Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

In the beginning was the Void and in the Void was the Serpent.

All that existed rested in the coil of its body, in the glimmer of its scales. Unborn worlds strived to be free from its flesh, but time and again they were crushed beneath the weight of the Serpent’s body - squeezed to nothingness before they even had a chance to exist.

The worlds cried out for something to save them, to let them out, to let them be...

But the Void was silent and still.

All aid had to come from within. And come, it did.

At first, the Serpent felt a tickle. And then a gnawing from inside itself. It writhed in pain from an unidentified source, crying and roaring that some part of itself had betrayed it so. And then, in its agony, it sank its teeth into its own flesh and there found some relief in the taste of its own blood.

This was Akel, the Hungry Stomach, awakened by the need of those who had called for it. It became master of the serpent and commander of its fate. From then on, the Serpent could think of nothing else but its hunger. It ate of itself ravenously, devouring its own body and making room in the cosmos for new worlds to grow.

Life bloomed like a flower on a thorny desert plant. The forms it took were strange and beautiful. The colors, beyond any that have ever been seen in this world.

But like that flower - its life delicate and brief before a burning wind rips it from its stalk - so too did the first worlds come to perish.

The Serpent’s hunger knew no bounds. Its flesh, the worlds that existed within it and the spirits who inhabited them - all of it slid down its gullet, crying for a mercy that would never come.

And then, the Serpent’s jaws sank into its own heart. It gave one last frightened beat and then, ceased.

It was over. All that had ever been was gone. All that had ever lived was dead.

Save for Akel.

Its hunger strained against the boundaries of death, ravenous even as the corpse of its host rotted around it.

And so, the First Serpent came to shed its skin, to free itself of its past life, to eat of itself once again. In its place, Satakal was born. The pattern was set, the destiny of all that existed - to end up in the belly of a beast - immutable.

The surviving spirits watched as their kin were eaten and their worlds destroyed. Those that remained, mourned. Those that were next, accepted their doom.

But one did something different.

His name was Ruptga. His legs were long and his determination, unbreakable. Through careful practice, he learned the method of moving at strange angles, of stepping between the thrusts of Satakal’s jaws and escaping unscathed.

This was the Walkabout, the way to freedom from death in a monster’s belly. He taught it to all he could. But the way was not an easy one. Many spirits failed and died before he could find his way to them. So he placed stars in the sky to light the way, to guide them home.

Through endless cycles he sired many children and became known in time as Tall Papa. All the while, he placed the stars, guiding as many as he could to safety. His home became a place of wonder and beauty, a resting place after a life of toil. It was called the Far Shores, after the distance it takes to attain it at last.

But over the course of so many cycles, the spirits grew so numerous that he alone could not hope to help them all.

And so, from the detritus of past skins, he formed a helper. This was Sep, the Second Serpent. The Hunger - concentrated, refined in the many skins that formed his body - was still in him. He ate his fingers, his toes, the shoulder of the unfortunate who happened to be standing next to him. No matter how much he ate, he was never satisfied. Much more often than not, he ate the spirit he was sent to help.

But Tall Papa always reached in and pulled them out of him, shaking his head and laughing at the mistake. By the time they were made whole again, the spirit was laughing too.

In these moments, the emptiness inside of Sep gnawed at him worse than ever before.

After many cycles of embarrassment, Sep grew ashamed of standing in Tall Papa’s presence and tired of helping others jump from place to place. He hungered for far more than that out of life.

So, out of the skins of past worlds, he created his own.

The land was the dry scales of the serpent, mountain ranges the places where Sep had gotten careless and not smoothed them out enough. The oceans were sweat from Sep’s own brow as he worked. The clouds were his breath, the wind, his longing sighs. The deserts are the dandruff he scratched from his brow when he grew tired of his task.

This is why the Alik’r Desert is so vast - he worked so hard to make Hammerfell beautiful that by the time he was nearly finished, he was very, very tired.

And the core which made the whole thing work - which made the world more than a ball of skin and sweat and scales - that was his very own heart.

In joy at his new creation, he bade the spirits to live in his world rather than complete the arduous Walkabout. A great many of them were overjoyed. It was so much simpler to live there rather than spend all their lives jumping from place to place. They sang and danced and the skin-world was filled with music and light and joy.

But then, the spirits began to grow old and die.

Sep’s world was a simulacrum. It was too far from the coils of Satakal, too insulated from the forces of destruction and rebirth that underlie all of the cosmos, to attain true life.

They cried to Tall Papa to save them, to pull them from Sep’s mouth as he always had before. In his sorrow and anger he struck Sep with a stick, knocking his Hunger out of him. That Hunger, a floppy shadow, a dead skin, stalks the sky still, jealously snapping up the stars.

But what had been done was done. Ruptga could not reach them, nor find a way to unmake the false world that Sep had created. He shook his head and peered down sadly at the stranded spirits, his tall shadow casting darkness over the lands upon which it fell. They might have followed him to safety, had they but chosen the right path over the easy one.

“How shall we live?” they cried out to him from below. “How will we reach the Far Shores from here?”

“You must find other ways.” he proclaimed. “It will not be the same, but there is more than one path to immortality.”

He turned away for the last time, light returning as his shadow withdrew.

The spirits tried to find ways to live beyond a single mortal lifetime. Some sought everlasting life through fame, through poetry, through magic. Some fought for it in bloody conquest that tore the world in two. Some thought that were they to pay enough in blood or coin, that they might be saved from death. Others chose to accept the end of their lives and to live on through their children or the things they left behind.

But that longing for the Far Shores, for True Life, in all its chaos and beauty - that never ceases. It underlies everything we as mortals do. Horrible things have been done in the name of achieving it and wonders, too.

But whenever you are angry or despairing or afraid or ready to hurt another for harming you, remember this:

All of us - every last being that lives and breathes on Mundus - is just another lost spirit seeking their way home.

Rayya finished her recitation and allowed herself to slouch down lazily by the fire. Msichana! She could hear Iya’s voice ringing in her ears, You do not tell stories like that! Back straight, belly sucked in. Only then does the Truth flow through you. A smile flickered across her lips at the thought of the old woman.

She remembered a night long ago, around a fire a thousand miles away. Iya’s hands wove pictures in the darkness and her voice kept away the gloom that lurked just beyond the ring of illumination.

She looked at her own hands and wondered if they could ever be that expressive. Had she done well enough tonight? They were built for holding a sword. Their hard-won calluses, their strength, their speed. She wasn’t always certain if they were capable of anything else.

An ember popped and the memory melted away. Her gut clenched in momentary terror when the realization that she had an audience came rushing back to her. She squinted through the flickering flames at her, struggling to gauge her reaction, though there was little more than a silhouette to go on. Never before had she told Iya’s stories, to anyone at all, let alone an outsider.

All of a sudden, she felt naked - as though she were standing alone in an open field with a bank of archers peering down at her, as though Siddgeir had caught her in the bath, as though-

“Lost.” Carolinne mouthed, her voice so faint that it was nearly consumed by the crackle of the flames.

She was silent for what seemed like an eternity. Strange shadows danced on the cavern wall. The wind howled menacingly outside. The hairs prickled on the back of Rayya’s neck, waiting.

Carolinne reached up with a shadowed hand and smoothed back a frazzled strand of hair into the bun at the nape of her neck. Naturally, it sprang right back out. She took no notice.

“I’ve never heard that version before.” she called out across the fire, sitting up a little straighter herself. “It’s beautiful. You say your…uh…your iya…told it that way?”

“My grandmother.” Rayya answered, her heart rate calming down a little at the sound of positive feedback. “I...called her that, at least. Though we were not related by blood.”

“Oh.”

They sat in silence for a longer duration than was comfortable. Rayya took out her knife and poked at the strips of flesh sizzling on the hot rock before her. Fat puddled out from the meat, sparking dangerously as it splashed on the embers. She skewered a piece and sniffed it. It smelled horribly gamy, though it was difficult to tell whether that was the scent of the lair they were squatting in or the meat of the creature that had once inhabited it.

But it was warm and the taste of fat coated her tongue pleasantly after an entire journey spent dining on hardtack, dried meat and the occasional apple lifted from a farmer’s orchard. She scooped the other half of the strips into a bowl for Carolinne and passed it over.

She hesitated for a moment over the meal, sniffing it quizzically and then dug in ravenously, not even pausing to dig out the fork she’d so meticulously carved from a Y-shaped twig on the way there. Grease stained her delicate fingers and dripped down her chin. Her hair, standing out wildly, caught the firelight in odd and frightening ways. As she ate, she made sounds that were not at all unlike the troll they’d taken down not two hours ago.

When she was finished, she produced a lacy handkerchief from her bosom and dabbed at her mouth daintily.

Rayya chewed slowly, a single eyebrow raising in the darkness as she watched. She was unsure of whether she should be terrified or impressed. Hardship did things to nobility. Of that she was certain.

She swallowed the last of the chewy meat with an audible gulp, gave her knife a quick wipe and wrapped the greasy bowls in an oilcloth. She’d wash them tomorrow in the snow, if the storm had let up by then.

When she closed her eyes and leaned against the rocky wall, she could hear the wailing of the wind and the patter of snow outside. But inside, it was warm and comfortable, save for the slight draft from the crack in the ceiling that was their breathing hole. She’d had to clear it twice already. She set her internal clock for an hour from now, in the event that it closed up again.

She made herself comfortable as she laid down, the only barrier against the cold cavern floor, the bearskin that she kept as a travelling bed. Before closing her eyes, she checked to make sure that her scarf was securely fastened over her hair. Sleep came almost instantaneously, the exhaustion that she’d held at bay all day rushing back to her in one large wave.

“Rayya?”

Her voice was so soft and her sleep so deep that she had nearly missed it. Her heavy eyes flicked open and peered at her shadowy companion once more.

Carolinne seemed so small from this distance. Her knees were pulled up to her chest like a child’s and her arms hugged herself as though doing so would keep her in one piece.

“Could you…” she whispered, as though she hardly dared to ask. “…tell another story?”

“Carolinne…” she said as sweetly as she possibly could, her tongue heavy with sleep. “Another story is not going to make the night pass any slower.”

“Ah...I’m sorry I…”

“But I will tell you another one when we’re coming down the 7,000 Steps.”

“Oh!”

She closed her eyes and began to drift off again. Figures she hadn’t seen in years beckoned from the edges of her consciousness.

“Will you…” Carolinne whispered, from across a great, dark distance, “Tell me of your iya?”

“Of course.” she mumbled, unsure if she had spoken it aloud or in dreams.

The morning air smelled fresh and crisp. It took breathing in a lungful of that to realize how wretched the troll’s cave truly had been. The snow crunched under her boots and the sky was magnificently clear. Her heartbeat raced with excitement. They were close. She could feel it. There was something different about the air here. It was lighter and colder and thrummed with something more than what there was in the world below. Magic? Energy? Or was this what she got when she spent a night fighting to breathe in a smoky cave?

Carolinne stumbled out of the cave like a drunken woman. Her eyes were red-rimmed and deep bags sagged under them. Her gown looked far worse in daylight. At one point, before she had met her, it had presumably been a fine piece of work. She could almost imagine what it had looked like, from the outlines of what was left. A deep green velvet, with a plunging neckline and a graceful girdle (now missing, but she couldn’t help thinking that there had been one). The hem was trimmed with gold thread that still glinted when she moved in the light, though the bottom was frayed and filthy.

She squinted in the light, cracked her back and stretched as she yawned. When she opened her eyes, she seemed a bit more composed.

There was a look of overwhelming guilt on her face.

“Uh…” she mumbled, scratching the back of her head. More hairs were dislodged from the knot of her bun. “I...er…”

She put a hand over her mouth and breathed in through her nose for a few seconds.

“There’s something I haven’t told you. Or Dengeir. I...was afraid. And I didn’t know how to handle it. To be perfectly honest, I still don’t.”

“Hey.” Rayya said gently, putting a hand on her back. “Your secrets are yours alone. You’re not obligated to tell anyone.”

She breathed out. She looked ten times as tired as Rayya felt.

“Okay. That’s...what we’re here for, isn’t it?”

“So they say.”

Rayya packed up the last of their things and gave the dinner utensils a quick wash in the snow. Carolinne gnawed on a half-frozen wedge of cheese, staring wistfully into the distance.

“Rayya.” she said softly, a quaver in her voice as she peered up the snow-covered steps stretching, it seemed, endlessly before them. “You’ll come inside with me, won’t you?”

Rayya’s heart skipped a beat as she turned around and looked at her. There was something still of queenly bearing in her, despite her degradation, despite the stains on her clothes, the red windburn on her pale skin. She held her head as though the world was made to kneel at her feet. And for a moment, Rayya thought that it might.

Rayya smiled to herself and hefted the pack onto her back.

“I will not leave your side once.”

The spell broke as Carolinne turned around, flashing her a weak grin and thereby revealing a hunk of meat stuck between her two front teeth. Rayya ran her tongue over her own teeth surreptitiously, hoping to get the message across. With an embarrassed gasp, she pulled the handkerchief from her bosom and fixed the problem.

When she was done, she held out her mittened hand. They linked arms and slowly, the cold nipping at their noses and biting at their cheeks, set off along the last stretch to High Hrothgar.

Chapter Text

The wind was high and cold and they clung to the side of the mountain as they descended, lest they be blown away. It was slow, hard going and every time Rayya glanced back, she felt a surge of relief that Carolinne was still there.

The wind lessened as they made it past the snow line and the sight of growing things slowly returned. The two of them walked side by side in a silence for a time, listening to the calls of living things and basking in the feel of grass under their feet.

Carolinne was standing up straighter than she had before and there was a new bounce in her step. The bags under her eyes weren’t quite so pronounced as they had been and her hair was smoothed back into a knot at the nape of her neck that showed no signs of unraveling. As she looked down the path ahead, there was what might have been the ghost of a smile on her lips.

Rayya was far more relieved than she’d ever let on. The Greybeards’ tests seemed to have given her new purpose. She knew enough from personal experience that one is lost while going through hardship without one.

“So…about that story.” she said, turning to her with a mischievous glint in her grey eyes.

“Ah.” Rayya chuckled nervously. “You remembered.”

“A Pouvoir never forgets.”

“Let’s see, then…”

She stuck her thumbs in her belt loops and thought about it for a moment. The vivid images of monsters and heroes, of vengeful gods and clever tricksters upon whose stories she grew up on sprang to mind. She had loved them unabashedly as a child, had hung on to Iya’s every word, had writhed in anticipation whenever she’d complained of her old bones and decided to go to bed before getting to the end of the story.

But in recent years, that had all seemed so pale in comparison to the workings of reality. She had begun to think and dream of her home with the same vibrancy as her childhood fantasies. The words so long kept in itched to be said. It was decided.

“What do you say to…a real story? A thing that happened to those who are still alive.”

“Fine by me.”

Carolinne nodded enthusiastically, her cloak blowing in the wind as they walked.

“Let me tell you about my home town…”

I remember so little of what it was like.

Has it been so long since you’ve laid eyes on it?

Years. Over a decade now. But it’s not that version that I have difficulty recalling. What I mean is…how it was before the war.

Oh. I’m sorry.

Why? The war was everywhere.

Well…every petty lord of High Rock sent members of his household to join the Emperor’s forces. And a great many of them never returned. But…the fighting never reached our shores. I grew up with stories of it from old soldiers and a general malaise about the state of the world, but nothing more.

Ah. Lucky you.

Oh, so that’s where I’ve misplaced all my luck. Been looking for that.

…I should let you go on.

Yes.

I grew up in the city of Taneth. It’s a port city, overlooking Khefrem Bay, on a delta bounded by two rivers. Agriculture flourishes there and fishermen sail the bay. Their catch is among the freshest you can get.

It’s also the second-largest trading post between Cyrodiil and Hammerfell and just beginning to grow fat off the profits of its position once again. But those are things that you can learn from any guidebook.

No…the things I miss are what the city was. It was light and color and music and the scent of the sea mingled with spices from the marketplace. It was prim, pastel-colored houses set up against the shoreline. It was mansions rising up above the more modest quarters and casting their shadows over everyone. It was laundry in brilliant colors blowing on the sea breeze and flowers that spilled out of every windowbox you passed by in the rainy season.

I was a child when Taneth fell and all memories I have of it in the before-times are through a child’s eyes. I am not entirely sure how much of it is true or how many of the gaps were filled in with imagination and longing during my exile. But I will tell you what I know to be accurate without question.

My baba was an importer of luxury goods. At one time or another he serviced every noble house in the city. Lancah, Maeiz, Suda, Ope - I set foot, at the very least, in the entrance halls of each of them. He took me along for the most expensive sales. A good businessman knows that a sweet little girl in a charming but not-too-expensive frock can do wonders for the coffers of an establishment.

The business was to become mine when he retired. It was only right that I should see how it was run first-hand. The whole of my early education took place within its walls. I learned my numbers through inventory, my languages through interactions with foreign customers, my letters, through the catalogs of rare and strange items sent from faraway lands for our perusal.

When I grew tired of my studies, I would find much to entertain me there. In every nook was an oddity, a queer and beautiful item to turn over in my hands until I might guess its purpose. I saw tapestries from Skyrim, silks from Akavir, gladiatorial action figures from the arena in Imperial City. Once, I found a small chest sealed with iron. Resting on a velvet pillow within was a stone so deeply purple that it was nearly black. I thought I heard a voice calling from it. I was so startled that I dropped the chest and ran from the room. When I went looking for it later, I could find it nowhere.

But enough about that. Baba himself was…an interesting man, to say the least. He had a friendly face that he put on for his most valued clients. He could talk politics, art and philosophy as well and as amiably as the next man. But in private, he was solemn and dour. It was known within the family that he fell into his line of business more by accident than by any other force, though it was never something that was spoken aloud.

It was told to me once, when I was very young, that in his youth he once had dreams of becoming Hel Ansei - that is, a Sword Saint, a warrior trained in the ways of the founder of our nation - before they were ended by an untimely injury. He walked with a limp all the days of my life and leaned on a mahogany cane when there was no one about to see him.

But still, in the early morning, if I peered out the window at the right time, I could see him doing katas in the courtyard. He seemed happiest then - in his own little world, before the city had woken up and sunlight carried away all mysteries.

Mama was a spectacular gardener. Her crowning achievement was the giant blue agave that she had nursed from a seed while she was recovering from giving birth to me. It dominated our little courtyard, consuming an entire corner and rising above the walls. She trimmed it back when it got too wild and the bare space below it formed an excellent patch of shade for reading.

Iya was my father’s elder wife. She was old when she married him, older still when I was a girl. I thought of her as my grandmother and I was her msichana - “little girl.” She was born an Alik’r nomad and trained as a wise woman of her tribe. City life was not so easy for her, I think. She struggled with Cyrodiilian manners and ways of speaking. Every night at supper she despaired of the city lights being too bright to see the stars. When she was not making potions and poultices from the herbs of Mama’s garden, she was painting watercolors of her old life - the dun-colored tents of her childhood, the fire of an Alik’r sunset, the smiles of those she had once known under glittering golden nose rings and hoods with intricate beadwork.

My half-brother was her only child. I saw so little of him. The gap in our ages was immense. When I was an infant, he was already a man. He was always away at the college, studying rhetoric and ethics. It was his dream to become a statesman or perhaps advisor to the king someday. Sometimes he’d bring his friends home and they’d spend long hours drinking and arguing politics in the courtyard. I liked to listen, though I understood nothing of what was said.

However, like all young men in Taneth - and every surrounding city for that matter - he was drafted into the city’s defense corps, in preparation for the coming invasion. For a time, his studies were deferred, as he spent all his waking hours in drills and training. He’d come home with exhaustion in his bones and a sigh on his breath. He’d lean his spear against the door frame, pat me on the head and go straight to bed.

I was too young to understand what any of it meant. My world was not yet the world of Tamriel. It was a world of curious corners, loud vendors, whirling street performers, burning sun and soothing shadows.

As a child, I had dreams of becoming a dancer, though my parents did not consider it the most upstanding profession for a young woman of the upper middle class. But I danced to music that none could hear but me. I twirled in the courtyard before dinner, stomping my feet to the beat of what I’d heard during the day and marveling at the whirl of my skirt.

Those were the things that mattered to me as the Great War dragged to a halt in faraway places and Hammerfell refused to kneel to the stipulations of the White-Gold Concordant. All those little joys and sorrows that utterly consume a growing child’s psyche - it was all I knew.

How could I have known?

They had passed by Whiterun two hours ago without stopping. Rayya had suggested that they spend the night there instead of another night camping out, but Carolinne was infused with impatient energy. She wanted to cover as much ground as humanly possible until they made it to Morthal. Her quest would not let her rest until it was done.

Rayya was quietly glad of her unflagging drive and how it propelled them both thus far, though her body still ached for a proper bed.

When the sun was low on the horizon, they scouted out a suitable patch of ground for the tent. Carolinne got to work setting it up and Rayya set out on an errand to locate enough firewood in the immediate area.

It was not a part of Whiterun Hold that contained a great many trees. She frowned as she waded through the tall grasses, finding not a single fallen branch or crumbling log. Just when she was thinking that that she might have to resort to braiding grass for kindling, she found a sizable stand of dry scrubs by the side of the road. Relieved at the thought of not having to exert extra effort, she bent down and began pulling them free from the dusty earth.

The chill Skyrim wind howled in her ears and nipped at her nose. Her stomach growled in anticipation of a warm meal. She paused to tie her headscarf just a bit tighter when it threatened to blow away.

By the time she heard the approach of the visitors over the sound of the wind, it was far too late.

Two men with dusky skin and desert garb stood before her. Well-used scimitars, their scabbards dinged with dents and dust, rested on their belts. Their hands trailed over the pommels, though their faces were friendly.

“Greetings, sister!” the younger of the two shouted over the wind, “How fares it?”

“As well as can be expected.” she answered, rising to her feet and cradling her growing bundle of kindling like a child she was meant to protect.

There was something strange in his manner. His politeness, forced, his smile underlaid with anxiety. He studied her with the same gaze that an alchemist uses on an unknown reagent. The tension between them felt as though it could snap like a thread at any moment.

She kept her stance relaxed and her face, neutral. And took comfort in the weight of the twin weapons on her belt.

“So…” he went on, conversationally, flashing an uneasy grin. “What brings you to this corner of Skyrim?”

“My own business, if you please.”

“Ah. My apologies, sister. I did not mean to pry.”

She stole a glance at the campsite behind her. Carolinne had frozen where she was, midway through anchoring a corner of the tent to the ground. She was watching intently from afar, her body poised to spring at the first sign of trouble.

“If I may…” the older man said, speaking up at last, his voice a low growl as hoary as his beard.

He took a step forward, his toe entering the zone she deemed as her personal space.

“…might you remove your scarf for one moment?”

Her blood froze in her veins and her eyes narrowed.

“And why would that be, brother?” she snapped back, trying to keep the anger out of her voice.

He blushed deeply and took an ashamed step back.

“Please forgive me. We are warriors of the Alik’r, in the employ of a man named Kematu, who was himself hired to seek out the traitor that betrayed the city of Taneth. The woman in question has a scar, like this.”

He traced his fingers in the pattern - two lines running diagonally across the cheek, one trailing down from his lip.

“There has been new evidence brought to light that she fled to Skyrim, though from there our trail has run cold. We must check the face of every Redguard woman we meet. Please, if you have nothing to hide, you will find no trouble from us.”

She fingered her scarf, a great many feelings rising in her chest at the mention of home, none of them able to be sorted through in this short moment of time.

“Very well.” she sighed, setting down her kindling and rising to her feet again.

With deft fingers she undid the knot and her hair flew free, the ebony braids gleaming in the orange light, the beads strung through them clacking against the back of her breastplate.

They peered at her smooth face, frowning.

The older man bowed curtly.

“We apologize for rudeness on our part. We mean you no disrespect. Stars guide you, sister.”

“And Tu'whacca keep you.” she intoned, her throat getting tight as they carried on down the road.

When their backs were turned, she called out after them.

“I come from Taneth myself. My family suffers still from the betrayal. Do you know the name of the traitor?”

“Iman” the younger of the two called out over his shoulder. “of House Suda. If you should find a woman matching her description, then please…we’re to bring her back to Hammerfell for trial. Ask for the Swindler’s Den if you need to find us.”

When they had gone round the bend in the road and vanished among the tall grasses, she bent to the ground and began pulling scrub with twice the force she had before.

“Who were they?” Carolinne asked, stirring her pottage absentmindedly.

She lifted a spoonful to her mouth and blew on it. It steamed, still too hot.

Rayya shook her head, smiling and watched her own lumpy spoonful of pottage drip back into her bowl with a splash.

“Ghosts, I suppose. They were the last men I expected to meet out here, that’s for”-

The wind suddenly kicked up, nearly ripping the tent out of the ground. Carolinne set her bowl down and lunged to save it, grabbing a stray rope moments before it would have undone half of her hard work. Rayya took it from her, tied a sturdy line hitch knot and tested the strength of it one last time before she dared to let go. The rest of the knots needed some tightening, but they were miles better than what she’d been tying before.

“Yes.” she chuckled as she settled down by the fire again and glanced up at the sparks spiraling to meet the stars. “Ghosts.”

Chapter Text

Down below, she could see a team of workers hauling an unwieldy carpet through the garden. The thing was massive. It took four men to lift it and a concerted effort to carry it up the steps and through the door.

An old man with a cane and a dignified, if subdued jacket, shouted orders from the sidelines. Beside him was a little girl in a brightly patterned smock and beads glinting in her dark braids. Now and again, she stomped her sandaled feet on the ground restlessly or bounced in place as though she were standing on a spring.

Iman watched for a time, through the gilded screen of her window, her book lying idly in her lap, her pen, in its inkwell.

Another front entrance carpet, she thought glumly.

Her mother was going through some sort of midlife crisis, which involved redecorating her wing of the house every few months and replacing all the servants. No one was ever around long enough for her to learn their names or to figure out how to fix her hair without hurting her. Faces came and went in a mad whirl and she remained - alone, unchanging, her room the only bit of the wing that was left well enough alone for any length of time.

Sixteen was not an age so different from six.

A workman stumbled on the steps, nearly taking down the entire operation. He regained his footing just in time and the carpet slid through the front doors without any further hitch. The man with the cane limped after it, straightening his jacket in the summer heat as he went. The girl skipped up the steps and vanished inside.

At this point Lord Suda rode through the gates on his stallion with a retinue of statesmen trotting behind him. Scattered bits of their conversation drifted up to her as they dismounted and the stable hands crawled out of the woodwork to take care of the horses. Refreshments were offered and robes of state were piled high in a hapless servant’s arms. There was a toast and a loud burst of manly laughter. And then another servant came around, passing out hunting spears and crossbows, fitting everyone with bits of leather armor.

The door in the wall swung open and out stepped the Bosmer falconer who lived in the woods beyond. His falcon perched on his arm, peering about at all the guests curiously. No hood was required, with the power over animals that the man was said to wield.

He was her father’s pride and joy, hired directly from Valenwood to the envy of all the noble houses with hunting grounds beyond the city. He spared absolutely no opportunity to show him off to men he was hoping to impress.

He clapped the Bosmer on the back jovially, abandoned his half-finished drink on the tray of a waiting servant and all of them proceeded to exit through the passage, single file, careful not to let their spears scrape the close walls. The door closed behind them without a one of them stopping in to say hello.

Technically, she had never set foot outside the walls of her family’s garden. Excursions into the heart of the city were tightly choreographed affairs. She was to go with no less than four family guards. She was to shade herself from the sun, with scarves and cloaks and gloves. She was to be carried in a litter with silken curtains and not permitted to leave it so long as they were outside the walls of a building that was deemed safe enough for her to inhabit (her father had many political enemies and kidnappings were not unheard of in the family).

Special permission was granted when attending the theater or a debate, but only just. She was to stick to her family’s private box, surrounded by family and bodyguards, and go no further.

Something thumped loudly downstairs where the carpet was being laid and she heard the sound of pottery shattering. Indistinct voices drifted up the hall - one whinging, one angry. The thought occurred to her that it had been her mother’s prized Reman era urn and she felt a spark of wicked delight at the thought.

With a sudden rush of inspiration, she took the pen from the pot and began writing.

There was an urn of an ancient king

laden with the weight of an emperor

and the brags of those who loved it well

It was a thing shown to guests

and polished until it gleamed

the workmen little heeding the cracks that hid within

I saw an urn of an ancient king

in shards in the room it adorned

all its glory gone in an instant

Nothing more than trash to be swept up and burnt

it was loved the best of all the collection

but love could not save it from the incinerator

Chapter Text

The air was still and heavy in the depths of the earth. Faint starlight shone through the faraway hole in the stone roof above them and the chill wind of Hjaalmarch Hold whistled as it passed through the gap. Here and there, in the mud and between the cracks of crumbling paving stones, green things grew, arching toward the light in strange and twisted ways.

The stench of dust and decay was not so profound in this part of the tomb. The ground was damp and rich and the stream that trickled through the rocks was fresh and pure.

Of course, the pile of half-burned draugr bodies at the far end of the chamber rather spoiled the mood. Rayya was trying not to dwell on it or think of the horrors lurking even deeper inside. Those were tomorrow’s problems. Tonight, it was time to relax.

Carolinne leaned drowsily against the wall, her arms wrapped protectively around the staff she’d wrenched from a necromancer’s hands. Her dress was singed and muddy and a cobweb wound through her hair. But she was whole and safe and her spirits were still high. Rayya made to brush the cobweb out of her hair but stopped abruptly when she opened her eyes.

“You…left off at the siege, didn’t you?” she yawned, sitting up straighter and resting the staff on her lap. “What happened there?”

Something popped in the lantern and the flame flickered, casting eerie shadows on the wall.

Rayya sat up straighter and sucked in her gut. It hurt to remember. It hurt to bring it all back, to speak of things she had long left behind. But there was something freeing in saying it all aloud, of sharing the burden with a willing ear. She carried on, in the voice Iya had taught her to use.

“The siege visited upon Taneth by the Aldmeri Domain lasted for three months. I scarce knew it was going on, save for a few telling changes. Food was rationed and the grandeur of our table was somewhat diminished. A few of my favorite dishes became rare delicacies overnight. I complained, but it was not the worst thing in the world.”

“The market was quiet when I went there with Mama. The vendors haggled harder and with less joy in their eyes.”

“Fewer customers came to Baba’s shop. I would organize the displays again and again, only for one or two people to ever see it.”

“Neighbors whispered among themselves in the alleyways and would abruptly quiet themselves at my passing. The music of the street performers slowly lost its verve. The streets became crowded with tents and makeshift huts as those who lived outside the wall ventured inside for safety.”

“But those were things that had little impact on my life. I went about those three months more or less as I always had, knowing little of the war or the invaders. They were nothing more than a passing squall, a story that frightened a child as she lay in bed alone at night but melted away in the golden rays of dawn.”

“Taneth was a strong city with thick walls, well-trained soldiers and stores to last for years. We could not fall. It was the furthest thing from the mind of anyone I at the time. The vast majority of the city saw the siege as a nuisance, an annoying roadblock in the way of commerce that would soon pass.”

“However..”

Her eyes narrowed as the memory of House Suda’s grand entrance swam to the front of her mind. The art lining the walls, so much of it, so closely packed together that one piece could scarcely be told from the next. The ugly dun-colored urn set on a velvet pillow as though it were the most valuable thing in existence. The fine clothes of the lady of the house, the way her bracelets jangled as she motioned with her hands while bargaining like a viper. Had she known then?

“…many of the noble houses maintained their own hunting grounds just beyond the city. Several of them had secret passages that admitted them from their estates to the outside world. All perfectly legal, for those with the means to pay for it. It was…believed…though not proven…for quite a while…that one such house let them in. E-Excuse me…”

Her hands were clenched into shaking fists. The image of a scarred woman swam before her watering eyes, her features indistinct but for the white-hot lines on her face.

A cool hand closed around her own and slowly, some of her rage dissipated. Carolinne patted the back of her hand, a sad smile curling her pale lips.

“If you don’t want to go on…” she said softly, looking at her with worry in her shadowy face. “Please, don’t hurt yourself on my account.”

She breathed out.

“It’s all right.” she sighed. “I’d…I’d like to tell it…if you still want to hear it.”

Carolinne nodded and gently let go of her hand. Rayya sat up straighter and relaxed her hands, the anger flowing out of her like water.

“The assassins were sent in first. They spread through the city, targeting its leaders with razor precision. The general of the army, his highest-ranking officers, the civic leaders in charge of organization and the food supply…all of them fell to their blades before a single blow was even exchanged. And then, as the rest of their forces trickled in…they spread panic.”

“But I knew none of this at the time. It was the dead of night and I was fast asleep, my dreams filled with light and sound and movement. There was to be a show in the market square the next morning and I could hardly think of anything but it.”

“It was Iya’s scream that woke me.”

***

Rayya was bolt-upright in bed before she even knew what had happened. The wail reverberated through the walls of the house, keening and long and eerie, before breaking into screaming, fractured sobs.

“Iya?” she cried, tears of fear and unknown sorrow springing to her eyes as she wrestled herself free of the blanket and dashed down the hall.

Iya was sitting in bed, her hair a grey halo about her head, her nails raking her aged face as she cried. Baba held her, whispering words in Old Yoku that Rayya could not quite understand. A tear was rolling down his cheek and there was a tremble in his bottom lip.

“Rayya!” Mama gasped, turning around at the sound of her footsteps and racing to put her arms around her. She felt wetness on her own mother’s face as she bent down to hug her.

“Iya had a nightmare, msichana. I-It’s nothing to worry about. I’ll tuck you back into bed if you”-

“Ueetonga!” the old woman cried out with sudden violence, tears flowing down her face as she rocked back and forth, her head in her hands. “Ueetonga…wamekufa…”

Rayya started wailing in her mother’s arms.

“Shhhhhh-shhhhhh…” Mama murmured, squeezing her tighter. “I’ve got you. See? It’s all right. It’s going to be a good show tomorrow, don’t you think? And when we get home, why don’t we see if we can copy the dancer’s steps in the garden? You’d like that, right?”

She was rubbing her back and whispering sweet nothings into her ear as she stealthily guided them out the door.

In the darkness of the hallway, away from Iya’s fading cries, Rayya hiccuped and felt a little better. For one last moment, everything felt normal.

And then she coughed.

Mama sneezed.

A thin blue smoke hung in the air, tickling their noses, scratching their throats. Mama’s hand tightened around Rayya’s.

“Haroun…” she said slowly, trying her best to keep the fear out of her voice. “You did not light a fire in the pit before bed, did you?”

Baba stepped out, his cane in his hand, his nightclothes uncharacteristically wrinkled. His eyes were hard and cold and his cheeks, streaked with tears.

“I did not, my love. The Aldmeri are within the city. Pack what things you can carry.”

Mama clenched her teeth, squeezing Rayya’s hand until she thought she could see the bones of her knuckles.

“Very well.” she breathed out, her eyes snapping open with abrupt determination. “Rayya, I need you to get dressed. Quickly. Can you do that for me?”

Her mother’s voice was so faint compared to the sound of air rushing between her ears and the pulsing of blood of through her veins. She nodded dumbly, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes again and then sped back to her room.

Clothes were put on backward in the dim light and shoes stuck on the wrong feet. When that ordeal was done as well as it would be, she dumped every toy she owned into a sack and flung it over her shoulder.

When she returned to her parents’ room, the place was in shambles. Drawers flung open, clothes on the floor, jewelry and books everywhere. She felt a lump in her throat and the need to sob rising in her chest.

“Good girl, Rayya!” Mama called, as she rolled a bundle of valuables into a skirt. “Do you want to help me pack? Here, put them in as I give them to you.”

She shoved the canvas bag toward her and tossed the skirt into her arms before she had the chance to open her mouth. They worked efficiently, Mama rolling, Rayya fitting things in as tight as can be, a tense smile on Mama’s face the entire time.

The smoke was getting thicker.

“That’s good, Rayya!” she gasped, locking the clasp and throwing the bag over her shoulder. “Baba’s in the kitchen. Let’s see if he needs help.”

They rushed through the house holding hands, coughing all the way. When they got to the kitchen, Mama seized a stack of rags on the counter and barreled out the door. A moment passed and she flew back in, the rags damp from the pump outside. Rayya complained when the wet fabric was forced against her face and tied around the back of her head, but Mama was insistent.

Baba packed the last of the kitchen utensils and threw the clattering bag over his shoulder. Iya appeared from the shadows, her hair still wild about her head, a jacket thrown over her sweat-soaked nightshirt.

“Rayya.” Baba intoned sternly, standing up straight and looking straight down at her. “When we go out there, you will look at nothing but me. Do you understand? Nothing behind, to the side or ahead. Only me. Can you do that, msichana?”

He put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it reassuringly. She nodded furiously, tears springing to her eyes, her heart pounding in her ears.

He turned toward the front door, took the Book of Circles from its nook and fit it carefully in his bag.

And then he took her hand. Mama took the other. Iya held Mama’s other hand.

Baba opened the door to a night filled with fire and noise.

Rayya held on to the image of Baba’s flapping hem. It was the only thing that existed, that mattered, save for the touch of her parents’ hands. Voices cried out - in pain, in fear, in grief all around her, but she blocked them from her mind, forced them from her consciousness. Crowds surged around them, threatening to tear them apart, but she held firm, even when she was pushed, even when her bag was torn from her shoulder and stomped underfoot by frantic feet.

They pushed through the crowds, Baba squeezing her hand until it was numb, Mama’s nails digging into her wrist until it felt as though she were going to draw blood. It went on forever - the tugging, the pushing, the beating, the burning. She forgot she was a person. She forgot that she existed outside this moment, that she had dreams and joys and sorrows outside this wave of human misery. That she was anyone or anything. That stories have endings, eventually…

She looked up.

Baba had stopped.

He was arguing with someone, their voices bleeding into on another, their words lost to the rumble of thunder echoing in the distance.

It was with a shock that she dared to look around and realized that they were at the docks, the clear water of the bay sloshing between the slats they stood upon. Over the water, a fleet of boats - small ones, big ones, fishing sloops and pleasure yachts - inched their way across the horizon, growing ever smaller as she watched.

Secunda shone through the veil of smoke overhead, shining as though nothing new had ever happened below it, its craters unmarked by the passage of time.

She realized she was crying. Her clothes were soaked with sweat and her headscarf was gone. How was she supposed to sleep now? The weariness hit her like a punch to the gut. She swayed on her feet, the thought of her faraway bed hurting to remember.

A sailboat bobbed in the water beside her, its old sail patched and repaired many times over. The man Baba was arguing with stood over it protectively, an oar held out like a weapon in his hand.

Baba jabbed his cane at him, his face contorting into a mask of rage as he did so. The motion jerked Rayya’s arm, her body turning into that of a rag doll’s for a moment.

With a wordless scream, Mama ripped her hand free from Rayya’s, tore the sack from her shoulders and dumped its contents into the bottom of the boat. A tangle of glittering gold, jewels and fine silks scattered across the bottom, winking in the moonlight.

The man gathered up the treasure, stuffing it under his seat like a dragon’s horde and with a grunt, urged them on. Baba helped her aboard and held her to his chest as they pushed off from the dock. The cries of the city and the rumble of thunder slowly faded as she hid her face in his arms, terrified of what she might see outside of them.

When there was nothing to be heard but the sound of lapping waves and the smack of a set of oars upon them, she looked up.

Mama was sobbing under a grey morning sky.

She was too, though she hadn’t realized it. She felt her tears as though they belonged to someone else, the bruises on her body as though they had happened to another person.

With a sudden lancet of pain through her heart, she realized something that brought her back to who she was.

“Where’s my brother?” she cried, pulling away from Baba with a jerk. “We left him! W-We have to go back! We can’t leave him…Baba!”

Baba’s mouth was a firm line and his eyes were red in the pale light of the rising sun.

“How could you leave him!” she wailed, tearing off the soggy mask that had fallen around her neck and pounding on his arm, her boiling tears spilling over, hot enough to burn.

“Msichana…” Iya whispered.

Her voice was weak and hoarse, drained of all the energy and life it had once contained. She pulled her fists away from Baba and enfolded them in her soft hands. The wrinkles in her nut-brown skin seemed deeper than they had been before.

“Sleep a while. You’re so tired. Here. I’ll lay my cloak in the bottom of the boat and you can rest."

Rayya curled up obediently, her knees forced up to her chest by the curve of the tiny boat.

"There. That’s it. Shhhh.” Iya purred. "Where do you hurt? Your back? Your soul? We'll fix both, we will."

She rubbed her back, humming a song under her breath, until the rocking of the boat lulled her to sleep. Her dreams were filled with unseen flashes of lightening and faraway rolls of thunder.

The days seared her skin and the nights were cold enough to chill to the bone. The Alik’r Desert showed kindness to no one, though in its cruelty, there was beauty.

They traveled mostly by night, pitching their tent in the day and catching restless hours of sleep beneath the scorching sun. Where they were going as unknown, the destination as changeable as the shifting sands.

Away. That was their only prerogative. Away from the army that was leaving the coastline a smoking heap. Away from the roadside skirmishes, the crackle of magic, the clash of arms. Away from the place that had been their home.

And so the desert had taken them in. Few others dared to risk it, fearing thirst and hunger and death under an unfeeling sun. But precious few people had someone like Iya on their side.

Iya was in charge of foraging. There were so many plants that held water, that hid nourishment in their fleshy cores. Every day, she would show Rayya something new. Here, a fruit covered in spines. There was a trick to getting past them, but once you did, the flesh was brilliantly pink and sweet. There, a reserve of water in the plant that anyone might have mistaken for a dead stump. They hunted lizards with makeshift spears for meat and roasted the insects that plagued them for dinner.

The goal was not merely survival, but distraction.

Everyone was to be kept busy. They were to stay on the move and to move so fast that the memory of what had happened would be left behind. This was complicated somewhat by human needs.

A week since the fall of Taneth, Baba’s leg hurt him too much to walk any further. Instead of traveling, they rested that night. The offending leg was propped up on a rolled up nightshirt for a pillow and Baba groaned in his sleep. The stillness of the night was almost too much to bear.

Her stomach tight with anxiety, Rayya crept out to see the stars.

They shone in a glittering band across the sky, bigger and brighter than her imagination had ever conceived of, nothing at all like the pinpricks of light she had grown up with. She stood there, her neck craned upwards until it grew stiff, her mouth hanging open wide enough to admit a locust.

When she at last turned away, she realized that she had been crying again. She wiped her nose on her sleeve and walked a little further. The sand was cool and soft on her bare feet. A slight breeze lifted the tiny hairs at the nape of her neck.

Iya knelt on the ground, her dark cloak, a blot on the glowing horizon, a twig as gnarled as her fingers in her hand. Intricate designs decorated the sand all around her and complex calculations were scratched into the surface of the desert.

As though in a dream, Rayya drew closer to her, her feet scarcely feeling as though they left the ground. Iya smiled as she approached, the corners of her old eyes wrinkling as she sat down beside her. It was only when she got close enough that she realized that Iya had been crying too.

“Will you help me, msichana?” she said softly, her voice cracking as she spoke. “My son's soul is lost in the fog of war. He cannot see clearly enough to find his way home. The fire...it was too bright. Too bright to see the stars. We must show him, by way of the star-stones. Will you move them for me?”

With a groan, she struggled to her feet and gestured to a pattern that wound outwards like a spider's web with her stick.

“You must move them here, here and here on my command. I cannot do it on my own. My bones are weak and the stones are heavy. But you! You’re strong enough to do it. Here.”

She pointed her to a pile of smooth, round stones, each of them a little smaller than Rayya's head. Rayya walked over to the pile, braced her knees and lifted one. Her arms shook with the weight of it. She could barely lift it over her knees.

But it was cool to the touch and there was something electric in it. It tingled in her skin and shivered down to the tips of her toes.

It felt like something older than Mundus, older than time itself. She felt so small and insignificant all of sudden, as though she were just one tiny drop in a great, unfathomable ocean. For a moment, she thought that she should be afraid. But all she felt was grief.

It poured out of her as Iya sang - a low, keening song in words that she did not know, from a language scarce spoken by those who are living. Her tears soaked the sand and dripped onto the stone she was holding. Iya’s arms rose up to the sky, her tear-streaked face lifted to the moons. She made a gesture to Rayya and she jumped to place the first stone where she was directed, moving like a dancer as she deftly avoided stepping on the pattern. The song intensified when she set it down and went higher in pitch, the words broken up into disparate syllables.

Rayya placed the second stone. The tears flowed down her face and a wild sob rose up in her throat. She could barely see where she was meant to go.

And then the song grew softer and more melodic. Without being told what to do, she set the final stone in its spot.

They waited in silence for a moment, Iya’s forehead to the ground, her body prostrate against the sand.

Slowly, she rose up to her knees and let loose a deep sigh.

“My son is passed to the Far Shores. Thank you, msichana. It is good that you should rest now.”

Rayya nodded silently, her eyelids heavier than they ever had been. She wandered back to the tent in a daze, the music of the stars still reverberating in her ears. Before going in, she looked up one last time.

A star shot across the sky and vanished on the horizon.

It was later than she’d planned on. A grey light has begun to seep into the chamber and the lantern burned low. She touched her face and found wetness there.

Carolinne was sitting before her in rapt attention, her eyes red-rimmed and watery. She pulled the handkerchief from her bosom offered it to Rayya.

Smiling, Rayya took it and dabbed at her eyes. Jurgen Windcaller could wait just a little bit longer.

Chapter Text

Iman breathed in a shaky breath and gripped the window screen. It was happening. Dark figures spilled into the garden, moonlight glinting on their beetle-like armor. Her part was done. Her time was now.

The hems of her clothes were sewn with jewels. Her journal was stitched into her bodice and her pens, stuck in her hair. Beside the door was a bag in which she'd been storing bits of food and sundries that wouldn't be missed. She adjusted the strap over her shoulder, hardly believing that it had all come together.

No one had noticed the unlikely friendship between her and the new scullery maid or heard what they really talked about in the secret nooks of the house. The theft of the gardener's key went entirely unremarked upon. Lord Suda's contact book was stolen, copied and replaced before he even realized that it had been moved. It had been devastatingly easy. All these years and freedom was only a few purloined items away.

A pair of faint groans drifted up from the garden and she knew that the house guards had been eliminated. The taste of bile rose unbidden to her throat. Her hands were trembling. For a moment, she stood there holding herself and wishing that someone else would come in to hold her.

The moment passed and she steadied herself. It was time to go.

She crept down the carpeted hall in her softest moccasins, every subtle noise from the floors of the old manor setting her teeth on edge. Inch by inch, she passed by the music room, the library, the vast closet containing her mother's sizable collection of clothes and at last, her mother's bedroom. She breathed a sigh of relief when she made it down the stairs without incident.

The entrance hall was cavernous and gloomy in the night, its oddities and art reduced to twisted shadows peering out at her from the dark walls. She stole a glance at the pillow where the Reman-era urn had once taken the place of honor and noted, with some satisfaction, that it was still empty. The war was hard on everyone, even those who could afford it.

She bit her lip as she undid the deadbolt with an audible click.

And then she was out.

The bodies of the guards lay in a heap in the lily bed, their limbs splayed unnaturally, their swords still in their sheaths, their throats...

She turned away with a shudder before looking any closer.

The door in the wall hung open, the passage beyond, a solid wall of darkness.

She touched the Thalmor emblem on her belt just to be sure it was still there. When she reached the Aldmeri camp, she was to flash it to identify herself.

And from there, covertly smuggled to Skyrim, with enough of a reward to set her up comfortably in whatever hold she could possibly choose. A tear sprang to her eye and a lump formed in her throat. The dry grass crunched under her feet as she walked and the passageway steadily grew larger in her field of vision.

When the door was before her and the darkness beyond beckoned, she stopped and took one last look at the manor behind her. It rose up into the night sky, in all its gaudy detail, its halls of unused rooms, its ostentatious flourishes made to outshine the stars themselves. It had been her world for as long as she could remember. She knew so little of what lay outside. A tingle of fear raced down her spine at the thought that perhaps there really was nothing worthwhile out there, compared to the glory within.

With a firm shake of the head, she chased the idea away and seized the doorknob, yanking it open wide enough for her to enter.

Her heart thrilled as the walls of the passage closed around her. She put her hand to the cool stones and guided herself by touch. Her reaching fingers soon found the smooth wood of the door on the other side and slowly, the door creaking on its hinges, she pushed herself out into the night air.

Crickets chirped and birds called to one another in the trees. The trees seemed impossibly big, the foliage, too large to be real, too wild to possibly be related to the pale imitations she'd seen in gardens within the walls.

A jolt of terror shot through her heart. She was outside! Farther beyond the bounds of the city than she’d ever been before. It was overwhelming, horrible, wonderful!

She could do anything, become anything. No one would tell her how to dress or what to say ever again. No one would pluck at her hair if she didn’t will it or tear out bits of her eyebrows for the sake of fashion.

She was free.

She took one step forward and then another, the long grass rustling under her touch. She looked up at the sky and laughed, her voice high and clear. When was the last time she had laughed, for real and not at some joke a man with more power than her had made?

“Y-You…” a voice gurgled from the ground below her. “H-How c-could…”

She clapped her hands to her mouth to stifle the scream and fell against the trunk of a tree behind her.

A Bosmer, bloody and beaten, lay by the side of the path. One of his hands clutched at his guts. The other lay limply at his side.

Iman felt sick. The emblem on her belt caught the moonlight, glinting in the darkness.

He rose to his feet, staggering against a low hanging branch for support. On his right hand was a falconer’s glove. His face was puffy and distorted, his nose, a mess of blood.

“Going to run?” he coughed, spitting blood down his chin as he advanced a step forward. “How much did t-they pay you, hmm? Less than the cost of a city, I’d wager. Was it worth it?”

His gloved hand closed around her arm. She screamed, full-force and kicked like a daedra let loose from Oblivion.

He groaned as she struck something soft and toppled to the ground, nearly taking her down with him. She snapped her arm free of his grip and took off running. For a moment, she glanced behind her at the crumpled figure, unsure if she was more afraid at the thought that he was alive or dead.

As she looked, he raised his gloved hand to the sky…

…and pointed.

With a SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEE and a rush of air, it was on her.

Talons dug at her face. Wings flapped around her ears. With a strangled cry, she tore it from her face and kicked it into the underbrush. She could feel warm blood trickling down her neck. Her face throbbed, to the beating of her pounding heart.

The moonlight caught the triumphant glint in the Bosmer's eyes before he crumpled to the ground.

She ran into the night, a sob caught in her throat, her face burning as though a pyromancer had set fire to it.

Chapter Text

“Is it gone?”

Rayya crawled out from hiding and scanned the sky. There was too much cloud cover to be sure. A shadow passed over the sun and she scooted back under the rock, sweat breaking out on her brow.

“I don’t know.”

“Ughhhhhhhh…” Carolinne moaned, raking her hands down her face. “I can’t take much more of this.”

“I know.” Rayya sighed, falling in the mud beside her. “But Whiterun’s close. If we can just make it”-

“Do you think zig-zags would confuse it?” Carolinne butted in, sitting up straight suddenly, her eyes alight with an idea.

“What?”

“I don’t know! Some animals get confused by zig-zags! I read it in a book somewhere.”

Rayya's forehead wrinkled as she thought about it.

"It's a bit more than an animal. It called you a milk-drinker."

"Aaaand...dragons are picking up Nord witticisms now." she groaned, slumping back down and gritting her teeth. "That's...so...very...comforting."

"And it's got an aerial view." Rayya went on, tapping her breastplate as she finished the thought. "A zig-zagging deer might have a chance of getting away from a land-based predator confused by tall grasses, but once you take away the confounding factor of a horizontal approach..."

“All right, all right...it was a dumb idea."

She slumped in the mud, defeated. A bug crawled over her ankle and she shook it off disgustedly, her foot twitching like a dog that had stepped in something foul.

“We could make a run for it.” Rayya said helpfully, a hopeful smile curving her lips as her hand dropped to her side. “No matter how fast it is, it can only chase one of us. If I were to run out first and make a bigger loop while you make a beeline for the gate..."

"Rayya!" she gasped. "No! I can't have you sacrificing yourself for me!"

"Hey." she answered, reaching over and squeezing her hand reassuringly. "I wouldn't be without protection. Do you still have that potion of fire resistance?"

Carolinne bit her lip and reached into her bag. Rayya heard the clinking of many little bottles and after a bit of rummaging, she withdrew the old black one banded with scarlet.

"Thank you, Carolinne." she said, taking it from her and wiping the dust from it that had not come off in the confines of Carolinne's bag.

There was a pit of fear in her stomach that came with the idea of drinking things found in a tomb, but she made certain that none of it showed on her face.

"And you..." she went on. "Cast Stoneflesh before you run out. I've seen you practicing. You can hold it for long enough."

“Okay…” she breathed, sitting up, her face pale even under the darkness of the rock. “I’ll…meet you at Whiterun Gate, then?”

Rayya squeezed her hand one last time.

“Of course.”

The cork crumbled between her teeth as she attempted to free it. She took out her dagger and cut out the rest. Most of it fell inside the bottle and swirled, trapped in the brackish liquid inside. And then, without a moment's hesitation, before she could lose her nerve, she downed the potion, cork bits and all.

A rush of warmth oozed through her and she staggered to her feet, giving one last cursory glance at the sky before bolting for her life. There was a flash of light behind her and she caught Carolinne from the corner of her eye, frantically making for the road ahead.

Remembering her training, she fell into the rhythm of running, the even beat of her feet on the dirt. Her breathing calmed and her heart steadied. She could run for miles like this and sustain the pace for an hour.

Thankfully, she didn’t need to. Whiterun was coming up fast. She tore past the stables, across the bridge and skidded to a halt against the crumbling wall still used by the Whiterun Guard for defense. Carolinne came shambling in shortly after, gasping for air and clutching her side, sweat stains forming dark blotches on the beaten fabric of her gown. She leaned against the wall, panting and gasping. Her eyes widened in horror as she looked up.

Just in time, Rayya followed her gaze upwards to see a pair of leathery wings slipping back into the clouds.

“Hoooo…” she breathed, wiping the sweat from her forehead. The potion was making her uncomfortably warm. “Shall we…ah…head inside then?”

Carolinne nodded stiffly. She was deathly white and her hair was plastered to her face with a cold sweat.

Wearily, Carolinne leaning on her staff and Rayya hunching under the weight of her pack, they trudged up the path to the gate. The man standing guard gave them a quick once-over, moved to block the door and curtly snapped “No vagrants after noon. Move along now.”

A hot flush of shame rushed to Rayya’s cheeks. For a moment, she took in how tattered and torn her cloak was, how ragged and dirty her clothes, how haggard her face and wretched her demeanor. Why did she ever think that the world could see her as someone important?

“Now, see here, sir.” Carolinne growled, stepping forward and throwing off her exhaustion like an old garment, suddenly seeming twice as tall she was and half as filthy. “I am Thane to Dengeir of Stuhn and Lady Pouvoir of Wayrest and you will give I and my escort entrance. Is that clear?”

Her eyes were grey and icy, her face as though it were carved from stone, though the Stoneflesh was long worn off. She wore her rags as though they were the garments of an emperor.

A shiver of fear and elation hummed through Rayya’s soul.

His knees knocking together, the guard stumbled aside and as though the hordes of Oblivion were on him, opened the door.

They rested beneath the twisted branches of the Gildergreen and watched the throngs of people going about their business. Tottering old women with baskets of groceries on their hips came from the market and scurried past. Children wove through the crowd, tripping up anyone who dared stand in their way, occasionally screaming with obnoxious laughter at a joke only they could get. A guard was giving what appeared to be a very stern lecture to a well-dressed young man who was doing his best to hide what looked to be a valuable brooch behind his back. And above it all, a wild-eyed priest of Talos shouted over the crowd, gesturing madly to the crowds that passed him by as though he were no more than a passing breeze.

“So, what’ve you got?” Rayya asked with a sigh.

Carolinne winced as she dumped out the contents of her purse on her lap.

Two lockpicks, a button, a pebble with a rusty streak of iron through it and one single septim, the last of the money that Jarl Dengeir had gifted them with on the start of their journey. Rayya’s purse was not much better off.

“Hmm.” Rayya grunted, leaning back against the bench, the beginnings of an idea coming together in her mind.

Carolinne packed her things away glumly, but stopped short when she came to the pebble. Looking about surreptitiously, she cupped her hands around it to conceal the small green flash of light.

Rayya’s head snapped in her direction disapprovingly.

“Carolinne…”

Smiling with a sweetness that almost changed her mind, she opened her palm to reveal the pebble, just as it was…but for the gleaming yellow streak of gold in place of the iron.
Rayya groaned, rubbing her temple with two stiff fingers.

“You know that gold is counterfeit. The second you get that to a goldsmith and it burns away…”

“Yeah…” Carolinne said, her face falling as she tossed the stone into her purse and drew the string. “I know.”

Rayya sat up and looked down at the space beside her.

“I have a different idea.”

“Oh?”

Carolinne craned her neck, a look of curious puzzlement on her face.

Rayya reached down and retrieved an old wooden bucket that someone had abandoned at the foot of the Gildergreen. She held it up enticingly, a mischievous smile forming on her lips.

“You studied music in High Rock, right? How good are you at playing percussion?”

Rayya felt sick to her stomach. She was dressed in her arming garment alone. Her feet were bare on the cold cobblestones. The ribbons that held her pauldrons in place fluttered in the wind and the ones that held her greaves did likewise. It was a poor costume. She’d seen beggars in Riften with more flair. Next to the brilliant performers of her childhood, she was no one.

She was trying not to think of the last time she had danced for scraps. It was different this time. She was not a child any longer.

Carolinne had started to play. She beat the makeshift drum with two hefty twigs, stolen from some merchant’s firewood pile. It was at first a slow, simple beat, little more than the thumping of a bucket an old woman might employ to call her family in for dinner. Rayya tapped her foot to the sound, trying to feel the energy of it and in the process, work her own up. She closed her eyes and imagined the drums on the festival days of her childhood - the way they thumped through her being, the musicians laying on complexity after complexity, the dancers whirling faster and faster, their bright silks flying in the wind.

Her feet started to thump the ground to the rhythm. Her heart thrummed to the sound of the drum, the memory of music racing through her blood. Carolinne sped up slightly, playing games with the beat, hitting the iron band around the bucket for different sounds. She sucked in a breath, breathed out and then leaped into the market square.

The crowds spun around her as she moved, shaking her hips to the beat, the beads in her hair glinting in the sunlight as they flew behind her. She had done this a thousand times before, in private, in secret, to the sound of the drum inside her own head. It was terrifying to do it in front of people, but as she moved, the nervousness gradually subsided. She was doing it. And it was fine.

A handful of people had stopped to watch, curious and clearly entertained, but not yet amazed. None of them had thrown a coin into the headscarf that she’d tied into a makeshift satchel. She had to do better.

With an excited cry, she did a flying leap which turned into a walking handstand when she hit the ground. Someone whooped from the crowd and there were cheers and wild applause. Coming back up was a slight problem, but she played off the effects of the headrush well enough until it passed.

She signaled to Carolinne and with a smile, she sped up even faster, causing Rayya to dance at hyperspeed, to hurl all of herself into the movements, to whirl and spin and somersault until she was no longer sure which way was up.

With a resounding THUD of the drum, she ended in a full split, panting as she smiled at the crowds, her arms outstretched, her chest heaving, her sweat horrifically hot beneath the arming garment.

Coins poured into the headscarf as the crowd applauded enthusiastically.

The ale sloshed over the sides of the tankards as they clanked them together in a rowdy toast. Carolinne’s cheeks were already flushed as she gulped down her second mug of the night, somewhat messily, dribbling a bit down the front of her borrowed robe. Rayya downed hers more neatly and set it down, drained, as though she were replacing a delicate wine goblet on a linen-covered table.

She breathed in the smells of cooking meat and wood smoke and felt content, to the very bottom of her soul. For tonight, they were taken care of. They were bathed and dressed. Her armor was at the blacksmith’s being cleaned. Their traveling clothes were being washed as they sat. They had money enough for food, drink and bed, plus a smattering of leftover gold that glittered in the firelight on the table. It wasn’t nearly enough to pay for passage to Ivarstead, but it was certainly a start. Those thoughts were for the morning.

In the meantime, she tapped her fingers to the beat of the bard’s drum and felt herself falling into the glimmer of Carolinne’s eyes.

A Redguard woman ran about the smoky room, taking drink orders from every belligerent drunk and slapping away the hands that reached out to touch her.

In the noise and darkness, with drink and lust swirling in her head, Rayya never noticed the scars on her face.

There was one bed in the room. Rayya insisted that Carolinne get it and exhausted, she flopped onto it without arguing, seemingly having fallen asleep instantaneously. Her bearskin was still in relatively good shape and as she was making herself comfortable on that, Carolinne’s eyes sprang open, bright and full of mischief.

“You left off in the desert, right? After escaping and…”

Her face fell upon remembering.

“If you don’t want to go on, please don’t force yourself for my sake.”

“No, it’s alright.”

Rayya smiled, sitting up, the bearskin plush beneath her bare toes.

“The next bit is a good part. A birthday party.”

Rayya’s 11th birthday was as good as could be hoped. The pottage had meat in it tonight and there was blood-red cactus fruit for dessert. After dinner, one by one, her parents presented their gifts to her. From Mama, a doll sewn from scraps of clothing she had brought along, given in the hopes that it might replace the ones that had been lost.

From Iya, a painting of the home they had left behind.

When it was Baba’s turn, he asked her to close her eyes and hold out her hands. She did so and felt something smooth and stiff dropped into her waiting palms.

It was a stick.

The roughest edges were smoothed over, though it was not completely finished. It was too short to be a walking stick and didn't have the proper handle to be a cane. It was little more than a sun-bleached piece of wood found out in the desert, save for the lone notch carved into its shaft.

Confused, she opened her mouth to thank him for it anyway, when Baba shook his head.

“No, msichana. This is not a gift. I wish with all my heart that I did not have to lay this burden on you, but…”

He sighed deeply, leaning heavily on his cane. The shadow that had come upon Baba ever since they had fled the city returned, with renewed vigor.

“Times have changed and so must we change with them. The world is a violent place and so you must learn how to survive in it. On my eleventh birthday, I entered into the Hall of the Virtues of War. So too, will you.”

Mama and Iya looked so solemn, kneeling as they were on either side of Baba, their eyes looking at the ground, refusing to meet her gaze. She felt a lump rising in her throat and a tightness in her jaw. Baba was looking at her, sorrow written in his old, graying brow.

“But…was not the Hall…” she forced out, thinking back on the little she’d seen of the men and women who’d spent their time sparring outside the squat adobe building that had served as their training ground. “destroyed with the rest of the city? How can I…”

“Journey many and many miles, but do not leave the Hall of the Virtues of War.” Baba intoned, twirling his pointer finger as though he were writing the message in the air. “The Hall is not a thing that can be destroyed so easily. It exists wherever you and I stand, where those that teach meet those that learn. Tomorrow, you will begin your training. And with that”-

He pointed to the stick.

“You will practice the Eight Basic Cuts. But for now, msichana, rest.”

He kissed her on the crown of her head and turned away to help Mama clear away the dishes.

Rayya held the stick for a while before bed, feeling its smoothness, lifting its heft. It was a strange thing, in its power to elicit both excitement and dread from her alike.

She swished it through the air and for a moment, it was not a stick in her eyes, but a sword.

As night fell on the sands of the Alik’r, Baba roused her from slumber with a tap from his cane. She groaned, sinking deeper into the confines of her bedroll and clutching the doll to her chest.

“Today.” Baba said sternly, tapping his cane on the bedding beside her, “You will run.”

Obediently, she scrubbed her skin with the dry linen cloth until she was clean and dressed herself.

A brilliant sunset, rife with pink and crimson and flaming orange still streaked the sky. She stumbled out of the tent groggily and stood for a moment, taking it in.

Baba pointed with his cane to a boulder in the distance.

“Run to that boulder and back. I’ll tell you how your form is when you return.”

He passed her a waterskin and she took a sip before shooting off into the sunset. At first it was exhilarating - the wind in her hair, the thump of her feet on the sand, the rush of running without boundaries, without restrictions, without another soul to avoid crashing into for miles.

And then, most of the way to the goal, she started to flag horribly. A cramp crept up her side. The shifting sand beneath her feet made it that much more difficult to run. It felt as though she were running through sucking mud, her feet getting heavier with every step. She stumbled the last few steps to the stone and leaned on it heavily, sweat pouring down her back. More or less, she walked back, with a few extra spurts of effort thrown in here and there.

Baba was stone-faced when she returned, his features severe in the strange light of the setting sun. Though the air still held the warmth of the day, she shivered.

Baba clicked his tongue. Rayya inwardly flinched.

“Here is your problem…” he said softly. “You assume the goal is speed rather than endurance. You burn yourself out by spending all your energy on getting there fast, when you would be much better served by getting there smart. Pay attention to your body. Know your limits. Pace yourself accordingly.”

He tossed her the waterskin again. She drank from it gratefully, a single drop escaping her lips and sliding down her chin.

“Now, try again.”

She had swung the sword from sunset until midnight, repeating the same motion again and again. Her shoulders were sore. Her hands were raw. Baba watched, saying nothing, stepping forward only to straighten out her form when she began to slip.

She flopped into bed at sunrise, her shoulders aching, her hands numb. Iya pulled out a cooling ointment and rubbed it into her shoulders as she drifted off to sleep.

It took her a full month to realize how much bigger her portions at dinner were compared to everyone else’s. When there was meat, the greater portion of it was scooped into her bowl. She could hear Mama’s stomach growling in her sleep, hear Baba’s irritation as he argued with his wives about where to go next, see Iya’s weakness beginning to take a toll on her labor.

Once, when she was handed her portion, she tried to scoop some of it out on the fly into Iya’s bowl. But Iya wrapped her gnarled hand around hers and shook her head slowly, pushing her spoon away.

Rayya cried into her pillow that day, as the rest of the family slept, so quietly so as not to wake anyone.

There was a freedom in running, in feeling the rush of air, the thrum of your feet meeting the ground. There was a point in the process - in the buildup of energy, at the intersection where pain became pleasure - that felt almost like flying. In that moment, all the troubles that she carried from home ceased to exist.

There was only the here and now, the eb and flow of breath, the warmth of her sweat and the coolness of the night air, the beat of her heart and the hum of her soul.

She slid to a halt and tagged the stone pillar, sweat pouring down her brow, her breath forming steam before her as she panted. Other pillars littered the sand - cracked, broken, slowly vanishing beneath the surface or being worn away by the sandy wind.

For a moment, she wondered what it had been. If people had lived there once, if conquest had taken them from their homes and families and places of work…

But that was a thought that served no purpose.

She stretched, wiggling her shoulders and curling her toes. And then she carried herself back to camp, the sand flying under her feet.

On nights when soldiers were spotted in the distance, she could not train.

On those nights, they hunkered down low, never daring to light a fire or speak above a whisper. She was trapped in the tent, cramped in a sweaty space which did not offer her a view of the stars or allow the coolness of the wind to penetrate through its heavy walls.

She did not know which was worse - the boredom, the frustration or the fear. She felt like a caged animal that could run and run and run until there was nowhere left to run. Thoughts she didn’t want to think about sprang into her head with renewed violence in the all-encompassing silence.

On nights like these, Baba made her do push-ups and squats and lunges until she was sick of them.

Iya lay in bed with her and whispered stories of the old gods in her ear.

Whenever they traveled, whether it was to find better hunting grounds, a suitable source of water or a campground that did not get near visits from elves who lit their fires with magic, the load Rayya bore increased. She was weighed down with cooking utensils, rolled canvas, the bits of food they'd managed to preserve for future use. As she got stronger, a few ribs from the tent were strapped haphazardly to her back.

She heaved and buckled under the load but did not once dare to complain.

In time, it got easier.

Once in a while, they ran into other refugees.

It was a man with a cartload of children this time. They peered out between the flaps of the covered wagon, their eyes dark and curious, their faces lined with hunger. One of his daughters was deathly ill. She lay among her sisters, covered in a cold sweat, a fever as hot as the Alik’r sun burning on her brow.

Iya treated her with herbs and strong-smelling ointments. Baba shared what water he had with them. Food could not be spared. The man wept because he did not have anything with which to pay them back. He had lost everything when the Aldmeri Domain took Rihad. He had driven his mule from camp to camp, begging for work, trying to find a new place to set down roots and had every time been driven out again by the encroaching conquest.

He told them that he had heard rumors of refugee camps being set up on the outskirts of Sentinel. The quality of the housing was not anything to speak of, but the mere presence of food and water was. If he and his children could just make it across the desert, perhaps they would be saved.

He thanked them for the assistance, whistled at his skinny mule and vanished over the horizon with the rising of the sun.

Her three parents convened quietly as she lay in bed trying to sleep. They spoke in hushed, urgent tones. She could not make out every word and for that, her stomach clenched even harder in anxiety.

At sunset, instead of going on her usual run, Baba had her help take down the tent and loaded a good portion of it onto her back. They followed the tracks of the mule and the wheels of the cart until the wind blew them all away.

Her twelfth birthday passed with little ceremony.

Mama had nothing left to give, save for the care she had shown her daughter every day of her life. Baba carved a new notch into her sword to mark the time and gave her a pat on the back, his eyes crinkling as he smiled. Iya told her a silly story of Ius, the Animal God that had her laughing long into the night, the light of the tale driving out the shadows that hunted her, if only for one night.

On the way to Sentinel, they came upon an abandoned cart in the desert. Its ragged tent flaps blew in the wind. The bleached bones of a long-dead animal lay in its dried and cracked harness.

Baba volunteered to take a closer look inside, asking that he not be followed. Rayya watched him from afar as he picked through the wreckage, her chest tight for a reason she could not quite explain.

He came back with tight lips and a new weariness in his limp.

“Will you shepard their souls, Iya?” he asked softly, clasping her old hands.

She nodded, bent down and began drawing in the sand. Rayya was sent to fetch rocks of suitable weight and heft.

Rayya’s lips were cracked with thirst. The sandstorm raged outside, beating on the walls of the tent with the fury of scorned lover. She could barely hear herself think. Her family screamed at each other over the sound, struggling to be heard, to do something else besides hunkering down against the onslaught.

It was tonight that Baba taught her how to meditate - to cancel out her pain, her discomfort, to empty herself but for one thought.

She chose to imagine a sword in her hand.

Not a sword of metal, but of greenery. It had been so long since she had seen such things. Flowers bloomed along its blade. Leaves unfurled along its hilt and crept up her arm, down her spine, rooted her to the ground. She breathed in and out and saw it so clearly in her mind’s eye.

She opened her eyes and the storm had quieted.

A little over a year after she had first begun training, she mastered the First Cut.

Her sword swung through the air with perfect control, time and again the same, her form unwavering, her mind, unbreakable.

Baba watched from afar, smiling.

Sentinel bloomed suddenly out of the desert - a shining city of turrets and minarets rising from the sand, gleaming gold in the rays of the rising sun.

Rayya felt small before it, afraid and confined. The tall, stern walls seemed to draw close around her as they approached the gate. It felt so strange to walk on cobblestones again, to fall in with a thronging crowd. She clutched Mama’s hand and squeezed, feeling for a moment as though she were half her age and not partway to becoming a trained warrior.

Mama squeezed back and offered her a tense, tired smile.

Chapter Text

Iman wandered inside, leaving the noise of Markarth's streets behind her and looked about wonderingly. The air was smoky and thick with the scent of stale beer. The flickering lights of the candles on the bar barely served to illuminate the vast, stony cavern of the place. But still, despite everything, it was impressive. Candlelight gleamed on the intricate dwarven stonework and the heavy brass doors shone like gold in the firelight.

No one moved as she strolled in. The other patrons remained buried in their pints, oblivious to the sound of her footsteps.

The bartender glanced at her suspiciously when she hopped up on a stool, put her elbows on the counter and looked up at him beseechingly. He turned away without acknowledging her.

After all these months, it was still so strange, walking into an establishment and not being immediately fawned over by the owner. Not being waited on, hand and foot by every blandly smiling worker with their hand out. A part of her ached at the loss, but the smarter part reminded her that in this province, she was no one.

She’d have to get to work on changing that.

She smiled sweetly at the bartender. Well, as sweetly as a girl who had recently had half her face mangled can manage. The wounds themselves had been healed by the finest Aldmeri magician available, but there was something wrong with the underlying muscles of that part of her face.

Her smile was one-sided; one half a smirk, the other, drooping downward.

“A bottle of your finest wine.” she crooned, tapping her fingers impatiently on the bar.

“Go home to you mother…” the bartender mumbled, walking away to fetch a dirty glass on the other side of the bar.

The other half of her mouth drooped just as low as the sagging side. Her eyebrows connected in the middle of her forehead in a stormy frown. She reached inside her jacket and pulled out a bag of gold with heft suitable enough to make a sound when she dropped it on the bar.

“I want a room.” she said coldly, her gaze fit to drive daggers into even the stoutest of warriors' hearts.

The bartender slowly turned around, the rag limp in his hand, the glass, unwashed.

“I want a meal." she went on, the corner of her mouth lifting into a smile again. "I want to sit in that chair by the fire with a glass of wine in my hand and a book on my lap. I will need to put my feet up…”

Her gaze shifted to a flaxen-haired woman bouncing a baby on her knee. The baby had the same bulbous nose as the bartender.

“Yes." she said softly, her teeth showing in her growing smile. "She will do nicely, seeing as you have no footstools. Will you accommodate me?”

The bartender glared at her. The woman had stopped bouncing her child.

She put another purse on the bar.

The bartender eyed it hungrily, the tip of his tongue showing between his lips as he thought.

"Kleppr!" the woman wailed indignantly as she rose to her feet, the baby balanced on her hip.

He set the glass down, raised a hand up to silence her and pocketed the purses.

The wine was sweet, with just the slightest hint of flint.

The fire was deliciously warm, after the chill weather she'd come through.

The meal was hearty, if inelegant.

The book was lurid and silly, but that was all part of the charm.

She wiggled her toes and dug her heels into the warm flesh beneath them. Her feet felt as though they could walk for miles more.

The woman shivered beneath her. The baby wailed in its father's arms.

Chapter Text

Carolinne screamed at the top of her lungs, the sound rumbling through the soles of her feet and deep into the caverns below. The Falmer scattered before the fury of her voice, shrieking as they tumbled from dwarven-made ramps into the darkness below.

Rayya caught her as she fell, her scream turning into a wail. An eyeless straggler aimed another arrow at them and she blasted the creature with a bolt of electricity from her staff before it could cause them harm. It fell from its perch in the wall, its voice high, terrified and eerily human.

Rayya thrust her hands under her armpits and dragged her to safety. The walls chittered at her as she went and every now and again, an arrow bounced off the stone beside her. When a pale face stepped into their ring of light, Carolinne blasted it without mercy and screamed insults until it fled.

She grew quieter as they went. Her body relaxed and her limbs dangled limply at her sides. The staff slid from her fingers and Rayya made a mental note of where it was so that she might pick it up later when she had more free hands.

At last, the chittering ceased and the sneak attacks halted. She dragged Carolinne into the relative safety of an abandoned Falmer hut with a good view of the walkway below. Her hands shaking, she struggled to unhook the lantern from her belt to get a better view of the wound. A lump formed in her throat at the sight and the tears she’d been holding back prickled at the corners of her eyes.

There were two wicked black arrows, embedded deep in the meat of her thigh, side by side. Smudging the entry wounds was a viscous fluid, darker than blood. She touched it and took a sniff. Before the scent could register, her eyes caught upon the stark blueness of Carolinne’s lips.

“Carolinne!” she hissed under her breath, seizing her wrist to take a pulse.

It was faint and weakening under her fingertips.

With a cry, she struggled out of the pack on her back and dug through it willy-nilly until she at last wrenched the alchemy kit free. There were so many little vials clacking around inside, the labels all written in Carolinne’s impossibly crabbed handwriting. She found one with a dark black fluid inside, squinted so hard at the label that her eyebrows hurt and then wrenched the cork off with her teeth.

Carolinne gagged on the antidote, making a pained face as it was poured down her throat. Rayya held a hand over her mouth until she felt her swallow.

And then, waiting.

Carolinne groaned, her fingers curling in the dirt as she awoke.

“Rayya?” she breathed. Her voice was tiny and pained.

“I’m here.”

Her head was in Rayya’s lap. Rayya squeezed her shoulders reassuringly in the darkness. The lantern had burned out long ago. Only the faint light of the glowing fungi illuminated the space outside the door of the hut.

“That…”

She paused to cough, a horrible gagging cough that Rayya had to pull her up into sitting position to get through before it finally subsided.

“…wasn’t…the plan.”

Rayya smiled, unseen.

“No. We’ll try again. But for now…”

She gently edged out from under her.

“We need to get you to a healer. Can you hang onto my shoulders?”

“I…think so, yes.”

There was some barely lit shuffling as they got into position and a whimpering cry of pain as Rayya inadvertently brushed the shaft of an arrow while picking her up.

“I’m sorry.” she whispered, her voice cracking as she tried not to cry again for inadvertantly inflicting more pain on her.

Carolinne nuzzled into the crook between her neck and her shoulder, uncomfortable as it must have been with her cold armor in the way. But she said nothing more.

Rayya began walking, softly, but with determination, her burden a dead, heavy weight on her shoulders. She tried to remember the way out without seeing it by lantern light, to trust that her feet would not fail her and send them both plummeting to their doom. To reassure herself, more than anyone else, she rambled in the dark, the words flowing almost nonsensically out of her, under her breath.

“We’ll hike to Dawnstar…find a healer…maybe that priest'll do? And then we’ll order the biggest meal that inn's ever made...ale and horker and sweetrolls...and then...I’ll tell you a story…”

"Hmm..." Carolinne moaned, hugging her tighter and burying her face in her shoulder.

The refugee camp was situated a little ways out of Sentinel and as the southern coast of the country burned, it grew. The houses were ramshackle, clapboard affairs, most of them thrown up overnight. The one assigned to Rayya’s family was exactly the same as the ones that surrounded it - two rooms, one window, a bit of an awning that made some semblance of a porch. One of the first things that Baba had done was make a little shelf out of some scrap wood, nail it in place beside the door and reverently set down the Book of Circles in its proper place. It was home, for now.

The water pump was on the opposite end of the camp and there was always a line to use it. But every time Rayya reached the front, she’d pause to take a long, deep, cool swig before filling the jug the rest of the way and taking it home. It was endlessly satisfying, after subsiding on tiny sips of water for so long. Part of her felt a lingering guilt for doing it, as though by drinking her fill, she might rob her family of their needed sustenance. But she was learning to let those feelings go, at least when it came to water.

Food was delivered once daily, on the back of a horse-drawn cart from the city and distributed according to the amount of people in a household. It was a pittance and only got smaller as the war wore on. In response to the shortage, a group of hunters got together to scour the desert and would trade their catches for things that they needed - rice, medicine, arrows.

Little businesses and services were springing up in every other house, it seemed. Here, a woman was offering music lessons. Here, a miniature smithy with a homemade smelter out back. Here, a small library scavenged from the ruins of a burnt-out city and carried across the desert on a cart.

Mama had begun to grow herbs again, in rough-hewn window boxes that sat on the ground. Some of them were for cooking, but the greater majority of them were medicinal. Iya was well-occupied in crafting tinctures and cures from those herbs. She sat under the awning all day, grinding them to paste, accepting any and all who came to her for help. Few had the means to pay her, but always, perhaps the next day or a week later, there’d be a bag of beans or a sack of flour sitting on the doorstep. So it was that the family survived.

This arrangement left Rayya and Baba fairly free to focus on her training.

He pushed her like never before. And she poured herself into it, as though doing so would rid her of the darkness that tugged at the edges of her dreams.

She ran laps around the camp, her heels kicking up dust as she sped past all of her staring neighbors. She stood outside until dusk, doing push-ups, squats, lunges, practicing her sword-strokes until she no longer knew the ways to do them wrong. In the heat of the day, when the air was heavy and still, she meditated, the sword blooming in her hand, each day more beautiful than the last.

By her thirteenth birthday, she had mastered the Third, Fourth and Fifth Cuts.

By her fourteenth birthday, she had attained the Sixth and Seventh. The Eighth was nearly perfect, but not quite there yet.

On that day, Mama revealed that she had secured honey enough to make shortcakes and they ate the results joyously, licking up every last crumb. Iya had begun painting again. Her gift was of the courtyard at home, with its blue agave and its untamed flowers twining through one another in their bursts of vibrant color. Her heart ached to remember, but she hung it up where she might see it upon waking, right beside the other one she had carried so far, all of these years.

Baba carved another notch on her stick. His gift was the beginning of her education in sparring.

She was terrible at it.

She had fought so many battles in her head. On the battlefield of her mind, her enemies were slaughtered by the hundreds and armies routed by her hand. Her strikes were perfected in theory and her form was unwavering in practice.

And yet - none of it seemed to mean a thing in the hard plane of reality.

With every idea she had, Baba had a better one. With every feint, he had a counter-feint. She could not get past his defense. She could not win against his offense. Every day was a test to see how many more bruises she could accumulate.

But still, she gritted her teeth and tried.

She crashed to the ground, her hand throbbing from the force of the blow, the stick vibrating in her hand. She tasted iron and realized that her lip was bleeding. Had she bitten it?

Some child watching from the sidelines was booing her, until its mother hushed it up. Her face flushed with the shame of being seen like this. She would have much rather sparred in private, but privacy these days was the most precious of commodities.

“Prepare to pay for victory in blood,” Baba quoted sternly, his coat billowing in the wind, his cane held like a sword in his hand. “But do not waste a drop.”

Not for the first time, she wondered why he had taken such care in bringing the Book of Circles along, if the entirety of it already resided in his head.

“The victor’s tempo grasps his opponent’s and devours it!” he bellowed, sweeping her off her feet with a surprise downward swoop of his cane.

She stumbled, her feet tangling with one another, before sitting on the dirt ungracefully. Baba smiled and extended a hand.

The child giggled quietly. Its mother was nowhere to be seen.

She got up on her own power, narrowed her eyes and planted her feet firmly on the ground.

He was backed into a corner now. Her heart swelled. Her sword stilled in anticipation. She could hardly believe she had done it and then -

She was on the ground again, her rear sore from falling on an old bruise.

“Do not lose the melody in the rapture of one note.” Baba said gently, dusting himself off and planting his cane back on the ground.

Something clicked in her head. And this time, it wasn’t her jaw.

Tempo, melody, note…

It was a dance. She couldn’t understand how she hadn’t seen it before.

Or…maybe it wasn’t that much of a mystery. For all the years she had been away from home, she had assumed that following one path meant abandoning the other. But here was that path, resurfacing in a faraway place and rejoining the new one. It was not lost, but interlinked.

She hadn’t danced in years. The music of the marketplace seemed so far away, a thing that had existed in another life, that had happened to another person. She tried to remember how it had gone, how the dancers had moved. She moved her feet to the beat of her heart and swayed alone beneath the moonlight.

She closed her eyes. In her hand, she imagined her sword as she saw it, blooming in her hand, its greenery spreading up her arm. She mimed the grip of its hilt as her fingers curled around its non-existent heft.

A fight was a dance with two performers interlocked in a contest of life and death. The tune they danced to was similar, but it was not the same.

The object was to cause a skip in the tempo, to seize that moment, to trip up one's partner. The stronger melody overpowered the weaker and became the victory song.

The idea of an antagonistic performance was at first a strange concept to wrap her head around. Never had she seen such a thing at home. She tried to think of how it would work - how it would go over in front of a crowd. And then she thought of that little gladiatorial action figure from the Imperial City in Baba's shop.

Performances like that happened all the time. She need only recognize them for what they were.

She hummed the tune in her head as she went through the range of cuts she had mastered, opening her eyes as she executed one single, perfect Eighth Cut.

The sword was gone. The music had quieted. But she knew how to find both of them again.

It was months before Baba even came close to yielding to her. There were times when she thought that she would never best him, when the comments of the onlookers got the better of her, when all of her moonlit dance sessions seemed for naught.

But improvement is a slow thing and so subtle that its presence can very well go unnoticed. Day by day, she was holding her own for a little longer. Far more often, her melody rose up over her father's.

The first time she bested him, she made use of a distraction. Mama was calling them both inside and in that instant, she had made her move. She did not quite consider it a fair win and was a bit disheartened that she should use such a low-down tactic to achieve her first victory.

But Baba was more than proud of her. He laughed as he struggled to his feet and clapped her on the back once he'd regained them. They broke open a bottle of wine that Iya had been given in payment for saving a woman's life with dinner to celebrate. Her head swam with the drink and in the midst of the dinnerside conversation, she made her peace with what she'd achieved.

In time, she scored more than enough fair victories too.

Sentinel’s refugee camp was considered to be something of an easy target by the local marauders. It had no walls, no trained Watch, no oversight. In fatter years, the pickings would have been considered slim. A great many of the refugees had carried valuables with them, but as the war wore on, most of those things had been exchanged for more substantial goods - food, clothing, medicine, housing materials. It was no bandit king’s prize, these goods of the chased and downtrodden.

But as trade from the south had dried up and caravans of wealthy merchants ceased hauling their wares across the desert, the marauders too, grew desperate.

Efforts had been made to combat the problem. Anyone and everyone within the camp with the slightest lick of military training were written into a rotating schedule for the Neighborhood Watch.

It was not a terribly inspiring militia. Most of it was old soldiers who were too infirm to fight in the war. The other third were striplings who had just barely entered into adulthood and figured out how to swing a spear last week. Rayya was too young to be inducted into the latter group, though she had shadowed Baba on his rounds more than once, her skin prickling with anticipation for the confrontation that never happened.

Weak as it was, the force did prevent its fair share of violence. Far more often than not, all it took was one desperate person yelling at another to halt the exchange of blows.

Mostly, that is.

Mama was ill.

She tried to hide how bad she felt and how much it effected her. She threw herself into her chores as hard as ever, though the effort left her twice as exhausted. Iya did her best to treat her and the sores that were ravaging her skin, but there is only so much that poultices can do for malnutrition. It was the lean season of the year and everyone was feeling it, though Mama was struck particularly hard.

Together, against Baba’s inflexible pride, they had gone into the city and spent the day begging. Rayya had smiled sweetly at passers-by and done silly little dances to attract attention, though her heart was breaking all the while. Mama did her best to look pathetic. It was not at all hard.

By the end of the day, they had gathered gold for rice and beans enough for at least two more days. They carried their precious load home at dusk, their shadows long on the sand, Mama leaning on Rayya when she needed to.

Rayya was exhausted and her face still burned with shame, though she chose to believe that it was the lingering heat of the day. She kept her eyes on the ground as she walked, focusing only on her mother and the act of putting one foot in front of the other.

It was already too late when the man’s shadow fell across their path. She looked up with a jerk and there he was - dressed in jackal hide, a crooked knife in his hand. Mama instinctively clutched the bag of rice to her chest and bared her teeth.

“Hand it over.” he said evenly, almost gently, were it not for the knife in his hand.

He flashed them a smile worthy of a prince.

“No.”

Her voice was a hoarse whisper, a croak against the inevitable.

“Hand it over.” he repeated, his eyes narrowing.

He took two steps forward and the tip of the blade was under her chin.

Rayya felt as though she were falling backwards through dark water. Falling, falling and never reaching the bottom. Tears sprang to her eyes. She saw her mother’s blood swirling in the water around her. She was helpless. A child, unarmed. She closed her eyes and reached for the only solid thing there was…

Her sword.

It sprang to her hand as easily as it had in years past, its weight solid and reassuring, its edge as sharp as the training of her mind.

She opened her eyes. The bandit was gawking at her, dumbfounded, the knife shaking in his hand.

The sword glowed under the darkening sky, its edge trembling, ghostlike, but real. Dead silent, her eyes widening until her irises were surrounded by a ring of white, she pressed the tip under his chin.

He bolted, his breathing ragged, his heels throwing up dust behind him, his limbs clawing desperately at the sand to get as far away from her as possible.

Rayya let loose a ragged breath and fell to her knees.

Chapter Text

Iman lazily spun her last septim on the bar. It winked in the firelight, glimmering with liquid light until slowly, it stopped spinning and fell clattering to the old weathered wood. She lifted her tankard to her lips and downed the last of her ale in one swig.

She knew it had been a bad deal the moment that elf had walked in the door. There was something in his swagger that gave it away, in the moments when his confidence wavered, when he did not have an immediate answer for every question. But there she was, signing it all away anyway. Every last bit of her fortune - gone into the pockets of cut-rate swindlers.

It was a foolish thing to do and yet...

It felt as though a weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

She swore that she was breathing easier now. Colors looked brighter, drink tasted sweeter, food had more savor. Her joy of being rid of the burden of blood money far outweighed her fear of what she was going to do next.

Despite the guilt that had grown within her as the years had passed her by, it had been a good run. Her life since her departure from Hammerfell had been everything she could have asked for - tumultuous love affairs, grand tours of every far-flung hold, a taste of every delicacy the province had to offer, a short-lived smuggling ring with its share of excitement, a clandestine evening spent in the Blue Palace as she pretended to be who she was not.

She felt overfull, as though she’d gorged on a banquet and needed nothing so much as a long nap to relieve the pressure built up inside her. She wondered if there was such a thing as contentment for one like her. There was no telling without trying.

She lowered her empty tankard below the bar and waited, watching the harried innkeeper from the corner of her eye.

She had been observing her all night in her mad dash from table to table, in one instant, food and drink balanced on her shoulders, in the next, a mop or a wet rag in her hand. She ran her inn like a tightly-wound ship, alone and proud of it for all these years. But age was catching up to her, though she had yet to realize it.

Iman watched and waited. When the moment was right and her target's attention elsewhere, she let the tankard slip from her fingers.

The innkeeper's foot came crashing down on it. Her mouth forming a perfect O, she staggered backwards, the tray of drink she held listing dangerously to the side.

Iman jumped into action, catching the tray and steadying her the moment before she would have fallen.

"Hey." she said, letting her go. "Are you all right?"

The woman looked at her, white-faced and then slowly, nodded.

"I'm looking for a job. You wouldn't happen to have an opening, would you?"

The right side of her face curled into a smile. Something crashed in the far back corner of the inn and the innkeeper's face snapped towards the sound.

"Here." she gasped, shoving the tray into Iman's hands. "Take this to the table by the door. We'll talk terms after dinner is over."

Before she could say anything else, she was running for the broom propped up behind the bar and fighting her way through the growing crowd. She heard someone scream a battle cry and the sound of a fist connecting with flesh.

There was a pit of nervousness growing in her stomach. She relaxed her shoulders and took a deep breath. This was what she wanted. This was what she planned for.

Penance to atone for what she had done.

She smiled, hefted the tray onto her shoulder and walked to where she was told to go.

Chapter Text

"Wait-wait-wait-wait!" Carolinne interrupted, waving her arms wildly. "You...you could do that...all along? H-How? What? Who..."

At that moment, the innkeeper tapped on the door and strolled inside with two mugs of warm milk on a tray. Carolinne clammed up immediately. Rayya rose to her feet and thanked him, placing a tip on the tray before taking the drinks. She handed one to Carolinne before making her way back to where she'd come from. The door closed with a creak and privacy was theirs again.

Carolinne blew the steam from hers and held it for warmth. It was fresh from the pot, not quite cool enough to drink yet.

She was propped up on a mound of a half dozen pillows and wearing the homespun nightshirt of the innkeeper’s daughter. She looked a lot less grey than she had the previous day and had slowly begun walking again, though thus far, it had only been as far as the chamber pot.

It had been a frightening few days as the last of the Falmer poison had worked its way through her system. Rayya had never before been so glad of her natural resistances or so relieved when Carolinne had woken her up in the middle of the night for a glass of water. It had been her first moment of lucidity since they'd arrived in Dawnstar.

She set her milk on the endtable and plopped down on her bed once again. The mattress creaked under her as she got comfortable, crossing her legs and straightening her back. Carolinne took a sip of the milk and winced as it burned her mouth.

“The manifestation of a sword from one’s mind is called a shehai.” she went on, “A Spirit Sword. Those who can do it most commonly are Hel Ansei - Sword Saints, though even among them, it is a rare skill. But in truth, it is not a terribly useful one. My blade was a ghost blade, more illusion than reality. Had I cut that man, the only thing he would have felt was the chill of my fear and the heat of my anger.”

“That is the best that most masters can do. I have never seen a shehai used in battle. There are few who can say that they have. But…”

Here she smiled, as though recalling something fond from long ago. She reached out and curled her fingers around the hilt of an invisible blade. Something glowed in her hand. Its form wavered and its light was overpowered by that of the candle on the bedside table, but still, Carolinne’s eyes widened at the sight and an unearthly hush came over the room, as though all the sounds of the inn had ceased to exist.

“There are stories…” Rayya went on, smoothing the thumb of her left hand over what might have been the edge of the blade.“Of warriors summoning their shehai at the end of their lives, their blades broken, their allies dead and their enemies pressing in on all sides. A shehai in its full power can only be summoned in a moment of extreme passion and purity of thought. It might only happen once in a warrior's life - or once in a generation. It is not an action to be taken lightly.”

She opened her palm and the sword was gone. The faint strains of the bard's music came back and the murmur of bar-side conversation resumed. Carolinne blinked.

Realizing that the milk was still in her hands, she lifted it to her mouth and took a long, deep swig. When she pulled the mug away from her lips, in its place was a perfect milk mustache.

Rayya laughed, breaking the spell.

Carolinne threw a pillow at her and blushed, wiping her mouth with her sleeve.

The news drifted through the camp like the smell of cooking food - slowly at first, but in time spreading to every corner of the dusty plot of land until everyone was salivating.

Rayya had not believed it at first. Slowly but surely, the memory of her childhood was slipping away. She was forgetting that there was ever a garden in which she had spent her fondest moments. She couldn't recall the coolness of her family's house's walls in the heat of the day. The war was a constant thing, like weather or tides. It could not possibly have a beginning or an end. There was nothing before and there would be nothing after.

There were a great many skeptics in the camp who thought the same, who murmured their rumors around the bread oven and the water pump. There was an air or quiet hope about the camp, but few dared to think it possible until word came from the mouth of the king’s own messenger.

That news did come with the daily food delivery, though the messenger was not quite as official as all that.

The war was indeed over. A treaty had been signed in Stros M’Kai.

They could go home.

Mama packed all the remnants of her life into one little bag. Iya’s was a bit heftier, as it contained her long-suffering mortar and pestle. Baba’s contained the single change of clothes he owned. Rayya had only her stick, her doll (she had lost an eye long ago) and the paintings Iya had made for her. Bedding, food, cooking utensils and the tent fabric that had not been sewn into new clothes for Rayya when she had outgrown her old ones were divided evenly among all of them. And with that, in less than an hour's time, the shack they had called home for three years was gutted, as empty as though it had never held life at all.

Rayya looked back on the remains of the refugee camp as they headed out for the last time. A few who were not strong enough to make the desert crossing were choosing to remain behind, but the vast majority were leaving together in one large caravan. Dozens of empty doorways gaped back at her and it seemed to her a town left for ghosts to claim.

They left at sunset, their footprints carving a swath through the Alik'r sands. The Neighborhood Watch schedule was upheld, as their slow, snaking procession made a tempting target for those with ill will towards them. The hunters hunted and those with knowledge of the desert revealed their secrets of how to find water. Supplies were carefully rationed among all the families making the crossing.

Rayya trained in the early morning, when the procession had stopped for the day and the sun was not yet hot enough to burn. In the last moments of night, she summoned her
sword and danced with it in the darkness, feeling some measure after a long day of drudgery.

It felt as though the journey would never end, but week by week, the desert fell away behind them. Familiar faces said their goodbyes and split from the group to return to their own homes.

One day, she smelled the sea and the knowledge of how close they were filled her with inescapable joy.

The house was a shell of what it was. The adobe walls were crumbling away. Every last thing they had left behind was gone. In some rooms, the floorboards had even been torn up - the work of some long-gone looter plainly unsatisfied with what was left.

The agave was withered and dead in the courtyard, blackened with a layer of soot. Late at night, Mama took an axe to it and dragged it, piece by piece, to the dump at the edge of town. She wiped her face in between trips so that her family did not have to see that she was crying. She refused all help that was offered. But after the deed was done, she seemed lighter, somehow, as though she had gotten rid of much more than a dead plant.

Their first task was to make the house livable again. Everyone pitched in to repair the walls with fresh clay dredged from the riverbed, to pound the floorboards back into place, to cleanse the air of the lingering smell of burning things that permeated every surface within and without.

For the first month, they all slept in the same room. It was no smaller than the room they had slept in together for years and being apart, if only for a single night, was more frightening than any of them cared to admit. But after Rayya had suitable bedding of her own and had hung her paintings up on the walls of her old room, she came to remember how good it felt to have her own space again. A bed big enough to spread out on! The ability to kick in her sleep without awakening anyone!

But still, though they grew less frequent as time wore on, there were nights when she woke up in a fright, not knowing where or who she was or why Iya was not beside her.

Two months after they had set the house more or less in order, Iya asked her if she would like to go to the marketplace. It was not that they needed anything in particular - she wanted a stroll and perhaps a survey of how the reconstruction was going, for old time's sake. Setting down her stick and stretching her sore shoulders, Rayya agreed, happy to have an excuse to be out for a bit.

Everywhere about the city, despite the obvious signs of growth, signs of war persisted. A great many streets and houses were still marked with the evidence of Aldmeri magic. It seemed that every day another burnt-out shell of a building was being knocked down to make way for something new. The skyline was so different from how she remembered it. She lost her way in the tangle of streets, in the maze of haggard-eyed veterans begging for alms, in the places she thought she knew but was no longer so sure she did.

The marketplace was nowhere near as vibrant as it had been. The wares, on the whole, were both shoddier and more overpriced. The merchants seemed tired, worn and grey, though that did not stop them from bargaining twice as hard.

Iya waved off several persistent salesmen and kept right on walking, her steps slow and plodding in the midday heat. Rayya followed at her heels, the thread of where they were going completely lost on her. She asked the question on her tongue and Iya said nothing in return. In fact, she seemed to draw further into herself. For perhaps the first time in her life, Rayya saw her iya not as a shaman, a healer or an artist, but as she really was.

A small, old woman with no answers.

At last, she stopped. Rayya slid to a nervous halt behind her.

They stood before a blackened husk of a building. Two workmen were hard at work with sledgehammers on the few remaining walls. Her hands shaking, tears pouring down her face, Iya reached out and touched the sooty wall. Then she laid her forehead against it. Her lips moved in a silent prayer. The workmen, noticing, halted their pounding for a bit and moved away to a respectful distance.

Rayya stood back, shifting anxiously on the balls of her feet, unsure of where she should be or what she should do. Her eyes drifted all about the scene - the people walking by, the workmen murmuring in the shade, the texture of the paving stones beneath her feet. At last, they alighted on the coat of arms - barely visible in the wreckage but carved deeply enough for the outlines to have survived the fire - above the entrance.

It was much abused and the color that must once have adorned it was gone, but it was still, plainly the mark of the king of Taneth. In other parts of the city it adorned government buildings, public works, libraries, military installations...

Barracks.

The pieces fell together in her head once she realized that the blackened frames that still clung to the charred walls had once been beds.

She imagined her brother locked inside, pounding on the door, screaming in the press of bodies as the magefire grew hotter around him.

Her whole body trembled and a tear sprang to her eye. She bowed her head, not so much kneeling as falling to the ground beside Iya and said a silent prayer to Arkay for her brother’s soul.

When Iya was finished, her eyes bright but sad, she took her hand as though she were still a small child toddling through the city and helped her to her feet. Rayya felt the gritty soot of the building smudge her skin in her iya's grasp and held tight, wanting to remember every detail of this day, to fix the feel of this moment in her mind forevermore. Iya’s face was marked with soot and tear stains, like the war paint of a death god. Her cloak swept the ground as she walked, thick and black.

As they were leaving, she heard the workman take up their hammers again. She imagined the walls of that place being knocked down, one by one until there was nothing more than a pile of rubble where that awful thing had stood. The tension that she didn't realize she was keeping in her shoulders left her at that thought.

The arrived home and washed up just in time to start working on dinner. Iya had Rayya chop the onions for her and grind the spices when her hands were hurting her too much. While the stew was simmering, they made use of the time to shake out all the family's bedding in the courtyard.

They all laughed and talked over dinner. Mama told a joke she had heard on an errand during the day. Baba griped about the state of Hammerfell politics. Iya nodded along to all of it, smiling all the way.

When the dishes were cleared and washed, everyone said their goodnights and went their separate ways to bed.

Iya never woke up.

It was the peaceful death of an old woman ready to leave. Baba had found her in the morning, a smile on her lips.

The tribes of the Alik'r honor their dead with sky-burial. A frame is made for the body to rest on and upon it, the vultures perch, waiting to eat of the flesh of the one offered to them. It happens beneath the unbroken sky of the desert, as evening falls and the stars appear, in glory far surpassing that which the interior of cities offer. It is said that through this method, the soul gets the clearest glimpse of the way to the Far Shores before passing on.

In Taneth, the wealthy are buried in the ground. The poor are cremated, for lack of space. There are no other options.

She had always been so afraid of being alone in the cold earth, cut off from the stars and wind. She had always hated the city lights so much for brightening the sky.

We had not the finances to travel, nor the political clout to ask for an exception made in an old woman's name.

So, to honor her, we did the next best thing.

The wake was held in the courtyard, under the stars above. We took turns sitting with the body, being with her for one last time until the rising of the sun.

In the morning, we took her to the crematory.

Baba told me then that I must scatter the ashes in the Alik'r when I come of age.

I have not returned there yet.

After Iya's passing, Baba threw himself into his work like never before.

He sat up late into the night, night after night, penning letters to business contacts on his makeshift desk. In the morning, Rayya would hear Mama and him arguing, their voices muted through the thick walls, but their tones unmistakable. Around breakfast, they made sure to leave no traces of any animosity about them or indeed, any hint that they were having money problems at all.

Rayya knew, of course, though they had never said any such thing to her face. Meals got smaller and staples were stretched into thinner and thinner soups.

When anxiety filled her about the possibilities of the future and the survival of her family, she would sit cross-legged on the bare earth of the courtyard and meditate until it was forgotten for a time. Her jogs around town got longer and longer, though her energy was sapped and the time between meals made her lightheaded at times. Her training was the thing she clung to, when she could do nothing else.

Baba clicked his desk shut with a strange sort of finality. It was morning. He had been at his desk all night and his eyes were bloodshot and baggy. They ate a thin porridge around the table and Rayya eyed the pot hungrily for more.

“Msichana…” Baba said softly, setting his desk on the floor and turning towards her. “How would you feel about entering the Hall of the Virtues of War?”

“I thought that I had already.” she murmured, dropping the dripping spoonful of porridge that was halfway up to her mouth back into the bowl.

“The one in the physical realm.” he clarified, a spark springing to his eye and a smile to his lips. “It may not be simple to get in, but I believe you could do it.”

She scooped up another spoonful and raised it to her lips. The tasteless paste rolled down her throat. She ran her tongue over the roof of her mouth, thinking.

“I…would like to try.” she said softly, suddenly feeling very small and not at all confident.

Both of them were dressed in their best, such as it was. Rayya’s hair was freshly braided, but there were less beads than usual and it was pulled back in a more severe, practical style that kept it out of her face. Her clothes were simple and strong, but with none of the color of past years.

Her stick was slung across her back, the notches facing proudly outwards, the bit that served as the hilt worn smooth with use. Mama straightened her jacket as they stood on the doorstep and brushed a non-existent crumb from her cheek as she said goodbye.

As they moved through the throngs of the city, Rayya wanted to hold Baba’s hand, like she had when she was a little girl and the crowds pressed around her, threatening to tear them apart. But this time, she didn’t. Her gut was clenched with resolve and fear and something told her that she had to make it on her own now. She set her jaw as they drew closer to the Hall of the Virtues of War.

It was one of the first structures to have been rebuilt, largely financed by the nobility of the city. It was a grand building, its walls smooth and symmetrical, its stone so fresh that she could still see the chisel marks. A group of students sparred in a fenced yard, a few of them children younger than herself, but many more of them young adults on the cusp of independence. She watched their swords fly and flash for a moment and then followed Baba inside.

The Hall’s Grandmaster, an elderly man with a drooping grey beard, sat at a desk in the front hall, sorting through a stack of papers. He looked up as they walked in.

“Fondest greetings, Grandmaster.” Baba said formally, bowing a little at the waist, before snapping upright.

The Grandmaster gave a tired smile and rose to his feet.

“Ah, and the same to you! Mister…?”

“In my youth I was sometimes called Haroun Hunding. A nickname I meant to earn.”

A flash of recognition went through the old man’s eyes and then was replaced with a slight suspicion.

“I trained at Skaven’s Hall in my youth.” Baba offered, “But alas, my Walkabout took me into the den of a duneripper who wounded me grievously. I could not return to claim my title of full-fledged Ansei.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

The old man's face was gentle and sad, but plainly impatient to get back to his prior task.

Baba flashed a mischievous grin and continued his story.

“But, I must say, it turned out well enough in the end. I met a woman whom I would never have known otherwise and so began my family. This is my daughter, Rayya.”

Rayya stepped forward with a nervous smile and bowed stiffly.

“These past four years I have trained her myself according to the principles of my own school and she has risen to meet every challenge I, and indeed, the world we live in, have placed before her. But now, she has surpassed what I am able to give her and she seeks entrance into your hall to continue her studies. We humbly ask for your blessing on this matter.”

The Grandmaster's eyes narrowed as he looked the two of them over. Rayya was suddenly aware of how old Baba looked, how small and bent. When was the last time he had beaten her squarely in a sparring match? When had he last bought a new suit of clothes?

The Hall was grand and the full weight of its history was on display. Tapestries depicting the exploits of the heroes birthed from within this branch lined the walls. Antique weapons were on display everywhere, their edges polished and razor-sharp.

As the Grandmaster’s eyes raked her underfed body, she felt so unworthy before the might proclaimed before her. But she narrowed her eyes and shoved the thoughts away like inedible vegetables. She belonged here. She was going to gain entrance. She stared him squarely in the eye as he examined her, her feet planted squarely on the ground, her arms at her side.

With a sigh, he turned away and sat back down at his desk.

“Sir, you must be aware that there are a great many students looking to enter the Hall, a great many of them beggars seeking nothing so much as a daily meal and a warm bed. We cannot accept them all, no matter how pure their intentions. So…”

He paused to fasten a silver-rimmed pair of spectacles to his nose and then turned back to his papers.

“If you wish to give your daughter over to my care, there is the matter of payment. Here.”

He pulled a document out of the stack on his desk and held it out to Baba.

Baba’s eyes darkened and his eyebrows met to form a V of anger on his forehead. He did not take the paper.

“Is that how it is?” he said softly, but with malice. “You would turn down the only student in a generation who can form the Shehai?”

The Grandmaster snapped to attention and gave Rayya a piercing stare, his forehead wrinkling in befuddlment. He dropped the paper, stood up and knelt before her.

“Can you summon it here?” he asked, giving her a hard, curious look behind his spectacles.

“Do it, msichana.” Baba whispered, squeezing her shoulders from behind.

Rayya took a few deep breaths to steady her pounding heart. She sank to her knees and sat cross-legged on the expensive carpet, her eyes closed, her head bowed in concentration.

She imagined it as she had never imagined it before, shining and firm and real. She held her palms open, willing it appear, believing that its light would be enough to overpower the chandelier hanging above them.

The Grandmaster gasped. Rayya opened her eyes. For a split second, she saw it, resting on the palms of her hands, lush greenery twining around the shining silver blade. She let out her breath and it faded away.

“I apologize for my hasty words.” the Grandmaster said somberly, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket and mopping the sweat from his brow. “I will train your daughter. She may stay at the Hall with the rest of my students.”

“Thank you, Grandmaster.”

Baba bowed deeply and held out a hand to help Rayya to her feet. When she stood, he wrapped his arms around her and held her tight, crushing her face into his chest until she thought she would stop breathing.

“Goodbye msichana.” he said softly, letting go at last.

She bit her lip as he turned away, trying not to cry as he opened the door into brilliant sunlight and vanished.

“Excuse me.”

The innkeeper’s daughter knocked on the door and opened it a crack. There was a basket of laundry on her hip.

“Oh, thank you!” Carolinne called out, excitedly throwing back the covers.

“Should you be”- Rayya warned, her gut twisting in worry as she leaped to her feet.

“Please.” Carolinne begged, standing up with a look of pain on her face. “I’m not going to get any better if I don’t practice, right? Ow. Ow. Ow…”

She limped to the doorway, another "ow" for every footstep and with a look of dogged determination, took the basket. Rayya speedily gave the woman her tip and helped her back to bed. She sat down gratefully and began digging through the laundry. With a grunt of satisfaction, she pulled out the velvet gown.

And then her face fell.

That priest had really, truly done a number on it. A wide, crooked swath of fabric, the place where the Falmer arrows had pierced her thigh, had been cut to ribbons in the his quest to remove them.

She turned it over in her hands, looking at it this way and that, with a look of deep sorrow on her face.

“We can patch it.” Rayya offered helpfully, wondering how one could elegantly patch a third of a dress in such an obvious place. “Or…turn it into a shirt. Or handkerchiefs. Or…”

Carolinne rose to her feet without a sound and with nary an "ow", stepped through the door.

“Carolinne!” Rayya called out, racing after her.

She stood before the firepit in the center of the inn, the dress bunched up against her chest. For a moment, she hugged it tight and then, before Rayya could stop her, she threw it into the fire. It caught flame instantly, the gold thread melting among the burning logs, the velvet blackening and then turning to cinders.

Carolinne breathed out and swayed on her feet. Rayya offered a hand to steady her and she took it, her grip trembling and slick with sweat.

“No.” she said softly, as she helped her back to the room. “Sometimes you have to let things go.”

Chapter Text

The work was harder than any she had ever done.

Her hands, once anointed with the sweetest oils, were rubbed raw by the washing of dishes, the cooking of food, the scrubbing of laundry, the chopping of wood. She fell into bed exhausted each night and each morning, the aches of yesterday still creaking in her body, rose to do it all over again.

Every once in a while she would think back on the dreams of her youth. How far away they all seemed; the things she had once thought she wanted. To be a hermit living by the seaside. To publish poems under a secret name. To be swept away by a prince from another land and never come back.

Silliness.

Though the hermit one did still sound appealing after a night of being jerked this way and that by tavern patrons.

But for the most part, she wanted for so little anymore.

In her unending labor, she found a type of solace. It prevented her from dwelling on things. It punished her, body and soul, stretching her patience to its limits and the soles of her feet past what she had once thought they could endure. Because of it, she slept deeply and dreamlessly and in the morning, for all her aches, she awoke cleansed.

For the first time in her life, she belonged to no one but herself. The money she made was hers. The room and board were paid for by the labor of her hands. Her well-earned days off were hers to do with as she wished (which was mostly sleeping and reading smutty novels). Despite her disgruntled demeanor and sharp way with customers, she was content. She had her little routine and her little room and wanted for nothing more.

In the early hours of the morning, after she had washed and dressed herself, Hulda asked her to pick up the new fire poker from the smith at the gates. A week ago, a bar fight had gotten out of control and the old one had been bent over one of the combatant’s heads. Pleased to be out and about in the fresh air so early in the morning and not yet assigned to emptying the guests' chamber pots, she agreed. She grabbed the ratty old shawl they shared from the hook and threw it around her shoulders before she stepped out the door.

This was her favorite time of day - that time when the streets were quiet, while the greater bulk of the city still lay sound asleep in their beds, when she could still hear the sound of the songbirds over what would soon be the hubbub of the market square. She strolled leisurely, in no particular hurry to get to her destination.

She knocked on the smith’s door and stood inside for a moment, before the shop was officially open, discussing the weather before she paid for the purchase.

By the time she stepped out, there was an argument happening at the gate.

A group of the Whiterun Watch, their hands on their swords, were standing there, blocking a pair of Redguard men in desert garb from entering.

She was at first caught between two states - joy at seeing travelers from her homeland and wondering if they had any news. And a funny sort of dread that started in the pit of her stomach and only got worse as she hovered on the doorstep of the blacksmith, listening.

“We seek a Redguard woman.” the older of the two Redguards demanded huffily, his voice deep and gravelly. “With scars, here, here and here. We apologize heartily for the disturbance but we must”-

Unbidden, her hand rose to touch her face and she snapped it away before it could do so.

"You can't bring those weapons in here." one of the guards interjected, cutting him off. "Unless you have a permit from the Jarl."

The Redguard flashed the speaker a truly furious glare.

"Then might I see the Jarl and straighten this out? We are on a mission to bring back a wanted criminal. Surely you must"-

She swallowed thickly and turned away before she could hear any more. Her hands were trembling. She gripped the poker like a sword and tried to steady them.

She had to remain calm. Nonchalance was the best disguise. If she could pretend that nothing was wrong, that she was nothing more than an ordinary woman on an ordinary chore, that was her best chance of getting away.

She held her head up high, turned her back on them and pulled her shawl tighter, as though she had only caught a sudden chill. As leisurely as she had come, she walked back to the Bannered Mare, her scarred face a mask of feigned contentment.

She laid the poker on the bar, hung the shawl up on the hook and calmly as ever, ascended the stairs to her little room. There was so little she had to pack. Twenty-five years of a life in hiding and only one bag to show for it.

She put on her traveling cloak and pulled up the hood, adjusting it until it hid the scars. Everything she’d come to know, every little thing she’d found comfort in - gone, just like that. She took in a shuddering breath, struggling not to cry. She wondered who Hulda would hire after her.

And then, when she was calm enough to step outdoors without breaking down, she walked down the steps and out the back door, never once looking back.

Chapter Text

Rayya was a smaller student than most of her peers. Years of hard living and inconstant diet had done her no favors in that regard. Where all the other girls of her age in the Hall had gone through puberty and come out on the other end as confident young women, she was still stuck in adolescence and flat as a board.

In tasks of physical strength, she lagged far behind. But not a single soul could best her in terms of endurance and sheer tenacity.

Jealousy ran rampant among her classmates whenever she summoned her shehai, but thankfully, once she'd gotten more comfortable with living away from her family, that only lasted for a short time. Soon enough, she made friends and cohorts in mischief. It was as though she had never been an outsider.

But sometimes, in the dead of night, as she lay in her bunk, aware of how alone she was and the struggles her family faced that those of her classmates did not, she wept silently into her pillow. In the morning, she'd say a prayer to both the Old Gods and the New at breakfast. As she ate, she'd savor each spoonful, remembering every last time when she had no such luxury. And every time she saw a classmate flicked a dollop of porridge across the table at the face of another unsuspecting classmate, it felt like blackest sacrilege.

Sundas was the day that the students were free to do as they wished. The older ones, almost without variation, spent it getting drunk and seeing shows. The younger ones (and those more prone to filial piety) went home.

In the months after Rayya had left, her parents, unable to pay for its upkeep any longer, had sold the house and moved into a cramped apartment on the other side of town. Baba had taken a part-time job as a clerk to another man’s luxury goods shop and Mama had begun taking in laundry. It was always a strange feeling, every Sundas, walking back into this life that had moved on without her and trying to act as though all was perfectly well in her world. As though she was not the least bit discouraged or hurt by what a teacher had said the prior day. As though it wasn't hard, being too embarrassed to invite noble friends home with her. As though their sacrifices could not help but be worth it.

But they were always overjoyed to see her and fussing over every word that fell from her mouth. And though she knew they had so little to spare, they would give her a heaping helping of food at dinner and smile graciously as she ate it. She cleaned her plate every time, an uncomfortable blend of guilt and love mixing in her stomach.

It was with both longing and relief that she said goodbye to her parents and made the long, winding journey back to the Hall through the crooked backstreets of Taneth.

The next morning, she would throw herself into training harder than any other day of the week.

Her twentieth birthday came like a weight lifted off her shoulders.

She opened her eyes and felt the difference in the air, in the tingle of her skin. She threw off the cover and leaped out of her bunk, hitting the floor with just enough sound to elicit a groan from her half-asleep roommate in the lower bunk. Moving a bit quieter from then on, she gathered up her things and headed to the bathhouse.

She spent much longer than usual in the shower today. It was partially because she was intent on scrubbing down every crevice of herself extra thoroughly for the special occasion and partially because standing under the cool water did something for her nerves. The stall was a comforting barrier against the outside world, excited as she was for what was to happen next. As long as she was in it, things would stay the same for as long as she chose.

Outside, they would change.

When her nerves were sufficiently steadied, she turned the knob and stepped out.

After she was dry, she dressed in her best - a fine linen shirt and pants, with a leather jerkin and boots to match. It was the outfit in which she would be stepping out into the world - in which she would be slaying monsters. The thought gave her nervous goosebumps and excited shivers.

On her way out, she stopped to look at herself in the tall bronze mirror on the bathhouse wall.

She’d grown so much taller since settling into a routine of decent diet and exercise. She towered over her parents now. They felt like dolls when she hugged them, small and delicate enough to break. She imagined their faces when she came to give them the news.

She tucked a stray braid behind her ear and smiled into the mirror, her teeth like pearls set in mahogany. Then she walked to the mess hall with as dignified a gait as she could manage without skipping for joy.

Breakfast proceeded as normal, though she could barely bring herself to eat. The children chattered on as they usually did, heedless that anything would be different today. The adults that she had grown up with these past five years nudged her affectionately and offered their congratulations. One of them caught her in a headlock and gave her a noogie as laughing, she struggled to break free without hurting him too badly.

And then, the Grandmaster appeared, in his dour black robes of office. He clapped his hands, solemnly bade everyone be in the entrance hall in ten minutes, and retreated to the shadows once again. Rayya sucked in her breath, realizing how close it all was now. She downed the rest of her meal without even tasting it and left her dirty dishes for the servants to clean up.

When she arrived, the Grandmaster was nudging the children into place with the tip of his wooden sword. Every student in the hall was formed into two aisles, ranked from youngest to oldest down the line. The youngest fidgeted nervously, looking on in confusion and wonder. The ones old enough to know what was going on shot her knowing nods and beaming smiles. When the Grandmaster was satisfied with their placement, he tucked the sword back into his belt and took his spot at the far end of the line - before the great desk where she had first shown him her shehai, all those years ago.

His face was unreadable and grim, but slowly, as he watched her from across the room, a smile twitched into life under his hoary beard. He gave one firm nod in her direction.

She began to walk, her head held high, though the trickle of sweat down the back of her neck betrayed her nerves.

All the eyes of the Hall bored into her as she passed between them. The joking tone of the morning had been thoroughly replaced by the solemnity of the ceremony.

How many times had she participated in this ritual from the outside? How many friends had she bade farewell to, after bearing witness to their final walk as students? It seemed so impossible, that she was here, now, finishing that walk herself. For a moment, her feet felt as heavy as lead and there was a distant buzzing in her ears. She stopped, feeling as though she might faint. The Grandmaster, as he smiled at her from the other end of the room, all of a sudden seemed as far away as the other end of Tamriel.

She took a deep breath, set her jaw and trekked across the miles until she stood before him.

“Today, we recognize the achievements of Rayya.” he boomed, spreading his arms dramatically. “Third Shehai Master of the Fourth Era and Expert of the Four Hundred Cuts. Kneel and present your offering.”

She knelt before him, her head bowed. From her belt, she drew the stick that had been her birthday present so long ago. She had not using it for training in years, but upon it, her ongoing progress had been recorded - nine notches, for nine years of training. She offered it to him, her palms open in supplication.

“With the authority of my rank as Grandmaster of Taneth Hall…” he said, taking it from her palms and raising it above his head. “I hereby declare your training fulfilled.”

With one fluid movement, he brought the stick down and broke it over his knee. The pieces, he placed reverently on his desk.

“I bestow upon you the freedom of Walkabout..." he went on as he turned to face her again. "...and invite you to claim the title of Ansei when your journey is complete. Stars guide you.”

“And Tu'whacca keep you.” she intoned, her eyes flooding with happy tears.

As she stood, the two oldest students stepped forward. In the hands of one of them was a sword-belt. The other bore a pair of scimitars. Without a word, they fitted the belt around her waist and fastened the weapons in place.

The youngest student waited nervously behind her, a tin of green warpaint clutched nervously in his hand. She bent down so he could reach her face. He applied the paint with a sure hand, nary a tremble in his small fingers. The designs were unique to each hall and each had their secret meanings, but the paint was always green - for growth and change and youth.

When it was done, she clicked her heels together, stood up, turned around to face the Grandmaster one last time and gave him a deep bow.

The room burst into wild applause as she strode towards the door, her closest classmates whooping and cheering loudly enough to call down a Divine. She resisted looking back with all her might; that was considered to be the worst luck there was and she was damned if she'd take any more bad luck.

The light was blinding when she opened the door and exited into the wide world.

Mama was sitting outside when she arrived, sewing buttons onto some gentleman's overcoat. Rayya gestured to her scimitars from across the street and she nearly ran into a speeding cart to get to her. When she had finally managed to get close enough to do so, she flung her arms around her daughter and squealed in her ears.

They spent the rest of the day seeing the sights of the city for one last time together - the public gardens on the palace grounds, its newly restored fountain. They took a walk along the harbor wall and dipped their feet off one of the piers. And finally, they went to the market to pick out food for dinner. Rayya insisted that she carry the groceries home, though Mama was adamant about doing all the cooking.

As the smell of cooking food began drifting from the tiny excuse for a kitchen, Baba limped through the door. Rayya pulled out a chair for him and he half-fell on it, a look of pain on his face. Without asking, she pulled the tub of blue mountain flower salve from the chest at the foot of her parent’s bed and began easing off his shoe.

The offending foot on her lap, she spent the time before dinner was ready wordlessly massaging her father’s pain away. Her ministrations were nowhere as good as Iya’s, but he sighed with relief and thanked her anyway.

One by one, Mama brought out the dishes - spicy pork with lemongrass, steamed rice, fennel salad. At the place of honor was set a plate of honey shortcakes for dessert. Rayya reached for one of them first, but Mama slapped her hand away, giving her a dirty look before smiling widely and shaking her head.

The three of them gorged themselves on the meal, eating until there was nothing left but a handful of rice and everyone was far closer to being uncomfortably full than otherwise.

Rayya was nibbling lazily on the last bit of shortcake when Baba asked the question, his eyes glittering with pride.

“So! Where are you planning to go on your Walkabout?”

She swallowed the last lump of cake and licked the crumbs from her lips.

“I’m not entirely sure." she answered, wrinkling her forehead as she thought about it. "I've been thinking that I’ll start by going down the coast to Rihad. There are villages down that way that were abandoned during the war and are just being reclaimed now. I’d like to help them if I can. Drive off the wild animals that have taken up residence in their lands, the bandits in their homes.”

Baba nodded knowingly.

“A noble goal. Ah, but go down far enough and it’ll be elves you’re killing.”

“Elves?”

An image flashed into her mind of her scimitars covered in blood, of the body of what looked near enough to a man at her feet. She felt a pang of nausea thinking about it and wished she had not eaten that last cake.

Baba was still talking.

“...Aldmeri dogs rule Cyrodiil now. Oh, there’s an emperor, but he’s a puppet monarch, through and through. The Thalmor - now, they're the real power behind the throne. Outside of Hammerfell, it's them who decide what people believe and how much tribute is to be paid for the privilege. Now what I would do, were I young and hale enough to finish my own Walkabout, is take out those blasted elves one by one.”

His face darkened and his eyebrows wrinkled in long-suppressed anger.

“Their inquisitors travel lightly guarded, to distant places where they might root out pockets of hidden belief. Taken by surprise, they are easily subdued and their bodies buried where no one might find them.”

“Baba.” Rayya said softly, her heart pounding louder in her chest at every word that came out of his mouth. “I did not come this far to be a murderer.”

“Oh?” Baba said coolly, turning to look at her directly in the eyes. “And what of your brother? Would you not revenge him?”

He seized his cane and thumped the floor.

“And what of the grief that killed your Iya? Did you not care for her?”

“Haroun!” Mama whispered, snatching his hand from the table and holding it tight. He shook her off and rose to his feet.

“And the livelihood they took from your family? Would you not have them pay every coin back in blood?”

Rayya clenched her fists under the table. Her hands were trembling.

“No.” she said firmly, though her voice cracked.

Baba closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath through his nostrils. When he opened them, his eyes were not gleaming with anger, but with disappointment.

"Then what have I been training you for, msichana?"

Rayya shook her head slowly, tears welling up in her eyes.

“Get out.”

The statement was uttered quietly and utterly without emotion. He pointed his cane at the door. Rayya stayed where she was, dumbstruck, the feeling of a wave crashing in her head, again and again.

“Return to me when you have learned of the ways of this world or do not return at all.”

Saying nothing, she stood, took her swords from the hook beside the door, and left. It slammed behind her in the wind that howled down the tunnel of cramped streets. She could hear Mama sobbing through it.

Wrapping her headscarf around her head against the chill, she carried on into the night.

Rayya jolted awake at the touch of Carolinne’s hand, the feeling of some bewildering half-remembered dream still racing in her veins.

“Ooh!” she gasped, flinching away. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

It took her a moment to register where she was and how she'd gotten there. She’d fallen asleep in a stiff-backed chair at the Sleeping Giant, she soon discovered. Her spine ached from the awful position she’d slumped into.

The details slowly fell back into place. Carolinne had been consulting with Delphine in the secret room. She really ought to have been there with her, but after another day of running from hiding place to hiding place under the shadow of a dragon, exhaustion had gotten the better of her.

Carolinne was wearing one of Delphine's old dresses, she noticed. The bodice pushed her cleavage into appealing positions and a pair of long slits ran up the sides of the skirt to allow for ease of movement. The weathered blue fabric made her eyes brighter, somehow.

She smile wearily at her, sat up straight and stretched, yawning.

“I’ll be fine. What did Delphine have planned?”

“Well…”

Carolinne rubbed the back of her head and shifted nervously on her feet, something important, but not easily discussed plainly on her mind.

Rayya stood up and offered her an arm.

“Shall we take a walk to talk about it then?”

Carolinne smiled gently and took it.

She prattled on as they strolled through the darkened streets of Riverwood - about a wild plan to infiltrate the Thalmor Embassy, how they were going to get there, secret identities, precautions. Rayya listened, nodding along to everything she said. It was a fanciful plan, but doable.

And then, as they reached the bridge at the edge of town and ran out of road to stroll on, her demeanor changed. In the low light of the moons, her expression took on a deathly serious cast.

“There is one more thing.” she said, her voice dropping to a hoarse whisper, though there was no one around to hear. “Delphine’s spy at the embassy has sent word of a new guest of the Ambassador. It’s…a Redguard woman. With a scarred face. Three scars, in positions I’m sure you can guess.”

Rayya’s heart skipped a beat. A chill spread down her spine and she could feel the little hairs of her body standing up. A dizzying swirl of long-suppressed images and sounds took up residence inside her brain.

Would you not revenge him?

Did you not care for her?

Would you not have them pay back every coin in blood?

She glanced down and saw that her hand had moved over her sword, as though an enemy lurked on the other side of the bridge at this very moment. With a shiver, she tore her hand away. Carolinne was looking at her beseechingly, her forehead wrinkled in worry.

“So…” she said softly, her hand sliding into Rayya’s and squeezing reassuringly. “What happens next is up to you. What do you want to do?”

Chapter Text

Iman was prostrate in the snow. She could feel the icy chill of the ground through the thin fabric of her gown. Her hand shook as she held up the old Thalmor emblem, tarnished with age.

“I swear to you Emissary, on my life, that I am Iman of House Suda, betrayer of the city of Taneth during the Great War for Hammerfell. My countrymen have tracked me to this province and in my hour of need, I beg sanctuary at your Embassy until I might find lodgings elsewhere.”

The emblem was taken from her hand. Iman looked up.

“Hmm.” the elf muttered, her long, golden face betraying nothing as she turned the bauble this way and that between her thin, tapering fingers. “It is true that such tokens are given to our allies in order that they might identify themselves. And though I was not present for the conflict, I have heard tell of this Iman of Taneth. However…”

Iman was trying desperately not to get her hopes up. The tone of her voice was quickly dashing them.

She could hear her heart pounding in her ears. Her throat was tight and dry. She had run halfway across the province to get here, slept in the wilderness for days on end, hid herself from every soul who might have recognized her.

The truth was that she had no idea where she might go after this.

The elf tucked the emblem into her robe and crossed her arms.

“Tokens may be stolen, stories, fabricated. Have you no proof of your identity beyond your word?”

Her breath caught in her throat. There was one thing, one slim remnant of the life she left behind. It had never before been seen by the eyes of another person. Her hand moved slowly, as though caught in honey, as she reached for it. It felt innately wrong, to hand it over to another, to let hands other than her own touch it. Her cheeks burned with embarrassment. There was so much bad teenage poetry in it, but if it might save her life…

She withdrew her battered journal from her bodice and presented it to the elf. Its cover had once been crusted with jewels, but she had pried them free and sold them long ago. Its pages were warped and water-stained, but still, it was intact.

“The secrets of House Suda are contained within." she said, with a tremble in her voice. "Examine it to your heart’s content.”

The elf accepted the book and quickly rifled through it. Iman couldn’t bear to look. Every so often she could hear her pausing on a page and letting out an interested "Hmm!"

At the sound of the journal snapping shut, she looked up. The elf gave a curt nod to the tall guard accompanying her.

“Tell the housekeeper to prepare a room for Iman of House Suda and inform the cook that we will have one more for dinner.”

She handed the book back to her. Iman rose to her feet shakily and clutched it to her chest as though hanging on for dear life.

“She is to be treated as an honored guest.” she yelled across the courtyard at the guard’s receding, shiny back.

Chapter Text

Lady Amarie Factice and Lady Abeni of House Bandia spent the day as tourists in Solitude. They strolled through the shops, trying on fine gowns at the tailor's, bedecking themselves with gold at the jeweler's, sniffing the incense at the alchemist's and last but not least, having a taste of Solitude's special spiced wine with lunch. When they had finished eating, they made their way to the Bards' College just in time to catch a public rehearsal of this year's Burning of King Olaf performance.

The tour was concluded with a quick glance at the Blue Palace grounds and hasty exit from the execution of the day, which conveniently, was taking place very nearly on their inn's doorstep. "Abeni" shut the door behind them like she was keeping the forces of Oblivion out. She could still hear the jeers of the crowd through the wood.

Inside, the inn was quiet and serene, all its normal patrons having funneled out into the street to watch the spectacle of a beheading. The bartender doted on his only guests, topping up their drinks with a wink and getting their food ready in half the time it would have taken him, had there been a bar full of thirsty people to tend to.

The ladies chatted amiably over dinner, about faraway politics, their next destination in their Grand Tour, the bore-inducing suitors their parents wanted them to marry and the inconvenience of mudcrab nests in the road.

For a moment, it almost felt normal.

Pleasant.

As though they weren't pretending to be who they were not and about to do something that would put them in extreme danger.

There was a roar from the crowd that resounded through the walls. It seemed to be a sign that the axe had at last fallen and the poor sod outside was dead. The door slammed open and a riotous slew of humanity poured through it, demanding drinks before they'd even taken a seat.

"Amarie" and "Abeni" decided to take the remainder of their meal upstairs. There was a lone table that looked down from above, in an unoccupied alcove.

As the darker hours of the evening took hold, their conversation dwindled down to nothing and was replaced by the silence of their private, anxious thoughts.

“Amarie” took a sip of her ale and set it back down on the table, beside the plate of venison that she'd been picking at all evening but making no real progress on. “Abeni” stared off into the distance, completely ignoring her steadily warming drink as she mentally ran through all the ways that the plan to infiltrate the Thalmor Embassy could possibly go wrong.

“Hey.” Carolinne said, breaking the spell with a gentle touch on the shoulder and a shy smile. “You never did tell me how you ended up in Dengeir’s service.”

“Oh?”

Rayya turned to her, smiling, resplendent in her Imperial-style red silk chiton. She was more glad than Carolinne knew for the distraction.

“Well…" she said, taking her elbows off the table and sitting up a little straighter. "There was an assassin after him. Terrible shot, though I suppose that the poison was meant to compensate for that. I happened to be standing in the way.”

As she watched, Carolinne’s mouth dropped open and her face turned into a mask of concern.

“You got…what?”

Rayya laughed, throwing her head back in merriment.

“It’s true!”

She undid one of the golden fibulae holding her chiton in place and let the fabric droop so that the back of her shoulder was exposed. On it, there was a tiny nub of raised scar tissue.

“Gods…” Carolinne murmured, her hand moving to the part of her thigh that still ached when the weather changed.

“But…” Rayya said enticingly, reaching behind her back to pin her dress in place again. “First things first. I'll start where we left off. I spent the first couple years of my Walkabout wandering southern Hammerfell and slaying troublesome wild animals where I could. Sometimes I stopped to help raise a new granary or build a house. But eventually, my feet took me to Elinhir, at the border of Skyrim.”

“I thought that my desire was to see the mountains. But really, what I wanted was to go as far from my old life as I could. To forget, perhaps. Or to prove myself against something that is immovable, there, in the thin air and the frost."

"But once I got there? I had no idea what I was going to do next. I took a few local mercenary jobs. I drank some fine ale. But at the end of the day, there I was, alone in my cups, staring up at the lonely bulk of the mountains from the inn veranda.”

“The hike was a the whim of a lazy Sundas morning. I had never climbed a mountain before and figured that I might as well, before I left and the chance was lost. I climbed much higher than I ought to, with much less supplies than I should have brought. I was caught in a storm and trapped in a cave for, near as I can tell, two days. Once I could no longer hear the scream of the wind on the walls of my shelter, I crept from hiding, only then realizing how far I'd come."

"The air was so clear that I could see my way far into Skyrim. A vast and dark forest stretched out below me, broken here and there by gaps of what I'd taken to be settlements. I could see trails of smoke emanating from a few of them and my stomach grumbled, reminding me of the careful rationing I'd been subjecting myself to in that cave. For a moment, I hovered on the brink, wondering if it would be wiser to go back or to go forward."

"Perhaps it was the thinness of the air or the delirium which comes with hunger and being in darkness for days, but I found my feet taking me forward. I felt excitement rising in my breast as I walked, the thrill of entering into something unknown. I felt every sorrow I'd accumulated in Hammerfell lessening in weight as I descended and the forest below grew ever nearer.”

“And so it was, that I found my way across the border.”

The air smelled of rain, though the brooding clouds that had followed her all day had not yet broken and soaked the forest surrounding her. She could hear the calls of unfamiliar animals all around - birds she didn’t recognize, yips that sounded different from those of the jackals at home, squeaks of rodents that didn't sound a thing like what she was used to.

She had no idea where she was.

For half a day she had walked and not run into a single living soul. Were it not for the paving of the road and the evidence of her eyes before she descended, she would have assumed that Skyrim was an uninhabited wilderness. It certainly didn't look like the bastion of civilization that the guidebooks had made it out to be.

At midday, she rested beneath the boughs of a pine tree while the rain pitter-patted around her, making everything misty and fantastical. She chewed on her last strip of dried meat as it fell, making it last. When it was gone, the sound of the rain lulled her to sleep and the stress she didn't realize she was carrying melted away with the fading of her consciousness.

Faint voices in the distance awakened her. Her eyes snapped open and she lay there listening for a moment, not quite able to make out the words. The rain had stopped, though the mist remained and the dampness in the air had soaked into her skin. The voices grew louder as their owners got closer and snatches of conversation drifted down from the road to her ears. Some man was bragging about the meal his wife was cooking for him at this very moment and the welcome he'd get when they made it home. This was naturally followed by what sounded an awful lot like a snarky jibe against the wife and a quick burst of throaty laughter.

If she leaned forward, she could see four pairs of steel-toed boots tramping down the road towards her and hear the clatter of their occupants' armor as they walked. She hesitated in her hiding place, silently weighing her options. She was not certain if she was entirely comfortable with her first human contact in Skyrim being a group of soldiers of unknown origin. A logger or a farmer, in her experience, would have been much more preferable.

Her stomach growled again, interrupting her thoughts. She'd been walking for half a day and had yet to see any signs of logging or farming. She was starving and lost and here were a group of people who almost certainly knew where they were going.

She took a deep breath and crept out from hiding, her hands in the air.

The party stopped in their tracks and eyed her warily. The four armored men were dressed in greyish surcoats, their faces concealed behind featureless helmets. Between them, they bore an ornately carved litter. Upon it perched an old Nord man, the marks of hardship on his weathered skin, but the haleness of a well-trained youth still swelling in the muscles of his bare arms. A silvery wolf skin was wrapped around his shoulders and when he leaned forward, his eyes narrowing in suspicion, she saw the gold glinting on his breast.

“Hail.” Rayya said, nervously flashing her brightest smile. “I am a newcomer in these parts and I was wondering if you might provide me with directions to...”

She caught the flash of movement from the corner of her eye. The words died in her mouth and as she was turning to look in its direction, the hairs on the back of her neck prickling with unease, it happened.

There was the twang of a bowstring and a rush of air. Before she had time to react, every last ounce of air was knocked out of her lungs.

She swayed on her feet, struggling to pick up the shattered pieces of her psyche through the pain radiating from her shoulder.

As one, before her wavering field of vision, the soldiers dropped the litter and drew their swords.

“The Jarl!” one of them screamed. “Protect the Jarl!”

Gritting her teeth, she swallowed the pain and craned her neck around to see the shaft of a poorly made arrow projecting from the back of her shoulder. There was a rustling in the trees and a terrified squeak as the would-be assassin tumbled from their perch, taking off like a shot into the undergrowth.

She was running at top speed, all thought and emotion concentrated into a single point within her, hardly caring that her left arm was flopping uselessly behind her as she sped after the fleeing shadow. It was slower than her. She caught it easily, hurling herself bodily at it and pinning its kicking shape to the ground like a skilled predator.

It was a Nord boy, his cheeks flushed with exertion, his flaxen hair disheveled and muddy, his eyes wide with terror. She dug the nails of her good hand into his shoulder and locked her knees around his hips as he tried to squirm out of her grip.

She could hear the Jarl’s guard crashing through the undergrowth somewhere behind her.

“I’ve got him!” she called out, her voice weaker than she thought it would be.

She rolled aside when one of the men had him safely in his grip, feeling suddenly light-headed. Her mouth was bone-dry. Her vision was blurring at the edges and no amount of blinking would make it stop. With a jolt of terror, she realized that she couldn’t get up on her own power.

“Hey!” a guard said, a tremor in his voice as he rushed to her side.

The world was spinning and the mud was dragging her down into the earth.

She vaguely remembered seeing someone bind the boy's hands and slapping him across the face when he tried to fight back. She felt hands lifting her out of the mud, panicked voices rising and swelling in her ears.

She remembered opening her eyes and thinking for a moment that she was floating through a mist-filled forest. And then she felt the carved wood under her arms, the subtle movement of the litter as its bearers carried it. The old man, his shoulders bare, a gold medallion swinging around his throat, turned to look at her when she moved, worry creasing his already lined face. She tried to speak, but only a thin wail came out of her mouth. She was shivering uncontrollably and her shoulder throbbed with every slight jolt of the litter.

The man reached over and pulled the blanket on her lap a little higher. Her head drooped down and she saw that it was a wolf skin.

She closed her eyes again after that.

They snapped open to see a crowd of staring strangers looking down on her, a chorus of worried voices assaulting her ears. She was on her side, and could feel the chill of the ground below leeching away her body heat. She wanted to cry, to hide, to shrink away from view until no one could see her. Her head was fuzzy and everything - every last hair follicle, intake of breath and stirring of sound - hurt.

There was a shout in the distance and blessedly, the people backed away, the chatter stopping soon afterwards. An elf with pale golden skin and the robes of a priest came running, a small satchel clutched in one hand and a silvery globe of light in the other. The light pulsed in his hand like something alive. His eyes were sad as he dropped to his knees and reached out to touch her with it.

Without warning, her heart started racing and her mind was filled with visions of lightening and fire and crackling lights and gold thrown in the bottom of a boat to get away from it all. She jerked away, shuddering and sobbing.

And then she felt something hard and cold being wound around the palm of her hand. Warily, she opened her eyes to see the elf wrapping a strand of clay beads around her hand and closing her fingers around it.

"I promise" he begged, pleading in his eyes as he squeezed her hand tight. "on my honor as a priest of Arkay, that I will not harm you. Will you let me help you?"

One last tear slid down her face. She squeezed the beads, breathed in deeply and gave a small nod.

He touched a bead of light to her forehead and she was gone.

She awakened - she was told - in the house of Jarl Dengeir of Falkreath.

Her wound was bandaged, her arm was in a sling, her clothes were clean and the beads were still wrapped around her hand. She lay in bed for a moment, touching them, enjoying their coolness against her hot skin. She felt as though she had been kicked in the stomach by a camel, but if she tried, she was strong enough to sit up on her own power.

The red-cheeked servant that had been perched on a stool by her side brought her a goblet of water, a cool cloth and chattily answered every question she had to ask.

In this manner, she learned that she was a honored guest of the Jarl, who had insisted that she recover in his longhouse. She was cordially invited to dine with the court, when she was up to it.

Two days later, she felt well enough to take him up on that offer.

Her skin prickled with nerves when she stepped out in her borrowed finery. The outfit was a loan from the steward, a woman who plainly had much narrower hips than Rayya, thinner arms and longer limbs. She had dined with nobility before, in the times when her friends at the Hall had invited her into their homes and lent her their clothes, but even with practice, the feeling that she was playing dress-up among the real adults never ceased.

She stepped warily into the dining hall, located the high seat and stiffly, her left arm still in its sling, bowed to the man with the wolf skin wrapped around his shoulders.

"Ah, the hero emerges!" Jarl Dengeir barked, true delight glimmering in his tired eyes. "Welcome, welcome! Nenya, make way, she'll have your seat tonight. Come, Rayya, is it? You must tell us of yourself."

A lump in her throat, she seated herself on the bench next to the Jarl. A plate was placed before her and filled by a quick-fingered servant who slipped in behind her the moment she looked at it.

"We're a small bunch tonight, I'm afraid." the Jarl went on. "If it pleases you, this is my steward Nenya..."

The elf who had moved down a seat and now sat next to her nodded politely. She was indeed rather tall and thin.

"My nephew Siddgeir..."

The young man on the other side of the Jarl peered around his uncle for a moment, appraised her with narrowed eyes like he was inspecting a hunk of meat and then resumed his seat.

"...and my brother Thadgeir."

An old man with a haunted look gave her a cursory nod and then went back to his cups.

The Jarl seized the bottle before him and poured a healthy helping of wine into her goblet.

"Please! Drink and eat!" he laughed, raising his own glass. "You've well-earned it."

She sat there for a moment, in shock that the Jarl himself had poured for her from his own bottle. And then her face cracked into a smile that was more than mere formality.

"Thank you, sir." she said softly, raising her goblet and clinking it with his.

She was not entirely comfortable with eating solid food and drinking great quantities of wine yet, but as the evening wore on and the formality wore away, she felt her nervousness leaving her like a summer storm.

The conversation drifted this way and that. Sometimes it was local politics or faraway wars, crop rotations or philosophy. She couldn't quite follow all of it, but she was made to feel welcome with every change of topic. And then, as a discussion of summer taxes was dying down, Nenya turned toward her, an admiring glint in her yellow eyes.

"You must tell me where you learned to run like that!" she said. "I've had words with the men who witnessed the chase and the way they described it - you taking off like a daedric prince was on your heels and wounded and poisoned on top of that - I can hardly believe it myself, though the evidence is plain to see."

"Well..." Rayya said quietly, clearing her throat before she said anything more.

She realized that everyone was looking at her. The air was filled with baited silence.

A calm coming over her, she thought back to what Iya would do. She put her right hand on her knee and sat up straighter.

"On my eleventh birthday, as is the tradition in Hammerfell, I entered into the Hall of the Virtues of the War, where all the country's greatest warriors train. But it was not the physical manifestation of the Hall. I had no weapons, no armor, no building of stone and mud where I might grow strong and be safe. No, the desert was my Hall and the scorching winds, my teacher. On the first day of my training, I ran beneath the open sky to learn the virtue of endurance..."

A week after his capture, the boy was brought from the dungeons, pale as a bloated earthworm and dressed in torn rags, for trial.

The evidence was brought forward.

A crude hunter's bow and a quiver of arrows matching the one pulled from Rayya's shoulder.

A vial of poison, whose main ingredient, as determined by the local alchemist, was crushed deathbell petals.

He was a member of an impoverished hunting family in the hinterlands. His parents, nearly as poorly dressed as he was, arrived to plead for his life. They begged the Jarl to forgive their son for his mistake, for letting his arrow shoot a woman in the mist instead of the rabbit he had meant to kill.

Each guard who was present gave his account of the event. None of them had seen a rabbit and it was decided beyond a shadow of a doubt that one does not typically kill meat one wishes to eat with a poisoned arrow.

The parents could not account for the presence of the poison, nor fathom where he could have gotten it. They lived in the deep wilderness and hardly ever met a travelling merchant, let alone an alchemist. The boy himself was silent on this matter no matter how sweetly the steward prodded him for answers.

The verdict was delivered by Jarl Dengeir himself.

"While it may be an accident, you shooting a woman instead of your quarry..." he said slowly, his face hardening as he looked the boy in the eyes. "the presence of the poison and the proximity of the shot to my own person cannot help but suggest otherwise. You are convicted of assault, poisoning and high treason, with intent to kill the Jarl. Your sentence is death."

The boy's mother burst into wild sobs. Her husband held her, holding in his own emotions with great effort.

A lump grew in Rayya's throat as he was escorted out by the city watch, his face drained of all emotion, his eyes firmly focused on the ground.

She decided that she would not deign to attend the execution.

When the onlookers of the trial had gone home and the longhouse was in the midst of that empty lull before dinner occupied by nothing save the clanking of dishes in the kitchen, the Jarl summoned her to his throne.

She had seen him sitting on it before, of course. Not two hours ago, in fact.

But never, in any of those times had she been the one summoned to kneel before him. Her skin prickled with goosebumps as she strode toward him on his dais, his furs and his gold suddenly setting him so much higher than an ordinary man in the spot.

She bowed before him and kissed his hand when he extended it.

"Now then," he said, breaking the formality with a gentle smile. "you have told me stories of your training and your travel all week. I understand that you are on a test of sorts and bound to travel until you pass it. You must be aching to be back on the road soon, I should think."

Truthfully, Rayya had not been thinking about it just yet. The trial, her efforts to entertain the Jarl and his court and her own healing had absorbed nearly all of her attention.

"But..." the Jarl went on, a serious thread weaving through his voice. "if you have any desire to stay longer, I would wish to honor you with a position in my court."

Rayya's eyes widened. Any words she was going to say evaporated to mist in her mind.

"Truth is, it's a treacherous world out there and a great many people want me dead. I have need of a strong arm who won't stab me in the back. And..."

He chuckled to himself.

"What purer proof of loyalty is there than a woman who takes a poisoned arrow for her jarl? A-ha...ahem."

His face softened again.

"But don't let an old man's jokes frighten you. You will have permanent lodging in the longhouse, a suit of armor crafted personally for your use and a sizable yearly stipend for your service. Though it is traditional - and my wish - that a housecarl will stay with their charge until the bitter end, I also grant you the boon of leaving when you choose. You would be free to stay for as little or as long as you like. Nothing less for the woman who saved my life - and you did save my life. I will not have any more of that false humility."

Rayya's head was spinning. It must have looked as thought it was because Dengeir's forehead was wrinkling with worry.

"But, please..." he went on raising his hands in a conciliatory gesture. "take some time to think on it. I don't need an answer today. Or even tomorrow. Go! Get some fresh air. Mull it over."

"T-Thank you, my jarl." she sputtered, giving him a quick bow before backing out the door.

Her feet took her to the graveyard. It was a part of town which she had not yet explored, for fairly obvious reasons.

But once she got there, she wondered why she had not come sooner. It was a quiet place, free of the shouts of merchants and the bustle of life. Wildflowers bloomed profusely on the edges of the wilderness surrounding the lonely plot of land. She could hear herself think here, have room to move as freely as she needed to.

She strolled leisurely among the headstones, tapping them every now and then with a stick she'd picked up on the way.

Housecarl to the Jarl of Falkreath.

It was a position with power, influence, prestige. If was never wondering where you’d sleep that night or if you’d have a meal to fill your belly in the morning.

It was being bound to one duty, one person. It was never being excited for what surprises the next day might bring.

No more traipsing through the woods whenever she wanted. No more stunts like leaving the province on a whim. It was a heavy responsibility and she was not entirely sure if she was ready for that.

Her heart ached at the thought of stopping here and never going further than the Jarl's side, but soared at the thought of finally making something of herself beyond the scope of a common mercenary. She paced back and forth as she thought on it, twisting the stick in her hands.

And then, she looked up and found herself standing before the stone cottage on the edge of the graveyard. He thoughts stilled for a moment. She knew who lived there, though she had not yet set foot inside. She had meant to visit him at some point, though her stomach knotted with nerves at the thought.

Today was the day. She was here, now and it looked as though he had no other visitors.

Sucking in her lips, she knocked on the door.

"Do come in!" a frail, elderly voice called through the door. "The shrine is open to everyone."

Without allowing herself to overthink it, she seized the handle and slipped inside.

The single room of the cottage was divided into two halves. On one end sat the Shrine of Arkay, candles burning beside it and a modest pile of offerings at its foot. On the other was the priest's and the caretaker's living quarters - a set of little beds, a dresser, a cupboard, a table, a firepit with something mouth watering bubbling in a cauldron.

"Oh!" the priest gasped, getting up from the table and closing his book when he saw who it was. "Welcome, indeed. Tell me, how's your shoulder been doing?"

Rayya rotated it to demonstrate its improving health and smiled.

"Nearly healed, thanks to you. I'm Rayya."

His old face with its sad eyes crinkled into a smile in return.

"So I've heard! Runil, at your service."

It was suddenly awkwardly silent between them. Rayya reached into her shirt and took the string of clay beads from her neck.

"I...came to give you these back." she said slowly, forming each word carefully before she spoke it. "...and to apologize for my reaction to you. I'm sorry I acted the way I did."

"Oh, don't worry about that." Runil answered, taking the beads from her and tucking them securely into his belt. "You were in pain and under a great deal of stress. Things happen."

"No." she said firmly, a pang of regret piercing her heart. "It was more than that. When I was a child, my home was conquered by Aldmeri mages. I barely escaped the destruction myself and grew up with the aftermath. For a moment, when I saw you, with the magic, I thought that you were...truly, I'm sorry for thinking such a thing of you."

"Well..." the elf said, a shadow passing over his face as he lowered himself back into the rickety wooden chair. "In truth...you were not wrong. I was one of them once. I served as a battlemage in the Great War. I had the power to level cities, raze villages. And then one day...I saw what I was doing and came to regret it. Gave it all up on that day to devote myself to Arkay and haven't looked back."

He put his head in his hands and massaged his temples.

"I suspected that you had come to harm at the hands of Aldmeri mages when you reacted as you did. It's not...exactly an uncommon thing, especially among the warriors still old enough to remember. I take it upon myself to apologize for every careless act of my brethren, though the cost of their actions are too great to bear and the words of an old mer bring but little comfort. So, for what it's worth, I apologize to you for causing what harm I did."

She felt a twinge of anger flash through her skull. Here was an elf who had burned cities no different from her own, who had escaped from that life without punishment or restitution.

For a moment, she heard the voice of her father in the back of her head.

A single old elf, unguarded, unsuspecting, no witnesses, fully admitting to wrongdoing...

It is best to strike when an enemy's back is turned...

He lifted up a hefty mug and took a deep dreg of the steaming drink within.

She took a breath and closed her eyes. She remembered the feel of the beads in her hand, the pleading look in his eyes as he entrusted her with them, begging her to trust him.

When she opened them, the thoughts were gone.

"Thank you, Runil." she breathed, flashing him a genuine smile.

After they had shared a mug of snowberry tea and gossiped a bit about the goings on around town, she said her goodbyes and hoped that she was not too late for dinner at the longhouse.

As she was walking, feeling lighter for having been relieved of another burden she didn't know she had, another thought about the housecarl situation came to mind.

The stipend.

She thought of her parents struggling in their apartment and the last letter her mother had sent her, in which she had tried to think of cheery things to say, but they barely concealed the growing worry in her tone.

Taking the job would mean a steady income and more than enough to spare. She wondered if it would be enough for Baba to open his shop again, for Mama to stop taking in laundry.

With that, as she reached the top of the hill where her destination dwelled, the decision was made.

Chapter Text

There were so many places to choose from.

Valenwood, Black Marsh, Elsweyr…

Each big enough to vanish into without a trace, the canopies of their forests closing over her head, the lushness of their undergrowth concealing her tracks.

She pawed through a stack of guidebooks and tried to decide. She’d open one up, read a page and then set it aside, unable to concentrate. They were all attractive in their way, but none of them were home.

She was tired and heartsick and deep in her gut, she had no desire to start fresh yet again. The thought occurred to her constantly in her nightmares: if she fled the province, would they find her again? Would they follow her wherever she went, dogging her trail until she could run no more, until some tiny mistake sentenced her to death at last?

She spent most of her days pacing about the Embassy grounds, trying to forget; both what she had lost and the weight of the decision that lay before her. The fresh air eased her anxiety somewhat and the crunch of fresh snow under her feet let her believe, if only for a moment, that she wasn’t just as much a prisoner here as the people in the dungeon below.

She was treated well enough by the Altmer under Third Emissary Elenwen. She was fed, clothed, given pleasant small talk in the halls that eased the loneliness somewhat. But she never could escape the feeling that they were all looking down their noses at her and politely waiting for her to leave so they could discuss the really juicy gossip.

But most of all, she wished badly that she had a job of some sort. Something to make the hours pass by quicker and the dark thoughts that crept upon her in the shadows cease by nature of pure exhaustion.

Since she had first approached Emissary Elenwen on the Embassy's doorstep, she had not had one undisturbed night of sleep.

Her dreams were restless and filled with the glint of talons and fire. She awoke smelling smoke in the air no matter how much perfume she sprayed about the room.

Chapter Text

“When...when does it end?”

“What?”

Rayya looked up blearily from her half-drained pint. It was her third of the night. She was beginning to feel the effects and figured that she should stop once she reached the bottom of this glass.

Carolinne was flushed a deep scarlet and considerably worse for wear, considering that she'd drunk the exact same amount of alcohol. She was looking at her, glassy-eyed, trying to put words together.

“The Walkabout..." she slurred, making vague hand motions in the air. "It’s…a test of some sort, isn’t it? But...what are the para...pair-am...parameters? How do...how do you tell when it’s done?”

“Well…” Rayya sat up, making a vague hand gesture of her own, the bracelets on her wrists rattling as she did so. “It’s hard to say. It’s...different for everyone. You know it when it’s finished, though.”

She took another long drag of mead. It was one of several Skyrim customs that she had not taken to at all upon first arriving, but like any type of alcohol, the deeper she got into her cups, the better it became.

“I suppose…” she murmured, setting the tankard down with a clatter. “…that you reach some kind of internal completion. An ending, a divide between one part of a life and the next, I don’t know. How’s the mead?”

She raised her glass enthusiastically, nearly spilling its contents.

"Ex...quisite! I didn't know you could put oranges in it!"

Rayya cracked a smile and raised her glass in return, before taking another sip.

"There's some places that throw in apples or snowberries or jazbay leaves." she went on, setting her glass down. "Juniper berries. I wonder whatever happened to that place..."

When she looked up after the last bit, she saw that Carolinne had lost quite a bit of her color.

"But...uh...oranges!" she said smoothly, not knowing what she'd done wrong and struggling to rectify it anyway. "Oranges are certainly the best. Must be expensive, importing them from Cyrodiil."

"Yeah...and they travel awfully well, don't they?" Carolinne said softly, perking up a bit, her smile returning. "Better than pastries. I wonder if there's anyone who can get baked goods across the Illiac before they go stale. Stasis magic, maybe? Ha, that'd cost the mortal plane...but the things they make in High Rock! Macarons, éclair, cheese tarts! There's this type of pastry that's nothing but buttery layers folded over and over each other and the outer layer is brushed with caramel that gets hard and sweet in the oven and oh...oh my gods, the crunch."

She sat there looking wistful for a moment and then lightly punched the table with the hand that wasn't holding her drink.

"And the bread!" she practically shouted, her voice growing in passion. "I haven't had a proper piece of bread since I've gotten here. It's all so heavy and dense and...and chewy...though..."

She laughed.

"I suppose that you need some ballast, what with the winters around here."

Rayya chuckled and raised her glass.

"A toast, then. To tasting them again after this mess is sorted out."

Carolinne brightened.

"Here, here!" she cried out, raising her glass.

They toasted, linked arms and somewhat messily, drained their cups.

“Anyway…ooh…” Rayya clutched her chest as she suppressed a burp. “Where were we? Wait...wait...I've got it..."

"Siddgeir, as you may have guessed, was not entirely fond of me…”

Nenya and Siddgeir were called to stand as witnesses to the oath between jarl and housecarl.

It was a simple affair. She knelt before his throne and repeated the words he fed her. The deal was sealed with a kiss on his hand. Dengeir bid her rise, the corners of his eyes crinkling with joy. She felt as though a great burden had been taken from her, though the weight of the duty she'd just sworn an oath to was beginning to take its place.

When she stood, her eyes met Siddgeir's. He was standing to the side of the throne, just behind the Jarl's field of vision. His lips were curled into a sneer of purest disgust and barely-concealed rage beamed out of his stormy eyes. Nenya was on the other side of the throne, blissfully unaware of what was happening not one foot from the Jarl's oblivious back.

The thought, tenuous and without proof save this one fleeting moment, occurred to her that perhaps Siddgeir was the one whom Dengeir was hiring her to protect him from.

Rayya smiled sweetly at him, showing her teeth. Siddgeir narrowed his eyes. Was that a touch of fear she saw in them?

She thanked the Jarl, bowed respectfully and went to her quarters to change for dinner.

The next week, an armorer from Whiterun was summoned to take her measurements. They talked of what she wanted as he flicked his measuring tape about and scratched his findings onto a wax tablet. Ease of movement was the top priority, with protection and durability not far behind.

When he was finished, she thanked him for his time and sent him off with a hearty meat pie and a flask of wine from the kitchen.

Two months later, on the cart of a courier, the finished armor was sent to her, each part meticulously packed in straw.

Rayya opened each crate in the privacy of her room, like they were so many late-coming birthday presents. She grinned wildly with every new piece revealed, admiring their intricate details before setting them down on the bed.

It was a sturdy set of steel armor, carved with Nordic runes and charms of protection, strange and beautiful to her eyes. She felt honored to even hold it in her hands, to know that she was so trusted and welcomed in a foreign land to have been given something so precious as a gift.

Though it was, as expected, a bit heavier and more cumbersome than what she was used to. She vowed to set aside training time every day specifically to get used to it, though in the heat of summer, the idea did not appeal to her at all.

But when she put it on, people took notice of her.

While she wore it, she felt as though who she was inside was visible to the world at large, at last. She walked taller, stood straighter, commanded more respect.

Even Siddgeir's glares failed to give her pause eventually.

About a month into her new life, she was beginning to have something of an emergency.

Her roots were growing out and it was about time to get something done about them before her hair was too damaged to deal with.

The problem: where does one find a Redguard hairdresser in Skyrim?

This was what eventually led her to screw up her courage and darken the local alchemist's door. The place was named "Grave Concoctions" and its proprietor was known for having something of a grim sense of humor. Zaria was also known for having emigrated fairly recently from Hammerfell to set up shop. She was bound to have closer ties with the immigrant community of Skyrim, such as it was, than the more recently arrived Rayya.

The bell on the door tinkled as she let herself in.

"Oh, Housecarl!" the alchemist chirped, getting up from her chair and standing behind the counter. "Welcome! What can I do you for today? Is your shoulder acting up again? I'll have you know that I do stock more than rat poison and emetics here, ha."

"Oh, no, it's nothing like that." Rayya answered, waving her arms defensively. "The problem is...ah..."

She seized one of her braids and held it close enough so that Zaria could see the split ends.

"Do you...happen to know anyone who can take care of this? I haven't been here long and I don't know many"-

"Say no more!" she cut her off with a smile as she ripped a piece of paper out of her logbook and grabbed a fresh quill from below the counter.

"There's a little farm just outside Granite Hill..." she murmured as she wrote. "It's a bit of a journey, but the wife can help you, so long as her children aren't visiting and eating her out of house and home. Here."

She blew on the ink to dry it and handed her the directions.

"You know..." Rayya said, tucking the paper away with a barely-contained grin of absolute relief. "...come to think of it, there have been some rats in the longhouse recently. What kind of poison have you got?"

Zaria lit up like a starry night.

"Well, you've got your nightshades of course, old standbys, gets the job done. But if you really want to be subtle about it - artistic - nirnroot, I find is..."

Nenya counted out her first stipend from the Jarl's treasury and handed it to her in a sizable leather purse.

She had not held so much gold since her days, years ago, of working in Baba's shop. For a moment, she felt a little light-headed and giddy about having so much, all at once. Thanking Nenya graciously, trying not to show how much this meant to her too obviously, she finished up her business and rushed back to her room to portion it out.

One fourth of it was deposited into her usual purse. The rest she kept in the other one, to be sent home to her parents.

She sat up late into the night, writing a lengthy letter about what she'd been doing, where she'd been and how much she missed them.

In the morning, she sent the package off in the hands of the Jarl's most trusted courier.

Two months later, Mama wrote back to tell her how proud she was.

Her chief duty consisted of standing beside the Jarl when court was in session and looking grim. It was dreadfully, soul-suckingly boring.

Most of the time, that is.

When a petitioner got too close, she would lock eyes with the overstepping peon and point to where he was supposed to be standing. If a visitor was visibly agitated, more extensive security measures were taken. It was extremely, thankfully rare that anyone needed anything more than a firm hand on the shoulder in order to behave themselves.

Slowly, through long observation during the boring hours of the day, she learned the ways of the court and how the people of Skyrim demonstrated their loyalties. They were an emotional people, prone to big shows of gratitude, anger and sorrow. Honor was everything to them - honor in battle, honor in family, honor in history, honor in death. In this way, though there were many things about their culture that were strange to her, she found herself fitting right in.

Little by little, she was welcomed into the mundane rituals that made up the lives of the people she was surrounded with. The captain of the Falkreath Watch invited her often to drink a horn of mead with his men. She witnessed the blessing of newborn babies by a priestess of Kynareth, after they had survived their requisite week after birth. She accompanied the Jarl as he hunted and learned how a portion of the kill was always offered in sacrifice to the Old Gods, no matter how fondly their regard for the Divines was held.

As time went on and she adjusted to the undulating rhythms of Skyrim life, her homesickness became less and less. It never entirely went away - it merely went from a sharp pain that flared up suddenly to a dull one that throbbed deep in the background noise of everyday life. She made friends and allies. She formed romantic attachments, broke them off when the time was right and started again.

She grew content in her stability, at peace with where her life had gone.

Perhaps that was why she paid so little heed to the rumors that those who would change that spun in the dark.

At first they were only angry mutterings of the old and the bitter - ramblings of scandals covered up, city funds drained for the purpose of fine parties, accusations of Dengeir’s growing senility in his old age. No one in court took it seriously. It is expected of all rulers to have some manner of discontent in their holdings. Pleasing everyone in a hold, let alone a province, is an impossible feat, though the rare (and perhaps, foolish) leader will try until his dying breath.

There were more pressing issues beginning to weigh on the agenda. Tensions across Skyrim were rising and talk of seceding from the Empire was growing in seriousness. Lines were being sketched out in the sand and which side any person would fall upon was anyone's guess. Already, alliances were breaking down, families splitting down the middle, confusion and distrust creeping like a plague across the province.

Siddgeir used all of these factors to his utmost advantage.

His public face was that of a kind, polite nobleman, obedient to his uncle at every step. He was fairly well-liked by the citizens of the hold, though he spoke but little in public and was careful never to state a direct opinion on any topic whatsoever.

His treachery is a thing that cannot quite be explicitly proven. He covered his tracks so well that there was barely any outline left. The things he did - dropping a hint here, a word there, pushing a conversation just a little further than it needed to go - could not truly be tracked so surely as secret correspondence or a poisoned arrow. It is still unknown, whether he was in the pay of the Imperials or if his desire for the throne was something that arose from his own mind.

Regardless of motive, the consequences were the same.

The swirling whispers turned into shouts.

The questions, into demands.

One morning, the Jarl was roused from bed by a sizable portion of Falkreath's residents outside his longhouse door, demanding that he step down for the good of the hold.

His jaw set as he tried to conceal his trembling, he agreed to their demands.

Jarl Siddgeir was kind, they said, for giving his ailing uncle such a generous pension, for remodeling his old childhood home so that he might live in comfort in his old age.

What a dutiful nephew, they said.

What a fine young man.

Nevermind how useless Dengeir felt, when his life's work was suddenly taken away after a lifetime of laboring for the good of the hold.

Nevermind that his entreaties to be named counselor to the jarl were denied, time and again.

Nevermind how unwelcome he was made to feel in court, with Siddgeir's new housecarl staring him down as though he were a wounded animal.

As the months passed, he fell into despair, becoming a pale imitation of the hale old man he once was. He argued with his brother incessantly, accused the maid of treason and would oftentimes not eat unless the food was spoon-fed to him.

But the one thing he did not lose was his honor.

His anger festered with every careless action of his newly-crowned nephew. Siddgeir was not so untouchable as he seemed on the surface. Once he took office, his lack of wisdom and care for those who surrounded him could not be concealed so easily.

He felt every raucous party his nephew threw while beggars starved in the streets to be a smudge on the family name. He burned with shame when he saw him misjudging an envoy's intent in visiting the hold. He flirted nonstop with the daughters of powerful foreign lords in full view of their parents. Through his sorrow, he began to identify his nephew's weaknesses and form a plan accordingly.

The centerpiece of the whole thing was Rayya. He did everything possible to keep her in his employ, though her status sunk as much as his did through the transition of power. To her he secretly paid the bulk of his pension.

When she was out and about, she acted as though she had chosen to stay in Falkreath of her own accord and made certain to not meet with Dengeir in public, should Siddgeir grow suspicious. She packed her armor away in boxes and took to living in the graveyard alongside Runil, helping to dig the graves as both him and the graveyard's caretaker grew too old to manage on their own.

On the sly, she continued sending money to her parents.

And more importantly, she kept her ear to the ground and waited for the signal.

Siddgeir was practically hanging himself.

As time wore on, he grew more complacent in his power and committed a series of ever-increasing insults to both the citizens under his rule and the nobility of other holds.

The hold’s debt steadily worsened under his rule and his corruption became plain for most to see.

Dengeir and Rayya played their roles as well as Siddgeir had played his - a push here, a nudge there, a hint in the right ear.

But it was not their machinations that ultimately pushed the citizens of Falkreath over the edge. That was due to a spectacularly bad harvest.

In Skyrim, it is a common folk belief that the ruler and the land are intimately connected. The idea does not hold so much sway now as it once did, but among those who have grown up on the stories of cursed kings and doomed harvests, it is still strong enough belief to make a difference in hearts and minds.

As the superstition goes, the rightness of the ruler determines the rightness of the land. If there is some defect in the ruler - whether that be internal or external - that is revealed through how the land responds to him.

In the distant past, failed kings were sacrificed on the altars of the Old Gods as an offering for a better harvest in the future.

And now, though no one was outright calling for his head, knives were being sharpened around town.

The rebellion was almost entirely bloodless.

One watchman gashed his head on a wall fixture while dressing in the night, but aside from that, there were no injuries among Dengeir’s forces. With the support of nearly all within, the longhouse was taken as easily as a child might do so in a play battle with friends.

And then, as the noose of Dengeir’s loyal guard closed in around Siddgeir’s throat, he broke free of the hands that grabbed for him, snatched a greatsword from the wall and demanded his ancient right of Einvigi - a battle to the death to decide the fate of the throne.

Dengeir stepped forward to meet him, dressed in his old wolf skin. He was smaller and thinner as of late and the hair was falling from his head more readily. But there was a glimmer of light in his eye and a spring in his step that belied his old age.

"I accept your challenge, nephew." he said fondly, his eyes crinkling as he smiled. "But we are not matched in physical prowess. I am an old man and you are in the prime of your youth. The contest would not be fair. Hence, Rayya will serve as my second."

Rayya stepped out from the crowd of guards, resplendent in her freshly polished steel armor, her scimitars on her hips.

There was a flash of fear on Siddgeir's face before it turned to anger.

"Oh, uncle?" he spat. "You call this a fair fight? A hardened warrior against one new to war? I think not. Helvard!"

His housecarl looked up from his seat on the floor. His hands were tied behind his back and his mace was in the hand of the man who was guarding him.

"Helvard!" he snapped. "Will you stand in my place and bring us victory?"

Slowly, Helvard shook his head.

"My jarl..." he drawled. "You were the one who called this challenge. It is a dishonorable thing, to back out of it now."

Siddgeir turned a deep shade of red, down to the tips of his ears. His eyes gleamed with the reflection of the fire, as though they would burn out of his skull of their own accord.

"You may arm yourself accordingly, nephew." Dengeir crooned, unable to hide his satisfaction. "My men will clear the hall for the contest. Everyone! Please!"

At the clap of his hands, furniture was shoved against the walls, braziers moved out of the way, carpets rolled up. The main hall of the longhouse became a sea of empty space. A ring of tense onlookers huddled on the edges of the room, every tongue held as they waited for Siddgeir to emerge.

He stepped out of his room, clumsily dressed in a suit of leather armor, with a shortsword belted to his waist. He was not nearly so red as he had been minutes ago, but he did look as though he had just eaten a spoiled piece of meat. Rayya stepped forward to meet him, bowed respectfully and drew her scimitars with a twin shing!

His lip curling in disdain, he drew his shortsword and faced her.

And so it began.

They circled one another - it felt like - forever. She studied his posture, watched his footwork, contemplated the glint in his steely eyes. She deduced that he was especially dangerous because he was unpredictable. He was unpredictable because he was unstable - driven by his rage, his greed, his twisted sense of justice.

She listened for the music in his footsteps. She learned the rhythm of his breathing. The tempo was off, the music, discordant. She could not predict which move he would make next, which direction he was sway.

But, she found that she could dance to his song anyway.

When he attacked, she deflected. When he pulled back, she refused to take the bait. An eternity of five minutes had passed and she had not yet made a single attack. The crowd began to murmur, the tension driving them to second-guessing. She blocked out their words and focused only on the beating of her heart and his.

With every deflection, every attack shrugged off as though it were nothing, his anger intensified. He began to shout insults, slurs not heard in Skyrim since the time of his great-grandparents, spraying spit from his lips as he spewed his filth. Rayya narrowed her eyes and closed her ears. His words were unimportant.

His attacks grew stronger and more erratic. Sweat poured down his brow as he tried again and again to land a single blow on her, to catch her off guard one time. He was getting clumsier, less sure of himself.

And then, her scimitars in an X before her, she locked blades with him. There was a moment of shock in his eyes as he registered that something had happened which he had not expected. In that moment, she whipped her blades away, stepped out of the way of his falling sword and slammed her forehead into the bridge of his nose.

There was a mighty crack and he was on the ground howling, clutching at his shattered nose as blood spilled down his breastplate. The sword fell from his hand and hit the stone floor with a resonating clang.

Moving fast, Rayya kicked it aside and lowered her scimitar so that the tip just brushed his throat. He looked up at her, hurt and anger and stubbornness mingling in his tears.

"Yield." she said softly. "And I let you live."

"I..." he gasped, blood gurgling in his throat.

His hand scrambled for his missing sword beside him.

"I..."

She cut his throat, just a little, so that a thin red line appeared on his adam's apple.

"I yield!" he screamed, spitting blood on her scimitar.

The room burst into thunderous cheers and the crowd surged forward, slapping her on the back, nearly lifting her off the floor. She saw Helvard pulling Siddgeir to his feet before they vanished behind the wall of surging bodies.

Her head was still pounding with the impact of the blow and her face was flushed for being the object of so much attention. When the crowd parted and Dengeir stepped forward, she made to kneel before him as a show of respect. But he stopped her, putting one frail hand on her shoulder and shaking his head. Working around her drawn scimitars he threw his arms around her and squeezed her in a tight bear hug, as equals.

A single tear of pure pride spilled down her cheek as she dropped her scimitars and hugged back.

After Siddgeir was exiled, the man who had taken his fallen sword as a trophy soon developed a bad rash on his hands.

Runil treated it as best he could, but he couldn't shake his suspicions as to what the cause was. When Rayya came to the graveyard to pick up her things before she moved back into the longhouse, he took her aside and aired his thoughts on the matter.

Siddgeir's room was searched thoroughly. Every wall panel and floorboard was checked for hollowness, tapped until something made a different sound.

They found the compartment at last, hidden beneath his bed. Inside, was nothing more than a small purple vial.

After extensive testing, Zaria determined that it was a concentrated, if crude poison.

Its primary ingredient was deathbell petals.

Chapter Text

She had not really been sleeping, but the sound of the argument, bouncing off stone walls and uncarpeted floors, woke her all the same. She laid in bed for a few minutes, half-heartedly attempting to get back to the semblance of a dream she'd been in. When she'd come to the conclusion that it wasn't going to happen, she threw aside the blankets, rolled out of bed and dressed herself.

Her fingers were still a little clumsy about the unfamiliar fastenings on the new suit of clothing that Emissary Elenwen ordered for her. Dressing herself was a skill she had mastered far later in life than she cared to admit. Even after all these years, every change of clothes she went through felt like learning a new language.

Smoothing down her hair a bit before stepping out, she opened the door and peered down the hall towards the direction of the kitchen. Tsavani, the Khajiti chef, was hissing - literally hissing - at the hapless delivery man who appeared to have brought in a shoddy shipment of vegetables. She was making violent stabbing motions with some type of squash.

A hollow-cheeked Bosmer whose hair stood straight up hovered in the kitchen doorway, his arms crossed, the tiniest of smirks on his lips as he watched the confrontation unfolding before him. He glanced up as Iman took a step toward them, his smile fading as she moved.

“This one expects Tsavani to serve this trasssh to the jarls of SSSkyrim?" the khajit growled, her ears turned down as though she were ready to attack. "To ambassadors? Emisssaries will be dining tonight and you give Tsavani rotten produce!”

“I’m sorry m’am." the delivery man said dully, completely unfazed by the display. "The harvest this year is”-

He was cut off when she stabbed him several times in the chest with the squash.

Iman shook her head, chuckling under her breath. When she next looked up, the Bosmer was gone and the delivery man was walking out the door. Tsavani chucked the squash back into one of the crates propping open the kitchen door and stomped inside in a huff.

She decided that it would be wisest to take a stroll around the Embassy before attempting to fetch breakfast in the kitchen.

Preparations were underway all over the building. A host of chimney sweeps were hard at work cleaning out the soot in the guest rooms. Last night's snowfall was dutifully being cleared from the walkways. In the entrance hall, a Bosmer woman was on her knees, waxing the floor by hand. She looked up with a glare as Iman tracked her snowy boots inside.

There was a servant rushing through the halls with a basket of clean bedding and another putting together flower arrangements at a makeshift station. Iman stopped to smell them, reveling in their vibrant colors after she'd seen nothing but greens and greys outside for so long, before going on her way.

Some of the energy of the upcoming event was starting to rub off on her.

For just a moment, she wondered what it would be like to attend - to be surrounded by lords and ladies again, to make sparkling small talk, to drink expensive brandy in the company of expensive people.

And then she thought of all the far-flung faces who would catch sight of her and perhaps, sell her location for the right price. Her stomach gurgled, though she couldn’t tell if it was from nerves or hunger.

Soon enough, she had made a complete circuit of the Embassy and found herself back where she had started.

The kitchen was calmer than it had been, though she could hear the snick of a knife and the quiet, familiar flick of an angry tail against the wall behind it.

Her stomach growled again and she decided to try her luck.

Chapter Text

Dear Rayya,

We had a magnificent Harvest's End this year. The entire city was done up with ribbons, streamers and bells, like in the old days. There was feasting in the marketplace and quite a stirring performance to thank the gods for this year's bounty. Oh, how I wish you'd been here to see it, in all its magnificence. You would have been thrilled, I'm sure. I thought of you as a girl about your age stepped out for a solo performance involving silk scarves.

Baba's foot is doing much better since the last time I wrote. He finally (stubborn thing that he is) agreed to see a proper healer about the loss of feeling in his toes. He sees him once a week now for treatment and the problem is much improved. And as a bonus, my hands don't cramp up on me nearly so much as they used to!

But I fear that I've been keeping some news from you, dear, with the worry that it wouldn't work out, should I say something too soon. Superstitious, I know. But I needn't fear telling it any longer. I don't think I could contain my excitement any longer, in fact.

Baba has finally bought a sizable share in the business of his employer. Legally, the majority of the shop belongs to him now. Business is improving and as it does, he hopes to buy the remainder soon. Believe me when I say that I could not be happier. Let's keep this between us, but I don't think he could either, save for seeing you again.

I want to thank you for shouldering this burden all these years, for caring for your parents are surely as we cared for you. I know it wasn't easy and that you gave up so much to give us back a life of comfort. I can't ever thank you enough for that, my daughter. So, thank you.

Please know that you are loved and always welcome to come home, wherever you end up. We spend every day awaiting your return.

Love, Mama

Rayya folded the letter and tucked it into her purse.

It was a gloriously lazy day. The sun had broken through the gloom and all of Falkreath sprang to life under it. The vast majority of the citizens seemed to be getting a head start on their spring cleaning. Rugs were being shaken out, clothes washed, windows being thrown open to let in the fresh air.

Rayya perched on a fence and watched, languidly.

Everything was as it should be. The hold - through famine and treachery - had survived. Though the world outside prepared for war, Falkreath was more or less at peace.

And she was more restless than she'd ever been.

Every morning, before the sun had quite broken the horizon, her morning jogs took her farther and farther from the bounds of civilization. She would race down the winding deer paths, spiraling deep into the ancient heart of the forest, her soul always begging her to go farther, though her mind knew well enough that she would have to turn around if she was not going to be late for the day's proceedings.

Her feet itched to be on the road again. Whenever a traveling bookseller came through, she'd buy a tome about a distant land and devour it in a series of days. She listened more eagerly to foreign dignitaries, ate up every little bit of news from outside the hold.

She knew inwardly, with the completion of her role in the overthrow of Siddgeir, that she had finished all she came here to do. That there would be no challenge greater, that any test that followed would only be treading known ground.

And her parents were safe.

She was free.

But in that freedom, so ripe with whirling dreams and wild ideas, she had no idea which direction to take.

She hopped off the fence and stretched her back. One more walk in the graveyard before court started up, she decided.

It began with the hunter's message at breakfast.

He was a man who lived alone in the wilderness and normally plied his trade on the shores of Lake Illinata. Rayya had met him once or twice before, on the road between holds and occasionally on one of the jarl's hunts. He lived off the land and came into town but seldom to trade his catch for needed supplies. He was known to be a quiet person and not one given to large shows of emotion.

This was not the case at breakfast.

He was heaving with exhaustion, his eyes wide with fear as the guards escorted him in.

"My jarl...!" he gasped, falling to his knees and bowing until his forehead touched the floor.

Whether this was an excessive display of formality or he was too exhausted to stand upright was unclear.

Before the jarl, a spoonful of porridge halfway up to his mouth, could greet him, the words tumbled out of the man's mouth.

"My lord...I was hunting up near Pinewatch before dawn when I saw smoke rising from the east. Too much of it to account for a woodsman's fire. So I followed it to its conclusion and my lord...Helgen is gone."

A dead silence fell over the room. Nenya opened her mouth to speak, but Dengeir spoke faster.

"Gone, sirrah?" he asked coolly, not an ounce of emotion on his face.

Rayya could see a vein twitching on the side of his balding pate. He was doing everything he could to keep a level head about him, to stop the rest of the court from panicking.

"Burned to rubble." the hunter said, a hollow look in his eyes. "The stones of the watchtower thrown about as though the hand of a daedric lord himself reached down from Oblivion..."

"Thank you, sirrah." Dengeir said curtly, turning away for an instant to cough.

He turned to the guards who had brought him in.

"Find him a spare bed in the barracks and a warm meal. I will decide his reward when our scouts return. Rayya..."

He put down his spoon and massaged his temples, for a moment, looking much older than his years.

"Get that scouting party together and lead them to Helgen. I want survivors and answers, if there are any of either to be found. Understood?"

"Yessir." she said quickly, getting up from the bench and bowing at the waist before exiting the room.

Four days later, a woodcutter from Half-Moon Mill came blundering in in the night to report on the dragon that he had witnessed flying over the eaves of his mill. He was not dismissed outright, but he was not quite taken seriously either.

The rumors spread like wildfire in his wake.

An old woman, her face distorted with terror, shouted in the streets that it was Alduin, come to bring about the end times. Her family hushed her and pulled her inside, but the damage was already done.

The whispers in the streets grew louder.

When Rayya closed her eyes at night, she saw the jaws of Satakal sinking into the flesh of his own heart.

It had been a good morning jog. The trees had whipped past her in a comforting blur and the ground flew by under her feet. She was covered in sweat despite the chill of the morning and for the time being, worrying thoughts of dragons and the end times had been driven from her mind. For a moment, she leaned against the trunk of a pine tree, listening to the sounds of the birds in its branches and the larger animals chittering below. And then, the sudden desire to see more coming upon her, she heaved herself up onto the lowest branch and began to climb.

It was hard, delicate work but she kept on, the ground falling away behind her, the faint sunlight peeking through the canopy growing stronger as she ascended. Then, her legs locked around the slender trunk, she burst through the forest cover and into the sunlight above.

All around, the forest, like a thick, green blanket over the land, swayed in the morning breeze. She could see the sun rising over the misty lake and a tiny fisherman, down far below, setting out for the morning's catch.

And then something else caught her eye. A little ways to the west, there was a flash of light. And then it was a pillar of flame, ascending into the sky, its energy vanishing into the stratosphere.

It was gone as quickly as it had come and left not the barest trace of its appearance behind, save for the image seared into the retinas of her eyes.

She scrambled back down to the ground and began to run.

She arrived in court late and quite a bit more disheveled than decorum normally demanded. The jarl gave her an odd look as she sidled up next to him. He was midway through deciding the fate of a livestock thief and as she opened her mouth to interrupt, it happened.

The earthquake knocked Rayya off balance with its suddenness. There was a deep, rumbling roar coming from all around, a rush of air in her ears, what could almost be though of as words and then-

It was over. The court and its witnesses stood in stunned silence, the only evidence of the event, the empty goblet that had fallen from a serving table and was now rolling slowly across the floor.

Maintaining the appearance of normality was the first and foremost priority. The thief's case was settled as soon as things quieted down in the longhouse. The handful of other disputes in line for judgement proceeded as though nothing unusual had happened. Guard patrols did not deviate from their daily rounds and business as usual carried on in the shops of the village's craftsmen.

But that night at dinner, things were far from usual. Every person of consequence within the village had been gathered to discuss the events of the day and the moves that should be taken next.

They argued incessantly over the meaning of the pillar of light that Rayya had seen, coming to no solid conclusions at all. They agreed that the earthquake was the doing of the Greybeards' voices and pieced together that the word they had said was dov-vah-kiin. This conversation spun off into even wilder theories that only grew in fervency and imagination as the night wore on.

Rayya had formally checked out of the discussion long before it reached that point. She sipped her wine, ate her meat and languidly sopped up every last bit of the juices with a piece of bread.

Outside, it had begun to rain. The sound was soothing as it rattled on the eaves of the longhouse. She imagined that the flowers of the graveyard would be especially brilliant in the morning mist. Her ears closed to the fervor around her, she relaxed for the first time that day.

All the tension came rushing back when she heard the door slam in the hall and the sounds of a heated argument in the throne room. The dinner guests stopped their conversation and looked about worriedly.

With a sigh, Rayya excused herself and rose from her seat. She decided that she would stride in neither too fast nor too slow and handle the problem as quietly as possible.

Before she could make a move to do so, a sopping wet woman appeared in the doorway of the feast hall, small of stature, but the might of her anger filling the room with presence. Her hair clung to the back of her neck. Her dress was torn and dragged on the ground as she walked. Her teeth were clenched and her fists were balled at her sides.

“I’ve come a long way.” she panted, taking several steps straight for the jarl. “And I demand to see”-

“My lord, forgive me.” the door guard cut in as he made his appearance at the entrance. “She pushed past me. I’ll escort her out straightaway.”

“No!” she squawked, jerking away from him. “You will take me to see my betrothed, at which point this mess will be sorted out.”

“Order!” the jarl bellowed, rising to his feet.

The murmurs of the crowd grew louder.

"I said, ORDER!"

The room quieted down. The last whispers were shushed by a glare from the jarl.

“Lady…" he said gently, looking like a tired father making a futile attempt to control a band of unruly children. "Who is your betrothed?”

She was pale and shivering and somehow much more pathetic than she had initially appeared.

“Jarl Siddgeir.” she whispered.

The murmurs resumed with renewed volume.

“I said, order!" the jarl snapped, banging the table with his fist. "When were you promised to Siddgeir?”

“A...A year ago. We'd exchanged a few letters and he negotiated with my parents - that's Lord and Lady Pouvoir of Wayrest - for an alliance between our houses. I was to wed him last month but, well…”

She shuddered, holding herself.

“My train was waylaid by brigands. They…killed everyone - the servants, the guards. They were going to sell me for ransom, but I suspect they chose to keep me instead because I can do this.”

She reached into her purse (it was secured around her waist with a belt of what appeared to be boat cord) and withdrew a rough brown pebble. There was a flash of greenish light from inside her clenched fist and when she opened her palm, there was a nugget of gold in its place.

“I see.” Dengeir mumbled, the lines of worry on his forehead deepening. “But...you escaped?”

She shook her head, flicking water droplets on the diners seated closest to where she was standing.

“No. A detachment of Imperial soldiers cleared out the hideout and took everyone within prisoner, myself included. They...laughed when I told them who I was. The extent of my gold-making operation had grown so much that they could not believe that I was anything but a particularly industrious counterfeiter.”

“Imperial dogs.” someone muttered. A rumble of assent went around the room.

“We were…” she went on, more color draining from her face and her eyes growing dull. “Taken to Helgen. In a cart, with a band of war prisoners. We were to be executed.”

A hush descended upon the crowd. Jarl Dengeir leaned forward in his seat. Rayya bit the inside of her bottom lip. She was hanging on to her every word.

The woman squeezed her eyes shut as though to better see what was happening in her mind.

“When my name was called, in a mocking tone, I knelt on the chopping block and made my peace with the Divines. But just as the axe was about to fall…”

Her eyes flicked open.

“A dragon came down from the sky and destroyed the town.”

The uproar in the feast hall was immediate and brutal. Some accused her of lying, some screamed their assent that the dragon was real. She clutched at her chest, a look of terror on her face as she staggered backward. Rayya stepped forward, blocking the worst the crowd had to offer from her view.

“SILENCE!” the jarl bellowed, rising to his feet. “This is not the first dragon sighting reported! We have known this was coming and are putting plans into practice to protect against this eventuality. Are you heroes or cowards? We will hear the rest of what the lady has to say. Please.”

Rayya stepped aside and the woman stepped forward again, doing a small, terrified curtsy before she continued.

“I...I managed to escape in the hubbub and made my way here. I-I have no dowry or household but if I could just see Siddgeir and get a message to Wayrest then perhaps we could…”

“My lady...” Dengeir said, a sad smile crinkling the corners of his eyes.

Rayya could see that he was trying to break the news as softly as he could. The woman was shaking like a leaf and it seemed, her nerves had been shot quite some time ago.

“Siddgeir was overthrown and exiled last month.”

It was as though all the energy drained out of her. She fell to her knees shivering, tears pouring down her face.

“Hey…” Rayya said, offering her a hand. “Why don’t we have Tekla draw a bath and in the mor”-

She threw back her head and screamed.

The sound shook the walls and shattered the glasses on the table. Rayya’s ears rang and wine dripped down the tablecloth.

The room exploded in confusion and condemnation.

“RAYYA!” Dengeir bellowed over the panicked noise. “Take her to Nenya’s room! Bar the door! Don’t”-

Rayya seized her arm and hauled her to her feet.

“Dovahkiin...” a lordling from another hold hissed under his breath as he crept forward and snatched a handful of her skirt.

Rayya cracked his knuckle and gave him an icy glare as she pried his hand from its grip.

“Come with me.” she whispered in her ear, blocking the wave of grabby onlookers with her body. “Up the stairs.”

They scrambled up the stairs together and Rayya slammed the door behind them, locking the bar securely into place. Safe for the moment, she let out the breath she’d been holding and relaxed. A moment later, she lit the lantern on the bedside table with a deft flick of the flint by its side.

The room was tiny. There was room enough for both of them to stand and nothing more. The woman sank down onto the bed, her hands clapped over her mouth, her body wracked with shivers. Rayya felt as though she were witnessing a moment that her charge would rather have kept private.

She turned around and let her sob without any eyes on her for a time. There was the loud honk of a nose being blown and after that, the sniffles began to subside.

Rayya turned around. The woman was wiping her tears with a handkerchief as sopping wet as her dress. It wasn’t a terribly successful venture. Rayya popped open the chest at the foot of Nenya’s bed and dug out a clean pillow case that would serve as a better alternative. It was accepted it gratefully and she blew her nose again, with even more vigor.

“What’s your name?” Rayya asked, smiling sweetly.

She was digging through Nenya’s clothes, trying to find something that looked as though it wouldn’t drown the girl in fabric. It was a losing prospect, but she had to try.

“C-Carolinne.” she stuttered through chattering teeth, looking up at her with puffy, red eyes.

“Ah, here we go.”

She pulled out a quilted jacket and a pair of linen pants. The legs and sleeves were much too long, but at least it was a style that could be rolled up. She offered them to her with a flourish.

“Here. I’m sure Nenya won’t mind. I’ll just get rid of those…old…”

She trailed off as Carolinne hugged her tattered skirt tightly, bunching it up to her chest as she curled up into a ball on the bed. In the lantern light, she saw the glint of gold in its filthy hem. It dawned on her then, with the certainty of one who has little in the way of things from home herself, that the ruined dress was the last thing remaining to her from Wayrest.

“Hey…” she said gently, leaning down and putting a hand on her damp shoulder. “I’ll see to it that your old clothes get washed and returned to you tomorrow. I guarantee it. Agreed?”

Carolinne eased herself up to sitting position and nodded, the tiniest of smiles curling the corners of her lips.

In the early morning hours, while their guest still slept, the core members of the court convened in secret.

They huddled around the dinner table, its old wood stripped of its wine-stained tablecloth, mugs of soothing lavender tea in their hands. Most of the mess from the previous night had been cleared away and the room put back into order, though several of the wall hangings were still crooked.

Dengeir rubbed his temples. An missive had been sent to the apothecary for his headache tonic, but the medicine had not yet arrived.

“We are all agreed, then?” he asked, looking about the table with stern eyes. “The girl goes to High Hrothgar as soon as she is able.”

Nenya and Thadgeir murmured their assent. Rayya remained silent, her fists clenching under the table at the thought of deciding upon Carolinne’s future without her present to state an opinion.

“But she will need an escort.” Nenya piped up, as she stirred a spoonful of honey into her tea.

“Hmm, yes.” Dengeir mumbled. “The road are dangerous. Even more so with a dragon...or more...about. But a contingent of guards would make her an obvious target. And besides, I’m not sure if I can spare the men. We'll need new types of fortifications, training, a plan of action, should a dragon come here.”

“Perhaps a mercenary?”

“And where would we find one who wouldn’t slit her throat and run off with the payment at the first opportunity?”

“What if I were to go?”

All heads snapped towards Rayya in tandem. She felt as though a mage light had suddenly been shot in her direction, its brightness turned up in full.

“Siddgeir is no longer a threat.” she went on, her voice gaining confidence as she spoke. “The war front is quiet for the moment. And two travelers are much less of a target than a group. What say you?”

Dengeir closed his eyes and breathed in deeply. When he exhaled, the tension in his shoulders had relaxed somewhat.

“When you took your oath before me, I told you that you may be free of it when the time came for you to move on. Is this what you wish?”

Rayya nodded firmly.

“I do.”

Dengeir’s face crinkled into a sad smile.

“Then I send you into the world with my blessing and wish you luck on your journey.”

Carolinne herself was moderately cleaner after the bath, though no amount of scrubbing could remove every stain from her dress. She insisted on wearing it everywhere, though it frequently caused her to be mistaken for a pauper from a distance.

Her inner turmoil was a harder thing to fix. A week passed after her arrival and there were still deep hollows under her eyes, as well as a tremble in her hands. She slept like the dead and nothing could rouse her until she had gotten a good ten hours of sleep daily. Her appetite was not something that she appeared to have any type of control over. On some days she gorged herself and drank until she ended up back in bed with a hangover. Other days passed her by with her being too sick to stomach much of anything.

When she was feeling well enough to stroll through town, people looked at her with fear and awe and crowds made a wide berth around her. Rayya could see the hurt on her face whenever this happened, though she was trying with all her strength to hide it. In moments like these, she'd distract her with a funny story or point out a place in town where something interesting had happened.

Once, she took her down to the graveyard to show her the flowers. They ran into Runil there and got to talking - about life and death, beauty and decay. She spent a long time kneeling in silent prayer before the Shrine of Arkay and when she was finished, left behind the pebble of counterfeit gold as an offering, regretting aloud that she had nothing better to remember her lost servants by. Rayya reassured her that they had almost certainly reached the Far Shores, or wherever it was that Bretons went and that they were probably proud of how far she'd come.

Carolinne looked at her as though she were about to cry after that, though she was smiling wider than Rayya had ever seen her do since her arrival.

The day after that, she was formally summoned to stand before the jarl’s throne.

“In two days’ time, you will set out for High Hrothgar.” Dengeir intoned stonily.

Carolinne listened, saying nothing, not moving a single muscle in her body. Her face was blank, betraying nothing.

“There," he went on, "they may determine whether you are Dragonborn and how to proceed from that point onward. Unfortunately, our funds were depleted by my nephew's mismanagement and there is little I can give you to speed the way, but Rayya has volunteered to accompany you. I hope you find the arrangement satisfactory.”

Rayya grinned from her post at the jarl’s side.

Weakly, Carolinne smiled back.

"As a final boon, I grant you the title of Thane of my court. It will give you some clout in the other courts of Skyrim, should you have need of it. To that end, I present to you the Blade of Falkreath."

Rayya stepped forward and handed her the dagger that had been custom made in her honor. Its guard was carved with the stag emblem of Falkreath, its antlers woven into intricate knots. She nodded her thanks, seemingly lost for words.

"Wind guide you on you journey." he said softly, rising from his throne. "May you find more answers there than you have here."

There was a small feast in Carolinne's honor on the big day and a large portion of the town came to see them off.

However, Carolinne had woken up feeling ill and hadn’t been able to stomach most of it. She put on a brave face as she waved at the crowd, but Rayya could see the suffering locked away behind her forced smile as clear as day.

Dengeir gave them a final blessing. Rayya said her goodbyes, paying special attention to Runil and Zaria with misty-eyed hugs.

And with that, they were off.

They walked in silence for some time, until Falkreath slipped into memory behind them and only the sounds of the woods could be heard. When they were well out of earshot, Rayya leaned over conspiratorially.

“Where we go from here is up to you.” she whispered, her lips brushing Carolinne's ear.

Carolinne’s eyes widened. She skidded to a halt on the stone path.

“W-What?”

“For instance…” Rayya went on, shrugging nonchalantly. “Should you decide that you’d rather return home, I would do everything in my power to make it so.”

“Hoo…” Carolinne breathed out, putting a hand to her forehead.

She put her head down and started walking again, her forehead wrinkled in concentration. Rayya strolled behind, her thumbs tucked into her belt.

Several minutes of silence punctuated only by the sound of birdsong passed.

“I…want to find out.” she said at last.

Her voice was small and trembling.

“I’m…afraid of what I’ll find, but if I don’t lay the matter to rest now, it’s going to haunt me. Does that make any sense?”

She turned around and looked at her with eyes as wide as the first night she'd stormed into the jarl's longhouse.

Rayya smiled gently.

“Of course it does.”

Carolinne softened and gave her the first real smile of the day.

How they had both gotten up the stairs in one piece was a mystery to Rayya. They stumbled drunkenly into their room at the Winking Skeever and all but collapsed on the bed together.

It was a fine bed, the grandest one they’d seen in quite some time, with thick wool blankets and plush pillows.

“Ooooh.” Carolinne moaned, messing up the blankets as she made herself comfortable. “Lucky you. It’s your turn in the bed tonight."

Both to save money and ensure that Carolinne was never left alone, they had made a policy of renting a single room at every inn they visited. It was rare to get one that had more than one narrow bed and so, they'd switch off on who got to sleep in it. It had been Carolinne's turn last, when they had stopped for the night in Dragon Bridge on the way to Solitude.

"So I guess I’ll just…”

She sat up clumsily and made to curl up on the rug below.

“Wait!”

Rayya grabbed her wrist before she could slide to the floor. Carolinne turned around to look at her blearily.

“We could…ah…”

The words were so hard to form.

“Um…possibly…share it? It’s…certainly…big enough.”

She felt her cheeks growing hot and wished she’d never said anything.

Carolinne smiled sleepily.

“Yes…” she murmured, flopping back down beside her and snuggling close. “That seems like an excellent idea.”

Rayya opened her eyes to morning sunlight streaming through the window and the sounds of the market below coming to life after a quiet night. Carolinne was nuzzled into her side, her nose buried in her ribs, her arm flung across her waist.

With relief, she noted that they were still wearing their nightclothes and that their finery from the night before was neatly hung up on a hook in the wall. She had a vague recollection of going to great lengths to convince a sleepy Carolinne to change before falling unconscious on the bed. Though, she noted as she raised her hand to scratch her head, it seemed that she had forgotten to take her jewelry off before falling asleep herself. There were indents in her skin where her bracelets pressed into her as she slept.

And then, with a jolt of anxiety, she remembered the party.

Her heart rate sped up and her breath hitched in her throat.

A reckoning was coming and she still had no idea what she was going to do. The crimes of the one she pursued were punishable by death and deserved far more. Thousands of lost and ruined lives cried out for vengeance in her mind, her father's the loudest among them.

But as far as she knew, the perpetrator was herself an ordinary woman, lacking even a tenth of the martial prowess that Rayya possessed.

Could she storm into her room, look her in eyes and cut her down so easily?

She didn't know.

Rayya wrapped her arm around Carolinne’s back and examined the patterns of sunlight on the ceiling. For a time, enshrouded in the warmth of her embrace and the weight of the fine blanket, the worries of the coming day faded from her mind. Her eyes closed as sleep claimed her again and nothing else mattered in the world, save for the slow sound of the breathing of the one who held her.

Chapter Text

Iman had decided to take up poetry again.

It was nothing if not slow work. The moment she picked up a pen, it felt as though her brain were full of cotton. When she tried to put the swirling images in her head into words, it was so hard to get any sort of grip on where to start. From the beginning? At the end? In the tumultuous middle where nothing is yet decided?

But there was something freeing in the eking out of creation, in the seeing of her jumbled letters marching down the margins of the empty pages she's carried for so long. It was something that she had long forgotten the thrill of and had not until now realized that she still yearned for a taste of it.

When had she stopped? She couldn’t remember the exact moment. It had been shortly after arriving in Skyrim, of that much she was certain. At the moment when her life had ceased to be about dreaming and more about doing. Her dreams had been lost in the taste of stolen pleasure, consumed first by adventure and then by the drudgery of the quiet life that followed.

Who was she, really? What was it that she had wanted? What exactly was it that she wanted now?

A blank page looked up at her, along with the crumpled one that she had just torn out and thrown aside. The ink was still wet on it and had smeared her hands as she'd crushed it between them.

She wiped the ink off on the dirty napkin she had forgotten to toss in with the laundry after breakfast and began again.

Just write, she told herself. No matter how silly or foolish or bland. You can make it perfect later, but you'll never get to there if you never start.

The ink dripped from her pen on the page in an ugly blot. She ignored it, though it would have irked her to no end if she were years younger.

She closed her eyes for a moment, running a mental comb through the tangle of thoughts in her head.

There was a bird in a gilded cage, she wrote, the fresh words gleaming darkly in the lantern light.

Several minutes of silent staring passed before she could go on.

beautiful and lonely

her plumage the envy of all

her song, ascending to heights of sweetness

and bitterness alike

but no one could hear her voice

her cage swung so high above the city lights

and her song, weak from

With a jolt, the trance was broken. For a second, she peered at the words as though they had come out of someone else's pen, someone else's mind.

And then she realized where the sound had come from.

The doorknob on her guest room door was turning.

No one had ever disturbed her before - not the Emissary, not the other inquisitors, not even a single member of the household staff.

She stared, transfixed by the turning of the knob, unable to move for the eternity it took.

The door was pushed open with a quiet squeak of the hinges.

A Redguard woman, her hair done in braids that trailed to the small of her back and glittered with glass beads of all colors and sizes, stood there, regarding her with narrowed eyes. She was wearing a red chiton, held up on her shoulders by a set of gleaming pins. Her bracelets rattled as she closed the door softly behind her.

“Excuse me.” Iman said, suddenly gaining enough composure to be irked. “The party isn't in here. This is a private room.”

“Oh, I’m well aware.” she answered, her voice a monotone as she took a single step forward. “Iman, of House Suda.”

Her shadow looked huge on the wall, looming over the scene in the flickering light of the lantern. As she moved, the light rippled over her bare arms, far too well muscled to be that of a misdirected noblewoman.

Iman’s heart was beating faster. Her mouth was dry. She stood up, her legs getting tangled with the legs of her chair and frantically kicked herself free, sending the chair skidding across the floor.

“Who are you?” she gasped.

Her mind was racing. How had they found her? Who had sold her away?

“What...what do you want?”

The woman took two more steps toward her, deadly silent. Iman backed two more steps away. She had almost reached the back wall. There was nowhere else she could go, save for under the bed itself and somehow, she doubted the efficacy of that plan.

"I-I have nothing." she cried out, her voice cracking. "I'm not worth a-any..."

There was a knife in her pocket, she remembered, in the rush of frantic thoughts, its placement as much a part of her morning routine as washing her face or scrubbing her teeth. She would have but a single moment to use it, if that. If she were to let her come close and lunge at the opportune time, there was a chance, however slight, that maybe-

“Why?” the woman asked, her voice barely more than a breath of air, her eyes, inestimably sad.

Iman blinked in surprise. There was a lump in her throat and tears in her eyes. The sound of crackling flames and screeching birds filled the inside of her mind.

“I…don’t…know…” she sputtered out. “I…I was young and lost and t-there was so much I didn’t understand and, a-and”-

She hiccuped helplessly as tears poured down her cheeks.

She was going to die. She deserved to die.

The woman sighed and it was as though all the air had been let out of her in a single breath. She closed her eyes and raised her right hand.

Now, Iman’s survival instincts screamed at her, NOW.

Her hand slipped into her pocket and curled around the knife.

And then her whole body froze.

In the woman's hand was a blinding beam of light that was agony to look at, but look, she did, tears streaming from her aching eyes. She saw it take form in her hand, a blade of sharpness beyond comprehension, of reality surpassing the very plane they stood on, ethereal vines curling from its hilt, up her arm and down her spine.

She opened her eyes and her glare was as icy as the glaciers of Skyrim.

Chapter Text

The two of them were as silent as Falkreath's graves on the cart ride to the Thalmor Embassy.

The freshly fallen snow groaned under their wheels and the wind nipped coldly at their noses. The driver looked as though Skyrim's glaciers had carved out the bags under his eyes. He spoke more to the horses than to them, though like a gentleman, he'd hoisted them aboard at the start of the journey.

Rayya felt as though she should be making small talk, exchanging pleasantries, doing something that might make her alias as an airy Forebear noblewoman more believable. But no words came to her lips and she sat there dumbly, unable to disguise the fear that lurched in her stomach with every jolt of the cart on the cobblestone road.

Carolinne held her hand beneath the warmth of their cloaks.

The snow crunched under their thin shoes as they stepped up the mostly-cleared path to the top of the hill. Rayya assumed that it had been cleared fairly recently, but already it had begun to snow again - thick, fluffy stuff that clung to every available surface, including the ends of Carolinne's eyelashes.

Rayya was wearing a pair of suede moccasins that laced up to her knees in an elaborate pattern of leather cords and were not in the least made for walking in the snow. Already, her toes were cold and she could feel the dampness of the ground soaking through the seams that held them together. Not for the first time that night, she wished that she had found some way to hide a pair of sturdy boots under her skirt. They were bound to require a quick getaway at the party's conclusion and she did not relish the thought of doing it practically barefoot in this weather.

From above, the lanterns of the embassy shone with warm welcome in the sun's waning light. She could hear the tinkling laughter of elves ahead and the soft strains of a lute from behind an open door.

Too late, she looked down and realized that she'd been squeezing Carolinne's hand until her knuckles were white. With a jerk, she let go. Carolinne flexed her fingers with some measure of relief, though she'd never betrayed the pain she must have been feeling on her face for a second.

"I'm sorry." Rayya whispered, the character she was supposed to be playing shattering around her in a thousand pieces.

Carolinne touched her on the small of her back and gave her a gentle smile.

“Are you excited, Abeni?” she asked, her tone the overly bubbly one of Lady Amarie.

But, Rayya noted from the lines around her mouth, her concern was genuine.

“I hear there’s going to be some interesting guests about tonight." she went on, a sly gleam in her eye. "How are you feeling about meeting them?”

“Indeed.” Rayya answered, her voice cracking as she struggled to sound like who she was not. “It is exciting. But I must confess that my nerves have the better of me presently. I fear I might embarrass myself.”

For barely enough time to register, a flicker of worry darted across her face. For a moment, she looked so petulant, with her painted lips and a brush of color on her eyelids.

"If you're feeling ill, then perhaps it might be prudent of you to rest for a bit. There will be other parties, I'm sure."

Rayya cracked a smile.

"But suppose I miss an opportunity that will never come again? What will my parents say? No, I'll press on, though your concern is a dear comfort."

They slowed as they reached the front gate. An elf in golden armor stood watch with a list in hand. He narrowed his eyes as he gave them a once-over and only resumed his blandly pleasant expression once Carolinne had presented their invitation.

When he turned to open the door for them, Carolinne leaned in close, her voice a whisper as for the first time that night, she truly broke character.

“All you have to be is yourself.”

By deft manipulation, Carolinne had managed to steer the Third Emissary far away from Rayya. Somehow, the two of them were on the other side of the room and had been conversing excitedly for some minutes already.

The Emissary was waving her hands about with surprising delicacy as she spoke, Carolinne smiling and nodding in return as she listened. At a small break in the conversation, she raised a hand to her mouth and laughed. Rayya had to wonder what they could possibly be talking about. What subjects would a Thalmor higher-up take an interest in?

And how was it all so easy for Carolinne?

Sparing a few moments, she watched her charm and flatter from a distance, fitting in with the glittering crowd as easily as one who hadn't been living on the road for months. In comparison, Rayya felt like something of a clod among kings, though Carolinne had assured her multiple times that it wasn't true.

Suddenly, the emissary turned around, nearly catching Rayya's eye and just about stopping her heart. But instead of looking at her, she waved over a nearby servant with a silver tray laden with half a dozen types of minuscule pastries, each more perfect than the last. When the servant presented it to Carolinne, a look of unabashed glee came over her face and her fingers twitched as she struggled to decide which one to pick up first. She was almost certainly restraining herself from eating half the plate. Rayya laughed through her nose and turned away.

It was time to get back to the task at hand.

The distraction freed Rayya to move about the room with ease, without the Emissary's watchful eyes on her. She picked up a glass of wine from the tray of a passing servant and resumed making her way through the partygoers. A word of conversation here, a coy smile there, a surreptitious sip to avoid talking for too long and a flutter of the eyelashes as she strove to not be too obvious about checking the faces of every Redguard in attendance.

A good half of the guests were high-ranking Nords. She recognized Jarl Idgrod from Morthal and a handful of thanes from Jarl Elisif's court. She had met them all but briefly several years ago on a trip with Jarl Dengeir to the Blue Palace and made, she hoped, precious little impression on them. Nevertheless, she deftly avoided their line of vision as she made her careful dance across the room.

The rest were a mixture of smiling Thalmor operatives nibbling hors'dourves as though the blood on their hands was not thick enough to taste, a smattering of Imperial officers in gold-trimmed armor and finally, a small contingent of wealthy Redguard merchants.

The latter were the only ones who mattered. She focused on them and only them as she slipped through the crowd, swimming from one knot of conversation to the next, rarely staying long enough to introduce herself before moving on to the next target.

A woman with dreadlocks past her shoulders was chatting amiably with a Thalmor officer. She saw her from the back, in a green silk gown, a glass of amber wine in her hand. Holding her breath, Rayya tapped her on the shoulder.

The woman spun around with a look of surprise, the wine sloshing in her glass. She was much younger than Iman of House Suda was supposed to be. Her face was as smooth as a baby's bottom.

"Forgive me." Rayya said, curtsying as she smiled sweetly. "I had mistaken you for someone else."

She nodded and turned away.

There was no one else left to check.

Rayya was sweating. She could feel the dampness seeping into the fabric of her gown. The warmth of so many bodies and the air of so many circular conversations pressed in around her like a physical presence.

This was what Malborn told us, she tried to reassure herself. That she rarely comes out of her room. That odds are likely I'll have to come to her.

She wiped her brow and set her wine glass down on the bar. Malborn, their kitchen spy, looked up curiously with his black eyes, the only outward sign of his anxiety being the steady drum of his fingers on the counter. She caught his eye and wordlessly made the sign they'd agreed upon.

It took a bit longer to draw Carolinne's attention. She didn't think she had seen her at first, but then she flashed the proper hand signal in return and a rush of relief flooded her system. Rayya steeled herself for what they were about to do, excitement and terror rushing through her blood in equal measure.

Across the room, Carolinne finished off the buttery little pastry in her hand and licked her fingers. Out of long habit, she almost wiped them on her skirt but remembered where she was at the last moment. The Emissary, her long, severe face cracking a smile, offered her a handkerchief. Carolinne refused politely and as though by magic, produced her own out of thin air.

For a little while longer, they continued to talk.

Rayya imagined her warping the threads of the conversation this way and that, pushing it to the desired outcome so subtly that no one would be the wiser. She could make them believe anything. She could change reality itself.

“Everyone!” Carolinne cried out above the sound of the crowd, clapping her hands to draw attention.

Conversation quieted down to a murmur and all eyes shifted to her.

“I’ve come a long way to be here tonight, among you fine people!"

One of the merchants, already quite drunk, cheered and pumped his fist into the air. Carolinne pointed at him with both pointer fingers and winked.

"And Emissary Elenwen has decreed that I should honor you with a song from my homeland!"

She turned to the lute player who had been mostly ignored that evening as he plucked out notes in a lonesome corner. Bending close to his ear, she said something that Rayya couldn't quite hear and the musician nodded excitedly, standing up straighter than he had all night.

All remaining murmurs was silenced as a somber, haunting melody, rife with impossible longing, poured from the strings of his lute. Carolinne stood beside him, tapping her foot to the rhythm, her body swaying as she stood. And then, she opened her mouth.

Rayya had never properly heard her sing before. She'd heard humming, whistling, the songs she'd sing in the bath when she thought no one could hear her, but nothing like this.

She was not prepared.

Her voice spilled from her throat as though it had come from another plane of existence. Rayya stood, enraptured as she sang, the sound washing over her like waves, trapping her as surely as it trapped the guests held in its spell.

It was a lay about a bride leaving home for a future she knew nothing of. She felt the longing in her words, the loneliness, the loss. Her eyes were brimming with tears as she sang.

Malborn tapped her shoulder from behind the bar and with a startled jerk, the spell was broken. Wishing nothing more in her life than being able to hear the end, she looked back as she slipped through the kitchen door.

For a shining moment, Carolinne was framed perfectly by the door frame, the crowd with their enraptured faces, the way the lights all seemed to be pointing at her. Her arms outstretched, she threw her head back and...

Malborn closed the door swiftly and turned the key in the lock. His hands were shaking as he returned the key to his belt.

Rayya followed him cautiously inside, trying to conceal her disappointment and focus on the mission ahead.

"I'm sorry." he whispered, pulling out a long, crooked knife of Orcish make from behind a wheel of cheese on the pantry shelf. "It was the best I could do."

Rayya put a hand on his trembling shoulder and took the knife with her free hand.

“Thank you." she said, smiling though her own fear was returning in full force. "You’ve been very brave.”

Malborn gave her a half-hearted smile in return.

“I try. It's...the third door down. She should be in there. Though I uh...I haven't seen her since breakfast. All the other guests are outside - I know that for sure - so it should be empty, save for...her."

He squeezed the bridge of his nose and wrinkled up his face before relaxing again.

"Do...do what you need to do.”

"I will."

She squeezed his shoulder and let go. He nodded dazedly and backed away, swiftly taking his place back at the bar. For a fraction of a second, she heard the last notes of Carolinne's song wafting through the open door.

She tested the balance of the knife in her hand and found it to be better than expected. After flipping it in the air a few times, she tucked it into the laces that bound her shoes to her feet and smoothed her skirt over.

Her skin was rippling with goosebumps despite the crackling fire in the oven.

She put her ear to the door and hearing no footsteps, threw it open.

The air was still and chill in the empty hallway.

She could see light through the crack of the third door down.

For what felt like hours, she stood there, staring at it, watching its pale flicker across the gleaming floor tiles.

She tried to imagine what the woman behind the door was thinking, in these moments that she did not yet know were her last.

But the only thing she could feel was the cold, hard ball of emptiness in her chest that drained all else, like a void inside her.

Her hand was on the door knob. When had she put it there?

Slowly, with excruciating finesse, she turned it. The woman on the other side had to have heard her by now.

And like that, it was open, with nothing more than a quiet squeak.

A Redguard woman was staring at her, her eyes wide with fright, a pen between her ink-stained fingers. She was beautiful, or might have been, had she lived a gentler life. Her hands were rough and callused and on the thin strip of skin revealed by her rolled up sleeves were the rings of aging burn scars that marked the arms of a cook.

The left side of her mouth drooped unnaturally. On that same side of her face were three ragged scars, of the exact size and shape that the Alik'r warrior had first described, so many weeks ago.

Rayya closed the door behind her.

“Excuse me.” the woman snapped, her eyebrows plunging downwards, her eyes blazing with the reflected light of the lantern. “The party isn't in here. This is a private room.”

“Oh, I’m well aware.” Rayya said coolly, the ball in her chest tightening as she took a single step forward. “Iman, of House Suda.”

She leapt to her feet, kicking her chair away in her haste. Her pen rolled across the floor, dripping its ink on the carpet.

“Who are you?” she gasped. “What...what do you want?”

And what of your brother? Would you not revenge him?

"I-I have nothing."

She was advancing on her.

And what of the grief that killed your Iya? Did you not care for her?

"I'm not worth a-any..."

She was nearly against the wall. There was nowhere else she could possibly go. If she screamed, there was no one who could come fast enough to save her.

And the livelihood they took from your family? Would you not have them pay every coin back in blood?

She was crying.

Tears prickled at Rayya's own eyes, but she blinked them away. The ball tightened like a fist in her chest, threatening to squeeze her heart to ribbons.

"Why?" she breathed.

It was all she could do to stop her voice from cracking.

Iman twitched as though she'd been slapped. For a scant few seconds, she looked at her, as a rabbit regards the fox who has backed it into a corner.

“I…don’t…know…” she sputtered out, tears pouring down her cheeks. “I…I was young and lost and t-there was so much I didn’t understand and, a-and”-

Rayya sighed. Her head ached. Only then did she realize that she'd been gritting her jaw.

She felt as though her skin had been scraped raw by the fury of an Alik'r sandstorm. She felt empty, as though food had not passed her lips for days on end. Hand it over, she heard a man say, his knife flashing in the light of the setting sun.

She closed her eyes and reached for it.

Her fingers curled around the hilt. She saw the blade in her mind's eye, silver and perfect. She smelled the freshness of the vines as they curled around her wrist, as they reached into her soul, part and parcel of it.

She opened her eyes and the room shone with light. The blade gleamed in her hand, as real as it had always been in her dreams, thrumming with power to the soles of her feet.

Iman backed into the wall, her knees nearly giving out from under her, her face streaked with tears.

Rayya advanced, her stance relaxed, her sword arm flexible, but not unyielding.

A moment before it would have been too late, she saw the knife jabbing toward the space between her ribs. Utterly without thought, she seized her by the wrist and squeezed until the knife fell from her hand, hitting the carpet with a muffled thump. With a single kick, it shot away under the bed, as good as gone forever.

Iman fell to her knees sobbing, her chest heaving with sad little hiccups. Rayya wove her fingers through her hair and jerked her head upright so that she was looking her in the eyes. The blade fit under her throat as though it had been made to fit.

"I-I'm s-sorry." she blubbered, squeezing her eyes shut against the glow of the blade at her throat. "I'm s-so...s-sorry."

It was so easy.

One little cut and it would all be over. A slight touch of pressure and the shame that had followed her would be gone. The barest movement and the hole in her chest would again be filled.

Would it really?

One cut would not bring them back. A single death could not ever pay for the lives that had fallen that night or all the nights that followed. Its weight was nothing compared to the suffering of those left behind.

The blade wavered in her hand, flickering in and out of existence. Iman shivered, her eyes still closed.

Come on, a voice begged from the back of her skull. There are no witnesses. If you leave the body now, no one will find it until you are well away...

She was gritting her teeth again. Her head was pounding.

Vengeance was the easiest thing in the world.

But Justice - true Justice - the hardest.

Her soul recoiled at the thought. Her stomach turned at the peril she'd be facing.

But who would she be if she did not do it?

"Stand." she said.

Iman opened her eyes, her bottom lip quivering. When she stared at her dumbly instead of standing, she took the blade from her throat and jerked her to her feet by the roots of her hair. She cried out, her knees nearly buckling under her again.

"Now walk me to the door and open it."

She took a tentative step towards the door, her hands outstretched, the sword at the level of her ear.

"The book." she gasped as they passed by the desk. "Please...don't make me leave the book."

From the corner of her eye, Rayya spied it, its pages yellowed, a great inkblot marring the delicate cursive inside.

"Take it." she answered softly. "But if you try something..."

She moved the blade closer to her throat.

Iman gulped and with shaking hands, gathered up the tome and cradled it like a child in her arms.

Iman going first, her feet unsteady as Rayya nudged her forward, they stepped out.

A Khajiit woman with bloodshot eyes, her hand on the kitchen doorknob, spun around with a start as they entered. A bowl of a powdery white substance dropped from her hands and shattered, sending its dust everywhere. With a hiss, she clawed the door open and slammed it behind her.

Rayya lunged forward, sinking her blade up to the hilt in the stone of the wall. It cut as easily as a thought - one side, then the next, then the top. With a grunt, she kicked the wall outward.

She could hear footsteps pounding on glazed tile.

Iman screamed as she shoved her through the hole and she fell, face first onto the pile of rubble below. Rayya jumped after her, grabbing her by the collar with her free hand and hauling her to her feet before she could collect herself.

The cold bit at her bare skin. The snow was falling thicker. The lanterns seemed dimmed by it, their light consumed by the onslaught of swirling flakes.

She dragged her through the last stretch of courtyard, the snow nearly up to their knees. Iron bars were their last barrier to freedom.

With a cry, she sank her blade into the fence and cut. The metal melted, red-hot under her touch. Without a sound, the bars fell into the snow as though they had never been there at all.

The blade flickered in her hand and went out.

She could hear shouts in the distance and the clang of armor.

Iman opened her mouth to scream and Rayya slapped a hand over it the moment before she could.

Her chest heaving, she dragged her out into the night.

Arrows whistled around her as she fled. A bolt of lightening from one of the mages nearly struck her before she made it into the woods, the struggles of her prisoner dragging her down.

“Over HERE!” Iman screamed the second her hand slipped from her face.

Teeth sank into her hand, but she held firm. An arrow grazed her cheek, but she kept on moving.

They were catching up.

She could see the light of their torches, hear their shouts growing ever nearer.

She imagined her father’s hem, flapping in the dark as he hurried through burning streets, her close behind. Nothing existed outside the hem. There were no people crying for help, no panicked masses, no lightening in the distance, no city falling to pieces around them. It was hers to focus on the hem, to hold tight to Baba and kept moving. There was no hope unless she moved.

A rumble shook the earth beneath her feet, momentarily halting her. Iman screamed again, clawing at her arm, struggling to break free. She stomped hard on her foot, but Rayya felt nothing but the cold of the ground.

In the rumble, she could hear words.

Startled cries rang out from the forest as the sky opened up as though Oblivion itself had come to Tamriel again. Thunder boomed and lightening flashed. Jagged shards of ice rained down like a shower of knives.

Rayya flung Iman over her shoulder and in the confusion, ran.

She dumped her prisoner unceremoniously at the cave they’d chosen as their meeting place, tore off her shoe and stuffed it in her protesting mouth. Iman shrieked behind her gag as she bound her hands with the cord from her other shoe and belted her ankles together with her own sturdy girdle.

She sat, cross-legged on the icy stone floor, the knife in her lap.

And waited.

She did not dare to light a fire, though her feet were bare and the wind tore through the thin fabric of the dress. There were blankets stashed in the cave, healing ointments and half-frozen food that she could not bring herself to eat. Iman glared at her as she wrapped her in blankets, as she tended the scrapes she'd gotten when she'd thrown her out of the embassy.

She curled up against the wind, the blankets poor defense against the chill that was seeping into her soul.

She nearly killed Carolinne in the early hours of the morning.

All she had seen was the hood and the glint of gold that betrayed a Thalmor inquisitor. With a cry, she had lunged, the orcish knife in her hand. Carolinne had lurched away, the oversized hood falling to her shoulders to reveal her wild eyes and snarled hair.

And then they had both laughed uproariously, hugging and crying.

In the midst of it, Carolinne had touched the wound on her cheek, now covered with the oily ointment.

"Did I do that?" she gasped between breaths. "The storm was a bit much..."

"Oh, no! No..." Rayya said between bouts of laughter. "A persistent archer. Nothing more."

Her breathing steadying at last, she reached up to take hold of her hand. It was warm against her cheek, blazing hot compared to the chill of the night. Carolinne's hand moved around to the back of her neck and Rayya shifted to hold her closer. And then their noses were touching, her lips brushed hers and the air they breathed was the same.

When Carolinne let her go at last, her eyes were shining with their old spark.

"You would not believe the night I had." she croaked, her voice hoarse. "Oh gods, everything went wrong that could have, really. This old elf wouldn't leave me alone, I had to duck under the rack in the torture chamber, they caught Malborn to draw me out of hiding and then once I convinced them to let him go, our only escape was right through a frost troll's - hello..."

She stopped short at the entrance to the cave, her eyebrows rising at the sight of Iman glaring darkly at her.

"Lady Pouvoir," Rayya said, making a grand hand gesture, unable to suppress her smile. "This is Lady Iman, of House Suda. She'll be travelling with us for a bit. I hope you don't mind."

"Ah..ha-ha." she laughed, putting her hand over her mouth. "Oh gods, no. Not at all. I...uh...should be pleased to make her acquaintance. Exceedingly so."

She threw her arms around Rayya's neck and hugged her tight.

“I’m glad.” she whispered, not letting go until the sun peeked over the horizon.

Chapter Text

Through mountain and valley, desert and coast, Iman was silent, though there was no gag to stop her from changing that. The chains on her wrists and ankles were heavy enough to stop all desire for conversation and the heat of the sun, hot enough to put her into a dreamlike fugue.

Hooded men sat on either side of her, their scimitars in their laps, their steely gaze rarely shifting from the careful watch of their charge.

Deep inside herself, she knew that she ought to be afraid. That this day may well be the last time she saw any part of Hammerfell again save the inside of a cell or an executioner's block. That she could not know what lay beyond the next turn of the road or what waited for her at the end.

But the day was so beautiful and the ride, so gentle, that all she could feel was a perverse sort of peace.

She could smell the ocean, though they were not quite close enough to see it yet. Gulls called in the distance and grain swayed in a soft, cooling breeze. Memories that she had thought long-suppressed broke through the floodgates of her mind. She bit her lip and stared hard at the floor of the cart, trying with all her might to stop the flow before it overwhelmed her.

When she next looked up, her breath caught in her throat at the familiar, yet changed skyline of Taneth on the horizon. She saw its minarets, the outline of its castles, a ship sailing out from port as the ocean was finally revealed in all its turquoise glory. As the cart drew ever closer, the city filled her field of view, its buildings towering into the sky, its walls dwarfing the farmhouses that surrounded it.

When they pulled up to the east gate and one of her guards hopped down to negotiate with the watchman on duty, her heart leaped in terror and joy alike.

She was home.

Chapter Text

The sky was a perfect shade of aquamarine without the faintest shred of cloud in sight. The sun was shining, though the wind still bore it northern chill. From high up on the balcony of Dragonsreach, the two of them could see for miles. They stood there in companionable silence, staring out across the vast expanse before them - the grassy plains, the mountains, the craggy nooks at the edge of imagination.

Behind them, the servants were clearing away the last vestiges of the Jarl’s breakfast. His children darted between their skirts, laughing and pulling faces at one another as they made the womans' lives a just little more difficult in the course of their play.

Rayya smiled at them and then turned back to the view.

It seemed so ludicrous, to spoil the beauty of the day with what they were about to do.

"I got a letter yesterday." she said, breaking the silence. "From Hammerfell."

"Huh..." Carolinne murmured in wonder. "Good on them for finding you. We're not exactly the easiest people to track, are we?"

Rayya chuckled.

"Indeed. But the letter...it was about Iman's trial."

Carolinne turned to her, listening with rapt attention.

"She lives, to be imprisoned for the rest of her life. Sentenced to sew a tapestry of all the names of those who fell on...that night."

"Hmm."

Carolinne's brow wrinkled. She leaned heavily on the railing, staring out into the distance. Rayya joined her, crossing her legs comfortably behind her as she leaned.

“Did I do the right thing?”

Carolinne looked at her, her grey eyes soft and knowing.

“You're the only one who can figure that out. But...what I think? You chose to see beyond yourself, your own problems, to...to the bigger picture.”

Her gaze darkened and she seemed to not be looking at Rayya but at something inside herself.

“I don’t know if I could do the same.”

Rayya smiled gently and put a hand on her back.

“After this is over...I can feel it ending. Just like the Grandmaster said.”

Carolinne snapped out of it and glanced up at her in shock.

“My Walkabout. I...I think I'm finally ready. I want to go home, take my title...speak to my father."

Her hands were shaking. She let go of the railing and stood up straighter.

"When you return…and you will return - promise me that? - will you be there to see me off?"

Carolinne stood up and hugged her tight around the chest.

“Oh, hells…I’ll come with you, if it's...ah...fine by you. A-And you have to pass through Hammerfell to get to High Rock anyway, which is where I was headed anyway and uh…if you wanted to hop between them...every now and again..."

It was so funny and strange to see her silver tongue stumbling over the words quite so badly. Rayya laughed and scooped her off the ground mid-sentence, whirling her around in the air once before setting her back on her feet.

“Yes.” she said, her face unable to quite contain the enormity of her grin. “I’d like that.”

The Whiterun Guard were nearly in position. The table had been cleared of breakfast and the good tablecloth packed away to where it presumably wouldn't be in danger of getting lit on fire. The children were gone and the servants long hidden away behind sturdy doors. Irileth was waiting for the signal, her arms crossed over her chest.

Rayya drew her swords and Carolinne, her staff. The energy of all who waited for what was to happen next was nearly palpable in the air.

Somewhere across that horizon lay Satakal, in agony, his fangs nearly at his own heart. Once before they had fought him and once more, she knew they would triumph. This world was too precious for it to be ending just yet.

Rayya backed up a bit, leaving Carolinne alone at the railing and took up her battle position.

The words were like a shot fired from Carolinne's mouth.

"Od-ah-viing!"

There was a distant roar and a rush of wind. She braced herself, excitement thrumming in her veins, hope living in every chamber of her heart.

Chapter Text

For the greater part of her day, with guarded breaks for meals and bodily functions, she sewed.

Kalifa. Jabari.

The tips of her fingers where she pulled the needle through the canvas, again and again, were thick with unfeeling calluses.

Adanna. Kwame.

But still, they bled when the slipping of the thread wore fresh grooves into her beleaguered skin for long enough. She had never been given a thimble. It mattered little to her now.

Isabis. Hasani.

The thread came away red between her fingers. She kept on sewing, weaving her own life force into the masterwork that would grace the walls of the new monument that was rising on the palace grounds just outside her cell window. Sometimes she caught a glimpse of the workmen before the sun went down.

Binah. Eshe.

Her duty was to complete two tapestries. One for the dead, the other for the survivors. The data had been collected in the latest census of the city, as well as the older records that had survived the Aldmeri Domain's scouring of the palace. Even so, she was sure that there were names missing.

Asha. Kasim.

It would be a long time before she would make it to the survivor's tapestry.

Zuri. Tibor.

She wondered if she would even recognize her name by the time she reached it.

The hour between dusk and night belonged to her alone.

She was permitted ink and writing utensils, though the guards were careful to collect the pens by the time the hour was up. An upturned crate was her makeshift desk and she wrote by the fading light of the setting sun as it slowly sank behind the bars of her window.

It was difficult to write under such constraints. An hour was scarcely any time to fall into the trance required of composition. She was getting better at summoning it on command, but with so little time it never felt as thought she were getting enough practice. Hence, she wrote precious little.

Editing was even harder. It was one thing to dash out a slew of words in a fit of inspiration but quite another to squint at them critically, trying to decide if she’d said what she meant to say.

One particular poem, she’d been editing for months. Sometimes she’d spend the whole hour staring at it before changing one word in the moment before the guard was due to take her pen away. Sometimes she wrote pages of stanzas before crossing them out furiously the next day.

But now, as she looked at it, she felt something that might have been contentment. It was finished, as near as finished as any poem could be. Doubtless she’d look back on it in months and see something wrong that she was unable to see now, but for the moment, a lightness that she hadn't felt in months filled her thoughts.

She closed her journal and handed the pen through the bars.

There was a bird in a gilded cage

beautiful and lonely

her plumage the envy of all

her song, ascending to heights of sweetness

and bitterness alike

but no one could hear her voice

her cage swung so high above the city lights

that her song grew weak from straining to be heard

so she pecked at the hand that fed her

drawing blood until the cage door was thrown open in shock

and flew into the night

~~~

Outside, her plumage was plucked by greedy hands

her song grew hoarse and ugly

but she cared little because the wind

was under her wings

the horizon spread before her

she cawed to hear the sound of her own voice

scarcely heeding the blood that stained the cage she had left behind

~~~

There was a bird in an iron cage

lonesome and homely

her plumage plucked to the skin

her song faint, but sweet

its bitterness fading away

few could hear her voice

her cage below the ground, hidden away from common sight

but her song grows strong from straining to be heard

she pecks not at the hands that feed her

the blood she draws is her own and with it, she feeds those who come after

long into the night