Why not

After sitting on it for a moment, you ask him something that you hope will lessen the potential blow of your confession.

"How seriously do you take your job Nacius? How many people have you gotten?" You timidly ask.

Nacius chuckles.

"Quite a bit, we get a lot of smugglers from Elsweyr, that's why I searched your little camp today." He states matter of factly.

"And I do take my job seriously, the empire is close to cracking, the least I can do is help keep things somewhat stable."

You feel nervous, you weren't a smuggler, nor did you have any intentions of doing anything illegal in Cyrodiil, you came here to pursue real, honest work. Back in Elsweyr you stole things, you broke into places and grabbed whatever looked valuable, all just to get enough coin to scrape by, you were afraid that Nacius wouldn't react too well when you tell him. After a while, you speak up.

"Nacius... Sanna has to tell you something." You say, looking down.

"I'm all ears Sanna."

You let out a sigh and clutch your fists, you try telling yourself that he won't do anything, but you don't really know that yet.

"Sanna can trust you right?" You ask.

He looks at you, then your wound, then he motions to his wound.

"I don't know, neither of us have lost any limbs yet, lets wait for something more traumatic to happen before we start trusting each other, alright? He says with a wide grin.

You scowl at him, he lets out a quick laugh and stops.

"Of course you can Sanna!"

You close your eyes for a moment and calm yourself, you let out a long sigh, relaxing the only shoulder you can relax, and you open your eyes.

"Sanna is not as honest as she has led you to believe Nacius..." You say, remorseful.

Nacius looks back to you, there's worry in his eyes.

"What's wrong?" He asks.

"Sanna came to Cyrodiil to escape a life of thievery... she stole many many things, but it was only to survive, coin was hard to come by in Orcrest Nacius, that is why she came here, to look for a better life. You let it all out, trying to hold back tears of both fear and regret.

Nacius goes quiet for an agonizing moment, you look down, bracing yourself for whatever comes next, suddenly you feel a hand on your good shoulder, startling you and causing you to look up at Nacius.

"We've all done things we regret Sanna." He tells you in an assuring tone.

He leans into your ear, and begins to whisper.

"You think I didn't do a bit of stealing as a lad?" He whispers.

"But Sanna didn't just do a bit of stealing, Sanna broke into homes, stole almost every day, Sanna was being pursued by both the guards and gangs!" You say, tears forming in your eyes.

Nacius just gives your shoulder a pat.

"But you're here now, you wanted to leave all of that behind right? Persue an honest living, one where you don't have to steal to survive?" He asks

You nod, you couldn't bring yourself to look him in the eyes out of shame.

"The crisis made things hard on everybody, and made things even harder on people who already had it hard. I don't know much about Elsweyr, or Orcrest, but from what I'm hearing from you, things must've been dire down there." He says, rubbing your shoulder.

You nod once again and wipe the tears out of your eyes.

"Orcrest is the center of commerce in Anequina, but Orcrest and Rimmen decided to have a rivalry, things just got worse from there, the poor became poorer, the rich became richer, after the crisis, the city was in ruin, and things became ****." You tell him

You look up at Nacius, meeting his gaze, his eyes look sad, you feel bad for dropping this on him.

"Anequina as a whole still hasn't recovered, Sanna wanted to escape that, so she dropped everything and came here." You say.

Nacius chuckles a bit, hand still rubbing your shoulder.

"Cyrodiil is in a rough state too, but from what I'm hearing, it's not as bad as Elsweyr... you did good coming up here." He says.

You rub your eyes and calm yourself down, taking some deep breaths.

"Sorry for dropping this on you Nacius, Sanna just didn't feel comfortable calling you a friend while she has basically been lying to you." You apologize.

"Hey." Nacius says using a stern tone.

"Don't feel bad, this is what friends are for, we've been to oblivion and back today, you're stressed, I understand."

You smile a bit, Nacius seemed to be acting way more serious than he was when the both of you were being attacked earlier. You couldn't help but chuckle, Nacius looks confused.

"W-what's so funny?" He asks, bewildered.

"Sorry, sorry... Sanna is just not used to you acting this serious." You say

Nacius grins.

"Well what can I say, when I see a pretty lady in distress, I get worried." He says with a smug grin.

The both of you laugh, Nacius removes his hand from your shoulder and continues walking, this time directly to your side.

"You know Nacius, you're doing pretty terribly at your job, letting Sanna, a self-admitted thief, walk free." You joke.

"Well, you won me over with your cute face." He replies.

"You're really going hard with these comments Nacius, you're on a roll." You tell him.

The two of you continue walking side by side, Whiterun followed without Nacius holding the lead. After a while, it was apparent that time was running out, night was approaching.

"It's getting dark Nacius, do you think we can still make it?" You ask him, concerned.

He sighs and looks around.

"Not likely, we still have a bit to go, but we need to keep moving..." He says

Nacius looks to Whiterun for a moment and looks at his hand, then to you.

"Sanna, if you go around to the other side of Whiterun, there should be an unlit torch hanging off of his saddle, could you grab that? We're going to need it." He asks

You nod and walk to the other side of Whiterun, you see the torch tied to the saddle and undo it, the torch looked used, but Nacius was sure that he could still use it. You take the torch back to Nacius and hand it to him.

"Thanks Sanna, I'll light this when it starts to get hard to see, gods know we'll need it."

Even though things were starting to get worrying...again. You felt at peace with Nacius, you look over at him, noticing you, he looks back, without warning him, you give him a hug, careful not to touch either of your injuries.

"Woah! Sanna, uhh." He says, holding his arms up in suprise.

"Thanks for listening to Sanna and not freaking out earlier, you helped her and calmed her down quite a bit." You say into his shoulder.

Nacius relaxes and then hugs you back, avoiding your injured shoulder.

The two of you linger there for a moment, you aren't walking, Whiterun has stopped walking, even though night is on approach, the two of you just sit there in the moment. Neither of you wanted to let go, but the urgency of nightfall got the both of you to pull away slowly. The both of you smiled as you looked at each other.

"I take it your shoulder is feeling better?" Nacius jokes.

You roll your eyes and chuckle.

"Sanna is still in excruciating pain, but you help her keep her mind off of it." You reply

The two of you laugh again, Nacius looks around and notices that its beginning to get dark out.

"We should keep moving, it's starting to get dark out." He says

An idea pops into your head, a cheeky grin creeps onto your face.

"One more thing Nacius." You say.

"What is it?" He asks.