While it perhaps demeans my aged and wretched body, I still silently weep when I remember the memory of my beloved, who bore me nine strong children. But she is long dead and, although stronghold culture expressly forbids such prolonged outpourings of grief, my stronghold life has likewise ended. The queerest things transport me back into her arms on that moonlit night after our brawl: the release of the hunter's deadly arrow; the struggling of the bleeding-out game, amongst other strange signs of the world. But most of all, it is the laughter of my eldest son, Balgohk, for it transports me back to the day I met my future wife, Zagakh.



The Skyrim campaign had ended in a blur, and I was given leave in the spring of 4E 202. I had travelled down to Falcrenth, staying in the tavern, aptly named 'Dead Man's Drink'. There, I overheard two Legion scouts speaking in hushed whispers:



"Say again, Thalgar?", said the Breton with the short, black hair.



"Must I paint you a portrait worthy of Lythandas' brush, Varus?", retorted Thalgar, a blond Nord with long locks of hair.



"Pray, do so, paint a portrait of thy Orcish maiden!", replied a rather aggerated Varus.



"I was on patrol, as you know well, to the north-west. I had been travelling for some time, and was refilling my flask by the side of a stream", said Thalgar.



"Yes, man! Paint already", sneered Varus, almost betraying his whisper to the inn.



"Aye, man! After I had refilled it, there she stood - bow strung and drawn, and aimed at my heart."



"Were you a-feared for your life?", said Varus in surprise.



"I was more surprised, in awe almost, at the savage and unchiselled beauty of the maiden", replied Thalgar, as I could see his eyes almost glaze over in the dim light of the tavern.



"Paint, man!", Varus said, this time attempting to temper his impatience and to turn it into curiosity.



But I heard no more of the conversation, for I was in a state passed boredom, and slightly intoxicated and aroused by the hearing of this event in the current state of quietness. I departed in my civilian clothing, but armed with my old legion shield, and my steel gauntlets equipped, in the case that I should need to use my fists as a weapon. In the mid-afternoon I left for the north-western forests of the hold, with a commoners hat on to keep the rain off of my head.



I had travelled for just under two hours when the spring sun, newly appeared through the clouds and the cracks of the pine trees, began to descend behind the distant mountains. I settled myself upon a rock my a nearby stream, to take in the beauty of the sight, when I heard a rapid succession of footsteps in the nearby undergrowth.



I prepared my shield, ready to combat the potential bandit group.



None came.



Instead, a young deer, fear etched in it's ebony-like eyes, sprinted but six paces towards me, before falling like a ragdoll to the forest floor. Moving forwards to inquire further, shield still raised, I saw that an arrow, a fine one at that, had punctured its heart with expert precision. Again, from the undergrowth, I heard footsteps. Within seconds, from the greenery of the undergrowth and the leaves of the recently bloomed trees, I saw her. The setting sun reflected off her bright green skin, giving her a certain aura of divinity.



Thus, it seems proper to paint, with this quill, a written portrait of the Orcish maiden.



She must have been seven feet tall, to an inch. Her aforementioned skin shone in great contrast to the variety of furs that adorned, and struggled to contain, her figure. Her nose was almost like the snout of the pig, and added an air of savagery and danger to her facial features. Her tusks, that reflected the dying light as well as her skin, yet cracked in three places, were six inches long, and arched, erect like member ready to pierce flesh and crack bone. Her eyes, a luscious green colour same as her skin, pierced my very soul upon first sight, and paralysed me to the spot.



Her general figure was Malacath's feminine form personified. Her heavy figure, bulging with veiny muscles from her arms, legs and chest, betrayed her swiftness of foot. Her sense of balance and agility, one could see just from her stillness as she analysed me, was without fault. The muscles from either her arms of thighs, I thought to myself in a misplaced sense of arousal, could crush one's windpipe like a architect's vice. Her hips and breasts were firm, child-bearing and child-rearing, but those ignorant or unacquainted with the Orcish race would have thought her far to savage and brutish to bear children.



She had finished analysing me, raised her strung bow to my heart, and cautiously moved towards me.



"Who are you?", she grunted, her voice not betraying any fear, if she did indeed have any in her strong body.



"I am Ulag gro-Bagol. Do put that arrow back in your quiver, lest someone loses an eye. I mean you no harm, providing you mean likewise.", I said, feeling at ease as she unsheathed the arrow from her bow, and lowered it, without taking her eyes away from mine.



"What purpose do you have here?", said she.



"What purpose does anything have here? What of you, but to use your bow and arrows? What of your bow and arrows, but to be made, used, and finally to die. All things must come, stay, and then go at the appointed time.", proclaimed I.



She lowered her defensive posture and laughed and asked "Is your punch as strong as your wit? If it is, then humour me a brawl with Zagakh, former champion brawler of the eastern strongholds!"/



"Certainly" said I, laughing, as I threw off my gauntlets and cast my shield to the ground, preparing to brawl.



Thus is the portrait of my soon-to-be wife, painted with the blood of the subsequent brawl and signed with the faint cursed markings of hindsight.