Keep the pressure on him

Your curiosity is too great, you need to figure out why he's suddenly acting this way.

"Sanna finds this behavior strange from you Nacius." You say

Nacius doesn't say anything for a moment, you wonder if you've offended him somehow, then suddenly he speaks.

"I just feel kind of bad for you after earlier today, I didn't know about your situation." He says

Well, that at least answers part of it, it still doesn't explain that joke he told you before you two reached the fortress, but you don't feel like keeping this up, you don't want things to feel awkward for the rest of the trip.

"Well, that's over now, Sanna doesn't hold a grudge, if she did, she probably wouldn't be here with you right now." You say assuredly.

Nacius eases up a bit, and you continue your trip in silence for a while, just looking out at nature, eventually Nacius points out the road, you felt excited, now it was just straight to Skingrad.

"So if you don't mind me asking, what did you do before crossing over into Cyrodiil?" Nacius asks.

Upon hearing this you start feeling nervous, you didn't really know how to respond, all your life you stole to survive, but you couldn't tell an Imperial soldier the truth, you'd get thrown into a dungeon. You quickly come up with something.

"Sanna did whatever work came her way, but coin was never good enough to live comfortably..." You say.

It was technically true, whenever the opportunity arrived, you would do honest work, but it was always the jobs nobody else wanted to do, and the pay was never great, so you mainly lived off of stealing what you needed to survive.

"Are things that hard down in Elsweyr?" Nacius cuts in.

"They are in Anequina at least, Palletine has more trade but Sanna has never been there." You say.

Things are quiet again for a moment as the two of you slowly make your way towards Skingrad, then Nacius cuts in once again.

"So, what work are you looking to get into once you reach Skingrad? Could work in a winery, Skingrad loves it's wine."

"Sanna actually wishes to own a store out here one day, but she knows that she will need lots of coin for such a thing." You reply

"A simple goal, you could open a small market stall once you get a financial foothold and something to sell." Nacius says

You've never actually given any thought as to what exactly you'll be selling, or how you'll even get an inventory, but you can worry about that later, as of right now, you just need any sort of work to get started.

"Sanna doesn't actually know where she will start, probably at a winery, like you mentioned, though Sanna doesn't like the idea of smelling like grape all day." You let out with a chuckle.

"You'll get used to it, the whole city smells like grapes, like I said, the people there love wine." Nacius says.

Suddenly Nacius stops the horse and scans the area, you feel him tense up.

"What is-" Nacius cuts you off

"It's too quiet, no birds, no wind, I don't like this." He whispers

You listen and surely enough, it's almost completely silent, you begin to feel nervous, Nacius tenses up and starts moving the horse slowly, scanning the area.

"Watch our rear." He tells you

You watch behind you, scanning the area, you don't see anything, but you need to keep your eyes peeled. You feel as if you're being watched by something, the hair on the back of your neck is raised, you wonder why full on panic hasn't set in yet, but you don't want to think about it out of fear that it will spur on a panic attack.

"We're still a distance from Skingrad, just keep your eyes peeled for anything at all, if you see anything move, give me a nudge." Nacius whispers.

"O-okay." You say, shaken.

You're growing more and more nervous by the second, that feeling of being watched hasn't gone away, you keep looking out behind the both of you, you're almost straining your eyes from trying to look at every single detail, you hold your breath to try to hear anything at all, but all you hear is the horse walking. You hope with every fiber of your being that nothing comes up...