Disclaimer: I own nothing, and I make no profit from anything regarding the writing of this.

(AN): It feels a little haphazard for me now, starting so many projects all together.

Hjalti woke freezing, chilled snow pressing against his naked flesh with a vengeance. It was as if by burning cold fire into him the ice could make up for all the years of divinity in which cold had no real meaning.

"Shor's left nut." the Nord swore, rolling over in the snow and rising to a crawl. Vertigo rocked through his brain, and with another curse Hjalti dry heaved over the snow. After spitting forth another curse, he rose to his feet on shaking legs, covering his naked manparts with an instinctive hand.

Wind howled off the Sea of Ghosts, wailing like the thousands of lost souls of its legend. Auburn whiskers gleamed in the moonlight as Hjati threw a considering glance at the snow around him and the sky above before turning south and drawing in a breath.

"Wuld Nah Kest!"

Unrelenting strength seized his legs, a thrumming energy that begged release. And with a grin of relief, the man exploded forth. Snow kicked into powder mist as the world whirled past and air whistled in his ears. Too quickly, the furious power went out of him until it was rekindled with another Shout.

He had many miles to run before the last sparks of divinity sputtered out and left his nude flesh vulnerable to the cold. Shouts came easily now, fueled by the song of greater power in his lungs. But it would not last him overlong.

If not for the need for stealth, Hjalti would have sputtered out a laugh at the absurdity of it all.

Him, Divine Talos, reduced to stealing a farmer's underclothes? Crawling on his stomach in the dirt was a novelty, reminding him of years gone by and bloody battles won through the ingenuity of stolen intelligence.

Of course, there were no great battles him this hour.

But he was still new to the old suffering of the mortal coil. Even now, another spark died and the chill gained strength. Hjati shuddered, wondering at the insanity of his choices before pushing at the door to the hovel. The simple lock easily clicked open under a faint push of his lingering power.

The fire burned low, casting only the faintest of red embers to glow in the hearth as the former Divine cocked an ear and listened for the slow breathing of a sleeping family. Nodding in satisfaction at the affirmative, Hjalti tip-toed inside and crept up to the bedside.

A gray-haired Nord snorted in his sleep and rolled on his side, throwing an arm over an equally gray-haired wife and falling back into deeper sleep. Snatching a tunic and a pair of trousers from the back of a wobbly old chair, Hjalti decided he would forgo the underclothes after all and slipped back out of the hut.

Pulling on the pilfered clothing, the Nord turned to continue his barefoot journey to Whiterun before stopping indecisively. Sharp blue eyes narrowed before the man sighed and knelt, scraping dirt away to dig a shallow hole.

Hjalti's empty hand cupped over the empty hole, and the Dovahkiin drew on the fading flickers inside to will into the emptiness. The starlight inside him dimmed further, but he smiled in grim satisfaction.

A single scrape filled dirt back into the pit, and with a final glance at the tatched home, the former Emperor took off running.

The farmer would be very distressed the following morning to have lost his lucky set of trousers. Yet from that day forward his land would yield crops with a divine providence. Living comfortably to the end of his days, the old man and his wife never discovered that buried before their porch was one of Tiber's lucky Septims.

Dawn broke over the moutains of the East, throwing out his shadow before him as Hjalti padded Westward along the road to Whiterun. The last of Talos' divine light faded with the sun, and he was just another mortal once more.

Windhelm arched to the north, high spires challenging the very winds and snow. But Hlalti had not intention at his current juncture to venture into the old City of Kings. Ulfric sat the seat of Ysgramor, and Hjalti had yet to conclude his measure of that man.

"Well lookie here boys." A voice leered, and Hjalti cocked an eyebrow. Striding down from one of the ridges that built over the hills to the south and gave birth to the Throat of the World, a man wrapped in a mixture of leather and iron waved mockingly.

"Hail traveler!" Taking in the unarmoured and weaponless mark, the thug strode right up to Hjalti boldly and dropped a hand on the former Divine's shoulder. Two similarly clad rogues trailed at his heels, affecting an air of intimidation.

"You must be lost friend. Everyone around these parts knows that this here road is watched over by Jeek and his boys." Eyes the colour of mud winked. "In exchange for our protection from all the animals of the wild, upstanding citizens such as ourselves are due our fair fee, am I right boys?"

The two men jeered, and Jeek smirked. "So how about you be a good lad and fork over a couple of coins? Just fair, isn't that right? And we'll let you head your merry way. If not..." Jeek squeezed Hjalti's shoulder a little tighter. "Well, we've got no compuction about taking our little tax in less friendly ways. Guarding the road isn't cheap, aye?"

Something very cold grew in Hjalti's eyes as he tipped his head and narrowed dark red eyebrows. Air pulled into the Dovahkiin's lungs, and pushed out. "Yol."

The shout blew out, flames forking forth from Hjalti's mouth and engulfing Jeek's head in a whirl of fire. The racketeer sceamed, high keening and full of agony before cutting off abruptly and collapsing with a rank smell of burnt flesh.

Jeek's partners stood with their mouths gaping, giving Hjalti more than ample time to sweep down and yank the leader's blade from its scabbard and drive it into the chest of the man on the left, grinding through leather.

The second man squealed and leapt backwards, tripping over a boulder alongside the pathway and landing on his rump. Blue eyes shot open with fear within the sockets of the iron helm, and the last bandit squeaked "By Shor, what are you?"

Hjalti's reply was low and cold and death, "Dovahkiin. Rii Vaaz." The bandit collapsed as his soul ghosted out of his flesh and fled to Oblivion, and the Dragonborn stood and drank in the silence.

Then he knelt, stripping the best pieces of armour from the three and strapping it around his own body.

Befitting his status of leader of the little extortion group, Jeek had a steel sword to his subordinate's iron. The other dead bandit bore a steel axe, but the former Divine had never favoured the axe. Taking Jeek's blade for his own, Hjalti cast a critical eye over the corpses' armour.

Iron boots were pulled off the axeman, while the swordman gave up a pair of steel Imperial gauntlets, which the ex-Emperor stapped on with approval. All three wore the same leather cuirasses, so with a shrug Hjalti stripped Jeek's leather armour and wriggled into it. After adjusting the buckles on the leather, he cast a last dismissive eye over their helms before shaking his head and continuing along the road.

(AN): 1200 words here. I typically go for 5000 word chapters, but Risen is more slowly growing pieces. So rather than leave this sitting around, I polished this up and decided to post it. The chapters will slowly get longer as the story moves into the actual swing of things, but I'd like to avoid rehashing the dungeons and quests people have seen millions of times before.