Back home

The downpour was rendered a little less annoying now that you weren't trudging through the mud, Now that you where right next to Nacius however, you could really see how cold he was, he was shivering.

"You okay, Nacius?" You ask.

"Yeah, you get used to the cold after a while..." Nacius responds.

"Well Sanna can feel and see how much you are shivering, it does not seem like you are used to the cold." You say.

"I'll be fine, don't you worry, we're almost home!" Nacius replies.

"Sanna does not care, come here." You say

You lean forward and throw your arms over Nacius's shoulders, hugging him as best you could while on the horse.

"H-hey, you almost knocked me off the horse!" Nacius says.

"Hush, let Sanna use her body heat to at least make you a little more comfortable." You interrupt him.

You sit there for a while, burying your head in his shoulder and relaxing a bit, the cold rain was uncomfortable, but at least it wasn't the damned mud. Soon you felt Whiterun suddenly come to a stop and Nacius tapped your arm.

"W-were home!" Nacius said.

You sit up and the two of you eagerly slide off of Whiterun, Nacius leads him over to his pen and shuts the gate.

"I gotta go fetch the lad a carrot..." Nacius says before opening the door.

The two of you step inside, Nacius quickly darts towards the food and grabs a carrot, running outside.

"Be quick Nacius! Sanna will get the fire going!" You tell him.

You walk over to the hearth and grab a few nearby bits of cut timber, tossing them in, you look around the room for anything you could use to light it, the only thing you can really see are the lanterns around the place, so you hop up and grab one.

"Sanna should've thought that he wouldn't have anything to light a fire normally.... man's got fire hands..." You utter to yourself

You open the lantern and grab a small twig from the lumber pile, sticking it into the lantern and letting it catch fire, you let it sit there for a bit to collect a bit of flame then you set it down in the hearth, patiently waiting for it to grow. Suddenly Nacius runs inside and slams the door.

"Time to get the he-"

Nacius looks at you attempting to light the hearth.

"You really need a tinderbox, Sanna doesn't know how to cast your fancy fire magic." You joke.

"Oh... right, well here, let me speed it up." Nacius says, walking over to the hearth.

Nacius holds his hand out and closes his eyes, a small bolt of fire shoots out of his palm, lighting the wood in the hearth to a crackling fire.

"There we are, you still going to go bathe? Or do you want to sit at the hearth for a bit." Nacius asks.

While you want to clean this mud off of you as soon as possible, you want to not freeze to **** as well.

"Sanna supposes she could sit by the fire for just a few minutes, to warm up, she really needs to wash this mud out of her fur." You say.

"Well, get those filthy clothes off, come, take a seat!" Nacius says, sitting down on the floor in front of the Hearth.

You unbutton your sopping wet shirt and let it fall to the ground, it makes an audible plopping noise, you slide out of your muddied travel pants and kick off your mud caked sandals.

"Yech, Sanna thinks it will be a while before she can wear those again!" You say.

You take a seat next to Nacius who had just slipped his shirt off and threw it over to the wet clothes pile that had formed.

"Gods, I hope this rain doesn't keep up tomorrow, I need to get back to work!" Nacius says.

"Don't worry about that now, just relax, warm up, then we can bathe, Sanna needs to get this damned mud off of her fur!" You say.

"Heh, brown suits you." Nacius jokes.

You give him a playful smack on the face and he laughs.

"Hey, it's true, I can't lie." He says.

You roll your eyes and lean against his side, the wooden floor wasn't exactly comfortable, but the heat from the hearth was more than enough to make up for it. Although the mud caking your side was incredibly annoying, despite the comforting heat coming from the hearth and the nice feeling of Nacius occasionally rubbing the side of your head, you needed to bathe.

"Sanna is sorry but she needs to wash this mud off of her, she feels disgusting!" You say.

"All's well, I'll give you some time to yourself, but I'll be with you soon enough." Nacius replies.

You go to stand up and Nacius pulls you down softly for a moment and kisses you on the lips, caught off guard, you take a moment to adjust and kiss him back.

"Don't do that Nacius! You caught Sanna off guard." You say.

"Well, it seemed like you enjoyed it either way, go on, I'll be down there after a while." Nacius says, letting go.

You walk over to your shared dresser and pick out whatever clothing you could find. You open the hatch to the cellar and make your way down the ladder, made considerably easier now that you didn't need to rely on that damned cane. You make your way through the still dusty wine cellar and make a note to clean this place up as well before entering the bathing room, the empty tub lying before you.

"Phew, thank the moons we have you..." You say to yourself.

You reach up to where the makeshift water faucet was and release the water, the water was cold, but at this point you didn't care, you just wanted to be clean. You give the tub a while to fill up, pulling out the big clumps of mud and straightening your fur as best you could. Once the tub filled, you closed the faucet and stepped in, giving yourself a second to acclimate to the cold water.

Once you felt used to it, you sat down, the loose bits of mud quickly turned the water around you brown.

"Yech, disgusting!" You say to yourself.

You begin scrubbing your arms, almost vigorously as you tried to desperately get the mud out, it was working, but it was at a snails pace. Once you felt your arms were finished, you looked to the water and couldn't even see the bottom of the tub anymore.

"Ugh! Moons!" You yell out.

You get out of the tub and drain the filthy water, you had begun to look cleaner, but there was still quite a bit of mud and grime on you. You refilled the tub again, annoyed that this still probably wouldn't be enough. Once refilled, you step back into the tub and start scrubbing away again...