Whiterun was a large city that jutted up from the planes of Skyrim; it was the busiest town the wood elf Basil had seen in his life. People were bustling from shop to shop buying and selling, shrieking children were playing games in the cobblestone streets, and to top it all off, a man was screaming the sermons of Talos for the city to hear(whether they liked it or not).

All Basil wanted was to sell the miscellaneous junk he had collected from his travels and a nights rest. He doubted that he could call any city home in Skyrim. Elves like himself were treated badly by Nords, who ruled the large majority of Skyrim. Not much could be done about that; ostracizing was one of the harsher effects of war on society.

From talking to the people at the Inn, apparently a group of warriors branded as the 'Companions' were located in Whiterun in the Jorrvaskr, a famous mead hall. If joining included a free bed and maybe even food, Basil was in. As much as he loved roaming the forest, work and shelter would do him good.

Basil decided that the Jorrvaskr lived up in its reputation as a mead hall, because when he walked in, the fire roared and tables were lined with food and drink. The people inside looked like hardened warriors complete with war paint and a purely spiteful attitude. A woman approached him with war paint and a sturdy looking bow and said, "What are you doing here?"

"I want to join the Companions. I was told this was the place to go," Basil replied wearily.

"This is the place, and if you want to join, Kodlak would be the person to talk too." The woman walked away and sat next to a large burly looking man with war paint obscuring his eyes. The man blatantly stared at his high cheeks and pointed ears that stuck out from his head. It made his spine tingle in an uncomfortable way and he quickly made his way to where the head warrior Kodlak was.

Kodlak Whitemane was a weathered fighter who looked to be old by the grey of his beard and the lines of his face. He told me that another man, Vilkas, would fight with him to see if he "had what it takes." Vilkas certainly was strong, but he had his weaknesses, and after a uppercut to the chin I was a potential candidate to join the Companions. The large muscular man from before was to walk me to a bed and chest I would be allowed to use.

"Oh I didn't expect you to make it elf," the burly man said. "By the way, my names Farkas. Nice to meet you." Farkas' smile was unnerving; the gesture contained something wild and feral and strong that could not be controlled. My body shivered and could not help but notice the top of my head only measured up to his nose- his body was hefty and muscular like the build of most Nords but he was a lot taller. His eyes were dark like the black of his war paint and were staring with a slight arrogance.

"You're very small, little elf, I thought Vilkas would knock you down but I was wrong," he said in a matter-of-fact way. And I was small. And skinny. I never put on much weight and I never planned on it, and because of this, I have the body of a Nord girl. My face is distinctively male though, with the high chiseled cheekbones of an elf, thin lips stuck in a frown, and slanted amber eyes that complimented a straight, perky nose.

"Just because I am not as large as you burly Nords does not mean that I am soft or weak," I stated. "All it means that I am more stealthy than you bumbling Nords." He turned and gave me a look, but I purposefully did not pay him any attention and kept walking, right into him, because he had stopped. For a split second I wished that I had been born a Nord since it might have saved me the scrutiny of his staring eyes.

A second later I was shoved up the wall; I suspended by the scruff of my leather armor and wedged between the angered Nord Farkas and the unfeeling chill of the stone wall. "That's some big talk coming from such a small body. An elf running around Skyrim should know how to keep his jaw tight." He grabbed the sensitive pointed tip of my left ear and tugged slightly as if threatening to ripe it off. My ear unconsciously twitched and I sucked in a shaky breath; Elf ears were sensitive unlike the Nord counterparts. His finger sent shivers down the back of my spine. I could only remain silent, because I was no good talker and my mouth was how I got into this in the first place.

"What is your name little elf?" His fingers were now massaging the point and folds of the ear as if daring me to argue further. "I am called Basil." I replied as nonchalant as possible with Farkas' left hand now combing through my brown hair that was long enough to be pulled back in a knot. He hummed and time slowed as I wondered if he was ever going to let me down. What must have been a few seconds later, he let me down and pointed me to my bed a few feet away and walked away with a scary kind of smile.

With him gone, I let out a shaky sigh. Joining the Companions was going to be harder than I thought.

After running around doing small missions and quests, the Companions unofficial leader Kodlak is sending me on a mission to prove my valor and steel with Farkas as my Shield Brother. Of all the people in this place, it had to be him. If I had a choice, I would have chose Aela. The woman had grit and as an aspiring archer, I admired her. She was also very easy on the eyes.

Farkas and I didn't speak until we were halfway there. It bothered him that I was very much outrunning him; his heavy armor and great sword kept his weight high and stamina low. I favored a bow but kept an arsenal of daggers ready for close combat. Other than that, I was proficient at small restoration spells.

"Elf, slow down, we don't have to run all the way there! You know we can take a break every once and awhile; there's no need to keep up such a unrelenting pace." I stopped and looked back at him twenty feet away from flat land jutting higher than ground level. I am taller than he is now.

"I wasn't even sprinting. Besides, we haven't even got there yet. Why would we break?" I stated. "It's almost sunset. We should stop for the night," he replied, and came to stand before me. With him in front of me, we now were eye to eye height wise. "Sure" I said, " Do you have anywhere in mind?"

From there Farkas led me to an almost cave- where another higher piece of land made an overhang over the planes we were walking through. He started a fire with some dry brambles that were scattered around, and laid down next to the fireside where I was resting a few feet away. The fire was warm but the chill of fall made itself present that night and the temperature slowly began to fall. The leaves on the trees were blowing and the wind was starting to turn my nose a bloody pink color. Farkas was probably asleep as he was laying on his side away from me. I couldn't fall asleep so I made my way over to lonely oak tree that had grown out of the otherwise flat, treeless landscape next to a pond.

I hadn't had a good bath since I'd came to Whiterun because I was stuck inside the city running errands, so I took off my clothes and placed them in a pile on the roots of the oak. The water was chilly and the air was cold but it was refreshing non-the-less. I glanced back at the fire Farkas made; from here it was a small light close to the dark horizon. The stars shown down clearly here, with no trees or hills to obstruct the glowing light of the moons, but I could not see the shadow Farkas' body had made next to the fire. Then I heard a noise behind me- a boot hitting a tree root and slight swearing.

"Little Elf, you should know better than to go roaming off into the night alone. Dangerous evil things come out at night if you believe the stories," Farkas announced. I couldn't see his face in the dark, but he was standing on the shore of the pond next to the tree presumably watching me. "I was bathing," I remarked, and tried to continue to wash myself, but his eyes were bearing holes in my back and I quickly grew uncomfortable. "Do you mind?" I asked incredulously wondering what was keeping him here as my ears began to turn pink with embarrassment.

"Do I mind what?" he retorted as he stepped into the water drawing closer to me. "I'm not leaving, if that's what you're asking, because it would not be safe for you to be bare-ass naked at night in the wild where a dragon could swoop down any moment."

"Do you really believe in dragons?" I asked. I had seen one before so I knew they existed, but wouldn't it be hard for someone else who had probably never seen a dragon to believe in them?

"They don't see all that ridiculous," he replied. "I've seen stranger things than dragons in my life. And they have to have been alive at some point because dragon bones exist, so dragons must be very rare or extinct now. Do you believe in dragons?" he asked teasingly and stepped closer to me laying his arm across my shoulders and massaged the back of my neck with his hand.

"Yes I do. I was at Helgen when the dragon attacked the city," I answered, trying to push him away, but he was fully dawned in heavy armor and a lot stronger than me. He grabbed me and pulled me closer to his chest, and although his steel armor was cold, he smelled like musk and warmth, and it was irresistible. But I grew cold eventually standing knee deep in the pond even with Farkas around me.

"Let me go; it's cold and I need to get dressed," I announced. He slowly unwrapped his arms around me and let me make my way to my clothes still on the roots of the oak tree. I put them on and we made our way back to the fire; I'm not really sure where that exchange left us. I had thought that we were on bad terms, but Farkas seemed to think otherwise. The fire warmed us and Farkas laid next to me, pulling me closer to his warm musk. Before I feel asleep my face must have been buried in the crook of his neck. That night I felt incredibly safe.