I wander through Balmora, where's Sam? They have to be here somewhere, I last saw her in the market looking at some things, then got distracted and when I looked back I couldn't find them. It's dusk now, and starting to get dark. Hmmm, maybe they went home already. I stop in my tracks and turn around beginning to walk back to my apartment. I look at my feet while I walk not noticing anyone, or anything else that may be there. And that was a stupid idea, because I walked right into something, or well, someone. I'm known for being clumsy, always have and most likely always will, and so I look up and there's a somewhat scary guy with horns and an eye patch, yikes! “Who. Are. You?” He rumbles grabbing my shirt and pulling me towards him “I- I'm uhh I'm Valan. Valan Velothi.” I stamper slightly trembling. He looks over behind him “this him Krem?” He asks, another man comes up from behind him and stands next to him “Yep Chief, that's him. Now let him go you've scared his wits out of him for makers sake chief come on!” The taller guy whose gripping me right now rolls his eyes “Very well.” He lets his grip on my shirt losen and puts his hands by his sides “sorry ‘bout that Mr. Velothi. Precautionary measures, you must know about that. I'm The Iron Bull.” He holds out his hand and I shake it “Valan, nice to meet you, I guess.” Bull’s companion then introduces himself “Cremicius Aclassi, or just Krem for short. He's my boss.” He points to Bull who nods “damn right I am Aclassi, and don't you forget that.” Krem smirks at him. I begin walking, motioning the two to follow and they quickly catch up and within a minute we’re all walking side by side. “If you don't mind me asking, but what happened to your eye?” I look up at The Iron Bull pointing to his eye patch. He shrugs “it's a bit of a long story, but it involved that one right there, a river, a mace, a group of tevene soldiers and a very grumpy old lady. Oh and it was snowing.” I stand still for a moment “how does all of that fit together? That's so random!” Krem laughs “well, if you don't know this which if you don't that's good, I'm Trans! And so in Tevinter it's not exactly accepted. I joined the army and would bribe physicals, until the doctor went away. I was chased out of the camp and the army sent scouting parties to look for me, there was a fight when they found me, then Bull came and rescued me. A scout swung his mace and Bull took it right in the face like boom! Eyes gone! So together the two of us limped through the snow and we found this cabin okay, so we go inside and there's this very grumpy lady, she gets mad and kicks us out, both of us fall into a river and then have to stomp soaking wet and freezing through the snow until we come to a village and then Bull got his eye patched up and we got new clothes then crossed the border under the cover of night and then back to orlais we went to where we’re currently stationed. That's the story.” Krem looks at Bull at the end of the story “happy?” He smirks. Bull messes up his hair “yes I'm happy you little rascal.” I laugh, bull turns back to me “Now if you don't mind me asking, what's wrong with your eyes, and for the matter your hair too, why's it red.” I nod “well, it's both a simple, and complex reason. As for my eyes, I'm blind, or at least legally blind, I was born like this. My genes are messed up. As for my eye color, look around. All or at least a majority of Dark Elves have red eyes. As for my hair, it relates back to my genes once again, I was born like this, they don't know why, and likely won't ever know. So that's why I'm rather clumsy and just generally can be a bit stupid. So that's why! The end! And there's my apartment you can meet my friend and we can talk what you were here for.” I lead them over across the street and after fumbling with my keys I open the door and lead them in “Sammie ya here?” She pops out from the other room and waves “Hi I'm Sam.” The other two introduce themselves and we sit down at a wooden table in the corner of the living room. Bull pulls out some papers, Sammie comes and sits down “these are in elvish, ancient it seems, no wait...this is Dwemer. Similar to Dwarven but some characters are different see? Where did you find these?” Sammie likes to study languages in their spare time, and likes to study the Dwemer specifically. Bull takes out his map and points to a ruin “we found it in here, bunch of robot things, weird name. Cant pronounce it.” Ah ha, it was in a Dwemer ruin, it's probably some very old Dwemer texts, or could be very early Falmer. “Why did you come to us for these?” I ask reading over the texts “We needed someone to translate, and heard you were scholars.” I laugh “we may be mage's, but I wouldn't call us scholars based on our numerous stupid decisions, but some would, and I have colleges who can translate these if you give them a few days. I can send you a transcript of the translated piece when it's finished if you like.” Krem and Bull look at each other, Krem shrugs, Bull does the same, they look back at us “that sounds perfect.” I'm sorry, I just think that's really funny, just the way they did it, ahh I'm easily amused by really random stuff. The two get up to leave and we talk some more just outside the doorway “How many languages do you know?!” Krem asks Sam incredulously, he probably saw her doing some work. She thinks for a moment “let's see, uhhh, English, ASL, ESL, BSL, Elvish, Sindarin, Latin, Japanese, Mandarin, Bosmeri, Dwemer, a small bit of Nordic, I can read some Falmer academically, hmm what else, ah, bretonic, Altmeri, some Dwarvish, Quyan which is the formal elvish, and a tiny bit of black speech for joking reasons.” Krem stares at her blankly “That's a lot of languages...hey chief you hear how many languages they can speak?” Bull looks at him “nope. How many can they speak?” Krem tallies it up on his fingers “18 languages they know at least a bit of.” Bulls mouth drops open “holy shit kid that's amazing, high five.” Sammie walks over and high fives him “that's why I sometimes do English dubs of anime openings. He plays the violin for me if I need it.” She points to me, I wave awkwardly. “You play violin, how? You can't see.” I correct the point “I can actually see a little, not much, but enough to be able to read large print music, and kill people, and so assassin stuff and jump from rooftops.” I point down the street to an abandoned looking building “That's the HQ of the organization we work with, The Morag Tong, assassins. But better than the Dark Brotherhood...you know what don't tell Issy I said that or she'll have my head. But the dark brotherhood does more political stuff and we do more Assassins Creed style stuff, working in the shadows but serving the greater good, some people just deserve death don't you think?” Bull nods his head “you're damn right Velothi. You're damn right. Anyways we should get going, nice to meet you. Come on Krem let's go.” Bull turns to leave “Bye blind violinist guy, bye language person! Nice to meet ya!!” Krem yells and waves as he runs up to meet bull who's walking away “Hey wait for me!!” He yells. Sam and I stand in the doorway for a little watching as the two walk towards the gate and out onto the road. “Well that was...interesting.” Sam says leaning against the frame. “Indeed.” I follow her inside. I guess you never know what will happen, that was an interesting story though, it's not often you meet another person whose blind. In fact in most of my circles I'm the only blind person, well what do you know. I shrug to myself and go back to those notes, time to crack some riddles.
I had a thought of “what would happen if Valan and The Iron Bull crossed paths, and well each brought their sidekick and yes Sammie knows 18 languages, just like Phillips an Enchanting nerd, or Vilkas is a history nerd. Sam’s a language nerd.
Until next time,
Max
I'm writing another thing.
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Fine, but know that I'm not trying to pit my struggle against yours.
Ohhh yay!
DeleteHaven't yet started on my next thing but I'll do that now!