The longboat swayed in the river waters, tranquil despite the constant rowing, and the faint scent of pinewood drifted along with the breeze. They moved against the stream, their destination a mountain range with snow-capped tips in the distance. The blue sky was completely spotless.

  All things considered, if he were to compare it to the busy streets of the big city, this scenery was idyllic. Peaceful, even. It almost reminded Alex of his hometown. He, of course, cared for none of that in the present moment. Instead, he simply stared, brain failing to comprehend all the new inputs of his body.

  Unconsciously, his thighs squeezed against one another in fright – they felt warm and soft, no fabric there to separate them. A dress squeezed around his body, hugging its new curves like a second skin, and all his nerves felt taut with electricity. Soft, silky. Too much.

  A gasp left his pouty lips, and – instantly operating on a flight or fight basis – he tried to get up… only to immediately trip on his own feet. His legs wouldn’t move the way he wanted them to, and his hips were abnormally wide.

  The narrow shoulders messed with his center of gravity, and the new weight on his chest didn’t help it. He swayed alongside the boat, drunkenly reaching out for anything to break his fall. By some miracle or divine intervention, he did not facepnt on the wooden floorboards.

  His hands held onto a nearby barrel for dear life, limbs shivering like a leaf on the wind. What the barrel was for, he didn’t know. Food? Bottles? Gunpowder? He did not care. The thought didn’t even cross his mind like it usually did.

  If anything, the absence of inane thoughts like that only highlighted how freaked out he was. Not even if he were in the middle of a gang shoot out – not that he’d ever been in one – would it be enough to stop his brain from wandering aimlessly. Waking up in another body, though? That seemed to be enough.

  ‘What? Where?’ He slowly leaned against the barrel, eyes gncing up to look around. The scenery did not change, however – it only came more into focus. The blue sky. The green fields of nd. The grunting of the rowing men. The pulse in Alex’s chest. His bored, frightened breath.

  Everything was too sharp in detail. He took a single step forward, hesitant and slow, before letting go of the barrel. He peered over the longboat’s edge, down at the moving waters below. That proved to be a grave mistake. There, in his reflection, a woman stared back at him.

  Her long, blonde hair fluttered gently in the breeze, and her dress only highlighted her sensual curves. The only thing he could feel any familiarity to in the reflection were his eyes. They hadn’t changed one bit. Still the same soulful, amber eyes he always had.

  The more he looked into them, the more freaked out he became – it was uncanny. His reflection didn’t feel like that of a stranger’s. It wasn’t his body… yet, it was. The woman looked more like his sister than his real, younger one did! Strange, yet fitting all the same. It was as if he had finally found the missing piece to an old puzzle he'd never managed to complete.

  “Who?” The woman muttered, her voice leaving his lips somehow. Soft, warm, gentle. His heart ached, lungs too tight to breathe properly. “This is…” Her voice echoed out again, heard only by him. The other people seemingly ignored him as he stared at the river water, entranced. “Me.”

  He – she – couldn’t understand it. ‘Where am I? This has to be a dream.’ Deny as much as he tried, though, it did not work. The crisp, cold air hit him in the face like a cold bucket of water, everything brought to sudden, crystal-clear crity.

  Finally, he stopped staring at his reflection. His eyes jumped back to the boat’s crew, brain finally catching up to his situation. He could be in danger, after all. These people could be hostile. ‘Focus, freak out ter.’

  The rowing men were all dressed in leather armor, most carrying swords in scabbards in their belts. A few here and there had axes, while others had nothing at all. Other than the ‘mercenaries,’ he noticed, there were also some people dressed in fine clothes. These… didn’t look so good.

  Alex could see a dy sitting by the floor, her eyes dull as she stared at the distance. By her side – as if that wasn’t enough of a dark sign – he could see a man thumping his index finger against the wooden floor, chuckling all alone. Others sat on top of the barrels, silent and despondent.

  Either way, every single one of them looked hopeless. ‘Shit. Is this…’ First the new body, but had he also been thrown into a dangerous scenario? Was he a hostage for ransom? Were they prisoners? It had all the telltale signs of the start to a fantasy story. If the weapons and armors hadn’t been enough, then this cliché surely was.

  It was absurd that he arrived to this conclusion, but so was waking up in another body. ‘You’ve got to be fucking kidding me- wait… am I going to have to fight? Will there be creatures in this too? Undead? Vampires? Dragons?’ The more he thought back on the – few – D&D sessions he’d pyed, the more of a nervous wreck he turned.

  ‘No, hah! Surely not- hah, I’m panicking, aren’t I?’ His breathing sounded loud to his own ears, the noise of the river turning muffled in the background. Alex squeezed his hands against the boat’s edge, nails clipping against the rough wood. ‘Shit- this can’t be good.’

  His skin was too sensitive, the height difference too big to go unnoticed, and the new proportions were too alien to ignore. He became more and more lightheaded, ears deaf as if suddenly stuffed with cotton. ‘Calm down, will you?’ Said his inner voice, dazed and bewildered.

  ‘Water. Sky. Mountains. Wood. Sword.’ He named the first five things he could see, his breathing slowing down. ‘Rushing water. Whistling breeze. Grunting men. Birds chirping.’ Gently, he closed his eyes as he paid attention to the surrounding noises. ‘Rough wood. Soft fabric. Cold air.’

  His body felt sensitive, but that was alright. ‘Pinewood. Sweat.’ He listed, heart finally returning to its usual rhythm. ‘Saliva.’ He sighed, opening his eyes at st. ‘Yeah, just don’t panic, will you? Can’t be that hard, right?’ A chuckle left his lips.

  ‘Just ignore the fact that you don’t know where you are- that you are in another body, and that you probably are in a dangerous situation… fuck.’ He shook his head, hands nervously wrangling together as hysteria threatened to overwhelm him. ‘Fuck it! I don’t care. What is this, anyway? Is this where I begin my great, fucking quest or what-’

  << QUESTS >>

  14th of Morning Star, 4E 188Completed Quests, 0/1

  The Sacking of Wayrest (Ongoing): The capital of Stormhaven lies in ruins, its gates having been left open to the sacking of pirates. Conspiracy? Sheer incompetence? It doesn’t matter now. King Barynia has disappeared – his fate uncertain – and political unrest may soon follow in the region of High Rock.

  You, just a humble merchant, have lost everything to your name. Now en route to the city of Evermore in the company of mercenaries and other unlucky merchants, you must find your footing again.

  However, don’t mistake the protection of these bodyguards for anything long-sting, as they were only paid for this one trip. You must choose… will you stay, or have a new beginning in the nearby region of Skyrim? Beware, though, that Skyrim comes with its own set of opportunities and dangers, for no pce in Tamriel is truly safe from intrigue.

  Objectives (0/2): – Reach the city of Evermore. (Incomplete!)

  – Choose a new destination. (Incomplete!)

  Secret Objectives (1/?):– Gain the continued service of a bodyguard. (Complete!)

  << QUESTS – 1/1 >>

  “What the fuck?” He was starting to sound like a broken record, but could anyone bme him? The words appeared on a translucent piece of parchment, fluttering in the air like illusions. For a brief moment, Alex wondered – again – if he really wasn’t dreaming. He wasn’t, he quickly decided.

  The ‘quest prompt’ both answered his questions – his fears mostly – and created even more in their pce. Wayrest? King Barynia? The more he read, the more confused he grew. ‘High Rock, where is that even supposed to be-’

  Skyrim. His eyes locked onto the word, blinking in disbelief. Skyrim. He’d seen it before. Many times, in fact. Victoria wouldn’t stop raving about the game. She was obsessed with it even though it had come out more than a decade in the past. It was both her childhood and her adulthood, all wrapped into one, simple word: Skyrim.

  ‘Wrong person.’ He thought, numb. Whatever it is that might have happened to him… it had picked the wrong person. He had never pyed Skyrim. Never even seen anyone else’s gamepy of it. ‘Why me?! Why the FUCK am I the one here?’ His head shook in disbelief, eyes running again and again over the same words.

  Then, his mind slowed down. It retraced its own steps, slow and hesitant. Alex tried to resist it, but the thought came to him all the same. How could it not? ‘Am I gone? Poof? Did I just disappear back home?’ It would be comical how long it took him to connect the two dots if it wasn’t so tragic. ‘When will they notice?’

  His sister, parents, Amy- ‘This is not happening.’ His breath turned bored again, stomach turning and turning with nausea. ‘How long would it take for Vic to notice-’ He chuckled, ughing even as the nausea became worse. Nothing made sense, less of all his emotions. ‘Probably no longer than a day. She can’t cook to save her life- hah.’

  This time, he knew, there was no stopping the panic. ‘Come on… wake up… wake up. Wake up!’ His smaller height became all the more noticeable, the mercenaries’ weapons glinting in their leather scabbards. Despite knowing they weren’t hostile, it changed nothing. He had to wake up. He had to wake up.

  ‘Wait-’ But in his panic, his eyes read over the ‘quest prompt’ again. He had overlooked something important. Something beyond important. A brief crity cut through his panic, the words slowly coming to the forefront of his mind. ‘Gain the continued service of a bodyguard? What is that supposed to mean?’

  A hand wrapped around his waist in that moment, warm and firm. Alex flinched, turning around in fright. Who he expected to be one of the mercenary men to have touched him, however, turned out to be a woman. A very tall and muscur woman – he would even go as far as calling her Amazonian.

  She towered over his new height, a full head taller. He only got up to her chest – specifically, her breasts. They almost cast a shadow over him as she stared down at him. Her right hand squeezed around his waist, and a whimper left his lips. “Yes?”

  But, before she could reply, he really took notice of her face. ‘Victoria.’ Bck hair, but longer and braided. Olive skin, but darker. Same face, but with a scar running down her left cheek. It was her. Different, yes, but still undeniably her. She stared deep into his eyes, hand still holding onto his waist.

  An eternity passed between the two in a second, and – whatever it was that she was looking for – she found it. “Alex.” It wasn’t a question, more of a factual statement. The hand tightened and, before he could understand what was going on, she wrapped her arms around him.

  Sweet and smokey, with an undertone of sweat – it was all he could smell. Her body almost concealed his smaller one, and her messy hair draped over his shoulder. Her muscles were firm, warm, but soft at the same time. She was all he could feel. “It’s okay, I promise you.”

  Her voice whispered inside his ears, gentle yet raspy. Alex’s mind bnked out, too tired to take any more shock. He didn’t even question how she could know it was him, or how she could tell how terrified he was. No. Instead, he wrapped his arms around her in that vulnerable moment, sighing in relief.

  “What the fuck is going on, Vic?” He asked after a brief moment of silence.

  “The fuck if I know?” She whispered back, chuckling.

  ‘Yeah, that’s Vic alright.’ He couldn’t help but ugh along, head burying in her chest as he ignored the absurdity of it all. ‘Not even my dreams are this weird.’ He chuckled harder. At the very least, worst came to worst, he wasn’t alone in this insane situation.

  sillyAnon