Awakening

I jerked awake, and immediately regretted it. My head hurt, a stabbing pain behind my eyes that seemed to stretch back to where my spine met my skull. And there was such brightness all around, nearly piercing through my closed eyelids. Where the hell was I?

Wherever I was, it was moving, jostling over uneven ground. Sounds came to me, of wheels crunching on hard-packed earth, horses plodding along, men speaking. I slowly opened my eyes against the glare.

The first face I saw was a scruffy-looking man's. He had long, dirty blond-ish hair, and stared out the back of the wagon sullenly. I blinked. My previous question wasn't forceful enough: Where the fuck was I?

Beside him sat another man, his mouth bound with a heavy cloth. Both men's wrists were tied with cords, and after a moment I realized mine were as well. My eyes began to dart about in panic. I knew where I was now.

Skyrim. How the hell did I get here? It was a game, wasn't it? Oh, crap, I thought with alarm, I'm not the god damned Dragonborn, am I?

I looked from face to face in front of me, but no one was paying me any attention. Then I looked beside me, and I almost jumped right out of the wagon.

It was an Orc, an honest-to-gods Orc. Dark-skinned, pointy-eared, tusked and vicious-looking Orc. He must have seen me start, because his head turned toward me. I almost died; red eyes, solid red. No whites on this guy, just solid blood red. And his forehead had bits of bone sticking out, like he either came from a really weird genetic line, or heaven forbid it was done to him in some sort of tribal hazing ritual. He had reddish hair, almost like rust. He'd tied his beard in a knot just below his chin, and the sides of his head were shaved, leaving a long bunch from his brow on back he'd gathered in a tail. There was dark purple paint around his eyes, sweeping down over his cheeks to his jawline. And his tusks... good god, they were huge. One had the tip broken off, and the thought flitted through my mind to ask what happened to it, but I didn't dare.

His eyes twitched, like his focus was shifting around. Without pupils or whites, it was hard to tell what exactly he was looking at, other than me. Or parts of me, anyway. His lips curled in what I guessed was a disgusted grimace, and he looked away again.

Out from under his scrutiny, I let out the breath I hadn't known I was holding, and looked at the land beyond the wagon. It was snowy and full of mountains, but other than that... Of the men in the wagon, there wasn't much to tell. A few were dressed in uniforms I recognized as Stormcloak, and of course the man with the gag was Ulfric Stormcloak himself, their leader. The rest, like the Orc and myself, were in rags. And it was cold. I shivered as the temperature made its presence fully known now that the initial shock had worn off.

"Where are you from?" one of the men in uniform asked me, and I guessed it must be the famous Ralof, who would eventually lead my worthless ass out of this place once the dragon attacked. Crap. I shook my head and forced myself to focus on where I was now.

"Uh... it's kind of hazy," I hedged.

"I'm from Rorikstead," a skinny, ferrety man supplied nervously, as if anyone was talking to him. "This was a mistake. I did nothing. I'm not rebelling against the Empire. What do they want with me?"

I snorted. He wasn't long for this world, if he was the thief I remembered. "There's 'innocence,' and then there's 'innocence,' isn't there?" I suggested. Unexpectedly, the Orc beside me grunted a laugh.

"Light-fingers," he growled with amusement, twiddling his own in front of him, then he laughed a little harder. The ferrety guy glared hotly at him.

"What did they grab you for, then?" he asked sarcastically. "Banditry, I expect. Any Orcs not taking it in the ass from the Empire are usually waylaying travelers and murdering folk in their beds for a few coins."

The resultant uproar in the wagon just about knocked me out the back. The whole affair had to halt as guards converged to separate the Orc from the ferret. He had a solid hold on the man with his teeth, tearing through the muscles of his shoulder and clubbing the little shit with his bound hands. The Rorikstead man could do nothing but scream, beat feebly against his attacker, and piss himself. Several merciless clouts from an Imperial club subdued the Orc and he returned to his spot on the bench, a glare fixed on the woozy thief. Blood dripped from the Orc's tusks and seeped from the corners of his mouth, but he made no effort to wipe it away.

I stared at the floor of the wagon, blinking. Holy shit, I thought. This is real. I'm going to die a horrible, nasty death.

Eventually, as I knew it would, the line of prisoner wagons pulled into Helgen, and I drew a shuddering breath. I was pretty sure the stink of fear on me must be overwhelming. We stopped in a courtyard and the Imperial guards started hauling us out.

They called people by name from a list. I was fairly certain I wasn't on it. Mr. Ferret responded to his name by hauling ass down the road, only to be picked off by an archer. The Orc once again grunted with amusement. I glanced over, and noted he still had the guy's blood around his mouth. He met my gaze, then licked his lips and tusks provocatively. And I don't mean in a sexy way. He nearly provoked me into barfing.

"You there," one of the Imperials said, pointing at me. "You're not on the list. Who are you?"

I froze. What the hell should I say? Stammering a little, I said, "Duh-Danni." Squeezing my eyes shut for a second, I shook my head and corrected, "Danielle." The man frowned and went back to his list.

Fidgeting in the cold, I looked around. The other wagons were emptying, the other prisoners being role-called and sent to stand over in a group. I could see the block with its ominous basket, the executioner dressed in black, his face covered with a black cowl, a huge, huge mofo of an axe before him. He was leaning on it like a farmer would lean on his rake, or a construction worker on his shovel. Like it was so much a part of him he probably slept with the damn thing.

"I'm sorry, Nord," the Imperial said, nigh apologetically. "We'll see that your remains are sent on to Whiterun for proper burial."

Blinking, I let myself be led to the others. I didn't hear them speak to the Orc; couldn't really hear anything except a dull repetition of 'remains' like the tolling of a bell.

For a moment, fury flared inside me, and I wanted to scream. What the hell? I was dragged from my comfortable, warm home, dropped like a sack of dirty laundry into a wagon full of prisoners getting carted to their deaths in a flipping tundra, and it was looking a whole lot like I would be joining them, regardless of how the game was supposed to be played. Yeah, a dragon would attack, but what if it didn't? What if the damn thing got delayed, stopped for a snack of goats or something? I could feel the trembling escalate to damn near convulsions as the last of the prisoners were sorted.

Once again, the Orc was beside me. I looked up at him; he was really pretty tall, but then I wasn't too heartily blessed in the height department myself. "So."

He returned my gaze, raising an eyebrow. "So what?"

"This is it, huh?" The priestess had begun her blessing for the soon-to-be-chopped-to-more-manageable-chunks.

"Face it bravely, little one," he growled, returning his focus straight ahead, his head held high.

I frowned and snapped, "Little one?"

His mouth contorted in what I would come to realize was his way of grinning.