Chapter 2 - Laas

15th of Mid Year, Morndas, 197 4E

"Freyja, wake up!"

I hear this as light invades my vision, and my everything screams in protest.

It was a short night, and waking up in the middle of it all didn't exactly help much.

I groan, and stretch, whacking my brother in the face as he looms over me. Frey then recoils, and whacks me back.

"Hey, seriously. Mother wants us outside now," he tells me, while I reach for my boots.

"Fine, just leave me alone," I mumble back, wishing I didn't have as many sleep problems. I seriously envy the way Frey sleeps like a log, without a care in the world. If it's not cramps from staying on horseback the majority of the day, it's worries, anxieties, other problems, and the occasional headache. I hardly get any sleep, and it kicks me harder than it should.

And ever since father died, I've been getting increasingly strange and horrifying dreams.

In other words, life doesn't have a good relationship with me at the moment.

I then step out of the tent, with my brother trailing behind me. I see mother sitting by the lightly crackling campfire, sharpening her swords. I sigh, dreading what was coming next.

"If you didn't become blind last night, you should know what to do," she says, not looking at me. "Grab your sword."

I simply groan in disgust, and start wishing for more than just the normal day's schedule. Get up too early, pack the camp up, and then travel somewhere else, with the occasional sword training session. Life tries to bore me in every way possible. The only interesting things that existed before are now endless miles of just sand.

'How do Khajiit stand it here?' I think to myself. 'Elsweyr is simply just an extremely hot dump of misery. Furry things couldn't possibly like it.'

I then shrug off my discomfort, and go back inside the tent to grab my sword. I like sword fighting, but I always feel as though I'm lacking something. There has got to be something better than just swinging a sharp stick at things.

I then slowly exit the tent, and see mother and my twin waiting for me, both looking impatient.

"Hurry up, we haven't got all day. And if you haven't noticed, we can get over to Valenwood soon, and need more than just a couple hours to travel," Mother barks at me.

We then continue to a flat patch of sand, and then start getting into the usual triangle formation. Me at the right, Frey in front of me, and Mother in a position to supervise and if needed, improve our form.

"In case you've both somehow forgotten, Valenwood is teeming with Thalmor. We need to be careful, especially since they are on familiar territory," she tells us, starting off another session of pain and misery.

"So let's start with the usual. Try to deplete each other's stamina while dealing as much damage as possible. As always, try not to kill each other, as that would be rather unfortunate, and a waste of effort."

Frey charges at me, doing the complete opposite of what mother just told us to do, and I hold my ground, ready to dodge when he reaches me.

He then completely catches me off guard by turning left and lightly slicing at my back. I quickly recover from the surprise, and turn around to slash at him.

But he's already gone.

I then realize what his tactic is and listen behind me, while acting as though I'm still turning around.

I hear heavy footsteps behind me, and quickly leap backwards.

I twist in the air, so that Frey will get a face full of leather in case I didn't completely fly over him, and ready my sword.

I do happen to land right on him, and roll to the ground, hoping that didn't look as clumsy as it actually was, then point my sword at Frey's neck before he can recover.

I look over at mother, wondering how she would react to such a quick exchange, while she silently judges us with her amber eyes.

"Frey, that is a good tactic, but just keep in mind that it's not going to work on elves, and such a heavy charge can have only negative consequences," she says, then turning to look at me. I lower my sword and hope if I completely messed up that she doesn't yell at me too much.

"Freyja, you need to improve your form a lot. You did the right thing, even if that move is a bit flashy, but you didn't jump high enough, or twist at the right angle. If you were to try that on an Altmer or a Nord, you would smash into their face, at least with how you did the move. Obviously, that can be good, because it might stun them. But it's better to do it right."

The rest of the morning goes mostly like this, and then we start packing up and mounting our horses for a few hours' travel.

"Good work today you two," mother says while we leave the old campsite.

I grunt, and Frey mutters a thank you.

We begin heading to the thin strip of green barely visible in the distance, while trying to keep our horses from face planting in the sandy and occasionally rocky ground. I reminisce about the weird dream from the night before, and start losing myself in my thoughts.

Who was that Argonian? Why did she die in such a strange fashion? What was going on with that assassin person?

Strange theories whirl in my head, and I long to tell Frey about the dream, but know he will just mock me.

Why does life have to be so cruel sometimes?

I then sigh in frustration, and start wondering what the "assassin" was talking about.

"Hey Freyja, is something troubling you?" I hear Frey say, looking at me worriedly.

"Just another dream," I tell him. "You know how weird they can be."

He nods, then we continue on in silence. Mother looks over at us, and something crosses her face. Sadness? Amusement? Or maybe even guilt? I can't figure out her expression, so I shrug it off, even though something's nagging me to say something about it.

I watch as the strip of green that marks the border of Valenwood starts becoming larger. Hope increases in my mind, as I start daydreaming of air that isn't filled with dust.

Elsweyr really is a sad place. Only jungles and sand. And heat. The heat has slowly begun to kill me, the more time I spend in it.

Another few minutes pass by in silence, and then our horses start faltering.

Mother looks around with a confused expression, because they obviously weren't tired. They were agitated.

I strain my ears, and look around, trying to find whatever spooked our rides, and then see them.

A small group of people, coming straight towards us.

"Never should have come here!" I hear one of them scream at us.