“I’m sorry Sabhira!”

“What the hell were you thinking Kat?  At what point exactly in our relationship of 10 minutes did you think it would be ok to touch me like that?!”

Look, you may THINK I dress like a nymphomaniac, but that gives you no right at all to TREAT me like one.“

“I’m SORRY!  Really I am.  I don’t know what comes over me…”

“It’s these voices in my head.  They tell me to do things all the time.  I usually keep them under control fine, but sometimes…”

“What?  So if they told you to jump off that bridge back there, you’d have done that TOO?  Look Katherine, I like you.  I really do. But if you’re trying to tell me you can’t control yourself, we’ve got a real problem here.  You think you’re the only one with compulsions? Well let me tell you right now, you’re not.  We all do-if you didn’t know.  But we don’t ACT on them.  We CONTROL them.  ALL the time.”

“I know.  But these voice are… not like compulsions really.  They’re more separate from me than that.  I think it runs in my family. I have this diary from an ancestor.  She had them too.”

“I don’t care if your great grandmother was the Hero of Kvatch, you DON’T go slapping my butt like that!  And let me tell you something else while I’m on a roll… I really couldn’t care less about your preference.  Maybe someday I will, but right now you’re practically a stranger here.  You’re lucky I’m feeling sympathetic towards you today or I’d tell H to kick you out of here in a heartbeat.  And he’d do it too!  I’ve been here quite a while, and I’ve got some pull.”

“Oh, please, PLEASE don’t Sabhira!  I know better, I DO!  I told you I’m usually pretty good about picking which voices I listen to.”

“So what went wrong this time, hmm?”

“Well… I kinda… wanted to myself too.”

“Hmph.  Well, I guess you’re pretty young.  Hormones and glands.  And I can’t say I’ve not done some stupid things in my past myself. At least you recognize it was stupid, and that’s something.  Come on, let’s go, and not say anything more about it.  Just watch that sort of thing, I don’t appreciate it.  And neither does anyone else here… Well, almost nobody anyway.”

“You’ve got it Sabhira.  It won’t happen again.  You have my word on that.”

“Oh, alright.  It’s alright.  I just need you to understand me.  Now come here…”

“…um, Sabhira?”

“Yes…?”

“Just how old are you anyway?  You sure don’t look it!”

“Shut up Kat.  Don’t push your luck.”  (but Sabhira was smiling anyway – so that was good.)

Oh yes.  I supply a vital resource to adventurers all across Skyrim
And that resource is?
Um… portable… entertainment!
Ah.  I see.  You create and sell…
“Adult literature” is what we like to call it.
You sell pornography?
Oh no!  Truly not.  Erotic art perhaps might be accurate though. But none of our works are even NUDE, though they are certainly suggestive.
I see.  And what’s the name of this… publication?
Well, we’re a niche publisher.  We have two.
“Tails of the Khajiit” and “Tails of the Argonian”.
They’re intended for the more eclectic traveller.
You sell these to Khajiit and Argonians?!
Actually no, the vast majority of our readership are human.  They’ve just got quite specific tastes.

Sabhira, Katherine here has just agreed to become
our latest model.  I feel her exotic appearance and
unique style will be a refreshing addition, don’t you
agree?
Of course Mr. H.  Glad to have you aboard Ms. Managan.
Tell me, will you be staying with us?
Er… I… haven’t thought about it yet.

Even when the business is pleasure?
That’s right.  And how about you Ms. Managan.  What’s your story?

Oh, that’s my problem.  I don’t have one yet.  I sort of left home without a plan.  I’ve been here a month and I’m running out of money.  I’ve not found a friend, nor a job yet.  I’ve tried a few things but they just aren’t working out.  I’ve even considered going back home, though Iwould do just about ANYTHING rather than that.  

Well, then you’ve come to the right place Katherine! I’d be delighted to be your friend, and with your unusual look, you’re sure to do well here.  If you can act sexy that is… The one trait that’s really needed for this job is a bit of an exhibitionist tendency.  If you don’t ENJOY posing for the camera, it will never work.  Some don’t have that and theysoon burn out.

Is that why you wear clothes like that?

Oh, certainly!  Heck, this is MODEST around here.  Most of the girls practically strut around in only fur or scales.  But yeah, I do like it.  Frankly I think it’s more… interesting than nudity. Plus, H does like to do “Candid” shots sometimes.  Some of my best work was unexpected.  He’s quite good at what he does – has an eye for it.  But he never does full nudity.  Says it would spoil the fun.

But with all these girls around, you’re SURE H is straight?  

Pretty sure.  It would probably be best to keep him at arms length
though.  Other girls might get jealous.  And past romances with
the staff have not ended well.

Fair enough, and thanks for the advice Sabhira.  It’s good to know what is behind the eye I’m posing for.  It can give me a bit of intuition on what his preferences are.

Note from the author, almost a year after this was originally posted:

Welcome to my little Skyrim universe. Well, it’s been nearly a year since I started this. As should be expected with any new project, the first attempts are rough at best. I’ve changed a lot in both format and style since this first and the whole Katherine Managan story. (For instance, I dropped the whole ‘balloon’ comic idea to one where text is interspersed with screenshots.) I also dropped Katherine Managan herself as being too directly connected to Prequel Adventure (my far and away favorite webcomic ever!). But this first story is still ‘canon’ and sets up the world that is continued in the other Tails of the Khajiit stories that come later.

Also, if you feel like it, I usually post a comment after every update so you might be interested in reading those as well. (and respond for that matter)

Finally, if you’re reading this in it’s ‘blog’ form, I highly suggest switching to the webpage form. Basically if you see no header images and << < > >> navigation thingies at the top, you’re looking at it’s ‘blog’ form. Since I do HTML stuff, esp. in the later posts, you’ll not be able to see it properly (including and primarily the ability to click on the images for high res versions). Just go here: katherinemanagan to read it as intended.

Ok, without any further ado, here is the beginning of Katherine Managan. – BD

So a week or so ago, I installed another mod onto Skyrim – a poser mod.  I’d thought it was going to let me make my own poses – but no, it’s essentially a framework and a group of hundreds of premade poses.  But it was fun to play with.  Then I started getting into Screenshots and thought, “hey, I wonder if I can post these to my Tumblr?”.  Some are admittedly a bit… questionable.  Ok, maybe more than a bit.

But then I decided, heck – why not?  It’s not like there’s any actual nudity.  I keep her sorta clothed at least.  Besides, if someone following me doesn’t like it, easy enough to stop following me.  Yet just posting a bunch of random Katia-esque screenshots is kinda boring.  I’m no artist, I know that.  But I’ve been known to make up stories fairly well.  Between that and at least some talent with Skyrim mods, maybe I was looking at this wrong.

What if I instead put them into some sort of storyline?  THAT might be something worth trying.  I’m no Kaz, and it’s just about certain that I’ll never complete it.  But at very least, it will give me a chance to try something new and see where this might go.  So where to start?  I need a backstory at least.  So I brainstormed a bit in my car while driving home and came up with Katherine Managan.

Katherine is a descendant of of Katia Managan (or if event’s in Prequel preclude that, she’s a descendant of Katia’s family – but she THINKS she’s a direct descendant).  While her life has in many ways paralleled Katia’s, she wasn’t quite so bad off.  As a girl, while exploring the family castle, she came across an old trunk hidden in a walled off part of the old dungeon.  There, she found some ancient but still quite serviceable armor, along with a diary.  There, she read the long and troubled story of her ancestor.  While it would be years before she would be grown enough to actually be able to WEAR the armor, she spent those years reading the diary over and over and imagining herself in the place of her long-dead hero.

However, Katherine was – even by Khajiit standards – a very strange looking child and naturally she was ostracized by the other children.  As the years went by, she began to plan her own life-changing voyage to another land.  Skyrim was her destination though.  So when finally she had had enough, she left home, took the last of her savings and sailed for a new life.  Her experiences on arriving, though, were all too much like Katia’s.  Soon, she found herself getting a bit desperate.

So that’s it.  This isn’t Katia, but it’s not a coincidence that she looks an awful lot like her.  So now I have a vehicle for posting screenshots and maybe even coming up with a story of sorts.  Just… don’t be surprised if it gets a LITTLE bit naughty.  I do promise there’ll be no nudity.  But my model is pretty anatomically correct and in the right (wrong?) circumstances one might be put in mind of the pedal extremity of a dromedary.  (and I’m ashamed how long it took me to come up with that phrase!)

And finally – one for Pepsidude because we’re brothers in our… appreciation.

More to come…  someday soon.  Before Prequel updates at least! 🙂