ch 3 fitting in with the rest

Part I: "No Axe Needed"

The woodpile had been leaning for days, slouched against the side of Bryska-Tei's hut like a drunk refusing to fall down. The marsh air had soaked the logs through, and half of them were beginning to mold.

Most of the quarter relied on one dull iron axe and the oldest male—Stirh-Kel, with a bad hip—to chop wood when he could manage. That morning, Croc saw him struggle with a stump the size of a barrel and wordlessly walked over.

Stirh-Kel eyed him with one scaled brow raised. "You got fingers," he rasped. "Not blades."

Croc didn't answer. He picked up a log.

Held it upright between two clawed hands.

And slowly, with a grunt barely above a breath, snapped it in half.

Not like cracking a stick. Not like a martial arts trick.

Like a man opening a loaf of bread.

The crack echoed across the quarter.

Everyone turned.

He bent down, grabbed the next log, and split it again. And again. Wet pine and oak halves thumped into a growing stack beside him.

Keesa gasped. "He's ripping the trees!"

Bryska-Tei watched from the platform, arms crossed, eyes unreadable. "Not ripping," she muttered. "Breaking along the grain. He knows how wood moves."

After the seventh or eighth log, Croc paused, brushed a flake of bark off his forearm, and looked up.

"Well?" he said. "You just gonna stare, or you want a fire?"

No one answered right away.

Then, slowly, Stirh-Kel started to laugh—a deep, wet chuckle that shook his chest.

"Fine. But don't throw out your back, hatchling."

"Try me," Croc muttered, and went back to work.

By midmorning, the woodpile had become a wall.

He stacked the chopped pieces with a craftsman's care—angled to dry, leaning just enough to stay balanced. Each one broke along its natural fault line, clean and even.

And as the Argonians passed by, they stopped—first out of awe, then out of habit. A nod. A murmur of thanks. A bowl of water left near his elbow.

It wasn't that he was strong.

It was that he used it like it meant something.

Part II: "Numbers and Barter"

The next day, Croc sat on the edge of a dock with his feet in the water, sharpening a broken spearhead with a whetstone the size of a loaf. His movements were slow, rhythmic. Meditative.

Voices rose behind him.

"—No, Dreveni, that's robbery! You're doubling the rate again."

"Supply's low," a Nord merchant barked. "And if you swamp-lizards want salt, you'll pay. Or go lick a rock."

Croc didn't move at first.

Then he turned his head.

Three Argonians stood near the rope bridge—Ohash, a fish-trader; Suliik, who tanned hides; and Bryska-Tei, watching silently.

Opposite them stood the merchant: a red-bearded Nord with a caravan behind him. His guards leaned on their pikes, bored but smug. The man waved a scroll of goods in one hand.

"Fifty septims for half a sack of salt," he said.

"That's twice last week's price," Ohash said.

"Then find someone else," the Nord snapped. "Assuming they'll sell to your kind."

That's when Croc stood up.

Slowly.

Deliberately.

Every conversation in earshot died.

He walked toward the group, wiping the wet stone dust from his claws.

The merchant looked up—then up—and took a step back.

Croc didn't growl. Didn't flex.

He just looked at the scroll in the man's hand.

"Let me see that," he said.

The Nord didn't move.

Croc tilted his head.

The merchant handed him the scroll.

Croc unrolled it, eyes scanning the scribbled figures. Handwriting was sloppy, but he could read it. Pricing was marked up absurdly—triple on imported grains, inflated margins on basic iron.

"Your storage costs aren't this high," Croc said. "You're hiking price for risk. But you don't travel, do you?"

The Nord blinked. "What?"

"You buy local," Croc said. "That means you didn't pay more, you just want to earn more. By selling to people you think can't say no."

He looked up. Eyes narrowing.

"That's not 'business.' That's what we used to call extortion."

The guards straightened.

The Nord held up both hands. "Now, listen—"

"No. You listen." Croc stepped closer. "You want coin? Offer bulk salt at standard rate. Throw in two sacks of grain to build trust. Come back in three days and maybe they'll pay you what you asked for today. Or walk now—and I walk with you."

The Nord looked at Bryska-Tei. She gave no expression.

Then back at Croc.

Then down at the scroll.

He swallowed.

"…Fine," he muttered. "Same rate. And I'll toss in a quarter sack of barley. As goodwill."

Croc handed him the scroll. "Good."

The guards said nothing. The merchant turned and barked at his packer.

As they left, Ohash turned to Croc.

"You… knew how to break that down."

Croc just shrugged.

"Used to run deals. Before Arkham."

"Deals?" Suliik asked.

"Yeah," Croc muttered, sitting again. "Protection. Transport. Politics, sometimes. It's all numbers. Just need to know who's bluffing."

Bryska-Tei studied him. Her mouth didn't move, but her eyes smiled.

"You're more than sharp claws and teeth."

He picked up his whetstone again.

"Never said I wasn't."

Part III: "One-Handed"

The storm hit just before sundown.

Sheets of rain hammered the marsh like falling knives, and the wind came in howling through the broken gap in Riften's southern wall. Lanterns flickered out. Boards cracked. And one of the outer huts—home to a couple and their infant—groaned and tilted sideways with a loud creaaaaak.

The support beam had sunk into the muck. Worse—its stone footing had cracked clean down the middle.

By morning, six Argonians had gathered to try and stabilize it.

They hauled ropes. Shoved timber braces under the corner. Pried at the edges with crowbars and prayer.

The hut didn't budge.

"Too heavy," one grunted.

"It's sinking into the peat," another hissed. "We'll lose it by nightfall."

Then someone called out, voice sharp:

"He's coming."

They all turned.

And there he was—Croc, moving through the mist like a tower on legs. No shirt. Scales gleaming with rain. His eyes fixed on the broken corner like a builder surveying a crime scene.

No one spoke.

He stopped beside the foundation.

Looked at the support beam. The stone footing. The angle.

Then, without ceremony, he bent down, wrapped one massive clawed hand around the base—

—and lifted.

Not with a scream. Not with a grunt.

With a low breath, as if adjusting a chair.

The hut tilted upright.

Mud poured off the cracked stone as it rose.

The crowd went silent.

Croc held it in place with one hand, then pointed with the other.

"Slide the brace under. Tight. No gaps."

They obeyed. Quicker than they should have. The support slotted into place with a firm thunk. One of the younger workers stared at the footing like it had just kissed him on the mouth.

Croc let go.

The hut stayed upright.

Bryska-Tei, watching from a distance, exhaled slow.

Keesa, standing beside her, whispered: "He lifted it. Like it was nothing."

And a murmur started among the youngest ones.

"Hist-touched…"

"Blessed by the Tree…"

"Not a Saxhleel. A guardian."

Croc turned, brushing mud from his palm, and caught the whispers.

He didn't say a word.

Just walked back into the fog.

But the story of what he'd done would spread before he reached his hut.

And by nightfall, someone had already carved a small figure into the side of the repaired foundation:

A crouched lizard-man with arms like tree trunks, lifting a house with one claw.

Part IV: "Kind Eyes, Sharp Teeth"

The air smelled like charcoal and river moss.

Evening had pressed itself low over the marsh, and lanterns swayed from the rafters like fireflies strung on wire. Croc sat near the edge of the quarter, elbows on his knees, watching the water creep along the edges of the stone foundation he'd lifted earlier that day.

His claws were stained with soil. His tail, for once, was still.

"You don't walk like someone that size," a voice said.

He turned.

She stood barefoot in the shallow water, arms crossed, leaning one shoulder against a support post. Her scales were a deep copper-brown, polished like old coin, and she wore a short wrap dyed with ochre and marsh reed patterns. Her smile wasn't wide, but it was unmistakably genuine.

Shahvee.

Croc had seen her before—passing between huts, trading cloth, whispering jokes that made hatchlings giggle. She had a way of moving without rushing. She looked at people when she spoke to them. Really looked.

He grunted. "And how does someone my size walk?"

"Louder," she said. "Or like they're used to people moving out of their way."

She stepped onto the dock, sat across from him, legs folded under her. No fear. No distance.

"Been watching me?" he asked.

She nodded. "Everyone has."

He snorted. "And you just decided now to say something?"

"No," she said. "I decided now was when you'd listen."

Croc didn't respond. He looked back at the water.

Shahvee leaned forward, chin in hand. "Keesa says you broke a tree in half like it was a carrot."

"It was rotting," he muttered.

"She also says you talk to frogs."

He shot her a sideways look. "She talk this much to everyone?"

"She talks. You listen. That's rare around here."

Croc grunted again. "She's a good kid."

Shahvee tilted her head. "So are you."

He actually turned his head at that.

"What'd you say?"

"I said—"

"No. I heard you." His voice had a growl under it, quiet but sharp. "You call me a kid?"

Shahvee smiled. "You act like one. You sulk when you're not helping. You hover when you are. You sulk again when people say thank you."

He stared at her. Hard.

She didn't flinch.

In fact, her smile widened. Just a little. Just enough.

"I've met killers," she said softly. "You move like one. But you don't sit like one. And you definitely don't stay like one."

Silence stretched between them. Croc looked away first.

Shahvee stood. "I left smoked perch in a pot by your door."

"I didn't ask for—"

"I know," she said. "That's why I did it."

She stepped off the dock and into the shallows, her tail trailing behind her like a lazy fish.

Just before disappearing around the corner, she called back without turning:

"Let me know if the frogs talk back."

Croc stared at the water long after she was gone.

His claws flexed once. His breath came low.

And for the first time in a long while, something beneath his ribs twisted—not in hunger, or pain.

But something he didn't have a word for.

Part V: "Her Voice in His Skull"

The rumors faded again.

One week passed. Then two.

The last noble report about a "swamp monster" ended with laughter and a snide remark in court about "Argonian fish-stories." No bounty. No search party. No patrols sent south.

No one believed them.

Why would they?

The Argonians didn't dine in guild halls. They weren't invited to Jarl's banquets. Their word held less than coin—less than dirt, some days.

The sketch still hung in the corner of the Bee and Barb tavern, stained with beer and mold. Faded now. No one looked at it twice.

The Marsh Demon was still a myth.

But inside the hut of wet wood and reed walls near the edge of the marsh, Croc was having trouble sleeping.

Not because of the rain. Or hunger. Or the whisper of the wind that sometimes sounded like footsteps.

It was her.

Shahvee.

That copper-scaled woman with the slow smile and the soft eyes and the voice that wrapped around his brain like vines on old stone.

He didn't understand it.

She hadn't flirted. Not really.

She hadn't begged. Or run. Or offered coin for protection.

She'd watched him. Spoken to him like he was a person. Challenged him like it was a game. Gave him food and didn't wait for thanks. Then walked away like he wasn't dangerous at all.

He'd faced blades, fists, bullets, and gods.

But this?

This was worse.

He lay on his side now, his massive back pressed to the reed wall, the cracked roof dripping gently near his tail. His eyes were open. Glowing faint in the dark.

He could still hear her voice.

"You sulk when you're not helping."

He grunted. Sat up.

Scowled.

Why'd she say that?

Why did it bother him?

He looked down at his claws.

He'd torn a bear in half. He'd once bitten through a reinforced prison door. He'd eaten people.

And she called him a kid?

His claws clenched.

Then loosened.

She hadn't said it to insult him.

She said it because—gods help him—she liked him.

No one ever liked him. They used him. Feared him. Hunted him. Pitied him on rare occasions. But liked?

Croc stood up. Slowly. His head brushing the low ceiling. He paced the hut once. Twice. Tail swaying.

He grumbled something under his breath and stepped outside into the cool night air.

The quarter was asleep. Lanterns burned low. Marsh frogs chirped like lazy bells.

Somewhere in the dark, a voice—faint, amused, familiar—drifted through his skull like a ghost:

"Let me know if the frogs talk back."

Croc stared at the water for a long time.

And for once, he wanted them to.