought that came to my mind. Fuck you, Todd. I want a refund.

Thunder Thighs soon returned with an axe that looked like a toy in her hands, slicing through my bindings in one blow. Small mercies.

“We’re the only ones who made it,” someone said after a sigh. Probably Ralof. “That thing was a dragon. The harbingers of the End Times…”

“Bah.” The clang of metal drew both our attention to the doors. “Locked.” Then she suddenly quieted. “Footsteps,” she whispered. “We might have a fight on our hands.”

Great. Wonderful.

Ralof proceeded to drop an axe in my hands, but I only had a few seconds to even get a feel for it before the doors opened, revealing Captain Resting Bitch Face.

She never got the chance to make a peep as seven feet of woman suddenly barreled her over, and Ralof shunted his own axe in a surprised soldier’s neck, the squirt of blood downright obscene. This wasn’t a dream, this was a fucking nightmare.

And just my fucking luck, one of the soldiers noticed me, axe in hand, and fucking ran at me with a hysterical cry.

I forgot all about how much my arm hurt in that moment, the only thing in the world being the screaming man running at me, and I had no fucking idea how to use an axe.

Out of sheer desperation, and for lack of anything better to do, I screamed back at him like a fucking lunatic, and then I tripped him. His surprised face quickly met the floor with a sickening crack, blood spurting from a broken nose as he was knocked out cold.

I was breathing hard, and my heart felt like it was fit to burst from my chest. It was just too fucking real. All of it.

I leaned back against the stone wall, my left arm stinging like a bitch again. For a moment, it felt like I could take on the world, but that was gone now. The smell of burnt flesh was joined by another smell now, thick and metallic. Blood.

My eyes were unfortunately drawn to the sounds of someone gasping for breath. Captain Resting Bitch Face was dangling a foot off the ground, her legs kicking helplessly. “Giant strumpet, was it?” Skadi hissed into her ear.

It was fucking brutal. I looked at Ralof, but he just shrugged as he continued to loot the bodies.

“I’d just give her a clean death, but she seems personally aggrieved,” he commented.

And what the fuck was I going to do? Get in between them? I already tried playing the hero, and all I got were these burns.

“The Empire’s supposed to keep the peace, not act like bandits,” she hissed again. Then she threw the smaller woman away like yesterday’s trash, the once proud woman wheezing like one of those squeaky toys. I didn’t know why that’s what my mind went to. “We should keep moving.”

Ralof chuckled as he watched her stalk through the doors. “I think we should follow the lovely lass. Worst comes to worst, she might try and wrestle the dragon herself.”

I sighed as I followed after both of them, trying not to look at the bodies at my feet.

I couldn’t even blame Truck-kun or any of his friends. All I remembered was going to sleep. Lights out, lights on.

Walking into a familiar room that also stank of blood, and worse, I was just in time to see Skadi knee some poor fucker in the balls hard enough to lift him a whole two feet into the air. Ralof, meanwhile, was ducking under a barrage of crackling lightning from a creepy-looking fuck.

Fucking magic. That’s what I needed.

The two seemed to have things well in hand, so I looked around, finding a cage with a dead man in it. The problem was that I didn’t know the first thing about picking a lock, but then it hit me.

I slammed the butt of the axe down on the rusty lock, and after a few blows, the top of it collapsed. Inside, I still did my best not to think about what I was actually doing, which was looting a corpse. I found two glass vials with a shimmering blue liquid inside, one full to the brim and one half empty; potions, I assumed.

Fortunately, the pants I’d conked out in had pockets to stuff them inside of, when I finally found what I was really looking for.

I had just cracked the musty thing open and laid my eyes on a page when it vanished from my hands, and I suddenly had the mother of all headaches. Magicka. Mundus. Aetherius. All kinds of shit just bouncing around in my head.

I knew the lore, even some of the wacky shit, but this was more like a fucking calc textbook had been shoved through my skull.

Shrugging, I just went along for the ride, staring as electricity sprung from my fingers like I was fucking Palpatine. I cut it out when I felt… it was hard to describe. Like something was hollowing me out.

“Dead?” Ralof asked behind me. He was probably asking about the dead man. “Talos watch over him.”

I turned back around to find him wiping blood off his axe, a shiny new knife on his hip. He was a practical man if nothing else.

We continued deeper underground, stone walls turning into something more earthy and mossy. It gave me some time to think, for all the good it did. I still had a headache, and thinking about it just made me want to stop thinking about it.

The giantess stopped. “Hear that?”

I frowned, looking around. Wasn’t this where…

“Above us!”

I looked up, and wished I hadn’t. The ceiling was moving, and covered in eyes. The next moment, it was raining spiders as big as dogs.

I didn’t even think. I just started blasting.

My aim was fucking garbage, but it didn’t matter. There were just that many. You get a zapping, and you get a zapping. After feeling helpless this whole fucking time, it felt good to take it out on something. Too fucking good.

Unfortunately, there was a small downside. As fun as it was, I felt it again, the sensation of being hollowed out, and soon it was a struggle to move at all. I could have kept going, but by then, the spiders had already made a run for it, chittering unhappily.

Skadi punted one that had stuck around too long before turning to grace me a funny look. “You’re a mage?” She gave a dramatic sigh. “I should have known. Haven’t met one yet that wasn’t a madman.”

Pot, meet kettle.

Ralof gave me a friendly slap on the shoulder. “I’ll not complain. Faced enough of the Empire’s battlemages to know their value.”

I knew we weren’t far from the exit now. There was just one more obstacle.

Grabbing one of the potions with what felt like a wooden hand, I wanted to test a theory as well. Almost as soon as I knocked it back like a shot, I suddenly felt a whole lot better. Now, as for why it tasted like a mix of glue and blue raspberry, I didn’t really have an answer.

“A she-bear,” Ralof whispered when we stopped next. “Hmm. We could just sneak past her.”

“I’m not the best sneak thief,” Skadi grumped with some embarrassment. With fucking thunder thighs like hers, that didn’t surprise me. “How about we make a game of it. Whoever strikes the killing blow takes her hide?”

Ralof chuckled again as he twirled his axe. “Sounds like fun.”

Their definition of fun was clearly out of whack. That thing made even her look small in comparison.

I didn’t trust myself to try and pull another Palpatine moment, being just as likely to hit them as the bear, so I just awkwardly approached behind them.

The beast had only stirred as Skadi’s axe sunk in deep, only to roar in pain as Ralof sliced into the other side. They kept it on the backfoot like that, hacking away at it again and again.

I saw more than one opening to try and get a hit in myself, but I was understandably nervous about getting too close a fucking unit of a bear, so sue me.

I still went for it, just as the thing turned its neck. It was a bad habit of mine, always trying to impress the girl. Even in this case, when she could turn me into a pretzel if she wanted to.

I screamed like a lunatic again as I brought my axe down hard into its spine, the impact travelling through my bones painfully. And then I did it again as the bear's massive limbs flailed, severing the spine completely and causing its legs to give out under it like a puppet with its strings cut.

Skadi let out an almost girlish whoop while I just marveled at my sheer balls. I didn’t even have the excuse of thinking this was a dream anymore.

“You really are a madman, aren’t you, Russ? Getting right into her face like that.” Despite her words, it was the first time she looked at me with anything approaching respect. Even called me by the name I gave Hadvar.

Ralof handed me the knife I saw earlier. “Try and make it quick. I’d like to feel the sun on my face again.”

I took it, but I didn’t have a clue what to do with it.

“Never skinned a bear before?” A bear… I never fucking skinned anything! “I’ll do it, and consider us even.”

So she did remember me knocking her out of her funk. I handed the knife to her, and our eyes caught for a moment.

“It’s not a skinning knife, but it’ll do.” The moment was ruined as soon as she started.

I might have gotten used to the bloodshed through sheer fucking osmosis, but seeing a still bleeding bear butchered right in front of me, it was a bit much. Just the sounds of the knife scraping against bone…

Throwing the hide over her shoulder, she pushed her hair out of her eyes as she made to stand. “I’ll do the rest when we make camp for the night.”

She threw the knife to Ralof, who caught it and leaned down to take off some of the meat. “Something to fill our bellies tonight. A shame to leave the rest of her to rot, but we’ll want to move quickly if we don’t want to run into the Empire again.”

The light at the end of the tunnel in this case meant a run-in with the fair weather of Skyrim again. I wasn’t a fan.

I did see another familiar sight though.

“Haven’t seen these three since I was a boy,” Ralof said with some nostalgia.

I walked over to poke the one with what looked like a wizard carved into the stone, but if it was supposed to do something, I didn’t notice.

“Always preferred the warrior myself,” Skadi commented as she leaned against another, giving me a grin. “Nothing like splitting skulls and breaking bones.”

After that colorful comment, she looked away in the direction of the mountains due east.

“The Throat of the World,” she continued in a whisper. “I should make the journey home to Ivarstead. Tell my family what we just saw. But I find myself drawn north, and I don’t know why.”

I could guess why, but somehow I didn’t think she would believe me. The real question was what the fuck I was doing here.

I couldn’t get that nagging question off my mind even as I helped Ralof spark a fire once the sun began to set, and it somehow got even colder. I never had bear before, but then I’d never axed a bear either. Maybe it was because I was starving, but it was the sweetest meat I ever tasted.

I watched Skadi work on the hide after, her brows scrunching cutely in determination.

If this was actually a dream of mine, then she would be working with the same determination on something else, or, knowing myself, probably fighting over who would get to go first with Captain Resting Bitch Face. Eventually, of course, they would have decided to make it a team effort.

Seeing as none of that was happening, I was starting to worry that I might actually be stuck here.

“There.” I caught what looked like a cloak with an oof. It was heavy. “You’ll still have to get it cured properly, but it should keep you warm for the time being.”

I tried to throw it over my shoulders, but ended up practically burying myself under it instead, leaving her giggling like a schoolgirl.

Our eyes caught again, and the firelight glinting off of hers made them look like two twin sapphires.

…

Fuck it. “There’s room enough for two,” I started, staring her down. Ish. “We could share it for tonight… or for however many nights we end up sharing together. I’m also heading north.”

I could see I caught her off guard, and for a few heartbeats she looked like a deer in headlights.

“You just keep surprising,” she muttered under her breath. It was funny seeing her so skittish, but then she scooted closer, lying down on the soft grass on her side. “No funny business. You try something and I’ll snap it in half.”

I didn’t need to ask for clarification about what ‘it’ was.

Despite the warning, I couldn’t help admiring her for a moment. Up close, she was even more impressive. She wasn’t just rocking thunder thighs, but long legs as well. I’d seen firsthand the damage she could do with them.

“Are you waiting for the sun to rise?” she complained.

Right. I lied down beside her, pulling the cloak over the both of us. I just wasn’t expecting her to suddenly snuggle up to me, entwining her legs with mine.

I sure as shit didn’t complain.

“You said you were heading north?” she asked, drawing my eyes to hers again.

I quickly racked my brain for an answer. “The College of Winterhold.”

She snorted, not surprised. But then that was the point.

I could tell she wanted to ask something more, but she seemed to think better of it, her eyes sleepy. She pulled me in even closer instead, using me like a teddy bear. Again, I didn’t complain.

For maybe the first time, I didn’t actually want to wake up, but I could feel myself starting to nod off anyway. I expected that to be the end of it, but instead I dreamed.

I dreamed of a tower being built higher and higher. It gleamed under the sun, that great, big gaping hole in Mundus. There were no builders, no cranes, but there was sound.

The tower, the sound, the tower, the sound, the tower…

It continued without end. All that changed was the tower rose ever higher.

AN: The first chapter's always a pain to get out, but it is done. Shouldn't take me more than a few days to get the next chapter of Solomon out.