Skuld hated cart rides, end of story.

Always had. Always would. And there wasn't a single thing that would change her stance on the matter. That said, today, her distain for them was proving to be particularly strong.

Perhaps it had something to do with her company.

Or the rope binding her wrists. Or the fresh gashes on her face that would definitely scar. Or maybe, just maybe, it was the shite-pissing headache that nipped relentlessly at her sanity, grating on her very last nerve as she was forced to listen to the endless prattle of those around her.

Truly, she had a wealth of options to choose from.

"Where are they taking us?" Skuld suppressed a scoff at the inquiry. Does it bloody matter, mate? They haven't hog-tied us because they're interested in hearing our life story over sweet-rolls and juniper mead.

The prattle continued and she looked off, uninterested. She didn't care where they were going. Anywhere was better than back to Cyrodiil, back to that damnable house. At least here, she could die with her dignity as a free woman still intact.

Obligation this, destiny that – she didn't want to hear it anymore. They could all go shove their 'Fate' nonsense up their arses and pen songs about it, if it meant that much to them. It meant troll snot to her, and that was what should have mattered.

But no.

The carriage pulled to a stop in the center of the town that they'd crossed into some few minutes back, and the snotty Imperial Captain starting barking orders left and right. Skuld would have loved to see the length of the rod that was lodged up her arse; it would set some kind of record, no doubt.

They unloaded from the carts, and the same whelp that had been whining the whole way there started getting doubly fidgety, wringing his hands around in his bindings until his wrists were raw and bloodied.

The Imperial soldier next to the captain started calling out names, and it took her a moment realize what was going on. The blond Nord that had been sitting across from her took to muttering scornfully under his breath, "Empire loves their damn lists."

This time, Skuld really did scoff, because of course they had a list. Imperials had a list for anything and everything you could think of making a list about, and a few things that you couldn't.

Once, she'd written her mother a list of all different places she could cram her expectations.

"-Lokir of Rorikstead." The cowardly horse thief nearly shat himself as what Skuld presumed to be his name was called. He jolted, took a half step back, and started again with his whining. Then, when that proved ineffective, he bolted.

Didn't made it half a boat's length before the Imperial archers shot him down. Skuld didn't like milk-drinkers any more the next Nord, but that didn't mean they deserved to die like that, the sorry bastard.

The guard Captain reassumed her pompous stance, and called out again, "Next prisoner!"

The list-checker looked to her, "You there, step forward."

Skuld stepped up to the pair. The soldier, unlike his captain, addressed her in a tone devoid of any sort of aggression, "Who…are you?"

A half-nordic, half-imperial mutt with mommy issues, pleased to make your acquaintance.

She shifted her stance, and the fresh cuts gouging her lips hurt terribly when she spoke, "Skuld Winther."

"You're a long way from the Imperial city-" And thank Talos for that. "What are you doing in Skyrim?" He asked.

"Presently? I'm having a bit of a shite time, believe it or not." She replied, tone flat. "As for the long run? Well, given the circumstances, I really can't say."

The blond Nord from the cart snickered under his breath. At least somebody could appreciate her sense of humor – unlike the Captain, who'd taken to glowering at her with an even more spiteful glare than before.

The Imperial soldier looked the parchment in his hands up and down before deferring to his commanding officer, "What do we do? She's not on the list."

They could cut her bindings, return her bow and quiver, along with her hunting leathers, and send her off on her merry way. She'd be sure to send a fruit basket conveying her kind regards on a later date.

"Forget the list, she goes to the block with the rest of them." A real mood-lifter, this one.

The soldier sighed, "By your orders, Captain. Follow the Captain, prisoner." Skuld did as she was told and fell in line with the others.

Some Imperial Army higher-up stepped forwards, "Ulfric Stormcloak. Some here in Helgen call you a hero. But a hero doesn't use a power like The Voice to murder his king and usurp his throne."

Ah, so that's what this is about.

"You started this war, plunged Skyrim into chaos," A streak of white and black darted around in the corner of her eye. "and now the Empire is going to put you down, and restore the peace." Skuld shook her head. No, don't even get your hopes up, there's no way that he could have possibly-

Somewhere far off, a shrill cry emanated, but Skuld was more distracted by the movement that continued in the corner of her vision.

"What was that?"

She turned her head just in time to catch sight of the tip of a furry tail as it disappeared behind a cluster of crates.

"It's nothing. Carry on."

Grim?!

"Yes, General Tullius. Give them their last rites."

"As we commend your souls to Aetherius, blessings of the Eight Divines upon you, for you are the salt and earth of Nirn, our beloved-"

A minuscule head popped out from its hiding place, ears bobbing lightly when his eyes met hers. Her lips curled into a smirk. Well, gods be damned – that smart little bastard managed to follow us.

"-For the love of Talos, shut up and let's get this over with!"

"As you wish."

Her (adoptive) elder brother, Lars, had purchased the ferret as a gift for her from a collector of exotic animals for her thirteenth birthday. From that day on, she'd taken it upon herself to train the little devil as her partner in crime and made him the accomplice to her many, many schemes; most of which ended with her mother making a complete arse of herself.

When they got ambushed crossing the border, and he ran off, Skuld was sure that she'd never see the little shit ever again. Apparently, she'd been mistaken.

-Fat lot of good it would do her now, though. A foot and a half long rodent wasn't going to keep her head on her shoulders any more than a hound was going to keep a dragon from devouring a fold of goats.

"Come on, I haven't got all morning." Not if you keep that up, "My ancestors are smiling on me, Imperials. Can you say the same?"

Skuld jolted as the sickening thwack of the headsman's axe coming down over the Stormcloak soldier's head rang out. His decapitated body was shoved aside, and her heart skidded to a halt in her chest as the Imperial Captain locked eyes with her gaze and pointed to her.

"Next, the renegade from Cyrodiil!"

Suddenly, she wasn't so fearless as she thought was. No. Skuld rounded her shoulders back. I knew the risks when I set this plan in motion.

Another guttural roar rose in the air, "There it is again, did you hear it?"

"I said, next prisoner!"

Skuld set her fears aside, stepped forward, and sauntered towards the headsman, kneeling down of her own fruition, and setting her head over the lip of the block. She craned her neck to peer up at him, and curled her lips into a smile, "You'd better not mess this up." She started, "I won't forgive you if you miss and mar my face any more than it already is. It's the only thing I've got going for me, you know?"

Again, she could hear the Nord from the cart snicker, though, this time, there was a touch of bittersweet sympathy to his tone. At least someone would mourn her, even if it was only briefly, and in passing.

She shot one last look to Grim, then set her sights onto the headsman. If he was going to end her life, he'd best be planning on looking her in the eyes as he did it.

Another roar sounded. He hoisted his battle axe high above his head, the light of the sun gleaming on the mettle, and then, something that Skuld never thought she'd see – not in a million years – flew over the mountain behind him, and made for the watch tower at his back.

"What in Oblivion is that?!"

-Dragon!

Just as he began to drop the axe, the black scaled beast landed on the tower, and the earth beneath them quaked, sending the headsman – and more importantly, his axe – to the ground.

Sweet shite, sweet shite, sweet bloody shite that's a bloody damn dragon!

She didn't know for how long she was laying there, helpless and too afraid to move, before someone grabbed at the back of her shirt, "Hey, Imperial, get up!" The blond Nord from the cart hoisted her to her feet and cut through her bindings with a dagger that he must have taken off of one of the dead soldiers. He clapped his hands over her shoulders, jolting her from her frozen state, "The gods won't give us another chance."

He tugged her into motion, and she was obliged to follow after him, until she remembered something.

Shit.

Skuld skidded to a halt and tore her wrist from the Nord's grasp. He whipped around, and grabbed her by the arm, yanking her towards him, "Are you touched in the head, girl? We need to take cover!"

She shook her head vigorously, "No-" A blast of flames leveled the house mere feet away from them. They both ducked down, away from the flying debris. She coughed through the smoke and pulled her arm away, "There's something I've got to do. You go- I'll find my way on my own." And with those words she turned on her heels and sprinted back in the direction that she'd seen Grim.

That rodent will be my damn undoing.

The Nord let out an annoyed, "Damn it, girl!" and she could hear the fool running after her.

Fine, if he wanted to get his arse roasted on her account, that was his decision.

The hold had erupted into chaos, screaming bodies were running every which way, and the air had been clogged by thick clouds of smoke, burning embers drifting among them. Skuld cupped her hands around her mouth, "Grim! Damn it, where are you, you little shite!" The crates that he'd been hiding behind had been leveled by the debris of the imploded house behind it.

She was about to run off to continue her search somewhere else when a splinter of wood lifted up and Grim's soot-laden head popped out from underneath it. His nose twitched. Skuld scoffed and jogged over to him, the Nord still on her heels. As she approached she dropped into a crouch and extended her forearm, and when she was close enough, Grim sprang from his hiding place, scampered up her arm, and clamored across the back of her shoulders before settling, claws digging into the fabric of her shirt, petrified.

Her disgruntled savior skidded to a halt behind her, kicking up a cloud of dirt in his wake, "Oh for the love of- a rodent?!" He clicked his tongue. A burst of flames soared past them; it was time to leave. "You know what, I don't care. Let's go!" He called.

"By all means, lead the way."

It was only once they were questionably safe behind closed doors, that the severity of the situation seemed to sink in.

They were going to die here.

"Jarl Ulfric! What is that thing? Could the legends be true?" They were all going to bloody fucking die here. She was going to die in some filthy, crumbling mess of a tower next to generic Nordic arsehole numbers one through four and ser-shouts-a-whole-fucking-lot. This was it, this was so it. The headsman was one thing, Skuld could have lived (died?) with that, but a dragon? As in, who knows how many stones of scaly hide, fire breath, and mystical Nordic shouting? No, ohhhhh no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no!

Call her superstitious, but there were just some things in this world that she was not fit to being around, and dragons fell right at the top of that list.

"Legends don't burn down villages." Why hadn't she just stayed in Cyrodiil like Lars had told her? She should have, really. Working clean-up in the arena wasn't ideal but it was better that damn dragons flying around, fartin' flames out of their arses every which way until the whole bloody damn sky burned down! But no- Skuld got greedy, because of course she did, she always got greedy- you grow up rich and spoilt, like it or not, that sort of shite tends to happen! "We need to move. Now!" And then there was her luck! Her stupid, gods-cursed luck, she should have known that something like this would happen, it always bloody did!

Somebody grabbed at her arm, trying to pull her up from where she'd collapsed onto the floor and taken to hugging her knees like a frightened child, "Come on, girl, we've got to get out of here!" It was the blond Nord from before, Skuld thought. Then again, they were all covered in soot now and it was incredibly hard to tell who exactly was who- blond hair, blue eyes; they all looked the same in dim lighting.

Skuld tried to will her body into motion, but it wasn't happening. She couldn't. She'd just been on the receiving end of a headsman's axe and then on the receiving end of a dragon attack- she was going to need more than however-many-minutes had passed to process all of this and another five minutes after that to throw up the entire contents of her stomach. And then she was going to pass out, and by Arkay what a lovely nap she would have!

The man squatted down to meet her gaze, cupping her face in his hands and forcing her to look at him. "Look, I know that you're scared, but-"

"I'm not scared." Not scared at all. The least bit scared. If anybody in this tower was scared, it wasn't her. She hadn't even been able to keep her voice from cracking, that's how not-scared she was.

Skuld hated how the tenderness in his eyes turned to genuine, heart-melting, pity.

Ulfric – the one who'd been gagged – called out to the man crouched before her, "Leave the girl, Ralof! We don't have time for this."

The nord (no, Ralof, Skuld corrected herself) snapped his head around, the small braid in his hair nearly smacking her in the face, "No- I'm not-!" A frustrated sigh followed by a muttered curse, "You go! I'll catch up." Ulfric stared him down, expression grim. Slowly, he nodded, then turned around to usher the rest of his men up the steps through the tower.

The ground shook, and from outside, an earsplitting roar resonated through the tower walls, as if the brick wasn't even there. For the first time, Skuld realized that it wasn't- not entirely; a hole had been blown out partway up the spiral steps. Grim began quivering from his place on her shoulder. Ralof looked back to her, and the only thing she could bring herself to say was another not-at-all-convincing, "I'm not scared." This time, her voice was barely a whisper, that's how not-scared she was.

He stared into her eyes with a look so intense that Skuld doubted she could look away if she tried, "Well, I'm scared." Was not what she'd been expecting him to say.

"You-" Her breath caught in her throat, "You are?"

He smiled, one that shook: a fear smile, "I don't think I've ever been more scared in my life." He swallowed, the lump beneath the skin of his throat quivering something terrible. "But," he started, before pausing to release another shaky breath, "But I don't want to die here. Do you?" His thumb began to trace comforting circles over her cheekbone.

"I… I don't know…" She'd all but accepted that she was going to die when her head was on the chopping block- but that was before, when it was going to be quick, clean, painless. Skuld wasn't afraid of dying, that wasn't the scary part. She was afraid of pain, she was afraid of dying in pain. She'd never really been in pain before- not before her face got cut up in the ambush, and even then, she knew that was hardly anything. She knew that it could get so much worse. But that hurt, and if just that hurt, then she didn't want to know what worse felt like. What dying felt like- what being burned alive felt like.

"Well, I don't think you do. And I don't think you're going to." Skuld searched his eyes for… anything, nothing, everything- Oblivion, she didn't know. But then again, she never did. She was beginning to notice a dangerous trend, here.

"Oh? And how can you be so sure?" She tried to sound tough – angry, even – but instead ended up sounding like a dying Argonian; all rasp and embarrassing I'm-on-the-cusp-of-crying sounds.

His lips, dry and cracked, pursed tight, and then he said, "Because I don't think the Gods would save you from the axe the way they did just to kill you with a dragon ten minutes later." A smile, "Do you?"

"No…I suppose not." Another splintering roar and the distinct sound of what Skuld now knew to be fire-breath sounded from outside.

"We need to go, now." Ralof urged her, and she nodded, swallowing, her throat so dry it hurt. He took hers arms in his hands, bracing them against his own, and helped to pull her to her feet. Her legs shook, and she almost fell back down. He steadied her with his own weight, holding onto her until she was able to stand on her own. Once she was, he took her hand in his and lead her towards the steps. Skuld had never been one for hand holding but she clung to it like her life depended on it- because, at this point, it very well did. "Come on, we can go up through the tower! If we're quick, we can catch up to Jarl Ulfric and the others!" He called over another particularly loud dragon-shout.

Once they began climbing the steps, Skuld found one, big, glaring problem with his plan. The blast from earlier – the one that had blown a hole in the tower – the debris was piled high inside, blocking off any hopes of advancing further. "Um, Ralof-"

"I know." He sucked in a breath, "Alright, change of plans then-" He gripped her on the shoulders, turning her around until she was facing the hole. He extended his arm, pointing to a building adjacent to the tower with a hole blown in it, "You see the building on the other side?"

Ohhhhh no, nuh uh, Skuld didn't like where this was going, "Ralof-"

"Jump through the roof and keep going; I'll be right behind you."

"Fuck no!" There were three things in this world that Skuld didn't do; dragons, heights, and dresses.

"Girl-" He started.

"No! I can't! If you think I'm jumping you're having a godsdamned lau-!" Before she could even finish her sentence, Ralof was scooping her up in his arms and backing up. "No- Ralof, don't you dare! Ralof-!" She clawed desperately at his clothing, trying to grab ahold of anything that might stop him from doing what she had a sinking feeling he was going to, whether she wanted it or not. Grim abandoned ship, scurrying from her shoulder to Ralof's in the midst of her struggling.

"Just trust me!" And with that, he threw her out of the tower.

A.N/ And, there we go! I've gotten super into re-playing the Elder Scrolls games recently and thought I might give writing my own fanfiction for Skyrim a go. But know, going into this, that Unfavorable Fates will deviate largely from the main quest-line in some places, and may not follow it at all in others. Just a general head's up. Also (as I've also posted Unfavorable Fates on Ao3 and have gotten comments on it there) in regards to Skuld's personality and language - particularly her less than canonical use of vulgarity - it's intentional. I realize that, for someone in the Elder Scrolls universe, she is particularly... colorful. It's intentional. A big part of Skuld's character is simply her inability to fit in; that she says and does all of these things that were in no way thought of as typical or even (in some, and most, cases) socially acceptable. Just trust that I have a general idea of what I'm doing and all will be fine.

That said, I love hearing feedback of any kind, whether it's various theories, what you likes, what you didn't, what you think can be improved upon, what you'd like to see in the future, etc. I'm always open to constructive criticism. (This is also where I typically need to point out that there is a very big difference between "constructive criticism" and pointing out everything that's wrong in a way that's unnecessarily rude.)