<div class="floatright">(http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/dd201/kepcar/SkyrimGrond-1-1.jpg)</div><strong>Rold Ironwing<br/>Trygg's Inn<br/>Side Room</strong><br/><br/>Rold sat on his cot, turning the letter over in his hands thoughtfully.  Thick crease lines were impressed deep in the soft parchment, the edges frayed from constant transport and reading.  At the bottom, scrawled in a script he could barely decipher, was "Legate Blind-Eye Corvinus."  And the old bastard who had wrote it was five paces away, enjoying the local brew.  A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.  That part of the lizard was still the same, at least.<br/><br/>Blind-Eye had ridden into town looking surprisingly spry for his age, but the way he stepped belied his temperament.  Perhaps the years had not been kind to the "Legate".  Rold remembered him as a proud man, boisterous and rash.  Perhaps the years had tempered that as well.<br/><br/>Rold was not avoiding him, not exactly.  He had heard the commotion as the caravan entered Helgen, and watched from his window as Blind-Eye and his soldiers swamped the inn.  The argonian was the only familiar face in the bunch.  Something had held him back from rushing out and embracing -- or confronting? -- the bastard, the sense that a reunion after so many years should be somehow profound.<br/><br/>"Bah!"  He crumpled the letter in a massive fist, tossing it into the corner of the room.  He had wasted time he could have spent drinking and reminiscing with "Legate" Blind-Eye!  Or fighting him.  Either option was appealing.  Regardless, it was time poorly spent, and Rold had never been one to put much thought into the social arts.  He stood, floorboards creaking under the sudden weight, and pulled on a simple shirt woven from white linen.  He'd show off his scars some other day.  But at the moment, he was thirsty!<br/><br/>Rold eased open the door, dislodging a soldier who had been leaning against it, and stepped into the common room.  Blind-Eye stood out like a sore thumb, looking like an old man hunched over the counter like that, with everyone else in the room working very hard to not look at him.  A short woman stood behind him, her features reminiscent of an elf, but with very pale skin and hair; maybe a bosmer/altmer hybrid?  And was that Shadow?!  It really was a reunion!<br/><br/>Rold had never been one for grace or social wit.  He nudged his way through the crowd and grabbed a barstool next to Blind-Eye, opposite Shadow, placing a silver mark on the counter.  "Ale, with the berries."  Rold looked sidelong at the argonian, smiling slightly, and gave him a curt nod.  "Blind-Eye."  Leaning past him, he flashed a wider smile at the armored woman.  "Shadow."