Skyrim in Chains (Collector x IrishRose)

[Collector of Rarities]

Things in Skyrim had quickly spiraled out of control. In the decades since the victory of the Stormcloaks and the expelling of the Empire and the Thalmor, Nordic nationalism had skyrocketed. Things had become harder than they already were for the non-humans of Skyrim and even the non-Nords would occasionally face discrimination, though not nearly as much as the elves, argonians, orcs and khajiit. Tensions were on the rise, and even the Nordic nationalist movement could see that things would start to get ugly soon. Many solutions were discussed behind closed doors, raised voices filled the halls of the Jarls and even the Blue Palace in Solitude, but no one could come up with a satisfying answer. That is, until one man - Sigurd Thrice-Scarred - appeared in the court of Erikur the Fearless, Jarl of Markarth.

Sigurd came bearing ancient scrolls, the contents of which few have seen for themselves, written in the ancient Nord tongue. Sigurd claimed to be a scholar of Nordic history and said that the scrolls described a time in Skyrim's distant past where the Nords were at their most glorious. He dubbed this era "The Time of Kings" and claimed that the Nords had been a gracious and magnanimous people, accepting of all races and at the pinnacle of their political and economic power, and that a return to these ancient practices would restore Skyrim to true greatness. There was just one catch: during The Time of Kings, the rights of women were harshly restricted. Whether Erikur truly believed Sigurd's claims, or if he simply saw an opportunity for himself, the Jarl and Sigurd began a partnership that would alter the course of Skyrim's history forever.

Of course, Sigurd and Erikur did not openly discuss the less savory aspects of The Time of Kings - especially given that Skyrim was ruled by a queen at the time, Eydis the Fair - but they discussed their ideas in secret with other Jarls and prominent merchants all across Skyrim for years, slowly gathering followers and gradually revealing the true nature of The Time of Kings to the men among them. By the time that it became apparent that Erikur had enough political clout to rival the queen, he'd become far too popular to stop without damning evidence; evidence that was never found. Erikur began suggesting policy changes to the other Jarls, which eventually made their way to Solitude, that seemed innocuous enough at first: revisions to trade laws, diplomatic policy and even expanding the influence of the Companions beyond Whiterun so that anyone would be able to seek their own glory in battle without having to travel far beyond their homeland. People grew happier and life slowly began to improve for everyone, but it was not enough for Sigurd and Erikur.

The policies Erikur and his allies proposed slowly began to become more sinister: "more efficient" methods of taxing men and women separately, different methods of punishment for crimes based on the gender of the criminal, and so on and so forth. Eydis had her suspicions that Erikur's intentions weren't purely altruistic, but on the surface - and without knowledge of the grander plan - these reforms seemed to improve the quality of life for everyone across Skyrim. By the time Erikur began pushing towards his endgame, he had far too much support for Queen Eydis to be able to stop him. Erikur's reforms were brutal: women were forced to obey a strict curfew, could not own land or businesses, could be permanently enslaved if they broke a law, no matter how minor (though this was merely grounds for enslavement: not the only punishment women would face), and were required to become the legal ward of a male relative or some other man who would assume ownership of any property or business they once controlled. Even worse, women's earnings were severely reduced thanks to laws enforcing a "female minimum wage" and rape laws were repealed to the degree that only a man could pursue allegations against another man for "damaging his property" if a woman was taken by force.

Of course, the women of Skyrim did not take these changes lying down, but Erikur was prepared for this backlash and quickly crushed the hasty rebellion. Before the month was out, the rebellion had ended and Queen Eydis had married Erikur, pledging to live her life as a good freewoman of Skyrim, leaving the governance in the hands of King Erikur. As for the men and women who rebelled, many of the men were put to death - though a few survived who were able to convince the officials that they had been mislead - and a good number of the women were enslaved, but not all of them. Each woman who participated in the rebellion was given a chance to repent, to claim that she had been mislead, and she would be allowed to live out the rest of her days as a freewoman.

-----​

Kiro let out a satisfied sigh as he stepped into Tasia's house. He'd obsessed over the Nord lass ever since he'd first laid eyes upon her. It was unusual for a khajiit to covet a human, but stranger things had happened. Of course, Kiro was nowhere near honorable enough to join the Companions as Tasia had, though they would bump into each other from time to time. Kiro had been friendly enough, if a bit forward, during their brief interactions: usually when Tasia stopped to buy something from the khajiit caravan he guarded. While Tasia might have only known Kiro's name, the khajiit couldn't drive the Nord from his head. After she'd revealed where she lived in Windhelm to him, Kiro couldn't help but slip into the city and prowl around and even inside her home, utilizing every trick he knew to learn as much as he could about her. Despite having been in Tasia's home multiple times already, he masterfully pretended that it was his first time. Well, to say it was Tasia's home wasn't appropriate anymore: technically, Kiro owned all of the property that had once belonged to her.

It had been a stroke of fortune when Tasia had tumbled into Kiro's camp towards the end of the rebellion. The other khajiit had wanted to throw her out or leave her to die, but Kiro eventually convinced them to let him nurse her back to health. Over the course of several days, he tended to her wounds and fed her, as well as recommended time and again that she forsake the rebellion and let him look after her. Unbeknownst to the Nord, Kiro had been lacing her mead with a potion that made her more susceptible to his suggestions while he had been taking potions that made him more convincing. By the time she was fully healed, the khajiit had managed to talk her into leaving the fight and becoming his ward, making it seem like it had been her idea to accept his offer all along. After a few preparations to make sure his caravan could survive without him, Kiro set off with his new woman in tow to make her new life official.

Kiro was shorter than the Nord, standing at 5'8", with silver-gray fur dotted with black spots and a few black stripes on his face. He had keen, gray-blue eyes and hair that ended just above his shoulders, which he tended to keep in decorative braids, which used gold rings to hold them together. He dressed in a simple tunic and trousers, his leather armor tucked away in a large sack slung over his shoulder, though he always had several poisoned knives hidden on his person at all times. His bow was also in his sack, along with a quiver of arrows and several potions and poisons he'd brewed in his downtime; the caravan would likely be worse-off until they could find a new alchemist, but Kiro had no regrets in his decisions. He'd had a little difficulty getting the Windhelm authorities to accept his guardianship of Tasia, but with a little help from a few potions he'd quaffed before the meeting, the khajiit had managed to convince them to see things his way.

"Perhaps you could give Kiro a tour?" he purred to Tasia. "Kiro would like to know as much as possible about the property he has just inherited. Kiro will do what he can to make this an easy transition for you, but Kiro must also feel comfortable in his own home. Kiro hopes you'll do what you can to make him feel welcome?"

 

[IrishRose80]

How he had convinced her of this, she would never know.

Skyrim had changed. It wasn’t the free kingdom that she had grown up in, that she had fought for. This ‘return to tradition’ was hard on everyone that wasn’t a Nord man but life had been manageable. She had grown up happily enough, her Imperial mother and her Nordic father an example of the sort of loving couple that she might, in her less guarded moments, express wistful hope for finding herself. It had been her mother that had been a member of the Companions before her, her father a blacksmith and devoted to his tiny, fierce wife. It was from her mother that she got her ferocity and her black hair, from her father that she got her humor and her dark blue eyes. They had both contributed to her temper, and to her sense of honor, and the rule in their household had been ‘whatever the cost, do what is right.’ Honor, duty, loyalty, charity and protection to those less fortunate, courage in the face of danger, all of these were the code she lived by, the creed that had been woven into the very fabric of who she was, as much a part of her as her mother’s nose and her father’s smile.

When the new ‘freewoman’ laws had been passed down, she had been among the first to join the fight. She’d heard tales of brother fighting brother and families torn asunder by conflicting ideologies regarding the Empire and Skyrim, but had never thought to experience herself. It seemed that she was to learn what it was to slay her countrymen. Her mother and father had left Skyrim when the winds began to change, so she was at least able to rest easy knowing that her family was safe. She had refused to go with them; what manner of woman would she be, she asked them, if she were to escape to safety and leave the other women of Skyrim to their plight? Her parents were worried for her but they understood. Unchanging and fierce as the northern mountains, for Tasia it wasn’t a choice so much as a responsibility. And she took her responsibilities very seriously.

Things had gone well for them for the first few battles. Men as a general rule wanted to capture the rebels, not kill them. Add to that fact that there were enough women like Tasia who had made their livelihoods through battle, or hunting, or other dangerous combative means and the first strikes were a rallying cry for the rest of the women of Skyrim. But things couldn’t hope to go so well forever. They didn’t have the numbers, the supplies, the leadership. Tasia was a phenomenal warrior; put a greatsword or a battleaxe in her hand and it was a rare man alive that could touch her. But she wasn’t a leader, had tactical training and was used to fighting alone, not as a unit. In more guerilla style attacks she was unstoppable. When fighting with other women and men… it was more of a handicap. It was only a matter of time, really; it wasn’t surprising that they lost the battle, but that they had held out for as long as they did.

It had been after a sound defeat near the end of the rebellion when she had stumbled, bleeding heavily and nearly delirious, into the khajit caravan that she had frequented so often before all of this insanity. Kiro had been a good friend to her over the years, ever since she was a little girl going with her father to trade with the caravans and she’d been delighted and fascinated with the walking, talking versions of her kitten back home. Kiro was a slimy sort of fellow, but she could recognize the same drive to protect that which he cared about, namely the caravan, that she herself had. Their methods were different but it wasn’t her place to judge, given the hardships that non-humans had to face in Skyrim. It had been Kiro that had found her, nearly bleeding to death from an axe wound (though the axe wielder hadn’t fared as favorably as she had – she took his head while he had only hacked into her side). The khajit cared for her, tended her wounds and kept her warm and fed and safe. He’d always had a silver tongue, and with her a rather captive audience, he had used that silver tongue to convince her to abandon the rebellion and allow him to become her protector. It stung her pride to be anyone’s ward, especially someone like Kiro, someone that she would have seen herself more as a protector of than being protected by. He was smaller than her by nearly a full head, quick and crafty where she was strong and powerful. Still, over the course of his care of her, he eventually convinced her that the rebellion was doomed to fail and that she could do more good alive than she could a martyr for a lost cause.

And now, here they were, having gotten through the ordeal of convincing the Windhelm authorities to allow Kiro to have protectorate over her (she had no idea how he did that) and had finally been allowed to return to her little home on the outskirts of the city. She hadn’t gotten to stay in it much, usually being sent on missions for the Companions and visiting her family and then living on the run as part of the rebellion. It was odd to come back to it, only now for it to be Kiro’s house rather than hers.

She hesitated, glancing at the khajit a moment and feeling a sharp pang of frustrated defeat. It wasn’t his fault, he was only doing what he had to do by the new rules of Skyrim. It didn’t mean that she had to like it. “The house isn’t very large. Not a big plot of land either. Well in the back, a couple of fields to either side, a stable attached to the house. Not much to see.” The house itself was laid out in a very open fashion, which wasn’t surprising given that it was a small house, meant for one person. It was comfortable though, full of little personal touches and cozy; her mother’d had a hand in its set up and decoration. She’d paid well for good furnishings, her home was almost luxurious, as fine as any house in Solitude or Markarth. A hot spring fed into the bathing room in the lower portion of the house, a large pantry off from the cooking hearth and a large, open main room, with bed and dresser off to the back side, chairs and couch near the hearth for warmth. It wasn’t the largest house by any means, nor the most opulent, but it was home, and it was hers.

Well, it used to be. Now it, like everything else she owned, like even she herself, belonged to Kiro. And even if he was her friend, she couldn’t help but feel a little curl of fear in her belly at the thought of just how helpless she was now.

 

[Collector of Rarities]

Kiro went about and looked at everything as if he'd never been in her house before. For anyone else, breaking and entering into the home of someone you were infatuated with would have been considered strange, but for the khajiit, it was almost expected. Not that breaking and entering was a part of their culture - though they were certainly among the craftier races of Tamriel - but they were considered to be thieves and scoundrels by the Nords and were barred from entering their cities. So, in order to learn more about the object of his affection, Kiro had needed to resort to some more underhanded meathods, as he usually did. Now, though, rather than simply rifling through Tasia's belongings, Kiro went about the house and began closely inspecting things, pausing every now and then to rub his cheek against a cabinet or beam or doorway, marking his territory with his scent. The behavior might have seemed a bit odd to Tasia, but not too out of the ordinary: she'd seen her own cat perform similar behaviors when she was a child. Kiro's tour of the house ended in the only bedroom in the house, where he turned and began advancing towards her.

"The house is very nice," he purred, quickly invading her personal space and pressing her back against the wall. He planted a hand to either side of her against the flat surface behind her, preventing her from easily squirming away. "However, Kiro hopes you understand that there are some changes that must be made. Some because the new laws demand it and some so that Kiro can feel more at home." As he spoke, he began to slowly lean in, his shorter frame forcing him to look up at her. With every word spoken, she could feel the khajiit's warm breath on her throat. "For one thing, Kiro is in charge of your employment from now on," he leaned in closer, giving her neck a quick nuzzle with his nose to test the waters. "You do not get to decide your own work: it is Kiro's responsibility to judge your obedience and readiness and find work that is suited to you." He leaned in again, nuzzling the other side of her neck for a bit longer this time. "Kiro, of course, takes this responsibility very seriously," he continued to purr, now rather affectionately nuzzling her neck and pressing himself against her, "so He will be observing you over the next few days for how obedient you are. Obedience is to be rewarded, disobedience punished. This is the duty that Kiro has been entrusted with as your caretaker and he will not shirk his responsibility."

The khajiit's purring became louder as his lips brushed against Tasia's earlobe. She wasn't sure, but she could have sworn that she felt the slight scrape of sharp teeth against the tender flesh of her ear, or perhaps the quick lash of a thin tongue. Kiro backed off slowly after this, a look of satisfaction on his face. It might have seemed a strange custom to Tasia, but it was much more meaningful to Kiro: he'd just finished marking his territory. "On the subject of obedience, Kiro understands that you are used to living as you please, but things are different now. Kiro owns the house now, and while He wants you to be comfortable, He will also live by His own customs. Kiro apologizes if this is displeasing to you, but He will not apologize for who He is, nor will He change His ways. So, as this is the only bed in the house, you will share it with Kiro each night. Furthermore, as women are required to be tethered at night so that you do not break curfew, Kiro will have to chain you to the bed as well; He was provided manacles for this very task when He took guardianship of you." The khajiit paused to let everything he said sink in, as well as to gauge Tasia's reactions to his words. Once he thought she was ready to hear more, he began his final push.

"Now, for Kiro's expectations of you. When Kiro wakes in the morning and releases your bonds, He will take you to the bathing pool to bathe. Once you are washed, you shall prepare breakfast for both yourself and Kiro. After that, you shall set about tidying the apartment while Kiro makes His elixirs: these will be Our only source of income until Kiro has decided what sort of job you are ready for. Once you are done, Kiro will have other tasks for you, which He expects you will accomplish quickly and obediently. Remember: obedience is rewarded, disobedience is punished. The more obedient you are, the easier it will be for Kiro to find a pleasant job for you." A spark of mischief flashed behind the khajiit's eyes for a moment, and before he could stop himself, he added "And besides, you want to be a good girl for Kiro, don't you?" He grinned playfully as he asked the question, though something in his eyes and the way his tail flicked as he asked the question hinted that it wasn't entirely in jest.