I’m trying to like Windhelm--at least, I’m trying to like it better than Riften, which ought to be easy enough--but whenever a pulse of warm feeling threatens to find its way into my heart, the city shoves some new obstacle in its way. Windhelm’s gray stone walls and cobbles present a bleak appearance even on a sunny day such as this, and the people seem to talk of nothing but war and grief.
And then there’s the racism. Sure, Riften has casual street crime and sarcastic beggars and the Thieves’ Guild supposedly running everything somehow, but at least in that city certain disadvantaged groups aren’t required to live in particular neighborhoods so as to facilitate the Thieves’ Guild’s ability to find and oppress them efficiently. There’s a good deal of unhappiness to go round in Riften, but go round it does; in Windhelm, it seems to blow directly into the Gray Quarter and onto the docks, and settle there.
I spend almost the entire day in the city after rising a little late, around 10 am. There’s almost no raw food available in the marketplace for some reason--I had the same problem yesterday in Riften--so I eat cooked and seasoned meat once again. (Nona’s going to get very tired of roast goat and venison chops before long.) I tan all the hides from yesterday’s travels, make more leather items, and sell them. I visit the White Phial, the local alchemist’s shop, where I buy all of the cheaper ingredients, mix potions, and sell them. Once again, I make a tidy profit doing this, and I gain yet another level. I’ve progressed enough with alchemy to learn the Physician perk, which will make my healing potions more effective.
I’ve now finished work for the day. In fact, if I don’t go hunting or gathering or find a mill that needs wood chopped, then I’ve already finished work for two days, because that’s how long it will take for the White Phial to restock. For a moment, I picture my future existence--living in a city with a loving spouse and only having to work every two days. Assuming that I can find an acceptable city and be an acceptable spouse, which will require me to shape up a little: I’m going to have to stop hating every city I visit, and I’m going to have to start doing some favors for people--you generally have to do a little something for someone in Skyrim before they’ll deign to notice that you’re wearing an Amulet of Mara.
I practice doing favors by telling Hillevi Cruel-Sea that I’ll deliver something to the court wizard for her. (I’m pretty sure she’s already married, but it’s a simple delivery. Also, Jade sometimes wonders aloud whether we’re doing enough in the service of Mara, which I take both as a gentle indictment of my selfishness and a hint that I should be flirting more.) Then I walk around and socialize: I meet a fellow named Calixto with a large and largely uninteresting collection of junk that he seems very sentimentally attached to, as it reminds him of his sister. I meet Tova and Torbjorn Shatter-Shield, a couple in mourning for their daughter.
I wander over to the Gray Quarter again to browse through a shop, Sadri’s Used Wares, that was closed when I came by last night, and what I find there gives me more pleasure than anything I have yet seen in Windhelm: a pair of shoes! (I’ve been looking high and low for ordinary shoes since arriving in Riften; Nona loves her clumpy leather boots, but they have an annoying tendency to clip through the back of her skirt when she walks. Now if only she could solve her embarrassing helmet problem.)
I visit the docks next, where I meet many discontented Argonian workers and a couple of indifferent guards. Stands-In-Shallows asks me to steal some skooma from Candlehearth Hall. I refuse, and he gets very rude. Scouts-Many-Marshes complains about the treatment that the workers receive at the hands of their bosses, the Shatter-Shields. I have the opportunity to volunteer to talk to Torbjorn for him, but I don’t, and I immediately feel terrible. Most of the Argonians here seem like decent, hard-working folk whose lives are desperately hard. Talking to Torbjorn Shatter-Shield for them wouldn’t be so difficult, would it? It’s just talking. But it’s facing-one’s-betters and standing-up-for-the-weak talking, heroic talking, and that makes me uncomfortable.
I spend so much time wandering around feeling vaguely dissatisfied that I suddenly realize it’s getting late and I completely forgot about Hillevi’s delivery. I’ll have to do it tomorrow. (Hopefully Wuunferth doesn’t urgently need his eye of newt or whatever it is I’m supposed to give him.) I return to Candlehearth and talk to some of the patrons, including a likeably dense Nord woman named Valla whose tales of getting into fistfights with various people keep me tolerably entertained until bedtime.