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Zahni slowly became aware of the world around her. The khajiit's head was throbbing from the alcohol she'd consumed last night, but she still felt she didn't have enough. She could still remember what her captain said.

She didn't want to travel with him anymore. This whole time she'd been working with him, she thought they were growing closer. Instead, she was just disgusting him.

She sat up and looked around. She was in a small clearing with a clear, cool pond fed by a rocky stream. A bright green canopy let flecks of morning sunlight through to the forest floor, and a slight breeze made the leaves dance. The camp was nowhere to be seen. She tried to remember how she got there, but she couldn't remember. She dragged herself over to the pond.

She splashed water onto her face and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, then drank water from the pond. Her head still hurt, but at least her mouth wasn't so dry. She didn't know what else to do at the time. She wanted to scream, but she knew it wouldn't help anything and her head would hurt worse. She knew she needed to figure out what to do with herself- either go back to the dominion or abandon them, but she couldn't figure out what she wanted to do. She looked down into the pond to see if there were any fish, but there were none. She could only see her reflection- a khajiit wearing golden, emblazoned armor, white speckled fur poking out at the elbows and neck.

She stared at her reflection and tried to come to terms with the absuridty. She was Khajiit, wearing armor that belonged to the most pretigious, elite elven military force in Tamriel. It was armor she earned the right to wear. She trained for months, learning how to infiltrate, identify and execute targets, evacuate wounded, apply first aid- it was all stuff the khajiit were more suited for than the altmer were. Sure, the wood elves could jump from branch to branch like little khajiit, but they didn't have the guts the khajiit did- they didn't have the fight in them. They had armies to fight for their weak ones. When someone threatened Khajiit, the khajiit didn't need someone to tell them to defend themselves. The Altmer didn't like them- but they needed the khajiit. She let this conclusion sink in. Despite whatever they personally thought of her kind, they were what made the Dominion able to address the threats that hunted them from the shadows. The Khajiit were necessary.

"Necessary for what?" her mind asked her.

She thought about it. Her hunt unit killed orc warchiefs, mafias operating from the sewers of ancient Ayelid cities, slavers who raided and raped villages... everybody they killed deserved it. None of it was political- they were doing good work. Even if she hadn't been part of the Dominion, she would have killed those people.

"So," the voice said, "do it."

The glade went silent as the voice stopped, and the alcohol induced fog was gone. It suddenly felt very still. The water was no longer clear, and the sunlight disappeared. The place's beauty was gone- just another watering hole in the woods. She felt like she'd been under a spell, but was no longer. The damage was done, though.

Looking around, it felt like someone was watching her- the fur on the back of her neck stood on end. She knew she just came out from a spell, but she couldn't see them. And even though the spell was done, that thought still nagged at the back of her mind.

She didn't need the Dominion to escort her everywhere. If Narmis didn't want her to travel with him, there was no reason she should. She knew that was true. He could always request another khajiit, and she didn't need to be slowed down by an elf that couldn't keep up with her speed.

Though at the second, all she wanted was to get out of this creepy place.

She thought back to the night before- just after she and Narmis came back to the camp, she said their next target was some Forsworn named Lionfire. Didn't sound like a forsworn to her, but if that's what the command said his name was, that was it. She channelled that bluish energy back into her hand, and held it aloft. In her mind, she pictured the essence of what she knew.

When she thought, "in skyrim," the blue path flooded to many paths.

When she thought, "A forsworn," the paths swerved heavily to the west.

And then she thought, "named Lionfire," and the paths all disappeared.

She growled. She didn't have time to figure out what it meant right now- if the dominion caught her out here right now, they might think she was deserting. If she could bring them this Lionfire's head, they couldn't deny her loyalty OR skill. But at the moment, that feeling of being watched grew by the second. She thought, "Nearest skyrim city," and the blue path showed back up. She bolted. After a few hundred yards, she slowed down to a jog and just kept jogging. Every now and then, she cast the spell again, making sure she was heading the right way. Slowly, the landscape changed from forest to mountains. The feeling of being watched came back every now and then, but never very strong- she felt like it weakened as she got farther away from the camp. The first night in the mountains was the worst. As long as she was moving, she stayed warm. Thanks to her fur and armor, the wind only chilled her nose and fingers- she tucked her ears under the helmet. It made it harder to hear, but she couldn't hear anything past the blistering wind, anyway. But when she stopped to make camp, she had no means to make fire.

Which meant the khajiit, used to the lush tropical jungles and warm sands, found herself desperately trying to figure out how to make an igloo out of ice and rock.

She tried rubbing sticks together, like she'd heard from travellers, but she couldn't even get them remotely hot. She hacked into the snow with her axe, but even though the elven metal was sharp; it wasn't meant to hack into ice. It quickly dulled. She picked up a rock and tried to smash the ice, but it was so slippery and her fingers were so cold she couldn't hold onto it. After watching it bounce and roll down the side of the mountain, she tried scratching into the ice with her claws, but they weren't designed for it, either. She hugged herself and whined. The wind was cold. She looked around- and saw a cave. She made her way to it, and walked in. Just past the interest, the air stilled and quit blowing. Tired from running all day and climbing half a mountain, she curled up into a ball and went to sleep.

She dreamed of home, when the elves had just come to her homeland. It was hot, and dusty. The schoolhouse they erected was altmer style, but made of old wood and with giant holes for ventilation. She was in the schoolhouse, sitting in the desk. Other khajiit children were there, and an altmer man was standing in front of their room, wearing a black and gold robe. He was their teacher, and his name was Mr. Oncanial.

"Today," he said, "we're studying the application of magic."

Zahni's hand shot up, and without waiting to be called on, she asked, "Does that mean we get to learn magic?"

"No," Mr. Oncanial had said, "but if you ever have the privilege, this class will be very important. And even if you never do use it, if you are facing someone using magic for ill, you must understand how his magic works to defeat him."

Zahni thought about that, sitting in her dream. The Altmer were proficient in magic- why would they teach the khajiit how to disable magic users? It seemed strange to her.

"The first lesson is this: Magic needs mana. You only have so much. So does everybody else. When Altmer have an adrenaline rush, our souls produce much, much more- but even so, such a condition can only naturally last so long. Magic is powerful, but only as long as you have power. And at the end of the day, magic is energy, and energy still follows the laws of physics. That means a wall will stop it. So will armor. Even powerful scrying spells have difficulty seeing someone who is covered up or doesn't look like what you're looking for."

Zahni was about to raise her hand again, but someone whispered her name from behind her. When she turned to look, they licked her face. She woke up.

They licked her face again. She shook her head and sat up. The small thing scurried off to the back of the cave.

Was that a baby bear?

Half a second and a mama-bear roar later, she was charging full speed down the side of the morning mountainside, leaping from bouldertop to bouldertop. She swore she could feel the mother's hot breath on her neck. She landed by a rocky stream in the bottom of the mountains, and she slowed to a jog. When she turned around to see if the bear followed her, she only saw more ice and rock. She sighed, and started walking forward.

Then she saw another bear.

This one was standing in the middle of the stream, waiting. Every few seconds, it's swat the water, and a fish would fly out, back broken, and smack onto the shore. There were many fish on the bank. So many fish...

Her mouth watered, her stomach growled, and her brain screamed at her to run away. She crouched down and snuck closer.

The bear swatted another fish out the water. He liked these fish- they were stupid. Every year, it was the same thing- they'd swim up this river, and he'd eat them. They must not have liked each other, because they never warned each other that he was there. He already had a small pile of them on the bank.

He sniffed the air. He could smell something... different. He looked at his pile of fish.

Standing over it was one of the two-legs. Its eyes were wide, staring straight at him, wide. She was standing perfectly still, unflinching. If the bear understood body language of the two-legs at all, he'd know it was fear. But he was a bear. And in Bear, staring at someone in the eye while standing over their pile of food meant one thing.

It was challenging him.

He roared and charged.

Zahni grabbed a fish and sprinted again, but now she was going uphill. The bear wasn't tired, and it was much faster. She turned around and threw her axe at it. It landed on the hillside and skidded to the bottom.

The bear broke off the chase and turned to investigate. She just dropped something- Food, he figured. He wasn't sure what else something might carry with it. When he got to the thing and sniffed it, it turned out to be a weird rock. If he had better vision, he would have seen that to begin with. He rushed to the top of the hill, and stood on the top, and sniffed. He couldn't smell where it went to, and he couldn't hear any movement. He growled and went back to his fish pile. He was going to eat it before some other two leg got any bright ideas.

Zahni looked up. The bear was standing straight up on the outcropping she was hiding under- and then it turned around and went back. When her heard wasn't so loud and she could breathe again, she ate the fish. She didn't care that it was raw or that it still had scales; that was the best damn fish she'd ever had.

When she finished eating, she wiped the blood off her mouth and kept moving through the mountains. It wasn't going to be easy, but she had some ideas on what not to do now. She thought the word, "skyrim," cast the spell, and followed the line. That night, she checked to make sure the hole she slept in didn't have bears this time.