"Not if you don't want to."

"I can admire the view from here, then."

Unfairly cute.

Elana takes her over to the ravine edge to see the bridge with the skulls and the rushing river below.

She admires it! (And Elana.)

"That is pretty neat. The stonework's clever - you can hardly see the chisel marks, and that's a really nice arch for something made of just worked stone, and it looks pretty sturdy... The aesthetics are cool, too."

"Supposedly it dates back to the original Nordic invasion of Tamriel."

"It's stood a pretty long time, then?"

"More than seven centuries."

"Not too shabby at all."

"And the skulls are real, not stonework."

Squint. "Oh yeah. Fossilized bone... That is cool," she says. "Do you know if animals like that are still around?"

"All the dragons are dead, as far as I know. There are burial mounds scattered here and there."

"Aw. I bet they looked cool in life."

"Large, ornery, and scaly. Used to enslave people, coerce worship from them."

"Awwww. Well, they're pretty skulls, now."

"That they are. Do you need anything here before we continue on?"

"Hm, breakfast?"

"We can make that happen."

She has Elana set her down for breakfast at the inn - eggs and a thick bread and soup and more mead - but snuggles up into her side the whole meal.

"So are we headed to Solitude, from here?" she asks.

"Mm," she agrees. "Across the river, then back east. The city is on the headland, where the Karth runs into the sea."

She nods. "How much farther, do you think?"

"Not so far as we've already come. Less than half the distance, I should judge."

She hums. "So good chance we're there by sundown, then?"

"Assuming no more bandit encounters."

" - Wait, more bandit encounters?"

"There was a small group on the way here. Only six. You were asleep and I didn't want to wake you."