Ch 8 plot starts

Part I: The Throne and the Paper

The throne stood just inside her doorway.

Carved from marsh oak and swamp fir, sanded smooth with horn-shell, the seat rose high enough for Shahvee's tail to rest comfortably, and wide enough for her to sit cross-legged.

The arms were shaped like river serpents, curving forward into blunt-fanged ends. The back of the throne had been etched—deep, slow, and precise—with twisting vines, curling blossoms, and moons in three phases.

It wasn't pretty in the way human chairs were pretty.

It was beautiful in the way a place of power should be.

And it was Croc's hands that made it.

He didn't present it with ceremony.

He just grunted one morning, dragged it into her hut, and placed it beneath her reading window.

Then turned.

Shahvee followed him out.

She didn't say anything at first.

Just stared.

Ran a claw down one of the serpents.

Then whispered, "You remembered the vines."

Croc looked at the sky. "They weren't hard."

She touched the seat, then smiled at him. "Yes they were."

That was all.

But she sat in it every evening after that.

And every time he passed her hut, he caught her resting her chin on one armrest, watching him from behind a curtain of reed cloth, smiling to herself.

Croc read the news once a week.

The merchant courier—an Imperial with a scar that ran from his lip to his chest—always left the bundled sheets near the food crates. Riften didn't pay attention to quarter gossip, but they did print the world.

Usually, it was useless. Taxes. Jarl's court infighting. Bandit attacks in Eastmarch.

But that morning, Croc sat on a sun-warmed stump with the paper in his lap, scanning the smudged print—

And stopped.

ULFRIC STORMCLOAK SLAYS HIGH KING IN SINGLE COMBAT — WINDHELM IN UPROAR

He read it twice.

Then again.

Shahvee passed behind him. Caught the look in his eyes.

"What is it?"

He didn't answer right away.

Then folded the paper and said, "Storms are coming."

Within three weeks, the signs were clear:

Imperial patrols doubled at the gate

Refugees from the east passed through Riften whispering of border skirmishes

The Bee and Barb started charging more for bread

A Nord blacksmith left a list of forged Stormcloak insignias at the edge of the quarter, as if they'd want to pick a sidebar

They didn't.

But Croc kept reading.

And every time he looked at the map, he wondered:

How long before it reached them?

Part II: When the Marsh Goes Quiet

The firepit glowed low, the flames contained in a slow, warm burn. The elders sat in their usual places, shawls wrapped, eyes sharp. The younger workers stood behind, arms crossed, ears perked. Shahvee leaned against the fence post, her gaze fixed not on the fire—but on him.

Croc didn't pace.

Didn't raise his voice.

He just said the truth.

"It's started," he said. "Stormcloaks and the Empire. Real war this time."

Bryska-Tei nodded. "We've seen the patrols."

"The refugees talk," murmured Shurik-Tha. "Eastmarch is bleeding."

Croc looked at them one by one.

"Riften may not last. If the Jarl picks a side, or tries to stay out, the fighting still comes here."

He looked toward the paths leading out of the quarter.

"They'll come through us. Or near us. When they run low on soldiers, or when they need scapegoats."

No one argued.

Not anymore.

Once, they might have seen him as a stranger. A beast.

Now they saw Waylon.

And when he said, "We need to prepare," no one flinched.

That week, the quarter moved differently.

Croc reinforced the walkways with thicker beams, salvaged from a forgotten dock. Shahvee and two others secured the food crates and lined them with fresh oilcloth and smoked leaf. Bryska oversaw rationing—one dried eel pack set aside for every two consumed.

Keesa helped move jars of clean water into the buried stores.

No one panicked.

But no one forgot.

Evenings felt heavier.

Quiet.

Not from fear—but from focus.

The Hist throbbed gently in the roots beneath them.

The wind passed softer.

And when Croc walked the quarter at dusk, people didn't watch him with curiosity anymore.

They watched him with confidence.

He wasn't their protector.

He was theirs.

Part III: The Dragonborn of Himself

The courier sheet was late.

It came bundled with a cheese wheel and a wrapped satchel of dried reeds. Croc found it at sunrise, resting by the food crates.

He sat on the wide stone near the fish pit and unrolled it.

Ink smudged. Paper damp.

Still legible.

He scanned the headlines with practiced calm—tax shifts, patrol sightings, raider skirmishes near Windhelm—

Then froze.

"ULFRIC STORMCLOAK TO BE EXECUTED IN HELGEN — Imperial Crown Names Public Date"

Croc's jaw tightened.

Not because he had love for either side.

Because he understood the pattern.

You don't kill symbols without consequence.

He stood.

Walked to the center of the quarter.

Spoke just three words:

"Double the rations."

No one asked why.

They just moved.

Bryska began checking barrel seals. Shahvee opened the hidden store under her floor. Children were told to play in sightlines. Hunters shifted to patrol rotation.

Croc stared out across the marsh.

And for a long moment, something old and heavy passed behind his eyes.

Not memory.

Instinct.

Introducing the annoying antagonist

Far away, pine trees whispered in the wind.

A cart bounced hard on a frozen path.

The Argonian in the cart groaned and opened one eye.

He was still tied up.

Still cramped.

Still… ridiculous looking.

He flexed his swollen arms and muttered, "Gotta be the intro sequence. No way I'm this jacked for nothing."

The man across from him looked away.

The cart rolled on toward Helgen.

And in the sky above, the first shadow passed beneath the clouds.

Part IV: The Sky Splits

He knew something was wrong the moment they handed him the uniform.

"Uh," he said, holding up the Stormcloak armor as Ralof barked orders inside the keep. "This looks… tight."

Ralof barely glanced at him. "Put it on. We don't have time."

The isekai'd Argonian—who'd once spent four hours choosing his exact bicep definition and crest angle—struggled into the leathers like a lizard climbing into a wine bottle.

He got the chest strap on. Barely. The sleeves ripped halfway up his arms. The trousers strained at the thighs.

He looked like a balloon wrapped in bearskin.

Ralof tossed him a warhammer. "Know how to use this?"

The Argonian caught it one-handed and grinned. "Please. I was built for this."

He spun it once in a fancy arc—then slammed the handle into the wall by accident.

Ralof blinked. "…Right."

Then came the fighting.

It wasn't like the games.

There was no lock-on. No UI. No "target weak point" pop-ups.

There was just the weight of the hammer, the tightness of the armor, and the fact that his arms wouldn't reach back far enough for a proper swing.

He charged the first Imperial in the hallway like a wrestler in a bathhouse.

Swung wide. Hit the wall.

The Imperial stabbed him in the shoulder.

Ralof buried an axe in the soldier's back before the next blow landed.

"Get it together!" he barked.

"I slipped!"

"You nearly slipped your guts out!"

Every fight after that was a variation on the theme:

Warhammer gets caught in doorframe.

Tries to spin-flip over a table and lands on his tail.

Tries to shout a one-liner while swinging and gets elbowed in the ribs mid-phrase.

He kept calling out moves like "Argonian Groundbreaker!" and "Tailspin Takedown!" as if naming them made them effective.

They didn't.

Ralof saved him five times.

By the time they reached the escape tunnel, the Dragonborn's ragged uniform had split open at the shoulder, and he was wheezing like a pipe organ with a leak.

But still—he grinned.

"Hell of a start, huh?" he said, leaning on his hammer.

Ralof looked at him like he was a particularly sweaty animal. "Just keep moving."

And above them, somewhere far away, a dragon roared across the sky—unaware that the "hero" it had helped create had just accidentally hit himself in the knee with his own hammer.