January 25th, 2019 - Seattle, Washington

“...And I, can’t take this anymore.
The way that I,
See you with him.
Because girl,
I know you’re not happy.

And I, can see it in your eyes.
So don’t try, and hide these lies.
Because girl,
I know you could be happy.

And I, hate the way you cry.
Cuz baby, why do you stay?
Why don’t you runaway?
Why don’t you runaway with me?

Cuz I can’t take this anymore.
No, I can’t take this anymore.
No, no, I can’t take this anymore.”

Leif’s voice echoed gruffly from the microphone. There was a small gathering of onlookers in the rundown bar of Irish Democrat. A few people cheered, and the rest clapped before turning back to their pints of beer. He sighed, he had put so much work into advertising on social media, but it seemed that he couldn’t draw the crowds like he had hoped. He moved to stow his guitar in its case, and slung it over his shoulder.

“Hey you did a great job up there,” Sam said. Sam was the bartender, and he had seen the early days of grunge, he continued to encourage Leif even when he felt like he wasn’t good enough.

“Yeah thanks Sam.” Leif brushed off the compliment, not feeling the good about himself.

“Want a pint?” The older man chirped.

“Nah. I’m gonna head home.”

“Alright. I’ll see you next Friday?”

“Yeah I’ll be here.”

“Alright. Take it easy kid.”

Leif headed for the door, and stepped out in the dark of night. He reached into his leather jacket and pulled out his pack of smokes, putting a cigarette between his lips, and inhaled slowly. The curl of smoke rising up like an ethereal tendril under the orange glow of the lamplight. His mind wandered, thinking of how far he had come since dropping out of college. Who needed a Liberal Arts degree to make music? Not him. The repercussions of him dropping out reverberated through his family, his mother was heartbroken, and his father was livid. In fact, his father refused to speak with him now. On the other hand, his mom would call every now and then to check up on him. As a last act of rebellion, Leif headed north from Berkeley, selling what belongings he had to buy an old Volkswagen van. He headed for Seattle, the heart of grunge music. If anyone would find him and help him turn his hope of becoming a solo grunge rocker into reality it be there.

His mind wandered to Deidre, he wondered how she was doing these days. The last time he saw her was in California, the day she broke up with him. Leif stamped out his cigarette and headed to the back parking lot to his van where he climbed inside, stashing his guitar in the passenger seat. His hands came to rest on the steering wheel, his eyes locked on the brick and mortar building.

“Leif… I can’t keep doing this.” Deidre’s words echoed in his head.

“Baby, no. Listen to me. I promise I’ll be a better man. I promise I’ll change.”

“You always say that! You say that you’ll change, but you never do.”

“Deidre, baby. Look, I’ll quit drinking. I’ll do it for you. I’ll get a job, I’ll make us money. I swear. Just-”

“Stop. Just stop. My heart can’t take it anymore, Leif. All you tell me is lies. That’s all I hear coming from you. You’re-”

“Baby please. One more chance. That’s all I’m asking. Gimme one more chance, and I’ll prove you wrong. I swear. No more booze, no more pot, no more acid, no more cheating.”

“I want to believe you, but I can’t. I can’t keep putting myself through this, Leif. The semester is over, and I’m going home to my folks.”

“You’re fucking full of yourself Deidre. The only reason why you’re going home is to be with Alex. I’ve gone through your phone, I’ve read your messages on FaceBook with him. You think I’m such a bad guy huh? Well you’re not so perfect either you fucking slut.”

“Get the hell out of my apartment, or I’m calling the cops.” He remembered how she had started to cry at his words, and it broke him. How could he… how could he treat her like that? What the hell was wrong with him? Why couldn’t he just treat her like she deserved?

Deidre had flown home to Illinois that weekend, and he had left for Seattle. He still followed her on Instagram, and he had been right. She had left him to be with Alex. At least she seemed happy. His gut twisted in guilt, he could have been a better boyfriend to her. He realized how hard he was gripping the steering wheel of the van, his knuckles had turned white. Hot tears stung his eyes, he grit his teeth in frustration. God, he was a piece of shit for a human being.

Leif switched the ignition over, praying that his van would start. He still needed to replace the alternator, but he didn’t have the funds for it quite yet. The Volkswagen rumbled to life, and he pulled out of the parking lot, his headlights cutting a yellowed path on the cracked pavement. He was headed for the beach.

It took around forty-five minutes for him to reach the sandy shores of the beach. He put the van in park and grabbed his guitar case, heading for the sands. It was colder here on the beach than it was city, but of course it was, it was January for Christ’s sake. But the cold would bring some clarity. His combat boots sank into the sand as he walked out towards the water, finding a spot to sit on the sandy knoll. He tucked the case between his legs, resting his chin in the groove as his eyes watched the waves crash on the beach.

He must have sat there for a good thirty minutes before lifted the guitar out of its case. He settled it atop his thighs, his long legs stretched before him, the grey-green skinny jeans were worn through at the knees. Gently, his fingers drifted across the strings, his mind too scattered to focus on any song he had in mind. The cold winter wind bit through his shirt, but he didn’t care. His melancholy had that kind of effect on him, it made him not care about how he felt internally, even if he struggled with the turmoil surrounding his heart. Ah. That was it.

“Your kiss, is like poison sweet as wine…” Leif nodded to himself, that was a good start, the spark of creativity flared within him.

“Your kiss is like poison, sweet as wine.
Moving slowly down my spine.
Your hands are as cold as death,
Baby where have you been?

Give me one last kiss,
Something I won’t miss, when you’re gone.
Here I am, with lips sewn shut,
Backtracking the needle and thread,
Of these words in my heart,
Cuz it never meant anything at all.”

The bus shifted into gear after the customs officer, a Nord man with a five o’clock shadow and a respectable beer gut, completed his passport check by going row by row and checking the passengers one at a time, more of a tired routine than anything particularly engaging. Other than a few extra inquiries and one particularly terse bag check for a Dunmer woman who wasn’t aware that seeds weren’t permitted across the border, the passengers began their journey across the border and into the Northern province of Skyrim, cruising down a four-laned highway to Balgruuf Station at the heart of the province, where other transportation would take passengers to the other cities or into Whiterun proper, if that was their destination.

For J’Turga, he simply was going with the day and seeing what opportunities awaited. Leaning against the large window pane with feet on the obnoxiously patterned seat next to him and his rucksack and bicycle tucked somewhere under the bus in storage, the Khajiit was adorned in a black cotton jacket and trousers to match, a green long toque that covered his ears and hung loosely on the back of his head, and a pair of fingerless gloves that kept his hands warm while letting him idly shuffle music on his player with a cracked screen and dead backlighting, the earbuds tucked away somewhere under the polyester blend of his hat. 25 years old and a native of the Kingdom of Anequina, he decided some time ago to spend a few years travelling before succumbing to the rituals of adult life where a suit and tie awaited him like a noose at his father’s travel agency, or at an office like his mother. Neither prospect delighted J’Turga greatly, and after a particularly vibrant moon sugar prompted vision, the Khajiit knew he still had a lot of life left to experience, and instead of arguing the semantics of responsibility with his parents, he gathered what little savings he’d earned from stocking a warehouse at some retail outlet and decided to see what the world had in store.

It had been three years, and he’d already seen much of Tamriel, taking seasonal jobs to pay for his perpetual working vacation where he told himself that he would eventually return home when his quest had found a proper conclusion, or some sign from Masser and Secunda told him he’d filled his soul with enough purpose that he could resume his duties as a productive member of some community instead of being some subversive Dro-M’athra that chose not to belong. Maybe he was meant to find some foreign hottie girlfriend with smooth skin and no fur, or maybe he was going to get signed on by some big-shot Anvil director who wanted some dashing Khajiit lead for his next big film. Who was to say what Hermorah had in store for him?

He looked out at the massive peaks around him and wondered what this place had been like to travel in before modern transportation. Even the mighty Throat of the World, the tallest mountain of them all, had a series of gondolas going to the summit where a weather station was set up near the ancient monastery of High Hrothgar, which in turn had turned into something of a teahouse and mead hall tourist attraction where people took breathtaking selfies from the top of the world. Maybe J’Turga would do it, when he could afford the 40 Septim lift ticket. Perhaps he would attempt to learn how to ski and work at a resort. The possibilities, much like the land, were vast.

Likewise, the fabled hot springs of Eastmarch had become quite the tourist attraction that saw thousands of people flocking to entirely too crammed pools, and the roadways were often backed up from people pulling over to snap pictures of the famed mammoths and giants of Skyrim, who despite coexisting with the men and mer of Skyrim for thousands of years, never seemed to move beyond their traditional ways, and the Skyrim government had to spend considerable resources in conservation to make sure that their range reserves were preserved. At least one or two idiot tourists were maimed per year getting too close for photographs, as if the towering humanoid beings were decorations for their amusement. The only thing that was amusing was the headlines of how witnesses described how much air the hapless victims managed to achieve.

An excited gasp came from somewhere behind J’Turga, and the Khajiit turned to look out the window as excited murmurs came from across the bus, including a particularly busty orc woman who had all but crawled on top of him to look out the window. Gliding across the mountains off to the West was a massive shadow with an impossible wingspan. Despite himself and the particularly well-endowed company that was all but pressing herself against him, the Khajiit smiled as he watched the dragon soar across the peaks, like something out of a power metal album cover or some old fantasy tale. Of course, dragons were like the giants, intelligent species, but they elected to keep to themselves and not trouble civilizations armed with anti-aircraft weaponry and machine-guns and attacks had been so rare for the past two centuries that people had begun to think that the stories of dragon attacks were myths that vilified the poor animals, kind of like wolves. There were enough videos of them torching some poor farmer’s herd of sheep to buy into that for the common person, but there were enough bleeding hearts out there that anything that wasn’t immediately chewing on their face was a pure and innocent thing that needed to be held like a glass slipper.

Once the excitement died down when the dragon disappeared from view, peoples’ phones and cameras clicking like a symphony of crickets, they returned to their seats and J’Turga was allowed his space once more. Once the orc realized that she’d been rather overexcited about the occasion, her green face turned red, to which she was rewarded with a friendly, knowing wink from the Khajiit. He turned to a well-earred copy of the Tamriel Gazette: Skyrim Edition, one of the rare newspapers that had been in print since at least the 4th Era and was still putting out physical papers, and began to skim over the headlines and classified. The Ka Po’ Tun Emperor in Akaviir was threatening hellfire on Morrowind for trade provocations, some Altmer school teacher had been arrested for demonstrating necromancy in a class of 9th graders in Gilane, a sex cult was at large somewhere in Valenwood. The horoscope told him that The Lady smiled on him today, and he’d be reunited with an old friend, but that he was still incompatible with Atronachs and Serpents; those star signs never crossed. It was all pretty standard fare that washed over J’Turga as he put the paper down and looked at his stack of pamphlets for tourist attractions. There was the prerequisite skiing in Skyrim’s fabulous peaks of powdery snow, an adventurous free-diving tour in shipwrecks near Windhelm where attendees would be taught how to brew their own water breathing and cold-resistance potions, the Winterhold Festival of lights, a white-water rafting adventure, and of course, the spectacular Northern Lights that appeared away from the city lights. Maybe the rafting would be fun, and perhaps they were looking for river guides. It was something he’d rather enjoyed in Cyrodiil, and how hard could it be? He slipped that one into his breast pocket and idly skipped two or three more tracks until a guilty-pleasure pop song by a pair of Bosmer twins came on, and he hoped no one else could hear it.

By the time the bus arrived outside of Whiterun’s downtown, it was growing far too late in the day. Deciding to grab a bite to eat, the Khajiit wandered down the street from the bus terminal and found himself checking his phone for local restaurants, including an Elsweyr Fondue franchise, Shattershield Sweetrolls, and most curiously, the Stronghold Steakhouse, which was a unique Skyrim establishment that was based on indigenous orcish dishes that sometimes involved horses.

You only live once, right?

His mind set, J’Turga set off to the Stronghold, and he passed by a curious building on the strip; M’aiq’s Fortune Tellers. A robed Khajiit statue stood outside, proudly pulling on his Fu Manchu, and the sign said that M’aiq would read all of the stars and standing stones to find out if you were destined for love, fortune, or great success. It had to be worth 12 Septims, right?

"GERONIMO!" It was a bird! No, a plane! Wrong again, it was the Stupendous Sagax, flying high towards victory on his skateboard with purple flame patterns and bright green wheels. He was starting simple for this trick, doing three horizontal spins before landing back on the ramp, flying past his friends as he twirled on one wheel, landing back on all four before hitting the next halfpipe. Mounting the edge for a grind, Sagax slid a few feet before kicking off, now simply going back and forth between the ramps as he built up speed. When he thought he had enough momentum, Sagax crouched low on his board to limit his air resistance. Just before reaching the next halfpipe, he threw his cap up high in the air, almost fifteen feet or so Sagax judged. Perfect.

Up he went, straight into the air with laser precision. He dismounted in mid-air, grabbing his board with one hand and spinning slowly. As soon as he met it, Sagax snatched his cap before falling down, slapping it back on and remounting just in time to touch down on the ramp. He then proceeded to ride in a circle standing straight up, bowing in a smug display of self-satisfaction to his applauding audience. Yeah sure, they only numbered about twenty and most were his friends, but still, praise was praise.

"Dude, sick! Little bro's been dying to see that one, man." Came Frank. He was a good dude, brought up by good people. His brother, Rick, wasn't all that talkative, but he was a nice kid. Liked to watch Frank and the others ride; he was only five and his mother wouldn't let him get on a board. Fortunately, Frank and Sagax were both in their twenties, officially considered adults, so she trusted them with Rick.

"Bah it was nothing..."

"Oh come ON, bro, nothing? That was some Tony Hawk shit you pulled! Seriously, how do you make it look so easy?"

Sagax just shrugged. "Dunno, man. Think I just got a gift s'all. Besides dude, I've been doing this since I was fourteen. You just started!" He was about ready up for another ride, but was interrupted by his own rumbling stomach. "Shit, I'm starving...we should get some grub."

"Pfft, like where? We don't exactly got much cash right now." Valorie chimed in. There we dark bags under her eyes, which themselves were tinged with red. She was either on something or stayed up all last night playing one of her online games. Neither would have been out of the ordinary. "Can't just pull up the console out here."

"Hm...hey, those vending machines by the entrance still work don't they?"

"Yeah, why?"

With a sly grin, Sagax signaled for the three to follow him. Of course, he didn't leave before waving to his crowd and giving out a few high-fives. Soon, a young upstart took Sagax's place in the middle of the makeshift arena; he wished the girl good luck as she passed.

"So, anyone got any quarters?" Asked Valorie. Then she noticed Sagax was kneeling in front of the coin slot, hands fiddling with something. "Hey! The fuck are you doing?"

"Oh, me? Nothing."

"Right, sure. Whatever you say, Garrett." Sagax couldn't help but smile at that. He always loved those games, though if he really was good as Garrett he wouldn't need to work as a UPS driver.

Frank clucked his tongue and shook his head at Sagax. "Dude, if your sister knew you were still pulling these tricks..."

"She ain't gonna know..." he responded, only half-listening. Man, getting a vending machine open was hard work, needed a lot of focus. Why'd they have to make them so damn secure?

"I just don't see how you aren't scared of Piper, man. 'Cause she can go zero to a hundred real fast. I know I wouldn't ever want to mess with her, she'd rip me in half!"

"Man...she's hot, though." Frank added with a sigh of defeat. He tried getting with her before, and Piper let him know exactly how far out of her league he was.

"And if my sister knew you were still talking about her like that-"

"DUDE! Don't even joke! I ain't even gonna be able to sleep tonight now...might not wake up tomorrow."

Finally, after minutes of fumbling around, Sagax heard the telltale clunk of the latch flipping up. Looking around him, Sagax saw no witnesses, and he knew for a fact there were no cameras in that relatively dumpy section of the public park, so it was safe to pop the machine open.

"Mmh...I love bad boys." Purred Valorie.

"You love anyone that gets you food." Frank scoffed.

"Now that ain't true, Frank. They have to be cute first!"

Once they all grabbed what they wanted(within reason; the key was to not take too much), Sagax closed the machine back up, making sure to lock it. Didn't want anyone to have a reason to be suspicious.

Looking up, the group saw the sun had reached the top of the sky, and that sadly meant it was noon. All the "Normies" and their brats would be coming any minute to take over the park like they always do. More kids meant more park police, and that meant less fun to be had.

"Hey, I'm gonna head off now. My only day off this week, so I want to spend as much as I can of it in an air-conditioned apartment." Sagax said as he mounted his skateboard once more. "I'll catch you guys around later. Peace." He kicked off with a wave and rode on back home, leaving the others to their own devices. He hadn't been able to play Team Fortress 2 much, and Sagax figured there were a lot of backs that needed stabbing, and sentries that needed sapping. Yeah, that sounded like a good idea.