Sans gets his first glimpse of Frisk... and what he sees scares him.

You can read the comic from the beginning here.

​For a second, Sans thought it was Toriel who was coming out of the Ruins. Instead, it's the latest piece of the puzzle that's been haunting him ever since he learned of its existence.

Good thing he teleported far enough away that Frisk didn't hear it when his hand clenched on that whoopee cushion, haha.

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More cute moments with this precious pair of goofballs from my upcoming novel, Upholding the Covenant, brought to you by this week's round of #SlapDashSat Tweets. :)

1.
“What’s in your mouth?”

The kitten’s eyes went wide, her ears flattened against her head, and as she hastily scuttled under the bed, Orennian sighed. “Apparently it’s something you aren’t supposed to have.”

2.
The kitten sniffed at his mouth, and Orennian wondered if this was a sign of affection.

Then she shoved her whole head between his teeth, grabbed the candy he’d been sucking on, and fell into his lap with her stolen prize.

3.
“That,” Orennian said sternly, thrusting a finger toward the kitten’s face, “was not good.”

Kivara stared at his finger for a moment, then affectionately rubbed her cheek against it, and the scolding words died in his throat.

4.
Orennian’s favorite way to wake Kivara was to place a ramekin of pudding next to her nose. She would sniff, twitch and lick in her sleep, until she awoke and her face lit up upon seeing that the pudding was real.

5.
“Kivara, I know you’re angry at the water for making you cold and wet, but slapping it and hissing at it will only make you wetter.”

I hope you enjoyed these Tweet-sized excerpts. If you want to read more funny catgirl stories while you wait for Upholding the Covenant to come out, check out my other novel, Catgirl Roommate.

Time for some more cute, Tweet-sized moments from my upcoming novel, Upholding the Covenant:

1.
​As Orennian walked past the play pen, the smallest kitten stuck her arms between the bars and wiggled them furiously, mewing for his attention at the top of her tiny lungs.

2.
For all her bravado, Kivara could still get overwhelmed. She didn't always voice the feeling, but when the feline toddler's ears went down and she started to suck the knuckle of her thumb, Orennian knew it was time to pick her up and hug her.

3. 
Almost every day, when his work was done, Orennian went shopping. He'd forgotten something yesterday. He wanted fresher food. There was always an excuse.

His bodyguards said nothing, but they knew he just wanted to see the kittens again.

4.
​Orennian flared his cobra-like hood, watching as the kitten's ears perked toward him.

He flattened one side of his hood, and one of her ears went down. He closed the other side, and both ears dropped.

He tilted his head, and she fell over.

5.
"If you want to see my kittens so badly, you could just visit them. No need to pretend to shop."

"I'm glad to hear that."

"Of course, to hold one, you must make a purchase. ...Haha, I jest. Purchase or no, Kivara will climb you all the same."

I’ve seen some people claim that General Tullius can’t be blamed for the opening scene of Skyrim, in which the player character is nearly executed without cause in Helgen. After all, he was across the courtyard – he probably didn’t hear the captain say, “Forget the list, (s)he goes to the block.”

But after listening to several other lines of dialogue, learning more about the laws involved, and observing a few other events, I’ve concluded that Tullius was almost certainly both aware and guilty of the Last Dragonborn’s attempted murder. Here’s what led me to that conclusion:

1. General Tullius probably MADE the list.

For the list the LDB wasn’t on to exist, someone must have written it. The most likely candidate for this role is the mission’s commanding officer: General Tullius.

Even if he didn’t make the list himself, he should’ve at least been aware of who was on it, so he shouldn’t have needed Hadvar or the captain to tell him the LDB wasn’t on the list.

2. Tullius knew the LDB was there.

If you speak to him in Castle Dour, and tell him that you’ve already met/you were at Helgen, he’ll comment that you were “One of the prisoners, if I recall correctly.”

So not only was he aware of the LDB’s presence, but he noticed them enough to recognize them days, weeks, or even months later. And yet, even if they looked nothing like a Stormcloak, he couldn’t be bothered to say, “Hold up, who’s that and why are we killing them?”

3. The LDB wasn’t charged with a crime.

In the aforementioned Castle Dour conversation, upon being satisfied that the LDB is there to sign up with the Legion, Tullius says, “I’m sure your being imprisoned was all a terrible misunderstanding.”

In other words, he had NO knowledge of any crimes the LDB had committed. He didn’t offer a pardon, or demand that they pay off their bounty; he simply acknowledged that they’d done no wrong that he was aware of.

If he had no reason to believe they were guilty in Castle Dour, then he had no reason to believe they were guilty in Helgen. He just couldn’t be bothered to find out whether or not they were.

To Tullius, the life of a potentially innocent person simply wasn’t worth the bother of finding out whether or not they’d even committed a crime, let alone one worthy of death – not that a crime’s worthiness of death matters to Tullius, given that…

4. Look who else was on the list.

According to Imperial law, as outlined in the book Legal Basics:

“Any act of stealing, taking, or, without explicit written or verbal permission (or what a reasonable person would infer as implied permission) an item or items from a person, group of persons, or entity a reasonable person might assume to be sentient's place of residence, business, person, or other location a reasonable person would assume is secured from looting. The punishment for this crime may include a fine or incarceration, or a fine and incarceration.”

And yet, Lokir, a horse thief, was on the list to be executed. No other crime of his was mentioned, so it seems that Tullius knowingly sentenced a man to be killed for what a Legion general should have known was a crime worthy of a fine and/or incarceration, not death.

5. This isn’t Tullius’ only questionable execution.

Roggvir, the man who’s executed when the LDB first visits Solitude, claimed that Ulfric’s killing of Torygg was no murder – Ulfric challenged the High King to ritual combat, which was legal in Skyrim.

His claim is supported by Sybille Stentor, who’s firmly against the Stormcloaks’ goals. She acknowledges that “By Nord custom, once the challenge was issued in court, Torygg had no choice but to accept. Had he not, Ulfric would have had cause to call a new moot and a new vote for High King.”

She claims there was “no choice,” but in reality, Torygg had a choice: he could have refused, and allowed the moot to choose a new High King. He chose his career and his honor over his life, and consented to the duel.

Whether the way Ulfric won the duel was honorable or not is a subject for another discussion. Killing Torygg instead of incapacitating him was, in my opinion, unnecessary and therefore wrong, but that doesn't change the fact that the High King recognized the legality of the fight and consented to it.

Therefore, the duel was legal under Skyrim’s laws, and by extension, so was Roggvir letting Ulfric leave.

Now, there is some ambiguity as to whether Roggvir’s execution was ordered by Tullius or Jarl Elisif, but given Elisif’s kind nature and Lokir’s execution by legionnaires, Tullius seems like the more likely candidate.

One could argue that the duel, while legal under Skyrim’s laws, was illegal under the Empire’s. But Tullius didn’t declare the duel illegal. He simply pretended it never happened, and had Roggvir killed under false pretenses.
​
All in all, the Last Dragonborn's wrongful near-execution wasn’t one-off mistake.

It was part of an ongoing pattern of questionably legal executions, ordered or knowingly permitted by a man who almost certainly knew that the random traveler who wasn’t on the list was about to be killed, but who couldn’t be bothered to find out whether they or his other victims deserved to die.

I’m doing SlapDashSat on Twitter again this week, so here a few of the excerpts I’m sharing. The first four are from the novel version of my short story, Upholding the Covenant, and the last one is from Finding the Truth, the upcoming sequel to Your Truth Cannot Stand.

1.
"Sometimes I fear that my womb is cursed."

"My love. Did your womb cause your former masters to betray you? Did it cause an ailing person to visit our city and bring sickness to our children? No. These tragedies are not your fault."

2.
"You visit the ambassador a lot, my child."

"Yeah, 'cuz, he smells bad until he sees me, but then he smells better!"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean he smells sad, like me when my sister won't play with me. But then he sees me and smells happy!"

3.
"Who kill your cat?" Kivara demanded, and Orennian smiled sadly at the child.

"Nobody. He died of old age. Time killed him."

Kivara snapped her jaws at the air, and he frowned. "What are you doing?"

"I'm biting time for killing your cat!"

4.
“You are just too precious.”

“No I’m not! I’m strong and fierce and BIG! See? I come all the way up to your nose!”

“But if I put you on the floor-”

“NOOOOO! I have to stay up here so I’ll be BIG!”

5.
There were days when the general didn’t know whether to pinch the bridge of his nose, rub his tightening forehead, or throw back his head and laugh.

The corpse in front of him deserved all three reactions.