Try to play it off

You'd have to be insane to tell the truth while you're surrounded by soldiers, you try to come up with something else.

"Sanna is just ehm... she is just happy to finally have some food that isn't that jerky." You say, trying to seem normal.

Nacius takes his helmet off and sets it on the table, then he takes a bite out of his cut.

"You get used too it after a while." He says, mouth full of meat.

The two of you continue to eat in silence, you finally feel full after eating about half of the cut.

"Sanna is full, but what does she do with the rest of this meat? She has nowhere to store it to keep it fresh." You ask.

Nacius quickly scarfs down one last bite before replying.

"Don't worry about it, Dryoc here has a secret, here watch this."

Nacius wraps the meat back up in whatever material the Breton used to wrap it in, then he presses his thumb to it and it reseals itself.

"Woah, the Breton uses magic for cooking?" You ask, amazed at what Nacius just showed you.

"Not really, these wrappings have some weird enchantment on them to just reseal, it also keeps whatever is wrapped inside of it warm and fresh, I don't know anything about it, but hey, it's pretty neat nonetheless right?"

You look down at your cut and begin wrapping it back up as well, once you make sure that none of the meat is poking out, you press your thumb to it, almost instantly, it reseals itself.

"Sanna has never seen such things before, why waste magic on something as small as this?" You ask, smiling.

Nacius chuckles and stands up, putting his helmet back on. "Oh, trust me, magic has been used on even smaller things before."

You stand up as well, tucking the now resealed venison into your bag.

"Like what?" You ask.

"I've heard that there are some mugs that are enchanted to keep whatever drink that is inside of them, ice cold, of course I've never seen one myself, but Tolggr has told me that his father has one that he inherited from his father, and his fathers father, so on and so forth." Nacius explains.

You laugh at this idea, back in Anequina, you'd never seen much magic outside of a few mages wowing locals here and there.

The two of you exit the mess hall and begin passing through the barracks once again, you shift your gaze back down to the ground again in an attempt to not see anything you don't want to.

Before the two of you make it to the exit, that same voice from earlier yells out.

"Hello again lass! You come back to get a good look at the big strong soldiers huh!?" He yells, followed by a group of soldiers laughing.

You once again are flooded with embarrassment, you hear Nacius sigh as you exit the barracks and begin making your way out of the fortress. Nacius nudges you with his elbow, getting your attention.

"Hand me your waterskin, I'll get it refilled for you miss, you can go ahead and meet up with Whiterun, i'll be up there soon."

You quickly dig out your waterskin, which is now almost empty from your earlier incident with the jerky, and you hand it to Nacius who flashes a quick smile and turns to go get some water.

As you walk towards Whiterun, you take a moment to really look at the place, not many Khajiit you noticed, you thought this was surprising considering how close you are to the Elsweyr border, you do manage to see a few Dunmer and Bosmer amongst the crowds of Imperials and Nords around the fort. Eventually you reach Whiterun and stand close to him, one of the soldiers, a female, comes up and starts talking.

"What a fine horse, is he yours?" She asks.

"No, he belongs to one of the soldiers, he brought Sanna here for some food and water, he is actually about to take this one to Skingrad with him in a moment." You reply.

The female soldier looks at you for a moment before asking another question.

"You just come up from Elsweyr? No offence but you kinda stick out like a sore thumb out here."

You can't help but feel a little embarrassed, she wasn't wrong, you still wore your ragged old clothes from Orcrest, as well as a filthy headband that kept your hair out of your eyes.

"Y-yes, this one has just arrived in Cyrodiil yesterday, she needed help getting to Skingrad and luckily, this legionnaire was out on patrol and offered to help Sanna." You reply.

The woman smiles. "Well, I'm sure you'll love it here, we're still a bit roughed up after the crisis if you haven't noticed, but Cyrodiil is still a wonderful place ." She tells you.

"Thank you, this one already finds herself going into a trance from how beautiful the land is here." You say with a smile.

The Imperial woman looks over and sees Nacius coming up.

"Well I better leave you to it, it looks like your soldier friend is on his way." She says before waving you goodbye and walking back into the fort.

"Got it fully refilled for you miss." Nacius says, handing you the waterskin.

You cram it into your bag, careful not to squish the venison.

"Sanna thanks you Nacius, now, are we headed out?" You ask.

Nacius looks up at the sun, then back to you.

"Yeah, judging by the time, we should be able to make it to Skingrad before dark." He says, hopping up onto Whiterun.

You wondered just how long you had been in the fortress for, it couldn't have been that long could it? Well, at least you'd make it to Skingrad before the day ends, Nacius extends a hand to you and helps lift you back up onto Whiterun, immediately, you're back on the move.

When you two get far enough from the fortress, Nacius begins to speak.

"Hey, uh miss?" He asks.

"Yes what is it?" You reply.

"I'm sorry for how the men acted back there, I noticed that it was bothering you while we were in the barracks." He says

You were surprised that Nacius felt this bad about a few men being well... men.

"It's uhh... it is okay, it isn't like you could control them, plus it wasn't so bad, just a bit embarrassing." You reply

"Bah, they should know better than to treat a civilian like that however." He says, sounding offended.

"Well Nacius, to be fair, you were joking with Sanna earlier, yes? What makes this any different?" You ask.

"I uh, well, these men seemed malicious is all, they were trying to embarrass you." He said, sounding awkward.

You find it strange that he was acting so defensive over this when before you two reached the fortress, he made a joke that was embarrassing to you as well.

"Well what about your joke that embarrassed Sanna before we reached the fort hmm?" You ask.

"Hey that was funny and it wasn't as vulgar as those men back at the fortress, you have to admit that, plus you got me back for that, I remember you almost crying from laughing so hard." He replies.

While this was true, it still felt strange that he was apologizing for this. Did he fell bad for you or something? Maybe he just didn't like those men. You wonder if you should press this issue further...