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SGT_Sky

Silence, My Brother
yes i need more skyrim the novel
 
I don't want to sound like a beggar when I say it, so first I'm going to tell you that I really love the way you're writing this story and how well and in-depth you're making it. I thoroughly enjoy reading these and can't wait for more.
Now for the begging part.
I'm writing a fanfiction story myself called "Melanchol the Excited: A Drow Child's Story"
It would make me feel very warm inside if you read it. "Puppy eyes, but fail cause I'm ugly*
 

Neriad13

Premium Member
yes i need more skyrim the novel

Getting back to it shortly. =) I've been vacationing in Skyrim with a new character, with a playstyle that I've never tried before, after not really playing much at all for months. I do have to say that the experience has left me better equipped to write about the stealthy character who'll be playing a prominent role in the next chapter. Call it research? >.>

I don't want to sound like a beggar when I say it, so first I'm going to tell you that I really love the way you're writing this story and how well and in-depth you're making it. I thoroughly enjoy reading these and can't wait for more.
Now for the begging part.
I'm writing a fanfiction story myself called "Melanchol the Excited: A Drow Child's Story"
It would make me feel very warm inside if you read it. "Puppy eyes, but fail cause I'm ugly*

Link, you ugly puppy? ;)
 

AstroSteve

Dovahking
Hey, Jerund, are you the one who created the Drow Race mod? I'd just like to know if you're a mod maker really and if I could somehow help with any mods you have planned? Just to let you know I have a merit GCSE grade in IT but zero modding experience so I thought I could help rather than make my own mods. Perhaps hand drawn art or musical composition once I get my keyboard-laptop setup working.
 
Hey, Jerund, are you the one who created the Drow Race mod? I'd just like to know if you're a mod maker really and if I could somehow help with any mods you have planned? Just to let you know I have a merit GCSE grade in IT but zero modding experience so I thought I could help rather than make my own mods. Perhaps hand drawn art or musical composition once I get my keyboard-laptop setup working.

Oh no. That was Zazemel. I'm okay with computers, but I have yet to get that good. You could look them up at SkyrimNexus. I think they have accepted some help before when trying to make the males work.
One day I hope to be an animator/game designer, but for right now all I can do is write.
 

Neriad13

Premium Member
Chapter IV: To Oblivion
There were twigs and leaves sticking out of Lydia’s disheveled hair and she was grungy, covered in a patina of soot from the fire she’d spent the better part of the night fleeing. She was haggard and grumpy, her face set in a seemingly permanent scowl, mutely pressing on toward Whiterun, her fists bunched at her sides.

It might have been hilarious, had Tanniel not been certain that she looked exactly the same. No, the night had not been a kind one. After leaving Rorikstead in a hurry and crashing through the wilderness in the dark, they had to have run into just about every danger Skyrim had to offer. They’d beaten off wolves, crept around sleeping bears, tripped over shadowed rocks, hidden from a rowdy mob of passing bandits, hardly daring to breathe and she was entirely certain that at one point she had put her foot in a giant’s cesspool. But the sun was getting higher now and burning off the chill nighttime fog. She could see Dragonsreach rising in the distance above the plains, the sun glowing behind it. Her heart fluttered in relief at the sight. It was so close. Just a little bit farther and they’d reach it at last. She had been beginning to think that she wouldn’t make it without collapsing into a heap and foaming at the mouth. Her mind was locked on the end table of her attic room in the Bannered Mare. Once she got there and locked the door securely behind her, she’d finally be able to make this shaking stop.

It had started sometime in the night, as they’d run from one danger to the next, their overpowering desire for sleep weighing down their every step. They’d had to clear out of Rorikstead in such a hurry that Tanniel hadn’t had a chance to grab the bottle of skooma she’d hidden in her room in the Frostfruit Inn. She had worried about it at first, but as they pressed on, had to believe that she’d be fine, that she could go one night without a taste of the stuff. It was true that she had been feeling much better recently - well enough to have no need of its pain-relieving abilities. She’d been thinking about swearing off of it entirely. It didn’t appear that today was the day for it.

Her hands were shaking ever so slightly whenever she held them up to her face. She could feel her bones rattling deep inside of her, her organs quivering. Her mouth was horribly dry and on top of everything else, she felt weak from the physical exertion she’d been putting herself through after not having done much of anything for weeks. She was hoping desperately that Lydia hadn’t noticed anything, that she didn’t suspect what had been going on since she’d first arrived in Whiterun and met the Khajiit caravan that had been camping outside the front gates. What would she think of her if she knew about the addiction? Their new friendship was on shaky ground as of yet and there was still so much that was mysterious about Lydia. She was afraid to push her luck in this matter. In fact, she still had a lingering fear of Lydia herself.

“Huh.” Lydia suddenly said, stopping in her tracks and studying something in front of her.

Tanniel blinked out of her stupor and looked around. They’d walked right up to the Western Watchtower entirely without her noticing. A shiver of fear ran down her spine. She could still smell scorched flesh on the air and pick out the burn marks on the ground where nothing would grow. There was the nook she’d been hiding in for most of the battle. That was where the dragon had gone down. There was the stone that had halted the progress of her broken body. Of course, she had seen the place after the battle once before – the cart to Rorikstead had traversed the road right next to it. But it had also been moving faster than walking speed and she’d chosen to stare at her knees instead until the tower was lost to the horizon behind them. It wasn’t a place she wanted to remember and she just wished Lydia would move on.

The housecarl skipped ahead and nudged something with the toe of her boot. Tanniel felt suddenly cold as she came up behind her and saw what it was.

It was a massive pile of weather-bleached bones haphazardly tossed in the long grass. She might have thought that it was the long-dead remains of a mammoth, left behind by some gang of poachers or a pack of wild beasts that had taken it down during a hunt, had she not seen the terrible claws or picked out the steely jaws on its disconcertingly lizard-like skull.

“It’s still here.” she murmured to herself, putting a hand over her palpitating heart.

“Where else would it go?” Lydia answered wonderingly, picking up a bone and testing its weight in her hand.

She circled the dragon’s skeleton, eerily transfixed, slowly taking in the details. It was nothing but a pile of rubble now, hardly something to fear. She couldn’t imagine it speaking, laughing, taking to the air, raining down fiery havoc or its cruel jaws clamping down on human flesh.

The stupid thing had given her nightmares ever since she’d taken its soul. She’d seen the tower ablaze so many times in her dreams and knew the snap of her own bones so well now that she could probably replicate the sound exactly with her mouth, if she’d ever had a reason to do that. But that was hardly the worst of it. The most horrible nightmares were the ones in which she was the dragon. She would fly at dizzyingly high heights and speeds and wake up nauseous from the nonstop motion. She’d feast on screaming humans and feel every sinew and muscle and drop of blood slide down her gaping throat. And then there were the ones in which she died – where a small figure blinded her, where she went shrieking to the ground, where her flesh peeled from her boiling bones and her very being burned away into nothingness.

They weren’t like ordinary dreams, where she had at least some semblance of control and the power to do things differently than she had done while waking. It was more like she was locked in to someone else’s body, stuck in a corner of another mind, forced to do the hideous things that he had done without deviation.

A sudden wave of overpowering hatred gripping her, she aimed a vicious kick at the pile of bones, with perhaps a little more force than was absolutely necessary. An electric shock of pain ran down the length of her foot and she gasped aloud at it, nearly falling over. Lydia hurled the bone back on the pile and quickly suppressed a sI'm a racist asshole who doesn't understand boundaries, respect, or basic human decency and I need help at the sight of Tanniel’s hopping.

The bone hit the dragon’s skull square on the horn and knocked it to its side, so that its empty eyes were staring eerily in Tanniel’s direction. But they weren’t quite empty, she noticed as the tingling in foot gradually died down and she studied it closer. Something dark obscured one of the cavernous sockets. It couldn’t possibly be what she thought it was, after all this time. There had to be looters about, after all. Someone had hauled the bones from the spot where their owner had fallen to this sad mound. Her curiosity getting the best of her, she carefully stepped closer, the loose bones shifting and creaking ominously beneath her quaking feet. She bent down and gently pulled the sword from its resting place in the dead dragon’s skull.

It slid out easily, with next to nothing holding it in and didn’t look too bad, for all its weeks spent outdoors. Its leather grip was half-burned and rotting away. The remains of it crumbled and fell off entirely when Tanniel touched it. The sword’s blade was tarnished and blackened with soot. But when she rubbed it with the back of her hand, the grunge came off fairly easily and a reasonably healthy shine was restored. She skipped haphazardly off the shifting mound of bones and made a few cursory swings with it.

She liked the feel of it in her hand. It made her feel powerful and heroic, capable of changing the course of rivers. There was something special about the blade that had taken down a dragon. All the other souvenirs she’d gotten from that day reminded her of nothing but failure and hurt – scars and bruises and broken bones and the wrecked breastplate that she couldn’t quite bring herself to throw away but couldn’t bear to look at either.

“Hey.” Lydia suddenly said, drawing her sword, “You’re holding it wrong. Come here and I’ll show you.”

Looking at her quizzically, Tanniel obediently trotted toward her. Lydia gripped her blade invitingly, egging her on with a smirk. With a cry, Tanniel lunged at her. Her whole arm vibrated when their swords met and the weapon dropped from her shaking hand. Lydia bent down, picked it up and handed it back to her, pommel first.

“See?” she asked, “The problem is you’re holding it too tight. The tighter the grip you keep on it, the easier it is to break that grip. What you’ve got to do is be more relaxed.”

She twirled her own sword in her hand to demonstrate. Tanniel shook her wrist to get rid of the numbness that remained from the blow and tried to emulate Lydia’s grip. It was a little difficult without the use of a proper grip and she felt as though the weapon would slip through her fingers. Lydia came at her again, more slowly and gently this time. Tanniel swung at her and found that she was able to move more fluidly and block her far more easily than before. The force of steel against steel didn’t run all the way down her tight arm either. When Lydia smiled at her and finally sheathed her blade, Tanniel felt a certain sense of accomplishment. For once she hadn’t dropped her weapon. She’d been able to follow Uthgerd’s advice, given an eternity ago in the depths of a barrow.

The thought brought back all the sadness she’d been tamping down since leaving Riverwood that bright morning. Her old friend the yowling beast stirred in her chest again, flexing its muscles and sticking a hook in the back of her throat. Tanniel coughed to dislodge it and hoped that Lydia hadn’t seen the mist in her eyes.

She couldn’t have – she was already far ahead of her, her fists swinging at her sides, her entire focus on the city rising up before her out of the morning mists.


***​
Jenassa estimated that the body wouldn’t begin to smell for at least forty-eight hours, should the weather hold. As for how long it would take for the man to be missed; that was a variable that she couldn’t count on. But she had a feeling that it would take a long time before anyone started to worry about the buffoon, Nazeem.

He had been a somewhat difficult man to kill. She’d been shadowing him for weeks, mapping out his schedule, taking note of his favorite places, waiting for the opportune moment to strike. For breakfast, he always crammed a sweetroll into his face and washed it down with a jug of alto wine, at his usual table in the Drunken Huntsman. Then he’d head into the marketplace and insult the quality of the vendors’ merchandise for an hour or so. When he grew tired of that or the effects of the wine wore off, whichever came first, he might take a lonesome stroll around the Wind District, which normally culminated in him running into his wife under the Gildergreen. They’d bicker loudly over some miniscule issue until one of them gave up and stormed away, exasperated. Then he’d head up to Dragonsreach and attempt to nab the Jarl’s ear.

This was something that was absolutely hilarious to watch from her shadowy vantage point in the rafters of the Great Hall. It was beyond pathetic, how puffed-up and important Nazeem acted around the Jarl versus how little attention the Jarl actually paid him. He’d offer his outlandish suggestions and political opinions over lunch in Dragonsreach to deaf ears and glazed eyes. Every so often, he might get a good argument going with the Jarl’s brother or Dunmer housecarl, but those times were few and far between and everyone’s words tended to fizzle away into nothing in the end anyway.

The rest of his day would be spent at the Drunken Huntsman, alternating between checking over his business ventures, reading books, napping, eating a light dinner or getting drunk. He’d eventually fall into his meager bed in the inn, spend the entire night snoring and kissing his pillow passionately and would eventually wake up late in the morning to repeat the entire process.

The problem with killing him was that he so rarely left the walls of Whiterun or the company of other people. If she shot an arrow from a shadowy corner and brought him down in the city, she might be able to get away cleanly, but his death would no doubt cause a scene and a massive panic. A crowd was a force that couldn’t be controlled or predicted and she couldn’t guarantee her escape with one on the loose. Too many times before had she made the mistake of killing a bounty in plain sight of Nord villagers. Regardless of the price on a criminal’s head or the payment offered for a man’s death, the one thing that was true for Nords was that they would always look out for their own far before even considering the needs of a Dunmer stranger.

Her breakthrough had come about one week ago, when she was awakened by the rare sound of silence in the Drunken Huntsman. Nazeem wasn’t snoring and he wasn’t in his bed either. Beginning to panic, she had taken a quick run around Whiterun and discovered that he hadn’t been taking a midnight stroll around the city either. And then, just when she’d decided to write the incident off and go back to bed, she’d found him, stumbling drunkenly through the gates of Whiterun, loudly arguing with the night guards over curfew. He’d wandered somewhere outside the city walls sometime during the night, into the dark and unpredictable wilderness, where daggers in the back are as common as rain. It was her grinning intent to catch him the next time he pulled that trick.

In preparation for the joyous event, she shifted her sleep schedule accordingly, lying awake for long hours into the night, waiting for him to make his move. It happened one evening when he got unusually soused and she heard him stumbling out the front door and crashing down the steps. She was on his back in an instant, tracking him out of Whiterun and east down the road to Honningbrew Meadery. She assumed that that was his destination, considering his inebriated state, but to her great surprise, he walked right on by without even a pause and made an abrupt turn to the north. He soon came to Chillfurrow Farm and began pounding on the door of the little, run-down shack on the property. The bleary-eyed farmhands living inside woke up and humored him for a time, but it was obvious that they just wanted to get rid of him and get some sleep before waking up early to tend the livestock. Finally, they gently managed to nudge him out and lock him outside.

He paced around the farm pathetically, calling out the name of his wife, occasionally stopping to vomit or break down weeping beside a pile of chicken excrement. It was bizarre to watch and puzzling to the extreme, until she remembered how he was always bragging about how he ‘earned his way to the top.’ In all likelihood, this was where he had started – in this one-room farmhouse with his wife, working the land like any old laborer until he finally succeeded at his business ventures.

She knew he was lonely without the company of his wife. He was certainly desperate for any attention – all of actions centered around that motivation. She wondered if he didn’t come back to their little shack every so often, drunk out of his mind and hoping to return to a place that time hadn’t changed. His wife didn’t live there any longer, of course. She’d all but left him and seemed to be doing her best to avoid running into him.

She felt a small twinge of remorse as she crept up behind him, as he braced himself against the back of the farm’s stone mill and shook his groggy head. She berated herself for it – that was uncalled for and entirely unnecessary. This was her dinner that she was feeling sorry for. It wasn’t seemly to cry at the beheading of a chicken or the slaughter of a cow. And that was all he was, all he should have been to her – livestock.

If he died, she’d be able to eat well for a good couple of weeks. She was starving even now, having gotten down to the last of her funds at the bottom of her purse. She’d been eating nothing but bread and rough ale for days now, hoping to stretch what little money she had left. When she did sleep, she’d dream of steaks and chops and fine wine to moisten her dry gullet.

No, it had never been an easy thing to be the daughter of refugees in a land that didn’t want her. Everything she owned, she had had to take for herself. Every septim, she had pried from dead hands or wrenched from the tight fists of those who employed her. She was in the business of killing and with every kill there was always a choice to be made.

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It was between him and her. He lives and goes free without ever suspecting a thing. Perhaps he makes amends with his wife and finds marital bliss once more. Or he dies and the price of his life fills her rumbling stomach.

Inevitably, the answer always fell to her side of things. She didn’t have a single thing against him. He was a puffed-up buffoon, boastful and needlessly cruel to his wife. He was one of the most hated residents of the hold, both for his business dealings and supposed political sway. None of those things were any reason to have him killed. Silly things like that aren’t worth the price of a life. But she was hungry. Her stomach gurgled even as she thought of it.

Nazeem looked up blearily, startled by the sound, his beard streaked with snot. She placed her hands gently around his head. His dark eyes widened with terror and his mouth opened in what had to be the precursor to a scream. She snapped his neck with a quick motion before he could make a sound and his body sagged lifelessly in her arms.

He had a good bit of gold on his person and a few nice pieces of jewelry, all of which would add admirably to her fee. His wedding ring she would hand over to her employer as proof of his death. As the first rays of the morning sun colored the sky, she fast found a place to stash the body among the nearby rocks under Whiterun’s stout wall. She buried it under a rough covering of river stones and gravel, hoping that it would be enough of a barrier to dissuade wild animals from a free meal, at least for a little while.

It would probably be those same farmhands who had kicked him out of his old house who would find the body of their beleaguered employer, perhaps a day or two in the future. Maybe they’d be drawn to that area by skeevers or a hungry wolf pawing the ground. Maybe they’d smell a rot surpassing the scent of their fertilizer.

At any rate, she had to admit that she would miss Whiterun. It was a pleasant hold that had been far kinder to her kind than she thought was even possible in Skyrim. She’d spent more time here than at any other stop she’d made since leaving her family. And the plains that made up most of the hold housed such a good amount of game – bandits with nice bounties on their heads, ripe for slaughter and occasional, more under the table sort of work. She was a little disappointed at having to leave it so soon, but figured, since she was thinking that way, that it was just about high time to leave it anyway. Settling down was the last thing she wanted to do.

She’d thought of leaving behind the mercenary’s life many times before. Sometimes she even longed for it. It would be a change to take a job as menial laborer and make a steady amount of coin doing some mundane task, as opposed to the sudden windfalls and long famines of her current line of work. Perhaps she’d even consider learning a trade that extended beyond the slitting of throats.

The thought always disgusted her when it entered her mind and she’d shoo it away with a slap of her hand. If that ever happened, she’d be just like every other elf she had left behind in Windhelm – second-class citizens, there to support the ruling Nords - nothing but nannies looking after spoiled children and farmhands working ice-infused ground that was too hard for even the Nords to bother with. The life of a mercenary was an uneasy, unsteady one, but at least by the end of the day, she was beholden to nobody and bound to nothing. Freedom was hers and that was all that really mattered.

She tossed Nazeem’s purse from hand to hand as she slowly walked back into Whiterun, casting a wary glance at a couple of scorched Nords entering the city awfully early for a pair of upstanding citizens.

She soon forgot them as she began jogging excitedly past, her mind filled with thoughts of sweetrolls and boiled custard, alto wine and icy ale. Oh, she’d have a right feast for breakfast, with all the trimmings she could fit in her grumbling belly without getting sick.

And after that? She didn’t know. She’d have to clear out of town before the body was discovered, of course. But after that the whole world was open to her and no barrier would stop her from exploring every inch of it.

***​
There it was – the Throat of the World. Its long shadow loomed over Whiterun, bringing an unearthly chill to whatever it touched. Storm clouds swirled around its peak and if Tanniel squinted and strained, she could see the occasional flash of lightening amidst the dark haze. She must have walked beneath the mountain a hundred times without a thought. It was an enduring fixture in Whiterun, a pretty piece of scenery that had next to no impact on daily life in the city. Of course she knew of its holiness – it was the birthplace of mankind, the place where Talos received the prophecy of his ascent to the throne of Tamriel. There were a couple people in the city who had made the pilgrimage there in the past and brought home stories of the trip. They spoke of the bitter weather, the treacherous steps and the hungry animals that hid in caves in the ice.

Until recently, she’d never even considered going on her own pilgrimage. The thought of climbing up there terrified her – the thought of scaling another mountain ever again, in fact, after the disaster that was her foray into Skyrim. The dread of creeping frostbite and the slow despair of being buried alive were things that had not failed to leave a lasting impact on her.

This was going to be different; she had to remind herself continually, clenching her fists defiantly. She would not be entering alone and unprepared into the wilds of Skyrim this time. Lydia was by her side now, ready to defend her against all comers. She couldn’t express how glad she was to have a traveling companion again and hadn’t realized exactly how lonely she had been previously until Lydia had stopped ignoring her. Something dramatic had changed in her after they’d fought that cat together and spent the night tramping through the darkness.

They’d pooled their resources the second they’d dragged their weary bodies into the Bannered Mare and had made a plan of attack. Tomorrow was the day they were to leave for High Hrothgar, in answer to the Graybeards’ summons on that fateful day. After the events of the previous night, they’d both agreed that it was an exceedingly good idea to get out of the hold for a while. Today would be spent packing and purchasing supplies. Tonight they’d get a good meal in and one last night in the comforts of civilization. In the early morning they’d be off, leaving the city behind for Mara-knows-how-long.

Tanniel had slept for hours after they’d had their chat and even the excitement of planning the trip hadn’t been enough to keep her up. Every part of her ached from all the physical exertion she’d gone through yesterday. Her head buzzed and she couldn’t stop shaking. Even after Lydia had left to stockpile provisions and she’d gotten her fix in private, she had awoken from her nap with a deep, unexplainable sense of sadness, though her sleep had been dreamless, not plagued with visions of razor wings in the dark.

She’d taken one last stroll through the city, silently saying goodbye to everything that had ever meant anything to her. The thought of never returning was not far from her mind. It was here that she had once wanted to make a life for herself, to carve a comfortable niche behind the safe stone walls. But that wasn’t the root of the problem. She’d barely lived in Whiterun for two months, hardly enough time to build up feelings of nostalgia. No, the real issue was how close the hold was to the border of Cyrodiil. She knew, that if she so desired, she could so easily jog down the road to Riverwood, slide through the ruins of Helgen and run straight through a snowy pass back home. It wouldn’t be as simple as that, of course. Very little could ever force her to revisit Helgen. But it was always an option in the back of her mind, a nearby escape hatch that could be utilized in dire circumstances when her homesickness finally became too great.

Leaving Whiterun sealed off that last hope of escape. It barred shut the doors of Cyrodiil and all who lived behind them, perhaps for good. There was no telling where this adventure would lead, what anything that had happened meant or even if she’d come out of it alive. All she knew was that by walking forward, she’d have to leave her old life even further behind.

Her heart stung and her chest itched. She turned to the city wall and cast a suspicious eye about for onlookers before she scratched it vigorously in the shade of the mountain. The itch reminded her of that terrible day in the Jeralls as she lay on her bloody bedroll in the Stormcloak encampment, feverish and oozing life force, having drunkenly decided to never look back again. She couldn’t quite remember the exact circumstances of the action, but she knew that that was when she must have thrown it away.

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Involuntarily she found her hand traveling to her empty wrist. Of course it was empty. It had been empty for months and the leather bracelet that Henricus had made for her was buried in the ice, had rotted away with the changing seasons or had been long carried off by some bird and woven into a nest. He had been the much better leather worker of the two of them. She had no idea how long it had taken him to painstakingly carve out those intricate designs or when he’d measured her wrist to get just the right fit. He was better at everything, really. Better at sneaking, better at hiding, better at reading and writing, more imaginative than she’d ever been and stronger to boot.

He had to be dead. There was no way the Thalmor could have glossed over him, after he’d helped her to escape them, after he’d been branded the adopted son of Talos worshippers. He had to be dead along with their parents. They had to be – or else she couldn’t move on. If there was one thin thread left that bound her to Cyrodiil, it would wrench and tug on her until it dragged her back home. And now that she was plunging deep into the heart of Skyrim, that frail hope had to be gone.

Henricus was dead.

Elga Ice-Veins was dead.

Augund the Tanner was dead.

Her bottom lip quivered and her eyes misted over. She exhaled shakily and their memory was blown away on the afternoon breeze.

The stones of Whiterun’s stalwart wall were cool as she rested her sweaty elbows on them and leaned against the barrier, languidly watching the shadows of the clouds pass over the plains of Whiterun Hold. The wind was harsh today, though no harsher than any day in the winter-bound province of Skyrim. She could see it rocking the trees that lined the path to Riverwood and sending violent ripples through the dry grasses.

The Throat of the World still loomed large before her, its peak shrouded in whirling storm clouds, its copious snow cover plainly visible from her limited vantage point. As she watched, imagining herself scaling the jagged path, the haze parted for the space of a moment. Her eyes widened as she saw a great building emerge from the mists at the top of the mountain. With amazement, it dawned on her what it was, what it must be. High Hrothgar itself. The destination ahead of her. She leaned as far over the wall as she could without plunging over it, drinking it in, absorbing every detail she could pick out in the short space of time that it was visible.

She nearly jumped out of her skin at the touch of a gauntleted hand on her shoulder. It roughly pulled her away from the wall and turned her around to stare into the faces of two unreadable guards, their emotions concealed by their encompassing helms. A little ways behind them, a red-haired farmer with singed clothes leaned wearily against the post of a house, his arms crossed and a look of disdain smeared all over his features.

“You’ve been accused of a crime, Thane.” The guard said gently, though not relaxing his grip on her shoulder, “I need to take you to Dragonsreach to get this all sorted out.”

She squirmed around as they dragged her away and caught a glimpse of the wind kicking up again and the layer of clouds being blown back into place.


***​
It was another feast with another friend on another night that would be the last one spent in civilization for a long time. Merriment and raucous song rocked the foundation of the Bannered Mare tonight. Bodies crowded around the fire, laughing and drinking, their wild forms throwing peculiar shadows on the walls.

Lydia felt disconnected from it all and was thoroughly absorbed in her own thoughts. She was saddened by the whole thing and couldn’t quite understand why. Every beat of the drum sent her a little deeper into despair. Every chortle and short grated on her nerves. She wanted to just trot upstairs and hit the sack, but Tanniel wouldn’t take too kindly to that. Tonight was supposed to be a celebration, both for Tanniel’s extraordinary good luck and as a final salute to Whiterun before they departed for parts unknown.

Today had been tense on so many levels, for both of them. Lydia recalled stepping back into the Bannered Mare a little past midday, having completed her shopping and preparations for the journey – only to discover that there was no Thane within miles of the place. Eventually, someone had directed her to the Dragonsreach Dungeon. And there she had been, nervously seated on a cot in a cell, chewing on her bottom lip. Apparently a farmhouse had been burned to the ground the previous night in Rorikstead and the town sought reparations for the damage, which Tanniel in no way could possibly pay with her current funds.

Lydia had been inexplicably furious at her, as though getting arrested after she’d spent all day getting ready had been her fault. She hadn’t said anything aloud, of course but judging by the look on Tanniel’s face, she hadn’t been able to put a damper on her body language.
But in the end, there had been nothing to worry about after all. The Jarl had stepped in and taken care of everything. When the red-headed farmer had pleaded his so case, Balgruuf had listened sullenly before sternly telling him off that Tanniel is Dragonborn, his own Thane and would not do time in prison for an accident so long as he was jarl. Half the price of the farmhouse would be paid from the Jarl’s own pocket, but no more could be spared due to the cost of keeping an armed force ready in case of dragon attack.

The farmer had blubbered and begged, but handily gave up when the Jarl had summoned a duo of palace guards to escort him out. He’d given the two of them a death glare as he passed by, fraught with weariness and frustration.

He looked miserable now, sitting in the darkest corner of the tavern, wretchedly taking measured sips of his tankard in between bouts of conversation with the equally unhappy-looking scaleback beggar seated across from him. It was for the best that they leave him alone tonight, though she did feel awfully sorry for him after the reception that the Jarl had given him. Though it must be said that she was equally glad that things had played out the way they had. In fact, it might just be for the best that they were leaving in the morning, the way things were going.

And then it hit her. She was being uprooted again – that was the reason for the melancholy. Once again, she’d be leaving behind the familiar, the comfortable space she’d come to carve for herself in Whiterun. It was funny - the entire time she’d spent living here, she’d done almost nothing but hate it and dream of leaving. And now that she was finally departing, she found that, against all odds, that she had gained a certain fondness for the place. For a bit, no matter that she had been driven into it by a will bigger than hers, it had been home. She knew its streets and people, its weather and wildlife. It was home for the time being, the only home she had at the moment and she had no idea what lay ahead.

The journey to High Hrothgar seemed unreal, though she’d spent all day preparing for just that. She didn’t know what she thought about anything – about dragons returning, about making the trek to see the fabled Greybeards, whether Tanniel really is who the Jarl so vehemently believes she is. The best course of action seemed to her to be to leave the hard questions for tomorrow and focus only on the tasks at hand.

“A toast!” the tavern bard suddenly cried out, interrupting her thoughts, as he finished his song with a dramatic strum of his lute. “To the lovely Carlotta Valentia! Here, here!”

Loud voices were raised and tankards drained. The lady in question glowered and glared at the bard, quickly packing up her things, taking her daughter’s hand and leaving as quickly as the crowd permitted. Lydia rolled her eyes and bit into an apple.

Tanniel whooped and hollered deafeningly, slamming her tankard down on the table and sloshing mead all over the already sticky floor.

“Come on, Lydia!” she said cheerfully, her bright eyes sparkling with the liquor, “It’s our last chance for good mead. Don’t you want to get at least one toast in before morning?”

“Ah…no.” Lydia answered carefully, staring into the depths of her tankard of herbal tea. It was horribly bitter and every mouthful seemed to get a twig stuck in her gums, but it quenched her thirst and that was what mattered. She wound her hands around the warm tankard pensively.

“I…” she went on, looking at Tanniel dully, “…once did something regrettable after rather too much mead. I’d rather not relive bad memories.”

“Huh.” Tanniel answered, fleeting curiosity flickering over her features. She thankfully didn’t ask anything more and soon turned back to the entertainment.

When the hour passed and their feast was reduced to a pile of charred bones and apple cores, Lydia wiped her hands and stood up, all business.

“All right.” she said, “Now, about armor for you – I know we couldn’t afford it and the road is dangerous enough with armor, but I’ve got a solution. Though there’s a chance that you may not like it.”

Tanniel looked at her quizzically, the drunkenness just beginning to fade from her flushed cheeks.

“Why wouldn’t I like it?” she asked carefully, under her breath.

“Upstairs.” Lydia whispered, leaning in close, “I’ll show you.”

She looked around with darting eyes and saw that the vehemently Imperial-supporting Battle-Born oaf was fully absorbed in his drink. With any luck, he wouldn’t be causing them any problems tonight. Waving a finger in Tanniel’s direction, she trotted across the crowded room, stomped up the stairs and closed the door securely behind them once they were both inside.

Tanniel watched curiously as she made a beeline for a large sack that had sat in her corner ever since she’d set up camp in this room. Cautiously, she undid its strings, reached inside and pulled out her old armor, piece by piece, laying it on the bed. The broadcloth undergarment, the chainmail shirt, the leather jerkin and last of all, though she hesitated for a moment to take it out, the blue Stormcloak surcoat.

She had kept it all, carrying it on her back all the way from Windhelm simply because she didn’t know what to do with it. It wasn’t anything that could be of further use to her. In fact, it’d be dangerous if the right people in Whiterun caught her with it.

She glanced up anxiously, expecting the worst and saw Tanniel’s jaw drop to the floor.

“You’re a Stormcloak?” she asked, her voice low, but still far too loud in Lydia’s ears.

Was!” she hissed under her breath, “Was, yes! But the only side I’m on right now is yours. My idea is…if you just get rid of the colors, it’ll be perfectly serviceable on its own. What do you say?”

Tanniel eyed it warily, scratching her chin. Then she shrugged her shoulders.

“Well…” she said quietly, “It’s not as though I have many options. So…thank you.”

Lydia let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding in. She felt like she’d just jumped over a massive hurdle that she hadn’t even realized existed. Lethargy suddenly overcame her and she yawned vociferously, stretching as she did so, feeling a ton of stress leak out of her tight muscles.

“Good.” she said gruffly, clearing her throat and brushing it off as though it was nothing, “Then, I guess I’ll see you in the morning. Good night.”


***​

Tanniel couldn’t stop fidgeting. She worried away at her belt buckle, played with the ends of her hair, wore a circle in the floor as she paced and brushed non-existent crumbs off the immaculate bedspread. There was a spot on her chest that itched furiously and was slowly, surely driving her insane, as she couldn’t reach it through Lydia’s chainmail.

The oversized armor was weighing heavily on her shoulders and the sleeves drooped down to her elbows, partially pinning her arms to her sides. Her belt did a little to take the weight off the rest of her body, but the truth was that she just wasn’t used to wearing it, Lydia was bigger than her and it had been so long since she’d done anything strenuous that she’d wasted away to almost nothing in bed.

But that she could deal with, given enough time. All of it was merely a distraction from the bigger issue. It was really happening, right at this moment, though it felt like a dream in her sleepy mind. In minutes, Whiterun and everyone she knew there would be left far behind. They’d exit the front gate with the dawn and the road would carry them to their destination – and to what else? Who could know?

With a grunt, Lydia shoved the absolute last thing that would fit into her bag, tied it shut, though it was bursting at the seams and slung it over her back effortlessly. Tanniel exhaled and took one last look at the room that had been her home. She’d left it exactly as it had been when she had first moved in, except for the large, obnoxious wine stain that had soaked through the plaster of the wall and wouldn’t come out no matter how much scraping and scrubbing she did. The bed was made and its covers smoothed. All the end tables were empty and the dresser was bare, save for the busted breastplate in the bottom drawer. That she’d decided to leave behind – it would be nothing but dead weight on the trip and she couldn’t bear to throw it away either, no matter how useless it was. Maybe the next occupant of the room would find it and wonder how on Nirn it’d gotten there. Or maybe she was just leaving it there as a piece of evidence that here, for a short while, she had existed and made her home.

Gently, she closed the door behind her as Lydia clomped down the stairs ahead, making an awful racket in the wee hours of the morning. Upon reaching the main space herself, she paused to take in one last look at the warm hearth that she’d supplied for so long, the worn benches circling it, the comfortable chairs in the far corners of the room. Her eyes were automatically drawn to the dark corner beneath the balcony, as they always were in time. That had been Uthgerd’s favorite spot. There she’d gambled with Mikael nightly in her chosen chair, swearing and laughing at the little table over a few bottles of mead as they engaged in contests to see which was the best cheat out of the two of them. It was there that she’d challenged her to a fight and won, against all odds. It was empty and dark now, as it was and would always be from this point onward.

For the longest time, she’d wondered why no one had ever asked after Uthgard. It had been over a month since her death. Surely she had had friends and family. Wouldn’t they have been knocking on the door of her empty house, asking after her and wondering why the growing cobwebs were never cleaned away? Wouldn’t someone have been worried about her? And then, after long, silent thought, she had realized why that was, as she had laid still in her bed, trying not to move and rip her wounds open anew.

That was just how things were with adventurers. They bounced from place to place like a summer breeze, stopping in momentarily to say hello before going off on another journey or sleeping under the stars. And at one point or another, all adventurers would step on a trapped stone or fall down a mineshaft or get caught off guard by a wild beast as they traveled alone and would never survive to return. No one questioned that certainty. That was just a simple fact of life and a cold one in the harsh land she’d found herself in.

She nodded at Hulda, in the midst of her morning sweeping and taking a deep breath, opened the inn door.

The market square was pitch black, except for the bright torches of the night guard and the faint light of the stars above. It was eerily quiet at this hour of the morning, with most of the citizens of Whiterun still tucked away safely in their balmy beds. The dawn air was cold and brisk and her breath made a mist as she exhaled. Tanniel shivered and picked up her pace, hoping that the movement would warm her up. Lydia was already far ahead of her and waiting at Warmaiden’s expectantly.

Adrianne Avenicci, one of the town smiths, had agreed to open shop earlier than usual just for them. Tanniel had decided to take the sword that she’d felled the dragon with along for the ride, more as a good luck charm than anything. Adrianne was kind enough to refurbish it with barely a day’s notice, after the beating it had taken in weeks of wind and weather.

Mirmulnir. She suddenly found herself mentally correcting her thoughts. The dragon’s name was Mirmulnir.

She cringed, wondering at how she had known that and why the thought had entered her head so abruptly. Shrugging it off, as she’d shrugged off so many things recently, she stepped up to the door and politely knocked on it.

There was the sound of soft footsteps and a key being turned in a lock. Adrianne appeared at the door, smiling sleepily and inviting them inside with a gesture.

“I’ve got it in the back.” she called out as she turned away, walking into the room beyond, “It won’t be a minute.”

Moments later, she sauntered back out and laid the sword on the counter delicately. Tanniel picked it up and turned it over in her hands, admiring the detail on its new scabbard. The blade itself shown as she drew it, free of its previous coating of charcoal and rust.

“And, that’ll be twenty more septims.” Adrianne piped up cheerfully, interrupting her thoughts.

She dug around in her rapidly dwindling purse, trying not to look too frantic at the difficulty she was having at finding the right amount of money and scraped up what little of the gold remained from Bleak Falls Barrow. There were a few ancient, tarnished rings left now – they’d probably buy a couple nights in an inn with meals, but after they were gone, she wasn’t entirely sure of what would happen.

Once their business was competed, she fastened the sword to her belt, thanked the woman for her time and turned to leave.

“Oh, wait!” the smith suddenly exclaimed, slapping her palm on the counter, “I almost forgot. I’ve got one more thing for you. You’re leaving for High Hrothgar today, right?”

“Yes.” Tanniel answered carefully, realizing that this was the first time she was actually admitting aloud to anyone besides Lydia that she was doing just that.

“My father commissioned this for you some weeks ago. He wanted to present it to you himself, but, you know, the Jarl’s busy schedule and all that.”

She pulled out an oddly shaped package wrapped in oilcloth from beneath the counter and heaved it into Tanniel’s waiting hands. It was heavy and strange in her grip and she undid its bindings carefully, not sure what to expect.

It was an axe, its steel polished to a high sheen almost akin to silver. As she ran her finger along its edge, she felt a jolt of cold tingle down her arm. When she leaned in close to inspect it and breathed on it, her breath came back in a puff of steam.

“It’s enchanted?” she asked, trying to hide the awe in her voice.

“That was the court wizard’s doing.” Adrianne answered smoothly, tucking a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. “Careful you don’t cut yourself with that. It’s a gift from the people of Whiterun, a token for our Thane to remember us by as you go on your pilgrimage.”

She tapped on its blade and Tanniel saw the words “Axe of Whiterun” emblazoned on it in glowing silver letters, amid fanciful filigree. She didn’t have the faintest idea of what to do with it. The only type of axe that she knew anything about was only good for chopping wood. And anything that had been touched by Farengar was immediately marked as distasteful in her book. While she didn’t think that he would actually go ahead and do something like that, it wouldn’t surprise her if he’d laid a curse or two on it in the course of his enchanting.

She wrapped it back up, tucked it under her arm, thanked Adrianne nicely and exited the shop. When she stepped outside, she saw the first streaks of sunlight just beginning to color the gray sky in a dull pinkish hue. The few guards at the entrance of the city nodded groggily at her, some clapping, one cheering quietly as he pushed open the gate for them. Lydia darted outside immediately, her jaw set, her vision dead forward.

Tanniel hovered on the threshold for a minute, looking about at her surroundings and taking in the scent of Whiterun for one last time. And then, seeing that Lydia was getting awfully far ahead, she cut her sentimentality short and jogged after her out into the unknown.


***​

Jenassa tossed her weighty purse from hand to hand, enjoying the sound of jingling coins immensely. She wished that she could’ve stayed a little longer, just one day more was all she asked. Drink a bit more wine, eat a little more meat, maybe gain a few pounds in time for winter as she lounged around lazily like a well-fed horker.

But that was the way it had to be in her line of work. The innkeeper had been asking after Nazeem already. He was too good and steady a source of income to be forgotten for as long as she’d hoped. And then his wife had gotten word of his disappearance, presumably after she’d gone an entire day without being graced by his charming presence. And wonder of wonders, it had turned out that she cared about him just enough to send out a search party. There were guards scouring the countryside now, combing through every blade of grass, knocking on every door and she feared, digging under every disturbed rock they found. Chillfurrow Farm and the hired hands who had been the last people to see him alive was most likely the first place they’d visited. It wouldn’t be long at all until they searched the area behind the farm and found that pile of troubled rubble.

When she heard a guard stomp into the tavern in the early morning to wake Anoriath and begin questioning him vigorously about his patron’s nightly habits, she’d packed up in a hurry and slipped through the backdoor with no one the wiser.

She’d put a little distance between herself and Whiterun now, was steadily calming down and feeling more confident that she’d gotten away with her crime after all. The sunrise was shaping up to be a beautiful one, with warm shades of orange and pink slowly dying the undersides of the few gray clouds in the sky. It was still freezing of course. Even in the middle of Sun’s Height, one could still find ice and snow in Skyrim. She couldn’t recall a single time in her life in this land when she wasn’t cold, not one morning when she couldn’t see her breath or didn’t have to break the ice on the washbasin to wash her face. It had just been something she’d had to grow accustomed to, like it or not.

There had been a time before then, when she’d lived in the shadow of a volcano and breathed its ash, when there was nothing but burning sand beneath her bare feet. But all of those memories were blurred and distorted. It had all happened so long ago and in such bizarre circumstances, that she was never quite sure which recollections were dreams and which were true.

But that was the past and hundreds of years ago to boot. Now there was a choice to be made, as she came upon a crossroads. The possibilities were just about limitless, stretching as far as the horizon in before her. Where to next? Riften was always a good source of work, what with someone in it always conniving and in need of backstabbing, but it was a pretty good walk from here. Dawnstar wasn’t too far off – that road led right to its doorstep. But it was a dull place, fraught with snowstorms that would only get worse as the season lurched closer to Winter, filled with nothing but wretched miners, sailors and the occasional horribly lost traveler who flopped up on deck, utterly confused as to how he’d gotten there.

Instead, before she even thought about it, she found that her feet were already on the path to Windhelm.

The place held so many memories. It had been a refuge in a time of crisis, when the sun was blocked out by ash and her childhood home was buried in mounding rubble, where her and her family had fled and found home again, where a few loyal friends still lived to this day. Her family wouldn’t be there, of course – they’d long since moved on, ever since that fire had broken out in the Gray Quarter and taken everything they owned with it. They had taken to petty banditry to keep body and soul together and were constantly on the move from the law. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d seen them. Was it really fifty years ago now? That seemed absurd but she guessed it was true. Time does wait for no one.

Jenassa had gone with them at first, thinking that she had no other choice but to stick with her kin and was unsure of what else there was to do in this frigid wasteland. She’d stayed for years, helped out on a few raids, plundered ruins and tombs with the best of them. They could never make enough money to keep everyone clothed and fed at once. There were weeks and months that had passed by without a single good haul. But she would have stayed with them through thick and thin regardless, if not for one bad day.

Everyone was starving. It was the middle of Frostfall and they’d not seen a deer in days or met a lone traveler on the road in a week. That merchant’s cart looked like the biggest piece of luck they’d seen in a long time. It should have been an easy raid. But the merchant had a temper. He’d gotten angry and drawn his blade against her younger sister. It had been Jenassa’s father who had saved her life, hitting him with an arrow from afar before he could strike another blow.

That was when they’d heard the crying from the back of the wagon. The man’s wife and child were back there, wrapped in furs and huddling beneath a tarp to keep warm. Upon hearing the murder of her husband, the woman had run at them shrieking, slashing at everything and everyone before her. When she fell too, only the child remained, shivering in her seat, her chestnut eyes welling with tears of terror. For a long time, they had debated about what to do with her. She couldn’t be let go. She’d seen all their faces and knew who the murderers of her parents had been. But they couldn’t keep her either. All she was was another mouth to feed and another body to clothe. There had been heated debate, with her crying coloring the background of every angry retort. In the end, there had been only one choice. It was Father who had roughly dragged her, screaming and sobbing, out behind the miserable shack they were using and put an arrow in the back of her head. Jenassa had seen her blood still staining the snow in the morning, a cheery red like fresh snowberries against a lacy backdrop.

In her life, she’d done much that was utterly despicable, vile in any standard. She’d killed many times before. She’d robbed beggars blind when the time demanded it. But children she could not touch. Oh, her parents and siblings had haughtily argued that it was only a Nord child after the deed had been done and that by killing her they weren’t doing much at all. Nords reproduce like rabbits. There’d no doubt be hundreds more of them to replace her by the end of the year. What’s one little child in the grand scheme of things? Because of her they had food for their bellies and that was all that mattered in the lean months. Perhaps they had been right after all. Who was she to judge them? Or anyone?

Banditry hadn’t been for her. She’d left them with the coming of Spring, in the early morning, without even saying goodbye. The money was bad, with so much competition also in the business of assaulting wayward travelers. They’d spend night after night huddling in shoddy lean-tos or drafty abandoned forts, just waiting for someone, anyone to pass by and toss a meal into their waiting laps. Though she’d spent many hungry days as a bounty hunter and hired assassin, none of them had ever been so bad as the ones she’d spent as a bandit. Her fate was in her own hands now – she didn’t have to wait for a rich man to walk through her trap. And the harder she worked, the greater the reward. Precious little was so satisfying and logical as that. And children never had to be involved.

Suddenly, interrupting her thoughts, she saw a shadow speed past out of the corner of her eye and felt the need to hurriedly tuck her coin purse away. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled and a strange scent, like murky pondwater tickled the back of her throat. It was more a feeling than a scent and it filled her with unease. Her eyes darted around from side to side, checking for any suspicious followers. But she came up with nothing except for the two Nords who’d been walking ahead of her ever since she’d left Whiterun.

They seemed innocent enough. She was sure that they weren’t even aware of her presence. One of them was a brawny warrior-woman, the type of person she hated intensely. She was probably just a brainless bodyguard, blindly following orders and ancient tradition. If she picked up her speed and tried to pass her, she’d probably spit in her eye and call her a Grayskin. It wouldn’t be the first or last time she had an unpleasant encounter on the road.

The other girl was slightly more interesting, if only for comical value. She was tiny, for a Nord, her miniscule height barely clearing the altitude of her companion’s broad shoulders. She was wearing a suit of armor that was far too big for her and clattering around her knees uncomfortably. A long, impractical mane of tangled knots cascaded down her back, getting caught in the straps of the satchel she was carrying and snagging on the links of her armor. It all gave her a good chuckle, as there was precious little to be amused about on the tundra.

She’d been hoping for the longest time that they’d make a turn sometime soon – a beeline for a farm, a change in direction for Dawnstar, anything that would get them out of her path. She really didn’t feel like dealing with strangers today. Morning had come too swiftly for her, she hadn’t expected to be spending the day in the midst of a snowy hike and her one, crabby wish was to make it to Nightgate Inn and see if she couldn’t get drunk before the sun set again.

Unfortunately, it did appear that the two of them were indeed headed in the exact same direction as her. She supposed that if she really wanted to leave them behind without disturbing them, she could just sneak around them, slipping in and out of the farms, crags and walls that lined the road leading to Windhelm. But that seemed like so much bother for no tangible reward. She was tired and cranky and there was very little that she could be bothered with.

So she kept on, dragging her feet, trailing behind them, still sure that they were unaware of her presence. She could hear them arguing about something. Every so often, a breath of wind would catch a word or two of theirs and throw it back in her ears.

“But, bandits…”

“…you know Helgen would be…”

“No. I told you…”

They were so thoroughly occupied in their conversation, that they took no notice of the murky-scaled Argonian with a drawn knife creeping up behind them. Jenassa’s breath caught in her throat as the air shimmered and the lizard materialized where there had been nothing but air a moment before. Her tail swished ominously. She was absolutely silent on her scaly feet.

It appeared that she was unsure of what to do – if she struck one of them, it was certain that the other would retaliate. Had she been in that situation, Jenassa thought systematically, she probably would have taken out the warrior first and saved the girl for hand-to-hand combat, as she plainly appeared to be the weaker of the two. But then again, squinting at the lizard’s conundrum, there was something that she just couldn’t trust about her. She may have been play-acting as a fighter with her ridiculous armor and toy sword at her hip. But there was something very wrong with the way that she moved, that belied more confidence than she had any right to have. There was something else tucked up her sleeve, something that couldn’t be predicted. With a warrior, one at least knows exactly where one stands.

She was sure that the wan Argonian in rags sensed this too. Her knife wobbled from neck to neck as she tried to choose between the two. It settled on the girl. The two of them kept arguing, their words carried away by the wind, not seeing the scaly hand creeping up behind them.

She knew she shouldn’t get involved. This was none of her business. Someone had hired a killer for this girl or maybe the killer was just as hungry as her and acting out of need for her own stomach. Getting involved would no doubt tangle her in affairs that she had no use for and danger that was worth nothing. But all of that faded away into the back of her mind when she realized that the girl would die.

It seemed funny to think that something so obvious should take so long to dawn on her. The battle played out in her head. The Argonian would leap from behind and slit the girl’s throat. The warrior would lash out upon seeing her companion fall. Maybe she’d get a good hit on the Argonian. Maybe the two of them would fight to the death – the warrior would succumb to poison or the Argonian would fall to the violence of her wounds. Or perhaps the lizard would just make a run for it. She did have little hope of besting an angry armed Nord, but she could move faster than her and dive into some dark corner to hide. But whatever happened, no matter which direction the battle took, the one thing that remained constant was that the girl would die.

She was just a child, tiny in proportion, with stick-thin arms that looked barely strong enough to wield the sword on her hip. It was hardly a sporting challenge. She saw the single drop of cherry-colored blood on the white snow, the shallow mound behind a rotting shack, a pitiful grave dug from frozen ground in the dead of Winter, spinning in her head over and over again. She saw a little girl, bound and gagged, a rustic arrow protruding from the back of her minute skull. And then, her mouth moving of its own volition, before she even knew what she was doing, she cupped her hands around her lips and shrieked the words that popped into being in her mouth.

“Behind you, fools!”

She heard the girl scream and the warrior howl as she drew her weapon. The Argonian hissed disdainfully and made a run for it, before a gout of flame hit her in the back, knocking her to the ground and setting her clothes alight. The warrior ran after her and finished the job in a second. Jenassa found herself running toward them, breathless.

For a moment, the three of them stood absolutely still, facing one another, softly panting. The girl’s shaking hands smoked and her pale lips were tight in her ashen face. The warrior stared at Jenassa suspiciously, her bloody sword still in her hand. Jenassa scowled at her and stomped out the flames around the lizard’s corpse. She bent down, cut a pouch attached to the body’s waist free and dumped its contents on the sparse grass. There were a few vials of poisons and potions, a crumbling flower, a single septim that only fell out when she tapped the upturned bottom of the bag and there it was – a balled-up wad of paper that caught a breath of wind as it fell and nearly rolled away. She snatched it up and smoothed it out between her dark hands, glancing over its contents briefly before thrusting it in the nose of the girl.

“This is you?” she asked coldly, a thin thread of amusement creeping into her incredulous voice, “Thane of Whiterun?”

The girl clapped her hands to put out their fire and gingerly took the note from her. Her face fell as she read it and she swore she saw the bags under her eyes darken the further she got down the page.

“Yes…” she breathed, her shoulders slumping, her shivering just starting to subside.

Jenassa let out a bray like a donkey and then immediately slapped a hand over her mouth in case any more forced their way out.

“You!” she coughed, the hoarse laughter exploding from behind her hand anyway, “You’re the one who burned down Rorikstead? You were the talk of the town all day yesterday!”

The girl opened her mouth to say what was no doubt some biting retort in return, but the warrior stepped between them, sheathing her sword after hurriedly wiping it on the grass.

“Yes. And what of it?” she piped up, grabbing the girl’s shoulder and turning her around, scowling at Jenassa, “Our business is none of your concern and we’re not concerned with you. Good day.”

With that she turned her back on her and set off down the road. The girl twisted, straining to look back at Jenassa as her cohort pushed her down the path, not so pale as she had been a minute ago.

“Thank you.” she called back softly, struggling against the pull of her companion.

“Don’t!” the warrior hissed, “You’ll just make her angry.”

The went on ahead of her, their twin forms growing smaller as they headed farther down the road. Jenassa’s stomach burned. Bile rose in her throat. They made her so sick. She’d just saved one or more of their lives and that was the thanks she got? It was no less than what she had been expecting. But today was different. She was drained of energy, in a mean sort of temper and in the mood to take nothing from anyone. Her hands balling into fists involuntarily, she raced after them. Fine then, she thought. I’ll show you anger, if that is what you wish to see.

“Thank you?” she guffawed right into the girl’s startled face, jumping out from behind, “That’s your best, sera?”

She spat on the ground forcefully and slid to a halt before them, blocking the path.

“What you must know…” she said ominously, staring down the girl with her fierce red eyes, her voice colder than a glacier, “…is that there is not a single thing in this world that is free. Lives are cheaper than gold and steel’s worth more than blood.”

“Hey…” the warrior said softly, a note of warning in her tone, drawing her sword again and standing between her and her charge.

“Wa-wait!” the girl sputtered, waving her empty hands in the air and stepping in front of her companion. Frantically, she stuck a hand into a pouch on her belt, scraped the bottom of it and pulled out a tarnished silver ring with a bright purple stone set in it. She held it out to Jenassa, a pained look on her face, her waiting hand shaking.

“Is this the price of a life?” she asked breathlessly, a quaver in her voice.

Jenassa snatched it up, throwing another scowl at the glaring Nord warrior.

“Why don’t you tell me, sera?” she said emotionlessly, flipping the ring in her hand and letting the sun catch on the faucets of its ancient gem.

Sighing, she stuck it in a thin pocket, shot one last sneer at the both of them and sped off down the snowy road.


***​

Lydia had been in a rotten mood all day and Tanniel couldn’t find it in herself to blame her. They’d both been on edge after the run-in with the assassin from Rorikstead. Nothing felt safe anymore. Every falling clod of snow, every shift in the wind, every crack of a twig sounded louder and more ferocious than it had any right to. Every shadow was a murderer waiting for their arrival and every glint of moonlight was a dagger hungry for blood.

It was with the greatest of relief when they turned a corner and Tanniel sighted the inn they’d been making for atop a hill just ahead. Her heart fluttered and she picked up the pace, the vision of it giving her one last burst of energy before the inevitable collapse into a warm bed. The day had been far longer and colder than she’d thought it would be. Her stomach had been grumbling for hours and her nerves were frayed just about beyond recognition. Behind her, she heard Lydia let out a sigh of her own and smiled at the release of her friend’s long-held tension. She’d had a feeling that this day had been so much worse for Lydia than it had been for her. Her sole work was carrying burdens and with the new threat of assassins to worry about, her load had gotten a good deal heavier than it had been when they’d set out.

The Nightgate Inn didn’t look like much, though that hardly mattered when it was the only rest stop for miles around. Its old wood was faded and splintering. The floorboards creaked as though they’d give way when Tanniel put her modest weight on them. The name painted on the inn’s sign was barely readable, as the paint had flaked so badly, endlessly battered by wind and weather. But when she opened the door, the heat of the hearth wafted out and with it the succulent scent of cooking food. She stepped inside, breathing it in, slowly peeling off her gloves and sticking her frozen hands over the fire.

The few denizens of the establishment looked up in mild surprise at the new arrivals. The old, half-blind innkeeper kept a wary eye on them as he leaned wearily on the counter. A drunk with flushed cheeks glanced up for a second, complained vociferously about the open door and then instantly forgot his forgot his qualms in the bottom of his tankard. A well-dressed Orsimer neatly eating a salmon steak with a knife and a fork paused with the fork halfway to his toothy mouth before losing interest in them and continuing his gentlemanly meal.

And then, she sighted it - one more person, seated in the shadows, in the farthest corner of the room, her feet rudely propped up on a table, boots dripping melted snow on its polished surface, a jug of wine dangling from her dark-skinned hand.

Lydia noticed at exactly the same time and a shiver ran down Tanniel’s spine when she heard the low growl in her companion’s throat. Before she could move, the housecarl was already off, her fists balled at her sides.

“Thief!” Lydia cried angrily, her jaw clenched, “What are you doing here when there are so many other travelers to rob?”

The Dunmer lazily leaned back and took a long swig of wine, dribbling a thin, red stream down her ashen chin. She put it back on the table with a hearty thump.

“Thief?” she answered thickly, her words slurred and heavy, “I did no such thing, muthsera. You must have me confused with someone else. I merely received payment for services.”

“Oh!” Lydia snorted, crossing her arms, “Do you normally threaten people to get paid? Or is that just when you’ve been caught with your hand in a pocket?”

The elf’s eyes narrowed and her thin lips curled into a sneer. Gradually, she heaved herself up, swaying a bit as she did so.

“I paid you and your infant no insult.” She spat densely, “ …you, s’wit, are the one who is trailing me. I came here first and you, second. You’d best change direction if you don’t like my shadow at your back.”

She saw Lydia’s mouth opening, as though in slow motion, forming the words that all of them would regret.

“Stop! Stop it!” Tanniel hissed under her breath, stumbling over, nearly falling in the midst of her travels and seizing Lydia’s arm for support. “Please? Just ignore her. It’s just for one night - that’s all!”

The Dunmer’s sensitive ears perked up and a wicked grin spread over her face.

“Ignore me?” she laughed drunkenly, tilting slightly as she stood and nearly toppling over herself, “Sera, you cannot ignore what is right in front of you!”

She stepped closer, too close, strangely graceful on her feet for the powerful stink of wine that was coming off of her.

“Hey!” Lydia snarled, her hand on her sword, the other one pushing Tanniel behind her back, “Touch her and I will kill you.”

Oh dear…” the elf murmured in patronizing tones, hiccupping mid-step, “…the all-powerful Thane can’t stomach it herself, can she?”

“I don’t want to hurt you.” Tanniel answered softly, a quiver in her voice, peering around Lydia’s bulk fearfully, “In fact, I’m grateful for your assistance this morning. Please, just leave us in peace and we’ll do the same. Come on, Lydia.”

With that last statement she grabbed Lydia’s wrist and tried to pull her away. She wasn’t strong enough, of course. The housecarl ground her heels in, her glaring eyes never leaving the Dunmer’s sneering face.

Please.” Tanniel whispered in her ear, desperation creeping into her tone.

The word broke Lydia’s concentration and the accompanying pleading face softened her resolve. She felt her relax a bit and the stiffness leave her shoulders. Slowly, her fists unclenched, her eyes broke contact with the stranger and she calmly allowed herself to be led away. The Dunmer chortled behind their backs and it sounded very much like she was slapping her knees.

For a moment, Lydia stopped in her tracks, her breathing suddenly becoming shallow and harsh, her dark eyebrows furrowing on her brow. Tanniel could tell that she wanted to hit her – that she wanted to just whirl around with no warning and break her nose. To turn around and nail her completely and utterly without notice and send her flying to the floor. Her fist was ready for it and her arm twitched, itching to move. Tanniel’s breath caught in her throat as she looked around. The inn had fallen silent. Everyone was staring at them. The innkeeper was eyeing them suspiciously with his one good eye and his hand was hovering above some shelf under the counter, ready to seize the weapon that he was most probably hiding there at any moment.

Tanniel took Lydia’s hand, gently un-balling her fist and tugging her a few more steps forward. When they made it to the counter, she dug about in her purse with her one free hand and placed a tarnished ring before the innkeeper with a clatter that reverberated in the chilling stillness.

“A room for tonight and two helpings of whatever’s cooking in that pot on the hearth?” she asked weakly, smiling as sweetly as she could.

“Aye.” he answered, removing his hand from behind the counter at last, picking up the ring, rubbing it off and squinting at it, “Choose whichever room you like. Bowls and bread are on the table. Help yourselves.”

“Many thanks, sir.” She whispered, feeling small and ineffectual.

They’d no sooner sat down to their rustic meal when the bench they were sitting on creaked under the weight of a third pair of buttocks and a half-empty jug of wine slammed down on the table, splashing a spray of amethyst liquid all over Tanniel’s outstretched arm. Saying nothing, she grabbed a coarse napkin and wiped it off as best she could. The elf made a net out of her fingers and rested her chin on it, staring at Tanniel, eerily close, her head cocked to one side, her expression one of curious disdain.

“Have you ever had a rock thrown at your head?” she asked suddenly, the first spoonful of stew midway to Tanniel’s mouth.

“Yes.” she answered sharply, her level of discomfort growing dramatically as she put the spoon back in her bowl.

She tugged back a strand of hair to reveal the egg-shaped lump on her temple that still hadn’t gone down after that night in Rorikstead.

“Hmmm!” the elf murmured excitedly, leaning in closer to look and breathing her inebriated breath directly up Tanniel’s nose.

Tanniel jerked backwards, coughing and waving her hand to clear the air. The Dunmer moved back to a more respectable position, but still watched, uncomfortably near, her eyes following every spoonful of stew as it traveled from bowl to mouth.

“What about…” she went on, still slurring her words after some time had passed, “Every night, say, for about a hundred years?”

Lydia laughed from the other end of the table, spitting out a piece of gristle back into her bowl.

“Bah!” she called over, leaning past Tanniel to get a good look at the elf, “That’s why you’ve got so little intelligence, isn’t it?”

“That’s it.” The elf intoned coldly, slamming her hands on the table so forcefully that the jug toppled and spilled the remainder of its contents all over the surface of the table and into Tanniel’s lap.

Tanniel squeaked in terror as she found herself in the middle of both of them and the ensuing flurry of fists. Before she could squirm out of the way, a wayward punch found it mark square on the lump on her head, knocking her off the bench and flat onto her back onto the dusty floor. Stars whirled in the rafters for the space of a second before she found the strength wrench her legs free and madly crawl away.

As she lay on the floor panting, there was a scuffle of feet, a volley of insults from a little less than half a dozen mouths…and then it was over just like that.

When the dust had settled and Tanniel had shakily propped herself up against another bench, she saw that the Orsimer was heaving with effort, his fine clothes torn and one of his eyes blackened. But he was keeping a sure grip on the flailing, hissing dark elf as she spat and spewed in another language that sounded more violent than any tongue she’d yet heard. The innkeeper and the drunk were hanging on to the slightly calmer and slightly bloodier Lydia, who was glowering at the elf silently, but not fighting against her flushed captors.

“Don’t you ever judge me!” the elf snarled, finally reverting back to a tongue that everyone could understand, spit flying from her lips, “Living in fear for your life because of people like you isn’t something to laugh at!”

“Balagrub!” the innkeeper screamed unsteadily, panicked but trying to hide it, “Get that Grayskin out of here!”

The Orc winced at the sound of the innkeeper’s voice and carefully dragged the thrashing rogue toward the door. All of a sudden, as they neared the exit and the cold wind blew through the open door, she went limp in his arms.

Tanniel thought she saw something like despair lining her features in those last seconds. She saw her lips move, but couldn’t make out the sound. Her heels grated limply on the weathered floor, squealing as they hit a wet patch. And then there was a crash as the Orc hurled her down the steps and a flurry of curses to complement the raging blizzard outside. The innkeeper slammed the door and lowered its bar with more force than was really necessary. The tension that had been filling the place ever since they’d walked in leisurely began dissipating.

Gingerly, the drunk let go of Lydia, patting her on the shoulder uncomfortably before stumbling back to his seat.

“And you?” the innkeeper said irritably, his scraggly gray beard frazzled almost beyond recognition, pointing an accusing finger at Lydia, “You’ll cause no more trouble?”

The housecarl put her hands up innocently, a sly smile creeping onto her bloodied face.

“None whatsoever, sir.”


***​
The stairs seemed to stretch on endlessly, their battered, ice-caked boards groaning and snapping beneath a set of stumbling boots. Jenassa staggered down them at higher speeds than she would have wished and in the opposite direction than she had planned on. She struggled to maintain her balance, flailing her arms wildly and trying to halt her fall. But the combination of alcohol and high velocity was too much in the end. On the second-last step she hit a patch of frozen slush, lost her footing entirely and went flying bum-first with a noisy clatter into a rack of hanging fish. For a minute she laid there, spewing her venom and making fists at the sky, struggling to untangle herself from the contraption. But the inn door slammed before she could get very far in her insults of that Orc’s brutish and most likely smelly ancestors.

All of a sudden, the night was frighteningly still. The homely sounds of the inn were locked away behind sturdy wood and the only thing she could hear now was the moaning of the wind and the soft patter of falling snow. The cold wind bit through her clothing like it was nothing, sobering her in a matter of seconds. It was with a horrifying start that she realized that almost all her worldly possessions were still in the room she’d rented in the Nightgate Inn.

She could see it all in her head now. The bow she’d tossed on the bed haphazardly with her collection of mismatched arrows. The tent and bedroll were rolled up in their respective sacks in the corner. The tinderbox was on top of the end table. And the purse - her lovely, heavy purse, so weighed down with blood money that it was nearly bursting at the seams – that she’d tied to a leg of the bed in order to hide it from curious guests. Feeling sick at the thought, she imagined the innkeeper sweeping under there someday and becoming overjoyed at his amazing good fortune.

There was no going back there now. Not so long as that hoity-toity Orc blocked the way, the frazzled, one-eyed innkeeper despised her and that smirking Nord toadie brandished her steel fists.

Quickly finding the strength and coordination at the sound of a not-too-distant wolf howling at the obscured moons, she staggered to her feet in terror, brushing off the snow that had already begun to accumulate on her as she lay. The darkness and loneliness of the wilderness pressed in on her. The falling snow stung like hundreds of tiny beestings as it hit her exposed flesh. All she had was the contents of her pockets and a few dull blades at her hips now. There was no way to make a fire, nowhere else to hunker down within miles until the storm passed. She couldn’t stay here, out in the weather all night. If she fell asleep in a snow bank tonight, who knows what the innkeeper might dig up come Spring? The cold and her own frigid fear sobered her all too quickly, banishing even the idea of wine from her system.

There was nothing else to do but keep moving and keep warm, to make for Windhelm before the wolves and snowy sabertooth cats and Nerevar knows what else snuck up behind her in the blizzard.

All business, she picked up a few frozen fish from the ground, wrapped them in a dingy napkin that she’d had tucked away and set off on her way. She fell into a steady jog that didn’t drain too much stamina and seemed to keep her warm enough, though her nose and fingertips lost all feeling no matter what she did. Weariness dragged at her limbs and her eyelids drooped as time wore on, but the sound of heavy paws crunching over fresh snow or a low growl always banished any lingering thought of sleep from her mind. Once, she’d spotted a frost troll meandering listlessly along the road, barely visible in the flurry, scraping at the frozen ground with his massive claws. She’d dove behind a jagged pillar, horrified at how close she’d come to bumping directly into him and stood absolutely still, bar her uncontrollable quaking, hardly daring to breathe until he had passed on.

When the gray morning sun peeked through the raging storm clouds for the most fleeting of moments, Jenassa found her feet on the ancient flagstones of Windhelm. Her hands in her armpits and a small icicle dangling from the end of her nose, she staggered across the bridge to Ysgramor’s city, her every limb crying out for rest and her stomach gurgling vehemently in protest. She’d eaten the frozen fish raw some hours ago to keep up her energy and they hadn’t agreed with her in the slightest.

As she approached the iron gate, falling asleep on her sore feet and tripping over every jutting cobblestone, the guards standing at the gateway eyed her coldly, fingering their weapons as she passed between them.

“I’ve got my eye on you, elf.” one of them said sternly, making a motion at his own obscured eyes and then directing his two accusing fingers at her.

She barely registered him, though the small bit of interaction she did chronicle gave her a diminutive burst of anger that rushed up into her cheeks and reddened them. She wanted so badly to come up with some snide repartee or at the very least hack up a good ball of spit for the toe of his boot. But her weary mind went in hapless circles, coming up with nothing worthy of report and her dry tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth.

Before the warmth of the city’s braziers, her cares instantly melted away as though they had never existed. She shambled over to the first one she saw, nearly baking her shaking hands in its radiating heat. For some time, she stood there, in the center of town, breathing in the harsh smoke, dancing weakly in place in front of the fire and thanking whatever gods there were for the gift of flames.

Eventually, she felt the piercing, condemning eyes on her back. Blearily turning away from the fire, she sighted them. A group of Nords, some in rags, others in well-cut garments, sitting on the front steps of Candlehearth Hall, tankards already in their hands so early in the morning. They looked down their noses suspiciously at her and chatted quietly among themselves, plainly rankled by her presence.

A shiver of fear ran down Jenassa’s spine that had nothing to do with the cold. This was the wrong part of town. She had no business being here, if any of them had anything to say about it.

Speedily, painfully, like wrenching a blood-soaked bandage from healing scab, she pulled herself away from the fire and took a sharp right turn. The Gray Quarter rose up around her. Wind whistled through its claustrophobic corridors, carrying bits of trash down the narrow streets in its wake. The flagstones of the roads jutted out at odd, slapdash angles, cracked in places and nonexistent in others. A few skinny, dark-skinned children with hollow eyes looked up from their play to watch the strange visitor shuffle past.

Jenassa hated the place with a vibrant passion. Every stone leeched distaste to her and every jagged fissure in the pavement sent her into a mild rage. Whenever she wound her way through these chilly alleys, she felt caged, caught like a powerless rat in a trap. Memories drifted back as she plunged ever deeper into the abyss that was Windhelm – of cold and violence, of her old, unending fear of ever leaving the house lest she get pelted with stones and insults. She’d run from all of that years ago and never looked back.

Well, not exactly “never.” She rarely looked back was more like it. Because, despite all the hardship she’d endured after her family had fled Vvardenfell, this was the closest thing she had ever had to a home. There were friends waiting for her with open arms and good reminiscences mixed in with the bad. It was that she’d been just an ordinary girl for once, free of Red Mountain and its consuming Blight, doing nothing but keeping her head down and working to make ends meet. That was far before she’d lost her home, before she’d ever had to kill anybody to save herself.

She walked past her old home, a lean one-room hole in the wall, hardly giving it a glance. Someone else lived there now. Maybe it was another family who had to share a bed at night in order to keep warm. Or maybe a lonely beggar, sick with rattles or something more sinister, lay sleeping in the dead dreams of its previous owners. It had been rebuilt with rubble from the crumbling city by whoever thought fit to do so, after the fire that had chased out its original inhabitants.

Finally, her heart leaping at the sight, she caught sight of the red banner she was looking for, blowing raggedly in the wind. She hopped wearily up onto the ledge, knocked on the door and hearing nothing in return, let herself in.

Ambarys, the old Dunmer at the counter, opened his mouth to say something but was stopped short when Jenassa stumbled in, bringing the cold in with her and sat heavily on a groaning stool, her head resting on the scratched countertop. With great effort she gathered her strength, pulled herself back up to her elbows and looked him in the eye.

“Hello, old friend.” she said sweetly, laying on the saccharine, though it was hard to as her voice was hoarser than she thought it would be, “Would it be possible to sleep here for a few hours? I promise I’ll clear out when you start getting customers.”

He sighed, rubbing his head. “You know I don’t have the license to rent beds.The Steward says…”

“Yes, yes…” Jenassa muttered irritably, losing all pretense of charm, “I know what the Steward says. Just…a sack of potatoes. Leeks. Carrots. I don’t care. I’m sorry. I-I’m in a bind. I can’t even pay you.”

“Jen.” he answered grumpily, but with an undercurrent of concern, “If I put you up the Jarl will take my liquor license and then what’ll I do? You tell me.”

Jenassa’s face fell and her forehead drooped down until it hit the counter once more. She was weary beyond belief, with barely enough willpower left to keep herself sitting upright.

“Hey, now.” Ambarys said kindly, putting hand on her snow-covered shoulder, “Why don’t you try the Sadris? Sweep up their shop and they’re sure to give you a leg up.”

Jenassa’s eyes flickered open with a sudden realization. She wasn’t penniless. Sitting up with an abrupt burst of energy, she wiped her nose on her sleeve and then plunged a hand into her pocket. And there it was. The tiny, tarnished ring with the brightly shining stone came out with the end of her little finger. Silently, she placed it on the counter and crossed her arms.

Ambarys looked it over, picking it up as though it were a bug prepping to bite him. He sighed, tucking it into the threadbare purse at his belt.

“Just find a quiet corner out of the way where you won’t mess up anything.” He muttered irritably, “I’ll send you off with a few meals while I’m at it.”

Jenassa nearly let out a wild chuckle in relief and hurriedly dragged herself upstairs, dug out an old sack of carrots and fell asleep the instant she laid down, hardly registering the rat that skittered over her toes.


***​

Lydia was wishing desperately by now that they’d cut through Helgen. It would have been such a short, simple journey. A snowy path through the mountains, perhaps a night in the canyon and then they would’ve come out on the other side, practically right next to Ivarstead, the trip over just like that, aside from the climb to the Throat of the World. But when she had dared to suggest it back in Whiterun, Tanniel had gone white as the falling snow that now consumed them and disagreed so vehemently that she had to guess that some other factor was at work here. She hadn’t pressed her for details, mainly because she was afraid that she’d in turn be pressed and would rather not talk about her past to anyone.

But thinking back on it, after they’d argued once more on the topic the morning before, she supposed that the final decision was all for the best. The ruined town, so recently wrecked, had to be ripe with looters and starving squatters, none of them friendly to passing travelers. It was for the exact same reason that they’d decided against the middle course, following the White River eastwards. It was recognized that the slim, well-kept path, ringed by cliffs and steep mountains, was blocked by a band of highwaymen holed up in a crumbling tower overlooking the river who demanded a toll of all who used their road. It was entirely likely that neither of them had the money to pay it or the blood to smooth the way.

And with Tanniel still recovering from the wounds dealt by the dragon who had nearly killed her, Lydia didn’t want to take any chances with a known threat. And so, here they were, following the last option – the winding, hoary path through the Pale which led to the front steps of Windhelm. The fact that Lydia had traveled down it once before, alone, with heavy feet, was never far from her mind. On that journey, she hadn’t run into a soul outside the Nightgate Inn along the entire pathway. It was nothing but a long stretch of snow and nothingness and jagged rocks that stuck out of the earth like tombstones. The worst they could run into was wild animals, ice wraiths or if they were extremely unlucky, a dragon. After witnessing the fallout of the attack on Whiterun, Lydia couldn’t help but be nervous out in the open, constantly checking the sky and freezing in terror when the wind kicked up, sounding of great, leathery wingbeats in the distance. She hadn’t the faintest idea of what she’d do, should the two of them be caught out here with a monster like that. At least they’d been extremely fortunate in all regards so far, excepting the lone run-in with the assassin.

The thought still made her blood boil. That anyone would sink so low as to harm a little girl. That she hadn’t suspected something and intervened when she saw the farmer and the scaleback talking in the Bannered Mare. It shamed and infuriated her, filling her with contained rage that had no outlet. What she really needed was a good, bloody sparring match, something longer than what that pitiful excuse for a grayskin had given her the night previously. Her lip was still a little fat from the one good right hook that elf had managed to land and the cold air felt nice on it. But it wasn’t enough. She wanted skinned knuckles, bruised fists, a rush of blood to the head. That Dunmer’s face was exactly the sort of thing she wanted to beat in. That she had been so insistent on antagonizing both of them was only the icing on the sweetroll.

She didn’t think that Tanniel had approved much of their match. The innocent girl had gotten caught in the fray and Lydia was forever apologizing about that, whoever had thrown the blow that had knocked her from her seat. Thankfully she didn’t seem to bear much of a grudge and here the two of them were, continuing their snowy trek in silence.

Their day had not started out as the most promising. Last night’s blizzard still whipped the sparse foliage, swamped the walls of the inn in growing snowdrifts and the swirling snow had reduced visibility to mere feet. Briefly, they’d considered spending one more night in the inn, hoping to wait it out and set out once more in favorable weather. But there was no saying when it would end, what with Winter swiftly drawing closer and no saying when their funds would run out, should they linger too long. This was one of the few times that Lydia had been increasingly glad to have a pyromancer on her side. Tanniel was doing an excellent job of clearing the path when they ran into a blockage, lighting the way when it got dark and keeping the both of them warm, though she tired easily and her flame went out all too frequently. And so they kept on through the storm, following the road by the feel of its cobbles under their feet and the ball of flame that burned the way open for them.

But with every step that brought her closer to Windhelm and nearer to their destination, Lydia’s spirits sank and her misery increased tenfold no matter how she tried to push the bleak thoughts from her mind. She kept tugging her helm over her face, involuntarily at first and then on purpose, hoping against everything she knew that it would be enough to conceal her identity, should they have the extreme misfortune to run into anyone who had known her out here in the weather. It was with hatred and frustration that she regarded being so close to the place where she had grown up and lived through so much – all while knowing that she’d be unable to enter it or see its residents ever again. She was certain that sheer gladness would flood her system once they made it out of Eastmarch and into the Rift.

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Begrudgingly, thinking that her charge would want to make a stop in the old city, she had told Tanniel the night before that she couldn’t enter Windhelm. The statement had earned her a raised eyebrow beneath the satchel of snow that Tanniel was holding to aching head, but to Lydia’s immense relief, not a single word of argument or query.

That seemed to be the blossoming agreement between them – an unspoken, mutual policy of silence involving difficult questions with most likely drawn-out answers. Tanniel had never asked her about her days as a Stormcloak, though she could tell that the girl was intensely curious and in return, Lydia had opted to not ask a thing about Helgen.

That small conversation had been another piece of dead weight that she hadn’t even known she was carrying and a steamy breath let out. Maybe there would come a day when she would tell her about all that – when it wasn’t so painful to think about, when time had finally healed her still-festering wounds. Though at this point, she couldn’t even imagine what that would be like. For now, there was only the snow crunching beneath their feet, the sting of flying ice in their tender eyes and the bitter knowledge that they were drawing ever closer to a place Lydia would have preferred to leave behind.

The walked on silently for some hours, side by side, elbows linked, so as to not lose one another in the storm, huddling close to the flickering ball of flame in Tanniel’s arms. It wasn’t until the icy wind brought the smell of horses to Lydia’s nose and the toe of her boot scraped the cobblestones of the bridge into the city that she realized where she was. Almost against her will, without even thinking about it, she stopped in her tracks, her head slowly turning in the direction that she knew her home must lie, the road she’d run up and down so frequently in her youth. She squinted and glowered through the veil of falling snow, trying to get just one glimpse of the front gate through the blizzard. One glance was all she wanted. Just one and she’d move on. One more and she’d really be gone forever.

She jumped a mile straight up in the air when she felt another body sidle up to hers and a snow-covered head lean wearily on her shoulder. The fire that had been guiding them flickered on her gloved fingers and went out once more. Tanniel had gone entirely forgotten in the wake of Windhelm’s gate. She hadn’t even felt her skinny elbow slipping from her grasp or heard the weak footfalls creeping up behind her. The girl’s hair was damp and hopelessly tangled around her piteously shivering body. Lydia dusted the snow from her shoulders and held her close, unsure of how much warmth one clad in steel could possibly impart. Gritting her teeth, she looked back one last time, the last time, for certain, squinting with all her might, but not enough to pierce the veil of snow. Sighing, feeling as though something irrevocable had been wrenched from her at that moment, she turned away, cursing the frost and hating herself for it.

As they walked on, dragging their feet, the storm finally began to dissipate as the landscape gave way to firm, rocky wasteland. Lydia plopped Tanniel unceremoniously on a boulder beneath a stand of pine trees and immediately set to building a fire. There was plenty of dry wood to be found laying about, though its heady sap still popped and crackled loudly when set aflame. When she’d gotten a tent set up beside the roaring fire, Tanniel had immediately crawled inside and gone to sleep the moment she’d touched the bearskin laid out for her.

Now things were quiet and still. There was nothing left but Lydia, her gloomy thoughts and the icy wind. Windhelm was unfortunately extremely visible from their campsite. She could see it just down the river and past a bridge. The dismal, gray façade of its stern walls loomed over them threateningly, or so Lydia thought. Its shadow turned her heart to ice. Everything in her had told her to keep moving, to run until the sight of it vanished in their wake. But there was no way that Tanniel could keep on for much longer. They’d come a good distance already through harsh circumstances and here they’d lay for the night, like it or not.

As a whole, it wasn’t a campsite that she was particularly fond of. It was far too close to the slushy riverbed, where the refuse of the ancient city washed up and froze to the icy ground. The dirt was hard and uneven, filled with pebbles that would most likely spend all night digging into her back. And it wasn’t until the sun had begun to set that she realized that it was fully possible that they might have neighbors. The orange of the setting sun caught on the pitted walls of the crumbling fortress, half-hidden in the foliage across the river. In all likelihood it was filled to the brim with bandits.

Morvunskar, a strong point in a war that had taken place in ages unremembered, had always been a haven for undesirables so long as Lydia was old enough to understand speech. She’d kept away from it for most of her life as per her father’s orders and cursed herself for forgetting that it was so close to their present location.

There was no turning back now or finding another campsite at this hour of the night. They were settled and she felt for certain that Tanniel would not want to move again. The girl stirred groggily and emerged with a hand to her head as Lydia put a pot on the fire with a little bit of dried beef floating about in its depths.

She seemed to come back to life again as she sipped the warming broth and bit into the bit of bread they’d brought along. Her eyes brightened up, losing their dull cast that had so frightened Lydia earlier in the day and though it was hard to tell in the inconstant firelight, her cheeks seemed to redden once more too. They laughed and joked again in one another’s company as the night drew in ever closer around them and all thoughts of rampaging bandits creeping across the river melted away in the fire’s light.


***​
Morvunskar, Frostfall, One Year Prior
It had all been such a disaster. One thing led to another and before he even knew what had taken place, Naris had found himself running headlong through the snow alone with a horde of angry Stormcloaks at his heels. He hadn’t paused to watch his companions fall behind him and had no idea how close his doom approached. The only things he could hear were the incessant wailing inside his own head and the crunch of frantic footsteps all around.

There was so much that he’d never planned on. He’d never meant to get caught in that storm, to stray this far into Eastmarch. He certainly hadn’t wanted to stumble into that Stormcloak camp in the middle of the night and never dreamed that they’d all rise up against a justiciar in their midst.

But even as his fellows were cut down in screaming heaps behind him and vicious arrows shot from the dark cut their numbers down to nothing, even as he ran for his very life, stumbling over stones and slipping on ice, he was crushed by the weight of his own massive failure. If by some miracle he did make it through the night and ever found his way back to the Embassy, this was not going to sit well in Alinor. What would be left for him back home but cruel discipline and snide looks from everyone who had known him? He quaked in terror at the thought of the Aldmeri Dominion’s punishment for his negligence and cried aloud as an arrow shot from a furious foe just barely clipped his ear.

Realizing that he was alone in the darkness and howling wind, he slowed down, thinking that he had at last reached some success at outpacing the warriors after him. They were dragged down by their heavy armor and fatigued from months spent in the wilderness. He’d been dining well and sleeping the softest beds Skyrim had to offer since he’d arrived in the frigid province. But as the icy gale blew straight through his silken robes, he knew that just one thrust of an axe would be enough to cut him down to size.

Heaving with effort, he clawed his way up the rest of the hill up which he’d been scrambling and dove through a ruined archway. It was a decrepit fort. Its crumbling walls rose up around him, lightly dusted with frost and devoid of all life. Jumbled pillars and beams were scattered all across the courtyard, gathering snow and dirt across the ages, slowly sinking into oblivion. Panting, he pressed himself against the pitted walls and hysterically tried to quiet his breathing. The stones were ice-cold against his sweaty back and his noisy breath was mist in the night air. He heard them calling for him now, just outside the encompassing ramparts. A few arrows clattered blindly against the old pillars in the darkness, but none of them came close to hitting Naris. He heard them circling the fort noisily, their equipment clanking as they ran. Once they went around, then twice. And then one, far quieter than the rest, slid through the archway through which Naris had entered.

He was a monster of a man, covered in war paint and with a jagged scar running down one side of his face. His massive hammer drawn and smeared with what looked very much like the brains of one of the people who had depended on Naris, he glanced furtively about, his eyes scanning every shadowy corner of the fortress.

Naris squeezed his eyes shut and held his breath. He was out of magicka. He had lost his mace a mile or so back. It was over. This was going to be it. In a way, he was glad that it was ending now. Once he was dead, he wouldn’t have to be afraid anymore. Not of the rampaging monsters who called themselves humans, not of the sentence that awaited him should he ever think to return home. The thought calmed and strengthened him. Just one more second and the terror would all end.

“Ha!” the Nord barked, catching sight of him from the corner of his eye and charging, his hammer held over his head.

“Wah!” Naris shrieked, the peace he’d been so proud of dissipating in an instant.

The hammer came slamming down on the wall beside him with sufficient force to knock a chip of stone from the ancient block. He’d sidestepped the blow by a fraction of an inch without even thinking about it, as though his body completely disagreed with the conclusion that his mind had come to.

But now his knees shook with their own will and his legs collapsed from underneath him. He squirmed where he’d fallen, struggling to stand to no avail. The shadowy hulk of a Nord stood above him, his ivory teeth bared in a cruel smile, his bloodied hammer raised one last time.

They looked each other in the eye for what seemed like forever. Tears streamed down Naris’s face and snot matted in his well-groomed mustache. He couldn’t bring himself to look away, to stop watching the hammer as it soared through the night, slicing a path through the falling snow to his waiting head.

When everything in him said that it would be better to die, still his heart beat with force and his lungs gasped for air. He realized that he’d never felt so alive before and how much he would miss the feeling.

Before his frozen eyes, the tip of an arrow suddenly bloomed from the Nord’s beefy throat. The hammer dropped from his hands, ringing slightly as it struck the edge of a fallen piece of masonry. He heard him choking, saw his hands stiffly rise up to his bleeding neck. And then there was a chorus of reverberating snarls and growls from all around. He saw the marks of vicious jaws sinking into the man’s flesh, ripping him to shreds. As they pulled him to the ground, his eyes bulged in terror and a silent plea formed on his reddening lips. His warm blood steamed as it puddled in freshly-fallen snow.

And then, turning his head sideways, Naris saw them. They were wolves, two of them, ethereal in appearance, nearly invisible but for the thin dusting of snow on their backs and the dark coating of blood on their unearthly teeth. He watched from tear at the corpse as though from very far away, his head buzzing and ears filled with electricity.

He snapped out of it the second they dropped their prey and advanced on him with the speed of a thought. Squeaking frantically in a most unmanly way, he struggled to rise to his feet and squirm out of their way. A set of teeth closed with a terrifying finality around his calf and sent him crashing heavily to the ground. He lay still on his back, his hands over his whimpering face, the snow beneath him melting at the touch of his boiling flesh. A moment passed and he found himself still intact, much to his abject shock.

“Speak!” a voice as cold as the encompassing Skyrim Winter bellowed across the emptiness, startling him into renewed panic, “Why are you here?”

“I-I was running!” Naris barely managed to choke out, anxiously and pointlessly attempting to dislodge an ethereal wolf’s jaws from the collar of his coat. “I-I was afraid of dying – and living.”

He gave up at last and slumped in the snow. It felt good on his flushed cheek and burning ear.

Before his bleary eyes, an approaching shimmer appeared in the air and he saw footsteps sinking into the freshly fallen snow, though there was nothing there that could have made them. A clear laugh, like a bell sounded out right beside him.

“Afraid of living?” the voice giggled softly, sounding much less threatening than it had beforehand, “Why, when there’s such great living to be had? What a sad way to think!”

Laughing, a sinewy Bosmer with a much-battered bow in her hand materialized before him. With a wave of her hand, the wolves vanished and Naris struggled back up to his elbows. Then she fell to her knees, drew a dingy cloth from the collar of her robes and used it to softly dab at Naris’s gently weeping ear. He hadn’t even noticed that he’d been wounded until now.

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As she leaned in close, he scented fresh pine wafting from her ivory flesh and saw that her almond-shaped eyes were the deep green of ancient forests. Her scent filled his nose, intoxicating him like fine wine and making him slightly dizzy. Or maybe that was merely the effects of tonight’s excitement finally wearing off.

He stiffened with a start as his wits came rushing back all at once. The Bosmer jerked backwards in surprise, dropping the cloth in his lap.

“Did I hurt you?” she gasped, her youthful face lined with worry, “I didn’t mean…”

“No!” He bellowed, louder than he’s anticipated, “N-No, n-no. I-It’s j-just…there were more of them.” He finally managed to sputter out. Despair dragged him to the icy ground once again. “They’re bound to have heard the ruckus and made their way back here.”

“Really, now?” the Bosmer asked quizzically, her eyes narrowing.

She drew a dagger from her belt and tossed it in the frost beside him. Then she was gone, as though she’d never been there to begin with. But on closer inspection, Naris saw her footprints in the snow, slowly forming as she worked her way to the archway. She was barefoot, her every toe forming a perfect indentation in the powder as she walked.

Warily, Naris picked up the dagger, feeling small and pathetic with it in his hand. He wanted to race after her, to dive into the fray, to slaughter his own enemies mercilessly while she watched. But he knew he wasn’t strong enough for that.

Just as he was turning it over in his head once more, she came trotting back through the entranceway, fully visible, bow slung over her back, a few new tears in her robe and a slim cut running down the length of her cheek.

“I-I’m sorry!” he gasped, struggling to his feet at last and nearly falling again when his torn calf screamed in agony. “I-I should never have come here. I shouldn’t have gotten you involved, I…”

“Come inside!” she whispered excitedly, seizing his hand in hers and drawing him, stumbling, deeper into the ruins, “You’ll not be pursued any longer, there’s a hot fire to be found, warm food and…Sanguine himself offers his hospitality tonight.”

Naris stopped in his tracks. The phrase hung in the icy air between them. She tugged on his hand, a pout on her lips, but he held his ground.

“I can’t.” he murmured, his face downcast, “It isn’t that I’m not grateful o-or t-that I don’t owe you so much already, but Daedra worship? I-I can’t…”

Before he could finish, she threw her arms around him, leaned in close and kissed him tenderly, for a long time, before finally, reluctantly drawing back. Naris was left gasping for air and the touch of her soft lips remained on his face.

“Why?” he asked, aghast, so many emotions running through his head and cluttering up his thoughts, “I don’t even know you.”

“Think about it.” she said gently, her emerald eyes smiling, “What is it that your Divines have ever done for you? Have you ever laid eyes on one? Have you ever walked beside one or danced with a Prince until sunrise?”

She tweaked his nose good-naturedly, chuckling.

“You just told me that you were afraid to live and the only thing I want to do is show you why it’s worth it to keep living. I guarantee you that the Prince of Debauchery shows his guests a good time! Wouldn’t you like to meet him?”

The cold wind beat on his back and he imagined the heartbroken relatives of the raging Nords circling the wilderness, hunting relentlessly for him. He saw the cruel golden faces of his betters looking down at him, readying a dank cell that was one foot shorter than his full height, for his reeducation. As the Bosmer led him closer to their destination, her overpowering scent was mixed with that of rich food. He heard music and wild laughter reverberating from behind the dilapidated stone walls. He bent his head, fear building in his breast and clogging his throat, but did not resist her pull.

She led him through a maze of echoing corridors inside. Puddles dotted the pitted floor, wind moaned through cracks in the walls and something dripped, slow and steady, ever present, in the distance. His foot crunched on a half-empty wine bottle with every other step and he had to struggle to keep his balance in the encircling gloom.

When they finally reached the main hall, Naris gagged on the smoke filling the room and squinted at the brightness of the raging bonfire in its center. Bodies whirled in insane confusion around it, singing slurred songs and splashing drinks as they danced. The room was filled with atronarchs and familiars, adding to confusion, making him unsure of where mortal began and daedra started. The Bosmer laughed with her voice like bells and towed him closer to the fire. Someone put a drink in his hand and he sipped it without a thought, glad of the warmth that it brought rushing to his frozen tear-stained face.

And then he was dancing, whirling around the room gleefully, dizzily, the sweet-smelling Bosmer in his arms. Everything was a mix of colors and faces and smoke. He lost track of where the floor was, how time moved, why anything but this moment right now had ever mattered before.

Booming laughter filled his head and a towering figure in red and black armor wove in and out of his consciousness.

And then, when hours or minutes or days or months had passed and the party had finally begun to quiet down, he abruptly found himself in bed with the grinning Bosmer.

Dimly, in the back of his fevered mind, it occurred to him that she was a lesser breed, that she was unworthy of his lineage, that the Thalmor regularly carried out purges of Valenwood to rid Tamriel of people just like her, that she’d most likely be dead already had they not met in Skyrim.

He felt a feral, innate urge to strangle her right here and now and take his cruel pleasure from the gurgling sound of her death. That would be one less subversive for the Dominion to worry about, one less black mark on his record. Perhaps he’d be rewarded for blowing in their little cult. Maybe they’d cut down his sentence and let him come back home without too much of a fuss.

He wound his thin fingers around her slender throat and saw the terror take hold of her lovely eyes. He saw her mouth open and close in what must have been an unheard cry for help. Her face turned red as she gasped for air and her hands clawed at his shaking white knuckles.

Something broke in him. He could hear it, almost as a physical snap in the back of his head, like the breaking of a bone. With a gasp of sheer horror, he let her go and she sprang out from under him, red-faced and coughing hard enough to hack up a lung.

“I’m sorry.” He whispered, his own voice as hoarse as hers, throwing his arms around her and kissing her bruised neck fiercely, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry…”

***​


It was the horrible stomachache that crept into Jenassa’s dreams unbidden and spoiled whatever might have been good in them that slowly drew her back to consciousness. The dim world spun before her bleary eyes and as the veil of blissful oblivion was lifted, she became potently aware of the sensation of numerous sharp points digging into the tender parts of her back. With a groan, she heaved herself from the sack of carrots she’d chosen for a bed. A veritable vat of stomach acid came racing, burning up her throat. She slapped a hand over her mouth and swallowed thickly, pleading with every Divine, Daedra and mystic force she knew that she wouldn’t make a mess of Ambarys’ club just yet. And again, for perhaps the fiftieth time that day, she bitterly cursed herself for eating those fish. It was as though they were still swimming about in her stomach, haunting the back of her throat when they should have long passed on.

The sudden sound of shattering glass below snapped her out of the last clinging vestige of sleep. She heard voices raised in anger but the warped and creaking corridors twisted the words. A potent uneasiness prickled down the back of her neck all the way to the tips of her toes. Hardly knowing why, a cold sweat broke out on the backs of her shaking hands. She carefully rose to her feet, speedily checking several times to make absolutely positive that her sword was still securely belted on.

Looking down, she saw a small plate of bread and cheese on the grungy floor beside her sleeping spot. Her heart sank at the sight. She was starving, weak with hunger even. The last proper meal she’d eaten was in all probability back in Whiterun. Her mouth watered at the meager offerings, but the thought of forcing anything else down her gullet turned her already tumultuous stomach. Steeling herself, she quickly tore herself away, her hand playing with the pommel of her sword.

The floorboards seemed to be twisting under her feet, the dingy walls turning this way and that. Her temples burned and her vision blurred. She leaned heavily on the wall, squeezing her eyes shut, her knees feeling as though they would give out at any moment.

With every step, her uneasiness grew, creeping down her spine, dripping cold sweat between her shoulder blades. Her heart stopped when she reached a certain step.

She could make out the words of the ongoing argument now.

“I’ll tell you again and perhaps you’ll listen this time...” Ambarys’ cross tone cut through the gloom of the stairwell, “There’s no one here but Malthyr and I. Though Azura knows I’d be getting more business without clods like you around. Now, are you going to pay for that or shall I escort you to the door?”

“Pay, you damn Gray-Skin?” the gruff voice spit its slurred words out, one by one, frustration and fury building with every syllable, “You’re the one who’s hiding a killer and you expect me to pay?”

“Look, muthsera…” Ambarys sighed, “I am sorry for your loss. But it seems to me that this is a matter for the Jarl, not common folk like us.”

“And what has the Jarl ever done for me?” the voice went on bitterly, “When did he lift a finger to prevent Friga’s death? Or Nilsine’s? Or…”

She thought she heard a soft sob, but the moment was completely shattered by the breaking of glass. Jenassa flinched as though she were the one that had been smashed. She could hear her own heartbeat pounding on the inside of her head and every breath she took seemed to her as loud as a scream.

“There is no call for that!” Ambarys hissed under his breath, “Get out of my home this instant. I know damn well what you think of me and I assure you, your feelings are replicated.”

“You’re going to let this stand, Rendar?” the voice slurred, wavering and incredulous, “Don’t you remember back when that girl at Candlehearth Hall was killed? I saw her passing through town then too. You can’t say it’s a coincidence…”

Good night, gentlemen.” Ambarys said softly, his words layered with unspoken malice, “The door is behind you.”

“Hmm.” The voice snorted.

Almost delicately, the tinkling of broken glass once again filled the night.

“That is it.” Ambarys sighed, “MALTHYR! Get down here, boy…ahhh!”

“Where is she?” the voice demanded wearily, sounding for all the world like nothing more than a tired old man.

“I don’t…” Ambarys gasped.

Suddenly, there were several sets of pounding footsteps racing up the stairs. Dumbly, she stood there for a moment, unsure if what had happened was really going on. Then, slowly, dimly, as though from very far away, it occurred to her that perhaps she ought to run.

Panting for air, she put one shaky foot in front of the other and instantly fell to the creaking floor with a horrific thud. As she struggled to her feet, her eyes caught on the shapes of menacing shadows rounding the stairwell.

With a breathless cry, she fumbled about for her sword. The walls spun around her, a nightmare of warped wood and mysterious stains. Those fish swam back up her throat once again, assaulting the back of her mouth. Her knees violently threatened to buckle and she slammed a hand against the shifting wall to maintain her balance.

The faint shapes of livid faces and drawn cudgels bobbed before her.

“Get away from me!” she croaked, coughing out the words, carving an arc of emptiness before her with a trembling sword swipe.

Everything happened in space of an instant. From the corner of her eye, she saw movement, a blunt object making directly for her head. With an animal shriek, she dove at its owner. She felt her blade hit flesh. She heard a coarse howl of pain and saw the ruby droplets speckling her sword as it fell spiraling out of her hand. A thousand pinpricks of light overwhelmed her vision. Everyone was shouting, screaming, but their voices sounded as though they were coming from the long, dark end of a tunnel. She could Ambarys yelling for help, Malthyr shrieking something unintelligible. And then, it all faded away into utter blissful silence.

One moment melted into the next entirely without warning. There was a dull throbbing pain in the back of her head and she was gagging on the raw stench of old horker meat. Everything was dark and close. Walls pressed in all around her, drawing her knees to her chin and her elbows to her sides. Experimentally, she tried to wiggle her limbs and in the process found that her hands had been bound.

A sob was building in her throat as she gnawed at her bindings and kicked at the surrounding walls. Panic was setting in. She shrieked wordlessly, tunelessly, again and again, hurling herself at her smelly confines, boiling tears pouring unbidden down her face now.

And then, when it finally dawned on her that her efforts were yielding nothing, she stopped, still and silent, shivering in the reeking murk, attempting to gather her scattered wits.

It was all so futile. When did the Windhelm Guard ever care if a drifter or two went missing within their jurisdiction? When had the Dunmer of Skyrim ever been able to protect her?

There was no one.

Her head was pounding. The pain radiated from the base of her neck and throbbed up to the crown of her head. When she closed her eyes she could still see the imprint of stars swimming before her watery vision. As she leaned her head resignedly against the splintering wall, she heard what sounded like the creak of uneven wagon wheels, the occasional drunken laugh or curse of her captors. She thought that she must be moving – hauled down a rocky path like a piece of cargo to market.

And then she was angry, furious at the indignity of it all. This was never the way she’d imagined it being. Gritting her teeth, she scraped the tears from her face as best she could. Whatever happened, they couldn’t see that she’d been crying. She’d show them no weakness. She would never beg. Now, if only the world would turn just a little bit slower for a moment or two.

Without warning, she suddenly found herself suspended upside down and the weight of her body balancing on her aching head for one agonizing moment. Then, with a grunt, she was righted again. Her heartbeat quickened. Before she could even begin to get her bearings, the roof of her prison was wrenched from its moorings and rough hands were tearing her out and into the cool night air. She breathed it in greedily, selfishly, glaring with eyes like embers into the general direction of the blurry blotch closest to her.

As her eyes adjusted, she could see him more clearly in the starlight. His eyes were bloodshot, his face craggy as a mountainside. His clothes were of a fine cut but tattered and worn, now streaked with mud as he waited on the bank of a murky river. He was old, but as he walked forward, she could see a youthful power in his movements, a warrior’s swagger in his measured steps.

Jenassa cried aloud when his fist smoothly connected with her nose. She tasted the metallic tang of blood. Her eyes stung with tears but she feverishly blinked them away before they could materialize.

With a start, she realized that the man was sobbing piteously at her, his lumpy nose a bright shade of red.

“How could you?” he wailed, “My girls…”

“I don’t know who they are!” Jenassa spat out heatedly, baring her teeth and aiming a kick at the man holding her back. She heard him grunt in pain as she made contact and felt no small amount of pleasure from the sound.

A cruel sneer was deftly spreading across the man’s watery features. He wiped his nose on a silken sleeve and drew a large blade from his back in one smooth motion.

“No.” he said in an eerily flat tone, “I don’t suppose a murderer would.”

With a motion of his free hand, all of the other men fell away from her. Jenassa nearly crumbled to the ground when they let go but stubbornly managed to keep her balance. He inched closer and closer, until she felt the cold iron of the sword at her throat, just barely breaking the skin. Her breath quickened and sweat broke out on her brow. She was shaking, shivering uncontrollably, as though she’d been caught in a snowstorm.

Slowly, carefully, he circled around her, until she could feel his warm breath down the back of her neck. Without warning, he savagely kicked her legs out from under her, sending her flying down the riverbank to land in the icy mud below. She struggled to her unsteady feet again only to turn directly into the tip of the cold sword.

The man’s face was like chiseled stone. But there were dark bags under his eyes his shoulders slumped with the weight of something she couldn’t fathom.

“Walk.” He said with a voice like glacier ice.

Jenassa stumbled backwards, the point of his sword driving her onwards. She gasped as the chilling water hit her ankles, instantly draining them of all feeling. Her resolve wavered as the numbness crept up her legs, her thighs, her waist.

She froze in place, shivering wildly, staring at the man in abject horror. He was farther away than his sword’s reach now, looking blankly on. All of a sudden, his features twisted in rage.

“I said, walk!” he screeched into the night, scooping a stone from the riverbank and hurling it in her direction.

Jenassa cried as it struck her, the force of it causing her to stumble deeper into the icy current. She shrieked as another stone struck her temple and another one hit her shoulder dead-on. She saw the stars whirling above her head in the night sky, the faces of everyone she’d ever left behind, the shapes of her long-dead homeland. She saw the dark eyes of Nazeem’s wife glowering down at her, a stone in her furious hand. She heard a little girl’s crying and saw ruby blood on wan snow. She remembered the sound of a thousand blades sinking into a thousand gullets, of her own frantic breath as she ran from the law again and again. She saw a little blonde Nord holding out a tarnished ring in her shaking hand, terror and pity in her frantic eyes. She was falling, tumbling head over heels into icy Oblivion, her screams muffled by the frigid water rushing down her protesting throat.


***​
“And then!” Tanniel went on excitedly, accidentally sloshing the bitter tea that Lydia had just brewed out of her tankard, “And then I turn the corner, dragging my feet, so tired I can barely think, when I hear Farengar say from his quarters…ahem, give me a moment…”

She tried her best to mimic the wizard’s disinterested, watery stare and halted way of speaking.

“I have a great fondness for mysterious beasts and women.”

“What!” Lydia laughed, nearly spilling her own tankard of tea, “That actually worked?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe!” Tanniel grinned mischievously, “Of course, I paid for it later. Quite a lot, actually…”

Her thoughts darkened and the laughter inside her head died down as she remembered the spell, the dragon and everything else that had followed. With a sigh, she flopped down beside the fire, dumping the rest of the tea out beside the dying coals, a renewed weariness dragging at her eyelids. She could see Lydia leaning over quizzically out of the corner of her eye, shades of worry coloring her expression.

“But…” Tanniel went on, a thin smile tugging at the corners of her mouth, “For that one moment in time, everything was right with the world. Even though…even though so much was wrong, I was laughing.”

“Hmm.” Lydia grunted, taking a long swig of tea and making a sour face when the aftertaste must have hit.

For a time, silence filled their meager camp, save for the soothing rushing of the river and the night-calls of hidden birds. Tanniel dozed beside the fire, kept from sleep by the thought that she really ought to move to her more comfortable bedroll, but too sleepy to actually move herself. Instead, she found herself gazing blearily up at the stars. The storm they’d spent the greater part of the day trekking through had all but dissipated. Cobweb-like swathes of clouds skimmed the sky here and there, but the stars shown clear and bright, like gems set in a velvet sea. Masser and Secunda looked almost big enough to touch and their light dyed everything it touched a pale and solemn silver.

Lydia suddenly chuckled.

“You know,” she went on, “I’ve got to wonder how he felt about you joining the Jarl’s court.”

“Well…” Tanniel mused, propping herself up on her elbows and scrunching up her face in thought, “I know the man has no love for me. But then again, I don’t think that he has much love for anyone else. Me becoming Thane didn’t change anything in his little world. Honestly, I wonder if any of it matters to him.”

An unearthly shriek suddenly cut through the darkness like a knife. Tanniel sat bolt upright, the hairs on the back of her neck standing straight up. Lydia was on her feet in seconds, scanning the underbrush, her hand on her sword.

“What was that?” Tanniel whispered frantically, scrambling up and ducking behind Lydia defensively.

Lydia shook her head, her lips pursed into a thin line.

“Stay close.” She murmured, her eyebrows drawn into knots.

Another scream came rippling through the night air, this one ending in a strangled gurgle. Tanniel slammed her hands over her mouth to keep from screaming herself. It was coming from the direction of the river. Glancing in Lydia’s anxious eyes for a moment, she crept down the riverbank after her, the progressively thickening mud sucking at her boots. Partway down, she thought she felt herself bump directly into some invisible barrier and almost cried out in terror before she realized that her foot was just temporarily stuck in the mud.

In the clear moonlight she could see them now, on the other side of the river. It was a group of shadowed figures, hurling river rocks from the other bank into its icy depths, screeching muffled insults that the gentle roar of flowing water just barely drowned out.

Her eyes following the trajectory of the stones, squinting in the darkness until she finally spotted it, struggling in the river, pelted by projectiles – a lone figure that must have been the source of distress. Tanniel’s breath caught in her throat and her eyes strung with tears that she was too scared to cry.

“What…what is this?” she choked out, bracing a shaking hand on Lydia’s shoulder.

Lydia shook her head, her lips set in a cold line.

The people on the other side of the river had all but stopped now. She could hear clips of laughter, see them slapping each other on the back as they filed away into the gloom. She saw the water churn in the center of the river before falling ominously still.

The night was silent and calm again, cut only by the quiet murmur of the river. The scene was over, having passed by and left no mark that any of it had ever happened.

There was a dull roar echoing inside Tanniel’s ears and when her jaw started to ache, she realized that she’d been clenching her teeth. She could feel Lydia shivering in the dry brush beside her.

She was angry, furious and she couldn’t quite put a word as to why. Her fists were clenched at her sides and her vision was blurring. She let out a mighty breath that turned to steam before her eyes and made a mad dash out of the hiding place before Lydia could stop her. The housecarl cried out from behind her and she felt a hand brush her shoulder. But by then she’d already hurled aside her coat and thrown herself into the frigid current.

The White River hit her like a ton of masonry, its chilling water stealing her breath and sapping the energy from her weary limbs. In her mind’s eye, she gripped the memory of the lake of her childhood – Rumare’s temperate waters and gentle current. She saw herself splashing and laughing with friends one Sun’s Height, in those carefree days so long ago.

Her body was screaming at her, pleading and begging. It was as though her life was being drained away with every stroke. Her limbs were stiffening and slowing down, her lungs cried for air. On her last reserves of strength, she plunged deeper into the frozen abyss and reached in as far as she could go, scratching along the river bottom, squinting through the all-consuming murk.

And then, her hand grasped flesh.


***​
Jenassa was gently drifting below a frozen lake, on an unseen current, gazing up through the clear blue ice. She could see shadows moving about above, broken pieces of stars beckoning from the surface. A cry for help erupted from her throat, but her words were stolen away, carried to the surface like shards of jagged diamonds. And the shadows kept walking on, flickering in and out of existence, heedless of her presence, careless of her plight, the sound of their creaking footsteps maddening in the chilly depths.

It dawned on her that she was dying, as her body turned to frost and darkness tugged on the corners of her vision. Soon, she’d be another river-stone washed up on a wintry shore.

Her eyes grew hot, a sob caught in her throat and to her great shame, she remembered that she had been crying after all. It was all slipping away, spiraling in perfect symmetry into the murky depths.

Wearily, she hovered over a black abyss now, a hole in the world. She could hear voices singing down below, calling her in, urging her home. The unrelenting current was slowly but surely dragging her down. A large part of her longed to give in at last, to stop struggling against the things that couldn’t be helped. This was the way she had always been meant to go, came the realization – punished by the grieving, finally caught up by those she had harmed. What of it if she was innocent of that particular crime? There were plenty more that she was guilty of.

And yet, here her heels were, digging deep into the thick muck of the riverbed, straining with all their weak force to not slip into the void.

As she struggled to see with her dimming vision, she glimpsed a fire burning in the black distance, a speck of light in the consuming expanse of darkness. It grew as she watched it and fear filled her frozen heart at its approach. The ground cracked open, belching white-hot steam and swirling ash that stuck in her throat.

As it came closer, she could make out the shape of a burning figure, cloaked in flame and in agony as her own heat consumed her. Where her mangled feet touched the ground, the dirt turned to ash and the ground spewed boiling lava wherever she pointed. As she drew closer, the water turning all to steam in her presence, she saw her hand go up to her heart and hold her chest as though in great pain. When she removed it, the hand was covered in boiling blood, too bright to look at but too compelling to look away. An open wound, like the claw mark of some great animal bled on her chest, the liquid hissing and popping with heat.

She held out her flaming hand, the crimson blood sizzling on her palm. The cold void sucked incessantly at Jenassa, tugging her tenderly, quietly into the pit. She longed to fall away, to let go. Were she to do that, she knew that she would never return. Yet still she dug in her heels, clinging to life, greedy for breath. To take that hand would be her salvation, but the heat of it would set her alight.

Faintly, the sound of someone crying down below drifted up to her ears. A tiny hand, its fingers grimy with dirt, tugged at her heel. A pair of glittering chestnut eyes, terror and sorrow in their bleak depths, stared out of the gloom. With a soundless scream, Jenassa lurched from the pit, kicking herself free, reaching out to anything and everything.

A hand caught her arm and hauled her from the deep. With a gasp, she saw her skin blacken and peel from her bones. She tried to scream, to squirm from the burning grasp, but the figure was filling her vision now, getting brighter as they rose to the surface, its potent light blocking out any and everything else.

And then the cold hit her like a sledgehammer, startling her back to her senses with a jarring jolt. Half a moment passed and it dawned on her that there was breath in her lungs. The ground was firm and all too real beneath her. Her stomach gurgled painfully and she tasted stale fish swimming up the back of her throat. There were angry voices close by, more solid than anything else she’d heard recently.

“…were you thinking!” one of them screeched hoarsely.

“H-Hey!” a softer one stuttered out between the sounds of chattering teeth.

“…could’ve died and then what…”

“H-Hey, a-are y-you…?”

She felt a hand take hold of her shoulder and roll her onto her back. The moonlight stung her eyes and she groaned pathetically. Her body cried for rest, every inch of it sore or stinging or worse.

When she wrenched her eyes open and could see well enough to make out the features of the person sitting above her, her heart stopped in horror. Their eyes met at the same time and she witnessed the precise moment that recognition struck. The girl’s eyes widened in terror just as Jenassa thought that hers must be mirroring them.

Suddenly, she felt ill, sick to her protesting stomach. For one last time, the fish swam back up her throat, struggling upriver as though they were making their yearly trip back to their breeding grounds. They made it this time.


***​
After a long time of making odd faces and squinting at the late morning sun, Tanniel finally got that stubborn sneeze to come out. It did so with explosive force, knocking the bearskin from her shoulders and nearly bowling her over. She rubbed her runny nose with the already-raw back of her hand, sniffling pathetically. A soft sigh came from behind her and she felt a hand retrieve the bearskin from the frosty ground, tucking it neatly back around her shivering body.

Lydia slumped down ungainly beside her with a series of heavy clanks. Her hair was mussed and there was a waxy glaze over her eyes belying exactly how little sleep either of them had gotten the night before. Hardly paying any heed to her work, she unwrapped a loaf of bread and casually ripped it in half, tossing the other half in Tanniel’s lap.

They both stayed quiet for a time, their mouths totally occupied with the moistening of stale bread crumbs. Tanniel found herself looking everywhere else except at Lydia’s face as she chewed. The trees, the brush, the jagged blades of grass, the clear blue sky. But the mammoth remained in the room no matter how long she was capable of pretending that it wasn’t there.

Lydia finished first. She gnawed on the last bit of rock-hard crust with a fierce look of determination on her face and swallowed it with a hearty gulp.

“So.” She said, finally, agonizingly, sitting up in a more businesslike fashion, “What are we going to do about that?”

“I don’t know.” Tanniel mumbled, burrowing deeper into her bearskin.

“There’s bound to be someone after her.” The housecarl remarked distantly, all too calmly, “And if they find out that she isn’t dead…”

“What?” Tanniel snapped angrily, knocking the bearskin from her shoulders again, “So, I was just supposed to watch her die last night?”

“No, no, I’m not saying that.” Lydia said defensively, rubbing her head as though she were in pain, “It’s just…”

Her hand dropped and she turned a wistful look to the battlements of Windhelm. The weathered gray stone, beaten by millennia of snowfall, still managed to gleam in the morning light.

“I don’t know what I’m saying.” She finished weakly, hanging her head.

The gap between them seemed to stretch for miles. Tanniel rubbed her nose irritably, with a little more force than was strictly necessary, but it did no good. She feebly laid down by the dying fire, pulling the bearskin around herself in a tight cocoon.

“Well…” she breathed, trying to suppress a yawn and failing, “We can’t just leave her.”

Lydia grunted, her nod barely perceptible, her face unreadable.

“Then…” she murmured, crawling inside her tent and emerging with her weathered bow in hand and a quiver of arrows slung over her shoulder, “I’ll see if I can’t find something to throw in the pot tonight.”

“Fine.” Tanniel sighed, pulling the bearskin over her head.

The sound of Lydia’s footsteps crunching on the frosty foliage gradually faded away into nothingness and Tanniel began to drift off to sleep. She was dreaming of warm shores and lush grass when she got a tickle in her nose. The sneeze came suddenly and violently, blasting away her balmy cocoon and startling her back to total wakefulness. Groaning, she rubbed her watery nose again and tried to fall asleep.

She stared blankly into the flickering embers of the fire, trying to make sense of the chaos of light and shadow within. Her mind drifted this way and that, getting tangled in knots and then undone. Before she realized what she was doing, her eyes had glided past the fire to focus on the quarrelsome visitor lying just beyond.

The Dunmer hadn’t stirred in hours. She slept like a dead person, never moving from the position from which Lydia had thrown in last night, never snoring or mumbling in her deep sleep. Tanniel had even been so clumsy as to drop a pan on the stones around the firepit in the early hours of the morning. That ruckus hadn’t been enough to disturb her in the slightest. But she was breathing, faintly and weakly, alive, though she had to wonder if things would have been easier if she wasn’t.

But what had happened had happened and there was no going back, though the Dunmer’s presence made her increasingly uneasy. She’d dogged every other step of their journey so far, antagonizing them around every bend as though she were purposefully planning it. She was hateful and spiteful, spitting venom and spewing puss wherever she went. And here she was, sleeping on a borrowed bedroll in the one place Tanniel thought she’d be safe.

But even as she despised her for all she’d said and done, even as she hated and feared her, even though she would argue with her to her last breath, she couldn’t help but feel a twinge of pity for the look of despair frozen in the seemingly-permanent lines of her forehead.


***​

Morvunskar

Naris was glaring furiously at the pair of gauntlets on the enchanting table before him. The creases between his eyebrows only deepened as he solemnly began the incantation. As he went on, the words of the spell whispered under his breath, the gem in his outstretched hand began to glow, a glint of purple gleaming in its black depths. Nearing the end of the procedure, he closed his eyes for the last push of mental effort. And then it was done. The gauntlets gleamed with enchantment. The soulgem cracked and crumbled into useless powder. He gently swept the refuse into a tankard that was already half-full.

His head ached now from the effort of enchanting, as though his brain were trying to crawl out from behind his eyes. Glumly, he eyed the growing pile of armor and weaponry propped up in the corner beside him and basket of soulgems on the floor. It wasn’t a task he enjoyed terribly. In fact, there were literally a hundred different ways he’d rather be spending a sunny Turdas morning. He knew for a fact that the smiths upstairs hated the work as well and most probably him for making them do it. Once or twice, as he’d stretched his legs in between jobs, he’d heard them complaining before they knew he was listening. The conversation had abruptly ceased once he’d rounded the corner, pretending to be lost in his thoughts.

No, he secretly agreed with them, smithing crude weapons was not fit work for a band of outcast mages. If he’d been told when he’d first decided to stay that this was how the vast bulk of his time in Morvunskar would be spent, he would never have believed it. But, came the sad realization, even in a daedric cult, someone had to foot the bill for the orgies. The items they made and he enchanted were periodically hauled off by a contact in Windhelm and sold there to the unsuspecting populace for top septim. Of course, he would’ve liked to have seen more of the profit. There were quite a few things he’d much rather be doing differently. But one in hiding isn’t exactly in a position for bargaining.

He’d been hearing the rumors all too frequently now – Thalmor nosing about in the area, undoubtedly searching for something. He didn’t know how true it was, seeing as his news came from a handful of sources of somewhat less than questionable reliability. But he couldn’t afford to take any chances. They’d never take him back to the Summurset Isles alive.

A new determination refreshing him, he seized the nearest dagger, plucked the biggest soulgem from the basket and set to work. He was deep in concentration and nearly through with the enchantment when a clatter startled him, cutting off the incantation and spoiling his labor. He turned around, furious, about to yell at whatever idiot it was that thought best to disturb him, when he found himself enfolded in a pair of soft arms. The heady scent of pine resin overwhelmed him. He twisted around in his chair and kissed the patch of air where he thought a pair of lips might be. With a slight crackle of energy, the spell wore off and the Bosmer appeared before him. She was smiling mischievously, impishly, a fiendish glint in her deep brown eyes.

Without a word, she pulled a hefty-looking axe from her belt and placed it on the enchanting table with a solid thunk. Lighting the dim chamber with a flame spell, Naris examined it quizzically. The weapon was fancier than he’d first assumed – covered with swirling engravings, glowing slightly with an enchantment of its own. Carved along the blade in a script so intricate he could barely read it were the words “Axe of Whiterun.”

He slumped back in his chair, the fire in his hand dying, no less confused than when he’d started.

“Alia, what is this?”

“Oh, that’s right…” she murmured, her smile dying down a little bit, “You might not know about this. It’s a Nord custom. When a Jarl chooses a Thane for his court, he makes a gift of a ceremonial weapon to the lucky person. One…exactly like this. Would you like to know where I found it?”

“I supp…”

“Just across the river!” she burst out excitedly, suddenly leaping into his lap and nearly breaking his legs with the force of her excitement, “At a camp with two travelers. I stopped by the fire last night as I was hunting but I managed to catch a conversation between the two of them.”

“Naris…” she whispered, kissing him on the tip of his long nose, “One of them is the Thane of Whiterun.”

A general idea of what she wanted was gradually forming in his brain. It was enticing and terrifying. He didn’t know if he liked it at all.

“Wait, wait now…” he sputtered, picking her up and setting her back on the floor, “You want to ransom the Thane of Whiterun?”

“I can do it!” she blurted out obstinately, clenching her fists, “Take out the bodyguard, grab the girl without being seen…”

“Look, I don’t doubt that you can.” Naris cut in, rising to his feet and waving his hands in capitulation, “But think of how dangerous it could be if word got out. What if the Thalmor figured…”

“I want to get out of here.” She whispered hoarsely, crossing her arms over her chest, abruptly silencing every thought in Naris’ head.

Her bottom lip was quivering and her eyes were misting over. The lines on her face suddenly stood out with razor clarity, the filth, the scars.

“I…I want to buy a little cottage in the middle of nowhere. A cow, a chicken coop. A f-family, maybe.”

At the last bit she lunged backwards, bracing herself as though she expected to be hit.

“I’m so tired…” she murmured, looking at the palms of her shaking hands, a look of sad hatred in her eyes.

Naris took a few steps forward and Alia flinched as he wrapped his arms around her. He breathed in her scent deeply, a thousand thoughts running through his aching skull.

She was shaking when he let go, shivering as though she’d just come in from a raging blizzard. She flinched again when he put a hand on her shoulder, scrunching her bloodshot eyes shut. Naris took a deep breath, unsure if what he planned to say was really going to come out of his mouth.

“Then…” he choked out, hardly able to believe the words that were coming out of his mouth, “…we’ll do it together.”

A look of abject shock slowly spread across Alia’s features. She wiped her nose on her filthy sleeve and leaped into his arms, tiny unheard sobs wracking her body.

“Mmmmm!” she grumbled, jumping back down and slapping her own face in an effort to make herself stop crying, “W-We’ll h-have to move fast. I-I don’t expect them to stick around for long.”

“Oh, right!” Naris exclaimed, memory suddenly rushing back to him, “Before you go, there’s something I’ve been working on for you. I’m not sure if it’s finished yet, but…”

He dove headfirst into the pile of weapons and armor on the floor, finally emerging with an oddly shaped bow in hand. It was as black as a starless sky, like a solid sliver of shadow. As he passed it over to her, it caught the light, reflecting the glimmer of enchantments. She weighed it in her hand, confused wonderment in her eyes.

“This isn’t one of ours, right? We couldn’t have possibly…”

“No, no, of course not.” Naris cut in, waving his hands dismissively, “It belonged to that traveler from Morrowind a while back. I’ve only enchanted it. Oh and I’ve got some arrows too.”

A little more rummaging drew out a quiver of arrows as dark and graceful in execution as the bow itself. Alia looked them over in silent amazement before warily slinging the quiver over her back.

“Thank you.” She whispered, a slight tinge of fear in her voice.

Naris felt light-headed, like his grip on the world was slipping away. He held Alia tenderly, for one last time, kissing her gently and only pulling away very reluctantly.

“Please stay safe.” He whispered, patting her on her tousled head.

She nodded defiantly, a smile creeping up the corners of her mouth. The moment was lost however, the instant it was interrupting by a loud banging in the room across the hall, followed by the sound of soft sobbing. Naris frowned, running his thin fingers over the empty soulgems in his pocket. A split second look of terror flashed across Alia’s face. She covered it up with a weak smile, waved goodbye and then beat a retreat hastier than anything he’d ever seen. Slim tendrils of anxiety wracked his brain as he watched her vanish into the dank gloom and just the slightest touch of fear played on his nerves. There was so much that could go wrong, such horrors that could befall them should they be discovered. And yet, he felt lighter than he had felt in many a month. And dare he think it…hopeful?

Anger abruptly rose in his gullet, dashing his thoughts to ashes as the banging intensified across the hall. The wretched sound pounded on the inside of his sore skull.

He pulled a gem out of his pocket, tossing it once in the air playfully, admiring how the light of his candle caught its deep purple faucets. Then, as he trotted irritably to his destination, he clenched his fist around it until his knuckles turned white, took a key from his belt and slid it into the lock.

The crying grew louder.


***​

Jenassa was dreaming of running – of racing with the speed of a purebred stallion, outrunning the stars in the sky, but going nowhere, of dark pursuers in the night, cold blades and close spaces. She dreamed that she was turning to ice, banging on enclosing glass walls, crying for help to shadowy passerby. But no one could see her.

For the space of a second, she saw Ambarys, his worn face bloody and toothless, wearily catch her eye. Her voice caught in her throat, all of her words lost in the depths of another chilly dream. He turned away, one of his feet dragging behind him.

She dreamed of burning too, of walking on an ashen plain, in choking air and boiling heat, the shadow of a great mountain looming before her. A golden mask spoke mocking words and she covered her ears in terror, falling in a heap in the swirling ash, begging him incessantly to stop.

And then it was dead silent. Warily, she sat up, uncovering her ears and looking about the dead, still landscape. A familiar figure limped toward her, wreathed in flame and burning with its power. A trail of blood dripped from the wound on her chest, catching fire and cracking open the ground into flaming chasms as she walked. Her eyes were what glued her to her spot – cold and icy blue, staring deeper into her than she thought possible, and her gaze piercing her like twin needles.

She felt as though she were beholden to the figure, as though she owed it more than she could ever pay back. A love deeper than she could comprehend filled her as their eyes met and a hatred beyond all else consumed her. A flaming hand was extended in friendship and she thought that she could see the hint of a smile on that shadowy face. She saw death in its grasp – its heat turning her to ashes and her breath to sulphurous smoke.

“I can’t.” she gasped, drawing away with great sadness, but unable to break her gaze away, “Not yet.”

She saw her sorrow reflected in the slump of the figure’s thin shoulders. Slowly, it began to turn away, receding back into the boiling depths from whence it had come. With a jolt Jenassa found that her legs were moving of their own accord, racing across the barren plain after her. A flying ember caught on her outstretched sleeve and burst into flame. She danced in her dreams in sudden terror, frantically trying to put it out.

With a start, she was assaulted by blazing sunlight and abruptly found that part of the dream had worked its way into reality. She was lying too close to a crackling campfire and the sleeve of a jacket that she didn’t recognize had caught an ember in its thick fibers. Speedily, she patted it until it was out.

When she’d lain still long enough to stop the world from spinning and her eyes had adjusted to the light, Jenassa slowly dared to sit up. Her head felt like she’d drunk too much and her mouth tasted like the inside of a skeever. Her stomach was still sore, but the pain had lessened and retreated deeper inside of her. And now she was ravenous, hungry enough to eat a real skeever should one come wandering by, though that would doubtless be at least as hazardous to her health as a pair of raw fish.

But first things first. Unmoving, unsure of what to make of things, she took stock of her surroundings with half-closed eyes. It was just about as haphazard of a camp as she’d ever seen – a couple of ramshackle tents, a crude firepit, laundry strung between tent pole and tree branch.

And then there she was. Jenassa’s heart stopped at the sight of her, recognizable even though her head was halfway in a tent. That damned little girl who’d dogged her every step to Windhelm, whom she just couldn’t seem to shake no matter how far she ran. As near as she could tell, she was alone and fully occupied with something. The odds said that she didn’t yet know that Jenassa had awoken.

She didn’t know whether to kill her or kiss her. The stupid snot probably thought herself a hero now. And heroes were almost always several or more times worse than hired mercenaries. At least with gold on the line you could more easily predict what someone would do. But to risk one’s neck for nothing? That had to be insanity at its finest. One just can’t deal with madness like that on a regular basis. There was so much she wanted to know, to beat out of the girl’s stupid, babyish face.

With the greatest of care, she kicked off her coverings and pulled herself to her weary feet. For a moment the world spun again and Jenassa felt as though she were about to faint. She fell to all fours and took a few deep breaths before continuing. The dry grass crackled underfoot but the girl kept rooting around in the tent, oblivious to the sound and the creeping presence approaching.

She was right behind her now, watching the unmindful backside wiggle before her. She flexed her shoulders, wincing at the bruises from the previous night…and then pounced.

The girl screamed but it was abruptly cut off with a quick jab to throat. Jenassa dragged her out, her hands digging into her scalp, her life between her palms.

“One wrong move…” Jenassa hissed in her ear, her voice still hideously hoarse, “…and I snap your neck. Understand?”

The fire went out in the girl’s hands and she dropped her arms limply.

“Now tell me,” she went on, twisting her neck slightly and eliciting a gasp of pain, “Why did you save me?”

“I-I d-don’t…”

“Answer me!” she screamed, a tinge of desperation coloring her tone. She yanked hard on a hank of hair for good measure.

“Y-You were there.” She wheezed pathetically.

Before she’d even realized what was happening, her arms grew weak, her vision went blurry and the girl went tumbling to the ground, coughing and gagging. Blinking away the mist frantically, Jenassa seized her by the collar and dragged her back up to eye-level.

Her heart stopped somewhere in the depths of the girl’s furious, icy eyes. Disgusting fear shot through Jenassa’s system upon seeing them. She remembered the flames shooting out of her thin fingers, mercilessly setting the Argonian in Whiterun aflame. She couldn’t help but imagine her sitting in a throne of shadows, bathed in fire, extending a flaming hand…

She hated herself for everything – for ever getting involved in affairs that she wasn’t a part of, for letting emotion overtake her, for somehow ending up in a situation so monumentally stupid. But most of all, she loathed her own sickening fear of someone so utterly inconsequential.

Her free hand clenched into a fist and the other drug the silly girl closer.

“I was there?” she spat, causing her captive to wince at the spray of spittle on her face.

She was the one who was afraid now. Jenassa could smell it on her. And she couldn’t help but find some vindication in being able to scare the target of her fear.

“Y-You say...” the girl sputtered out, attempting to sound brave, but her tongue betraying her, “…t-that a l-life is o-only worth the amount of gold someone’s willing to pay for it.”

With shaking hands, she tried to unhook Jenassa’s fingers from her collar, but seemed to be finding them even more resilient than even Jenassa thought they were.

“That isn’t what I think.” She finished lamely, giving up and dropping her hands.

“Hmph.” Jenassa snickered coolly, her unsteady grip loosening a little, “Is that so? Tell me, girl…have you ever killed someone?”

A shadow flickered across her pale face and suddenly her gaze was directed everywhere except at Jenassa.

“Hmm?” Jenassa murmured threateningly, shaking her a little for good measure.

“Yes.” The girl spat out between clenched teeth, her weak hands balling into fists on her lap.

“I don’t mean in self-defense or on accident or from a distance. I mean, have you really, truly killed someone?”

“I don’t know what you…” she whimpered, her voice cracking.

“Have you ever murdered a person not out of honor or glory but simply because you were the stronger of two forces?” Jenassa snapped, pulling her closer and furiously gesticulating with her free hand, “Because he was small and you were large and his death would feed you for a month?”

She wasn’t responding. In fact, she was still averting her gaze vehemently. Her face was scrunched up, slowly turning crimson and it looked as though she were trying with all her might not to cry.

“What! You can’t answer that?” Jenassa mocked her, grinning widely.

“No! I…”

Something glinted in the corner of Jenassa’s eye and as she turned, they seized on a half-drawn sword in a scabbard lying inside the tent.

“Come, now.” she purred, leaning over, drawing it out from its sheath and admiring its shine in her hand, “Have you even used this silly thing for its intended purpose? Did you think it was only an adventurer’s toy? Have you swung this thing even once?”

“Get out.”

The voice was quiet, tranquilly threatening. Jenassa’s eyes went wide and terror played on her nerves.

“Go.” It ordered, its volume hardly above a whisper.

She could hear the sound of a bowstring being pulled. The sword slipped from her hand and the girl fell backwards with a gasp as Jenassa let go of her. Groggily, she scrambled to her feet, lifting her quaking arms in a motion of surrender.

For the space of a moment, the two of them eyed each other warily. It seemed as though time was held still. The Thane’s steel-clad dog was smeared with mud and filth. One scraggly rabbit carcass hung from a string on her shoulder. There were deep bags under her eyes and her hand shook as she tried to hold her weapon steady.

Jenassa turned and bolted, her bare feet tearing up the undergrowth as she ran.


***​

Hours had passed and Tanniel still couldn’t stop herself from shaking. Every time she paused to look at her hands, there it was; that subtle, irritating, undying quiver from the soles of her feet to the ends of fingers. It hadn’t really set in until a short while after the Dunmer had gone. Until then, she hadn’t been thinking about exactly how much danger she had been in. It was only after the attacker had left that she’d realized just how narrowly she’d avoided a far worse fate. If Lydia had come back half a minute, or Divines forbid, hours later, she shivered to think of what might have become of her.

Only now, as the chilling night wind began to sweep the hair off of her back and darkness closed around the meager clearing, had the elf’s bitter words started to sink in. Gloomily glancing at her sword, now hanging in its scabbard from a tent pole and gently swaying in the breeze, she wondered why she had brought it along in the first place. Was it just a toy to her? A good luck charm? The sight of it sickened her now. Had she been so foolish as to think that all those hours of swordmanship practice with Lydia was just a bit of fun to pass the time?

And Lydia! For hours she’d been expecting a smug smirk or an offhand comment or a speech about the hazards of consorting with strangers on the road. The deafening silence that she’d gotten instead might have been worse. Saying nothing, she’d helped her off the ground and dusted her off. Mutely, she’d stripped the rabbit of its skin and dropped it into the pot. They’d eaten their thin stew with nothing more than the burble of the nearby river between them, nearly always finding more gristle than meat in their mouths.

The sunset had been washed-out and colorless, the sky filled with murky clouds. The damp chill in the air hadn’t done any favors for Tanniel’s cold. Her nose ran incessantly, drenching the scrap of fabric that she’d been using as a handkerchief. And now the warmth of the fire was slowly dwindling and its circle of light shrinking about the two of them, as the pile of firewood was whittled down to nothing. Lydia poked at the coals with a stick and scrounged about for things to burn.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t break up more of those big logs today.” Tanniel whispered, her voice cracking from the effort. She braced herself for the blow. It had to be coming now, something, anything. It would almost be better if she could just get it over with sooner rather than later.

“Ah, I’ll figure out something.” Lydia yawned, waving her arms dismissively.

Tanniel didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed.

“The handaxe got a bad crack in it partway through the day.” the words just kept bubbling out of her, speedily, incessantly, struggling to fill the encompassing silence, “And then I couldn’t find the Axe of Whiterun anywhere and I couldn’t leave camp to go borrow one and…”

“What?” Lydia chuckled wearily, cracking a smile for the first time all day, though the light from the dying fire cast eerie shadows on her hollow face, “You wanted to use the Jarl’s enchanted axe to chop firewood?”

“Well…” Tanniel muttered indignantly, trying not to laugh herself as she realized exactly how ridiculous it did sound.

“I’m sure it’ll turn up sometime. Probably tomorrow morning, someplace obvious you’d slap yourself for not remembering.”

“That is the way of it, isn’t it?” Tanniel smiled, overjoyed that maybe things were starting to relax again at last.

With a mighty sigh, she heaved herself off the ground and began gathering up the dirty dishes from dinner. As she headed down to the riverbank to wash them, Lydia called after her, an undercurrent of worry in her voice.

“Don’t wander off too far now. I don’t believe our guest is quite gone yet.”

Tanniel’s heart froze all over again. Suddenly, the night seemed all the more threatening. She spun around, clutching the dirty bowls protectively to her chest and not caring in the least about what they might do to her gown.

“What makes you say that?” she whispered breathlessly, finding the urge to examine each and every shadow.

Her eyes followed the line of Lydia’s pointing finger up to the scraggly branches of a dying pine tree. They were strung with a suit of much-battered leather armor, still caked with traces of mud from its dunk in the White River no matter how much Tanniel had tried to scrub it away.

“She left her clothes.” Lydia answered flatly, “And she ran off without a pair of shoes.”

The housecarl cracked a weak smile.

“But she isn’t anything I can’t handle. Just…stay where I can see you, okay?”

Tanniel nodded weakly. She felt Lydia’s eyes on her back as she walked down to the riverside and relaxed a little at the comforting feeling of her stern gaze. She was shaking again. It wasn’t much, but just enough to rattle the cookware in her arms.

She tried to think of the bright side as she scrubbed and splashed away, an old rag in hand. Tomorrow they’d at last be leaving this wretched bank upon which they’d parked themselves. The company had been downright awful, the weather could have been far better, the lodgings were poor and the bathwater left at the very least, much to be desired. She couldn’t help but think that things would be much more agreeable in the southern climes. The weather warmer, the people friendlier. It certainly couldn’t be any worse than what she had seen already.

With a deep breath, she rose and gazed down at her dim reflection in the icy water. It wobbled and twisted in the murky current, distorting her features one way and then another. But with a start, she took in exactly how much filth she’d accumulated already over the course of the journey. She barely recognized herself now; with her hair being so thoroughly tangled and every crease of her face lined with soot. Weakly, she tried splashing herself with a few bracing handfuls of water. For all the good it did, she might have been throwing rocks at a dragon.

But there would be soap in Ivarstead and if all went well, an innkeeper with a vat of warm bathwater. How far had she come already from the soft beds and roaring fires of Whiterun! And still, High Hrothgar seemed so impossibly far away, a place barely beyond the reach of her imagination.

Impatiently, she shook the bowls dry and turned to leave. That was when she caught it in the corner of her eye. An odd shimmer in the air, a smudge on reality. She blinked and squinted at it, trying to figure out if there was something in her eye or merely an odd formation of evening fog. Involuntarily, the hairs on the back of neck stood straight up and her jaw clenched. There was nothing there. There had to be. If she just left quickly, if she looked away, if she forgot entirely about it, then it would have never existed at all and nothing would be wrong. Tucking the bowls under her arm, she began to walk briskly back to camp, looking at nothing but what lay before her. Not running, of course. There was no call for that, if nothing was there.

It all happened so fast. There was a rush of air, a flash of green light and a sharp prickle on the back of her shoulder. The breath abruptly drained from her lungs and she fell to her knees, the bowls slipping from her grip and falling with a clatter to the damp ground. There was something roaring, wailing, crying inside her ears, blocking out all other sound. Before she even knew what was happening, she was facedown in the mud. When it occurred to her that she might scream for help, she found that try as she might, she couldn’t muster the strength to move her jaw. Her limbs felt like mountains, solid and immobile, held fast in their moorings of earth.

Faintly, distantly, she could hear the sound of fighting, of feet scuffling in the underbrush, the twang of a bowstring, of steel sinking into flesh, of a high voice yelping in pain. Lydia was calling her name.

And then it was silent.

Someone was breathing heavily close by, gasping and wheezing. When the panting had steadied, she could hear the sound of something weighty scraping along the riverbank, accompanied by little grunts and yips of effort. There was a moist thud and a muffled curse. The patter of light footsteps came closer and a pair of bony hands roughly wrapped around her waist.

She was being lifted from the ground and heaved over a jutting shoulder. Her face slammed against a sweaty backside and she bounced as the person carrying her began to run. Of all things, the overpowering scent of pine resin filled her nose, gagging and choking her.


***​
At last, Jenassa could see the prize; a series of shadows dangling in the inconsistent moonlight. They had to be it – she was certain of it. But worry and fear tied her stomach into knots. The night chill was seeping into her bones, her broken nose oozed snot, hunger tugged on the edges of her sanity and her strength had reached its end several hours ago. A lump rose in her throat at the thought of another run-in with the Thane’s steely guard dog.

But there was no turning back now. Earlier, she had to have run at a dead sprint for a mile or more before she’d finally stopped, looked down at her bloody feet and the razor-sharp grass and stupidly realized how little progress she’d be making without a good pair of boots. Or armor on her back, for that matter. That had dawned on her when an unfriendly growl emanated from a nearby stand of trees. And so, she’d snuck back, slowly, carefully, resting frequently, not daring to get any closer until the sun was well below the horizon.

And now here she was. Not a breath of movement stirred in the still camp, save for the mournful wind and the calm burble of the accursed river. The firepit was cold and the twin tents stood silent as sleepy sentinels. It was time. The two of them had to be dreaming by now. Terror and excitement building in her breast, Jenassa crawled out from her hiding place and slowly began making her way to the tree upon which the familiar shapes dangled. Closer and closer, until she could reach out and touch the edge of her cuirass. She gave it a gentle tug.

With a sickening, earth-shaking crack the dead branch that was supporting it gave way and the cuirass went tumbling to the forest floor. Jenassa hit the ground, her hands over her head, certain that she’d woken up the entire province by now. Time passed and nothing came of it. Gingerly, she pulled herself back up and took stock of the situation. With a start, she realized exactly how dead silent the meager camp was. No sounds of sleeping breath came from within the nearby tents. No life stirred in the area, so far as she could tell.

Her boldness growing, she strode right up into the inner circle, poking her head in each tent in turn. There really was no one home. She would have laughed in relief had her belly not hurt so much. Greedily, her eyes caught on a pot sitting over the cold fire. Not too quickly, lest her hopes be dashed, she snatched it up and plunged a finger inside.

At that very moment that last dribble of cold and congealing stew was best thing she had ever tasted in her life. She gulped it down in great mouthfuls, pausing only to pry a stubborn bone out of her teeth before it slid down her throat. Throwing the empty pot aside with a clatter, her stomach gurgling appreciatively, she weakly flopped down onto one of the bedrolls. She hadn’t been planning to spend the night. A little voice in the back of her head was screaming at her not to, warning her of danger, destruction, disaster.

But after the rough days she’d been through, the pallet was like a cloud and the woolen covers felt to her weary flesh so very much like silk. She was already out and far gone into dreams before the little voice of reason could hope to gain a firm foothold.


***​
Prying her eyes open was like tearing open a pair of bear traps or wrenching the gooey remains of a honey-nut treat from the back of her teeth. Finally, after much struggle, Tanniel managed to force them open, only to see a mélange of blurred colors and shapes. As her eyes adjusted to the light, they focused on a flickering candle sitting in a cracked dish. It was on a table covered with strange and uncanny symbols and arcana whose use she couldn’t even begin to guess at.

As her senses gradually flowed back to her, she realized that she was lying in a shoddily-made bed. Moldering straw was gently poking out from beneath the covers. The air was thick and heavy with dampness. There were faint voices echoing down dark corridors far away. Fear building in her heart as her memory trickled back, she tried to sit up, fighting piteously against her inexplicably unwieldy limbs. With one last mighty heave, she sent herself tumbling out of bed with a muffled cry and a large clatter as she knocked her head on the edge of the arcane table. The world spun painfully and her eyes prickled with hot tears as she lay still on a grime-coated stone floor, trying to grasp her bearings.

When the spinning stopped for half a second, she found that she’d landed face-first on the edge of a basket of jewels, now toppled and scattered across the filthy ground. They were all roughly the size of her palm, their faucets largely unpolished, with a similar coloration to shards of amethyst. But their crystal structure was all wrong and the color was deeper than any amethyst she’d ever seen. As she puzzled over it, trying to ignore the pounding in her head, her eye caught on something twitching in its depths, almost as though it were alive. With a meek gasp, hardly knowing why, she lurched away, cool terror playing on her shattered nerves.

“Oh no, no!” an absurdly bright and cheery voice suddenly called out from behind her, “You’re hurt!”

There was a skittering of footsteps and all of a sudden there were arms around her, lifting her from the floor and laying her back on the bed. A jolt of pain shot through her shoulder at the touch of them and Tanniel cried out. The visitor lurched backwards as though she’d been slapped, a look of pain on her dirt-smudged face.

“I’m sorry.” She whispered, twisting a handkerchief nervously in her hands, “I tried not to shoot anything vital. And I bandaged it up as best I could.”

With utmost care, she perched on the edge of the bed and tenderly dabbed at Tanniel’s forehead with the handkerchief.

As she came closer, she saw that her captor was a Bosmer. Her forehead was wrinkled with fine lines of worry, tatty rags were dangling from her thin frame and her bare feet were soled with a thick layer of dirt. When she leaned over her, she caught a potent whiff of pine resin.

“Who…?” Tanniel choked out, barely able to form the single word with her unwieldy tongue.

“It’s Alia.” The Bosmer answered, immediately brightening up. She picked up Tanniel’s limp hand and gave it a firm shake. “And how are you feeling this fine day?”

Tanniel found herself glaring venomously at her, bile rising in her throat.

“But the spell’ll wear off soon enough!” the Bosmer went on breathlessly, sweat breaking out on her brow, “See, you’ve already thrown yourself on the floor! That’s quite an accomplishment, right? Ah ha, um…”

That she had been correct about at least. It was getting easier as time went on. With much more than a bit of relief, she found that she could wiggle the tips of her fingers without feeling as though she were lifting a boulder.

“…and then…” the Bosmer kept prattling on incessantly, barely pausing for breath between sentences, “…you’re bound to be back in the comforts of Whiterun soon enough. I’ll bet you have a big, soft bed waiting for you. And a mansion with a garden out front and stained glass windows. And a whole wait staff to attend to your every nee…oh, what’s wrong now? Did I hurt you?”

The events of the previous night had come rushing fully up to the surface in a wretched cascade. Before she even knew what was happening, boiling hot tears were pouring down her face.

“L-Lydia…” she sputtered with superhuman effort, “I-I…heard fighting…b-but…”

A shadow flickered over the Bosmer’s features for a split second before it was replaced with an incandescent smile.

“Was that your friend? Oh, no, she’s perfectly fine. I only paralyzed her. Of course, it took a lot more arrows than I needed for you, so…I’d give it a week before she’s up and about again. Not to worry, though! You’ll be long gone before she’s back.”

Her face started to fall again when she saw that her words didn’t seem to be having much of an effect.

“Oh, come on, now.” She murmured kindly, patting Tanniel’s hand, “Skyrim’s not such a big place. You’ll find each other again.”

The elf folded her now-bloody handkerchief in half and used it to dab at her tears instead. For a moment the two of them sat in utter silence, Tanniel trying to calm down and think straight, Alia looking grim and stony.

“Oh, I know!” she suddenly burst out, a big, terrifying smile suddenly blooming on her lanky face, “I can show you around the castle. You’d like that, right?”

Before she could eke out an answer, the elf was gone, vanished in the gloom of the hallway just outside the room. Tanniel heard a mighty crash from somewhere close by and a moment later, she was back, wheeling an old handcart into the cramped room. She pulled out the pillow from beneath Tanniel’s head, frenetically whipped out the blanket from under her and fashioned the cart into a seat somewhat suited for humans. With a grunt, she scooped up Tanniel herself and dumped her in the contraption.

It seemed like they rolled around in circles for hours, from one dank stone passage to another that looked exactly the same. Alia prattled away the entire time, about everything and nothing, her every word sounding like the dull droning of a bee. Tanniel was screaming in the back of her skull, frantically looking to every crevice for a means of escape before drifting back to the stubborn image in her mind of Lydia lying splayed out in a pool of her own blood.

When every dark nook of the place seemed to have been exhausted, they found themselves back in the heart of the structure, a large and drafty chamber which must once have been a far grander hall in the heyday of the fort’s existence. There was a crude bonfire set up in the center of it, with a few pots and pans hanging over the dying embers. The scent of roasting meat caught in Tanniel’s nose as they passed by and her stomach inadvertently rumbled despite how sick she felt.

Alia stopped dead in her tracks with a sudden jolt that shook the handcart precariously.

“Some hostess I’ve been!” she moaned overdramatically, “You’ve got to be starving by now, poor thing! I’ll fix you right up…”

With a yank, she pulled her to her unsteady feet and smoothly guided her down to a fallen column that served as a bench. When she saw that she wasn’t going to topple over without her support, she dashed away excitedly, returning moments later with two bowls in hand. With a sigh, she plopped down beside her, cross-legged on the stone pillar.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t offer better to a Thane.” She said wanly, handing over a bowl with a few shreds of some sort of meat, “But that’s all we’ve got for the time being, what with Winter coming so fast this year. I swear I haven’t seen the herd this thin since I came to Skyrim.”

Tanniel eyed the dish warily, very much doubting that she could put anything in her mouth at this juncture. She felt nauseous and tired beyond belief, like doing anything besides breathing would take more effort than she had to give.

“I’ll be so glad to be out of here by then.” The elf broke into her thoughts, a surprisingly hard edge coming suddenly into her voice. She balled her hands into fists and stuffed them in her armpits.

“What I want…” she went on wistfully, a faraway gleam in her eye, “…is a cottage far away from here, someplace green and lush. Can you see it? Where the outside world is only a dream, where I won’t have to…”

She unclenched her fists, for one fleeting moment glaring at them in pure volcanic rage before sighing and dropping them back down to her lap. When she next looked up, her eyes were misty with tears.

“I am sorry that we had to meet this way. And sorry that I had to draw you into this. But you have to understand…there isn’t any other way.”

“Then why don’t you just leave?” Tanniel muttered under her breath, at first uncertain if she’d actually said it aloud or only in her thoughts.

“And do what?” Alia shouted hysterically, her voice squeaking on the final syllable. Some of the slumbering shapes in the corners of the room stirred and groaned. “Live an honest life after what I’ve done? Not with my record, no!”

“I…” she murmured softly, her hollow face falling, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled. You can’t know what it’s like to be hungry.”

“No, that isn’t right.” Tanniel coughed, slowly gaining confidence as she tried to clear the hoarseness from her throat, “I know well enough about hunger.”

The Bosmer’s forehead wrinkled in confusion and worry.

“But you’re a Thane!” she exclaimed, raising an eyebrow, “So, how…?”

“I’ve been Thane for a month. I live in the attic room of an inn and do manual labor for a living. I don’t have any possessions to speak of and I can bet you that hardly anyone outside of Whiterun even knows who I am.”

“But the Jarl’s still got to think highly of you, right?” the elf smiled nervously, a quiver of desperation in her voice, “I mean, you don’t give out titles to just anyone. And surely he wouldn’t just let a noble of his court languish away imprisoned, without paying her ransom? Really, it’s got to reflect badly on…”

“I don’t know!” Tanniel blurted out, the truth suddenly dawning on her in horror, “I…I committed a crime in Whiterun recently. It was an accident. The Jarl got me out of it out of his own purse, but if he’ll do it again…I…”

Warily, she lifted her head, her shoulders shaking, expecting a blow, retaliation, a bowshot through the heart this time. What she got was so much worse.

The Bosmer was smiling, her eyes glazed and empty. It was as though she were looking straight through her, not paying attention to a single thing she’d said.

“Say…” she sang in a sing-song voice, leaning over and gingerly lifting a tangled lock of hair from Tanniel’s shoulder, “Have you ever run a comb through this?”
 

SGT_Sky

Silence, My Brother
yes.

sent from my lunch table in the DFAC of Fort Riley.
 

Neriad13

Premium Member
I always hated how Nazeem asks the freaking THANE OF WHITERUN "Do you get to the Cloud District very often?"

I thought it'd be funny to kill off the second most annoying character in the game, his death deserved or not. But is it an act which gives Jenassa brownie points or just serves to make her look like a monster? Either way...

I also have indefinite plans for Heimskr to get arrested in the future. I have the perfect setup for it and I think it 'd be hilarious, but at this point, I'm not sure how I'm actually going to work it into the story. Maybe it'll happen, maybe it won't. I'll just have to cross that bridge when I get there.
 

bulbaquil

...is not Sjadbek, he just runs him.
I also have indefinite plans for Heimskr to get arrested in the future. I have the perfect setup for it and I think it 'd be hilarious, but at this point, I'm not sure how I'm actually going to work it into the story. Maybe it'll happen, maybe it won't. I'll just have to cross that bridge when I get there.

I had the Thalmor try to arrest (really, execute) Heimskr, but a very angry Balgruuf had other plans....
 

Neriad13

Premium Member
I had the Thalmor try to arrest (really, execute) Heimskr, but a very angry Balgruuf had other plans....

Haha, I did read about that and really enjoyed that chapter. And then I was sad because the four funniest characters got killed offscreen. *pouts*

But I don't think that Heimskr can get nailed based on his faith - it has to be something more concrete. Say...drug possession. ;)
 

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