This is a private thread between myself and Nepenthe which means no one is to post here but us. Readers welcomed! ^_^

Dagmar sometimes thinks that Whiterun is more like home than Dawnstar ever was. Today is not one such day; the sun rises, weak light and weaker warmth, and she misses the salt-smell of the sea that somehow always took the edge off of the bitter cold of the Pale. In Whiterun, cold is cold and there are no soft breakers rolling up the ice-rimed shore to apologise for the chill. She loves it here, but from the north the sea calls her and she is drawn there inexorably.

Perhaps this will be the year that summer in the Pale is mild enough for her to return. It's been nearly nine years since she last set foot on a ship, and the change of scenery was pleasant for the first six years... but then her mood changed and with it the weather, and blizzard after blizzard has rendered the Pale inaccessible to all but the most skilled, the most determined, with luggage trains and furs so thick that they weigh more than all her armour combined.

She wants to go home, but she knows her limits.

Perhaps this will be the year.

Now that the weather is more clement, she dons light leather armour most mornings (and today is no exception), forsaking the ornate but surprisingly functional ebony armour for which is is known, and descends from the city to hunt in the plains. She is by no means a particularly skilled archer, but takes a bow on such skirmishes in order to disable her quarry, take away its ability to flee from her when she comes bearing down with a hatchet in each hand to finish the job.

Sunrise today finds her crouched low in the tall grass, with an arrow tensed and ready to fly and her sights set on a sabre cat distracted by its own fresh kill. The pelt of the sabre cat she means to keep for herself, to fashion a warm cloak for the inevitable journey north she makes every year, to assess the likely weather in the Pale. The eyes and teeth she supposes Arcadia in the marketplace will buy from her.

Exhaling a long, slow breath, Dagmar looses the arrow. It strikes the sabre cat a glancing blow and the massive, shaggy creature flees to lick its wounds before the Nord can even reach back for a second arrow.

She holds her anger in check, spitting into the grass and rising as she softly curses a morning wasted.

There are other beasts out here worth hunting, but it's difficult not to be disappointed. She's probably lost an arrow, too, but she wanders in the direction of the sabre cat's kill anyway in the faint hope that she might yet find it.