"Well, most people don't live in Windhelm."

"You don't like it here?"

She sighs. "It used to be better, but now... Ulfric Stormcloak is using all of our tax money to fund his war."

"Instead of caring for his people."

She nods. "He recruited a lot of city guard for his army so now we have thieves and murderers and elves on the loose!" She glances at Erandur. "Ah, no offence," she adds, sounding like she very much intended the offence.

"None taken," says Erandur, who is constitutionally incapable of taking offence but is nevertheless extremely confused by why "elves" are said in the same breath as "thieves and murderers".

"That... matches what I've seen, yeah. —but, ah, 'elves'?"

"With the Aldmeri Dominion you can never be too careful, and the Dunmer are nearly as bad, present company excepted," except not really. "Any crimes in this city, five of them were elves, two were argonians, and two were those cat people."

"Erandur is a priest of Mara, and a good friend besides. I trust him implicitly."

She's less reassured than she could be, hearing this from a mage, but still not none reassured. And this explains why the elf is the one in the thick robe while the humans are naked.

"But still, those are the problems that plague Windhelm. And I understand, I do, the Dominion has been hurting us for years and the Empire's just their lapdogs, we need to get Skyrim back, but..."

"That makes sense. You miss the times before Ulfric Stormcloak turned Windhelm into his personal war headquarters."

"...yeah. Personal war headquarters, that's it." Snort. "I suppose it's to be expected of a man who calls his people the Stormcloaks."

"You know, my friends and I cleared the Valtheim Towers of bandits. It should be a lot safer to go to Whiterun nowadays, and from there if you wished to go to Markarth..."

"...the three of you cleared out the whole fort?"

"Oh, no, not just the three of us, we had a lot of help." From summoned Atronachs, so it's technically not a lie. Ruby is not going to say that. He doesn't want to terrify her with the might of mages, Nords are sufficiently scared as-is, even if he reckons the three of them are above average in effectiveness.

"Well... I suppose that does make it easier..."

"But you don't really want to, do you?"

"Maybe to visit."

"So there are things you like about Windhelm."

"I mean, yeah. It's... my home. I know everyone here. I have this place, I love the plazas, I love the market... It gets beautiful in the summer, and the port gets people from all over and gets so lively..."

"I'm not trying to convince you to leave, just telling you about the option." Pause. "And also I wanted to hear you talk about the things you do like about Windhelm, complaining is all well and good but you can't really get to know a place if you don't talk to someone who loves it."

She smiles a bit to herself. "I guess I do love it, don't I?"

"You do. The things you don't like are the ways things got worse than they could be, but you'd like to live in that place, the place that Windhelm could be."

"You have a way with words, don't you?"

"Oh, I wouldn't say that. Words are just... the way you tell someone what's in your heart. They're a means, but what's important is what you're trying to say."