Sorry about the delay. Lost interest in this... I'll explain more at the bottom.

(Yes, this is me trying to get you to read my stuff)

~Line-Break~

Names are hard.

Now this might just be me, but I'm horrible about remembering names. I only remember some of the Companions names because it's my favorite quest line. Anything else is just a big nope.

This, unsurprisingly, was not something unique to the game. I barely remember anyone's name. And I truly do mean everyone. The only names I can remember are mine, my close family (ignore that ache), and some of my friends; and even then it's mostly reflex.

One of the ways I get around this is to remain silent unless directly addressed. Of course I come off as an emo dickbag sometimes, but it's easier to deal with than everyone knowing you can't remember basic crap. And even then, adding in a 'dude' or a 'sure' instead of a name is acceptable.

With this knowledge it's pretty predictable how I dealt with that family.

~Line-Break~

Holy shit, that was close. I only left the whoever's a few hours ago, taking along some of the stuff the dad gave me. It wasn't much, just a steel dagger and some leather boots.

Mine would be sorely missed.

Still, while I appreciated the kindness they showed me, I was still a socially awkward teenager in a fictional land. So, in the dead of night, I escaped with barely a whisper.

...

Ok, so I didn't. The dad caught me, and we had a very short chat. He was a competent magic user, and so had more tuned senses to the world. He couldn't really sense what I was, but knew it was dangerous.

Still, I saved his families life, so he owed me.

After traveling for about half an hour, I spent the next ten minutes checking my surroundings, even sending out tendrils of my magicka to sense stuff; something that really didn't work too well, but was better than nothing.

After securing the area, I undressed before stuffing all my belongings into a thick leather bag and transformed. It was easier this time, after some practice, and I easily left the area with barely a trace.

I traveled for a few hours, before I could see the sky clearing up for the sun and transformed back, getting dressed and armed again.

And then I found Markarth.

~Line-Break~

Ok, so I didn't really find Markarth. It sorta found me. And by found me, it saved me. And by saved me, I mean the guards. From Forsworn.

Really, how was I even alive?

Sure they were low level bandits, but I wasn't some beefy hammer-smashing maniac with a few arrows sticking out of his skull. I was just an inhumanly buffed teenager with crappy facial hair.

And super strength, but I digress.

Still, I've never seen anything as terrifying as a bunch of half-naked men and women running at me screaming like the children of the corn. Or the hills have eyes. Haven't seen either of those movies in a long while.

The confrontation didn't go as bad as it could have been. My sensitive ears picked up a faint whistling noise, and so I hunkered down behind my crappy wood-and-leather shield I stole from that bandit a while ago. The three arrows that stuck out the other side were frightening.

Especially since they outlined my arm.

After they shot the arrows, 7 half naked men and women charged at me with stone and bone weapons. Very scary.

I, of course, reacted as anyone would have. I screamed like a bitch and threw stupid amounts of fire at them. Then I got shot in the chest with a fireball.

It hurt like a motherfucking truck. And it was fire. Pretty sure the only reason I lived was because of my werewolf-yness. Or being a 'Breton.' If that even changed anything

Anyways, after getting thrown into my ass by a cannonball of fire, I guess my screaming attracted the attention of some patrolling guards. They, of course, were slightly miffed about a bunch of savages attacking a teenager. They were also assigned to patrol for a reason, something I found out by watching the four guards steamroll over the opposition.

I took the distraction to use my limited healing spells, hoping that my natural healing would kick in soon. Fire hurt like, well, fire. Not a fun experience.

Keeping my head down, the golden glow from my healing spell alerted a large man in a loin cloth to my location. Breaking out into a sprint, he gave a roar as he charged me down while dual wielding stone hatchets. I responded with a roar of my own, allowing the smallest bit of my transformation to leak into my throat. Or I tried to anyways.

What I got actually sounded more like a bear than anything, and I felt more than just my throat change. My arms got a bit bigger, I had claws, and there was a bit more hair on my face than normal. I really should practice partial transformations before doing them. Fanfiction made me cocky!

Surprising me, the man charging me seemed to go faster instead of slowing down, his battle cry going from death-comes-to-you to I-will-crush-all-challenges. I felt my blood run hot at the thought of battle, and charged him as well. It wasn't until I was practically right next to him that I noticed his chest was cut open.

This was a Briarheart!? Fuck no! Those guys were hardcore! What was one doing all the way away from his boss-fight location? All these thoughts and more ran through my mind, even as I did a jump kick with both legs forward, simultaneously leaning my head back and away from his first axe swing. The second one surprised me, carving through my shirt and leaving a shallow cut on my chest.

My kick had launched him back a bit, but instead of shattering his ribcage like it should have, all I could see was a quickly forming bruise. He landed on his feet, but off balance. I took the few seconds I had to stand and do a quick healing-hand scrub at my chest, wiping away the gash there as well as the fatigue burning in my lungs.

This time when he charged, I tried to focus on his weapons more. Axes were a bitch to fight, being basically bladed hammers with serrated edges. You didn't need skill to be deadly. Knowing this, I called upon fire in my hands, but I didn't have enough time to coat my hands completely, and instead just started pouring magicka into the pools of fire in my palms, increasing their heat.

His first swing, an overhead shoulder-to-hip slice from his right axe, I dodged by moving left. His follow up left handed swing got a little too close for comfort, but I used that by grabbing his extended arm, quickly twisting his wrist and putting the undead in a crude arm lock. I started squeezing, the scent of burnt flesh rising to my nose, when the Briarheart did a full twist, almost breaking his arm, but escaped my grapple. He had dropped one of his axes, and seemed to regard me for a moment. The next second, he threw his remaining axe at me with a yell, charging with his fists.

I dodged the flying weapon easily, and as I stepping up to punch him right in his stupid plant heart...

A sword cut off his head. I blinked, feeling a small amount of blood splatter my face. Scowling in annoyance, I wiped it off with my sleeve, turning to face the sword wielder. It was a guard. And I used guard as a loose description, for this beast looked like he would fit in better with the Companions. He looked at me, helmet masking his expression while also protecting his entire skull. He leered, or at least I think he did; those masks were hard to read.

"I used to be an adventurer like you, then I took an arrow to the knee." Did really just say that? Holy...

I looked him over, and his exposed arms looked bigger than my torso; I wasn't scrawny, either.

"What kind of arrow? A ballista bolt?" I asked before I could stop myself. Damn, my instincts were still too strong. At least I got most of the physical changes down.

The guard chuckled, his deep voice and deeper accent making me feel a bit like prey. I didn't like it. "Ah, a sharp tongue to match your battle instincts. You'll be a very successful adventurer." He looked me over again, longer this time. "If you got some actual gear of course. Cloth, a dagger and a half-broken shield won't get you too far."

I gave a small grin at that. "Yeah," I said. "I'm gonna need some gear. I was actually headed to Markarth. You know the way?" I asked. He was a guard, he would know.

The guard, who I decided to call Throthgar, nodded. He looked over at the rest of his... Squad? Team? What do you call a detachment of guards? Oh, a detachment. Throthgar waved them over, and did a whisper conversation with them. I assume the monster was the leader, as the others deferred to him. After a minute or two, Throthgar came back. I pretended I didn't just hear that whole conversation.

"Our patrol is almost done, so I'm going ahead with you to Markarth while the boys here alert the rest of us at camp of what happened here." He looked at the Briarheart with disdain. "Briarhearts don't usually leave their settlements. I need to report this to the Jarl. I'll drop you off at Markarth."

"Thank you, I don't think I could take on anything right now." Here I waved my half-broken shield. "We leave now?" I asked.

Throthgar nodded. "Aye, we do. It's gonna be dark in a few hours, and we have a lot of ground to cover."

And so, the werewolf wanna-be wizard and the badass guard marched into the mountainous path.

~Line-Break~

I'm disappointed in myself, this is pathetic. Really, I'm gone for 2 months and this is all I got done! Pathetic. Really, though, I'm not feeling this fic much... There are a few reasons, which I'll explain now:

1: I never had a plot. Never. This really was just me going 'I wonder what would happen if...' And not thinking it through. I'm gonna be doing some hard thinking, making some stuff to build the fic better.

2: I messed up. The timing for this was horrible. Did you know that since I made this fic, I've moved to a 3rd world country and am taking classes on another language? I just don't have the time for it anymore. Really, I need to be fluent in 3 months!

3: I actually don't have another excuse. I will say that I have a low self esteem, and I got a negative review, but I honestly barely remember what it said. The guy who wrote it typed like the author of 'My Immortal.'

So yeah. Hiatus. Don't kill me to hard. I'm not gonna be redoing the previous chapters, because I need my mistakes and crappy writing there to remind me how much I suck. What I will be doing is making a new chapter; hopefully one with 15K+ words, over the next few months.