Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

His mother tied his pack closed, fiddling with the strings before she handed it to him. “Hist guard you, and Sithis keep you, hatchling mine,” she said, brow scales twitching in unease. He knew she didn't want him to go, but he was determined.

He grinned at her, signing am-yet fine I. Not be-worry you, mother.

Nurleeza sighed, rumbling her displeasure. “I know you are of age now, my dear, but I worry always. It is the way of mothers.”

He pouted, am-finished egg being. His mother's right claw scratched pleasantly at his scalp, brushing through his white curls. His hair was getting long now, and he wondered if he should cut it short again.

“Promise me you will be safe, Joram-Ei?”

He nodded, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. Be-safe Hist will-be I. Joram-Ei flicked his tail and half-closed his inner lids in a goodbye before finally turning away and starting down the road towards Riften.

Joram-Ei very quickly broke that promise, as it turned out. He had tried to keep it though, for all the good it did him.

Ralof tried not to stare at the unconscious boy in the cart. He knew, of course, that there were plenty of mixed-race children running around Nirn, but he'd only ever seen pictures of half Argonians in books. The boy had the dark olive skin of a Bosmer with the shimmering green scales of an Argonian scattered over his cheekbones, his fingers sharp-clawed. His feet were raptor-like, tipped with black talons, a thick tail curling limply over his legs. The youth's white hair had braided sections threaded with beads that looked to be made of some kind of bone, with a spot behind one pointed ear matted with slowly drying blood. The... mer? Argonian? stirred, blinking open bright gold eyes that struggled to focus correctly. Ralof winced sympathetically. Head wounds were always awful. He forced a smile on his face, “hey, you. You're finally awake.” The rest of Ralof's spiel was mostly horseshit, his hands itching for the medic's kit the Imperials had confiscated from him.

Well, Ralof thought, at least we'll all be without our heads soon, so it won't matter if we're wounded or not. His conscience still plagued him for the youth's bruised wrists, the back of his tunic blood-soaked and cleaving to the skin. Ralof made his peace with Talos and Arkay, grimacing when the youth—his name was Joram-Ei, apparently, and he'd used Imperial Hand-Speak to name himself—was called to the headsman's block despite his name being nowhere on the damn prisoner list. Then, because the Aedra liked to shit on Ralof Eyvindrsson in particular, a dragon dropped out of the sky and saved them all. Fuck.

Healing potions could only do so much, and the weak ones they'd found in the storeroom weren't good for much beyond basic disinfection, but it was better than nothing. Joram-Ei, as it turned out, was a vicious killer when the situation called for it, but he also threw up, shaking, once they'd cleared the cave and stood out in the open again. Ralof wasn't entirely sure if that was due to the actual killing or the undoubtedly nasty concussion the boy had. At least Riverwood wasn't far off, and they could rest at Gerdur's house. Walking there took about an hour and a half, picking their way through the woods to avoid any Imperial scouts. They stopped for a rest at the Guardian Stones, Joram-Ei startling badly when the Thief stone shot light into the sky after he brushed against it. They limped into Riverwood just as the sun kissed the horizon, Ralof carefully avoiding Alvor's bewildered stare.

Gerdur loved her little brother, she really did. But nearly giving her a heart attack by showing up at her door looking like he'd been mauled by a bear, helping an unfamiliar white-haired youth limp along beside him, was not how she'd hoped to see him next. She quickly yanked the both of them inside, shouting over her shoulder for Hod to get her healer's bag. “What in Oblivion, 'Lo?” she muttered, gently depositing her brother and his strange friend onto the bench in her kitchen. She started tugging at the buckles on her brother's armor, but he shook his head at her, silver eyes pleading.

“Gerdie, I'm alright. The lad's hurt far worse'n me.”

She cut the boy's tunic away, freeing it carefully from the half-clotted wounds. Fresh blood beaded up from whip-marks, a blistered burn high on his left shoulder blade oozing yellow already. She mustered a smile and got to work, gently working a little Colovian brandy into the wounds on his back. (She very firmly did not react when she realized that the burn on his shoulder blade was actually a brand in the shape of the Imperial crest.) Ralof, of course, felt compelled to put his damned foot in it when he asked, rather loudly, about the cluster of four knotted scars slicing diagonally across Joram-Ei's throat when she turned him to the side to get at his head wound. Gerdur smacked her brother with a wooden ladle for being rude without missing a beat.

Joram-Ei grimaced, baring his sharp teeth, curling his hands in signs that were unfamiliar to Gerdur. She only knew the Nordic hand-speak, and bits of the Khajiit one from watching the caravaneers. She handed him a bit of parchment and a nub of charcoal, “I'm sorry, lad, but I don't know that one.” He accepted the supplies, catching his tongue between his teeth as he wrote in a careful, slow scrawl. My uncle did not like that the result of his sister's dishonor was allowed to live, he wrote, so he tore my throat open with his claws. Mother killed him for that. But I have never been able to speak since, so I suppose that he got some of what he wanted in the end.

“That's... awful, I'm sorry,” Ralof murmured, nudging his knee with Joram-Ei's. Joram-Ei shrugged, wincing at Gerdur's prodding of his head wound.

What happened, happened. I don't know anything else.  

Hod looked at the parchment, mustache deepening the frown on his face. “Why do you write like that? The letters look strange.” Gerdur cut her husband a scathing glance in warning.

I'm used to using Jel, and the writing is different.

“Huh. Yell, hm? That's the Argonian folk's tongue, isn't it?” Joram-Ei made a strange clicking, hissing noise as he scowled in Hod's direction, unable to turn and look at him while Gerdur was wrapping bandages around his head.

You didn't say it right. It's pronounced d-z-ay-l. My name is D-z-oe-r-a-m Ay-ee.

“Oh. Sorry, lad.” Joram-Ei chirred, seemingly mollified by the apology. 

Gerdur tied off the bandage, smiling, “right, that's you done, min vän. Now,” she narrowed her eyes at her brother, who looked like he very much wished he was anywhere else, “you're next.”

Sneaking off a week later to poke around an ancient crypt to look for some kind of stolen whatever that Lucan had been complaining about had sounded like a good idea when Joram-Ei was bored out of his skull. In practice, well. He was going to have a few more injuries for Gerdur to fuss over when he got back. He was just glad he'd taken the hunting bow Faendal had lent him as well as the axe Ralof insisted he carry. The bandits were easy enough, even though one had managed to bury an arrow in his ribs. Joram-Ei snapped the arrow shaft close to his chest and kept moving. He did wonder if Nords had been cursed by some vengeful god, though, that so many of their honored dead were restless. He found the stolen decoration—which was actually a dragon claw made of solid gold about the length of Joram-Ei's forearm—and decided he might as well press on, deep into the crypt as he was. The final chamber contained yet another angry draugr, which yelled some kind of vocal magic at him that sent him flying into the stone wall. Joram-Ei dragged a breath through what were most likely broken ribs and hacked the thing's head off with his axe. Then the wall started yelling at him and glowing ominously, because his life was like that now, apparently. (He wondered idly if Sheogorath was having fun.)

His world narrowed to flickering light and many voices overlapping in a chant, and he felt sick, like he'd hit his head again. Just as he felt that his skull would collapse on itself, everything went quiet and dark, a scream trying to force it's way out of his throat and getting caught in his scars. He grit his teeth against the urge, staggering blindly towards the stairs and hopefully a Sithis-damned exit. The pain of not screaming did not lessen even when he stood outside, gasping in the thin air on the cliffside. Joram-Ei traced the glowing bit of writing from the wall on his palm with bloodied fingers, and the sudden blast of air nearly sent him tumbling off the side of the damn cliff. Joram-Ei decided that the Nords could keep their cobwebbed tombs full of unquiet dead; he was certainly never going in one again if he could help it. He turned and started down the mountainside, grumbling at the weight of Lucan's ridiculous shelf decoration and the strange piece of carved stone that last draugr had been guarding so jealously. He wondered if Faendal and Sven would've figured out how to remove their heads from their own backsides by the time he got back. … He wasn't optimistic. 

Chapter Text

Lydia dithered near the great doors to Dragonsreach, hoping to catch a glimpse of her new thane. So far, she'd seen a lot of guardsmen, Irileth, and what she assumed was someone's squire. She tugged at the tight collar of her new armor—she'd worn her guard's armor with the standard Whiterun colors earlier, but Irileth told her that wasn't a good idea and had made her get a new set of steel scale from Eorlund. Lydia felt like a shiny new child's toy in this getup. She sighed, blowing a few strands of hair out of her face. She probably should have tied it back, but had hoped that the less the new thane saw of her face, the less likely he would be to make any unwelcome comments. Lydia thumbed the jeweled inlay of her amulet of Dibella for luck, scanning the crowd—all the nobility wanted to see the new thane, and the guards were clamoring about a Dragonborn finally returning to Tamriel—for anyone coming towards her. A white-haired Bosmer dressed in singed leathers slipped away from the press of bodies, striding toward her with purpose despite the slight wobble of his steps, parchment clutched in one soot-stained, bloodied hand. Lydia straightened into attention, only noticing once he got closer that what she had at first assumed to be dyed green leather boots were in fact his feet, talons clicking against the wood. She wondered if he had been born like that or if he had required the skill of a bone-smith at some point.

“Can I help you?” she asked, already scanning the hall again to see if Danica was about—this young mer dearly needed a priest to look at his injuries. The mer—boy, really, he couldn't be much older than her nephew Ragnar, who was sixteen and very vocal about his new boyfriend, Athelstan—shoved the parchment into his sword-belt and flicked his left hand in the Imperial sign for “hello”. Ah. She could work with this.

Name-mine Joram-Ei is, he signed. Balgruuf high-lord is-saying new thane am I. There was a twitch of a tail that she hadn't seen—Irileth was right, Lydia really did need some of those eye-lenses the glassblowers in the Plains District were working on—and he looked both confused and like he was about to pass out from sheer nerves. Lydia tilted her head slightly, wanting to make sure she'd understood, “your name is Joram-Ei, and Jarl Balgruuf said you're the new thane?” He nodded, fumbling the parchment out of his belt and thrusting it at her with a slightly alarming grin full of sharp teeth and fever-bright eyes. It was a deed to a house. Breezehome, near the front gate. Nice little place. She opened her mouth to ask about belongings, only to swiftly change her tune when she saw him trying to lean against a pillar like he wasn't bleeding sluggishly all over the jarl's oak floor. “Oh, Mephala's tits, come with me. You need a priest, you young idiot.” She was helping him down the stone steps from Dragonsreach into the Wind District when it occurred to her that she probably shouldn't have called her new thane an idiot. Too late now, she supposed. Maybe he'd give her some grace when he fired her.

She wasn't fired. Actually, he seemed to appreciate her bluntness. Her hold on her new job was still tenuous, though, considering she still needed to tell him about her...condition. “My thane,” Lydia said, fiddling with the clasp on her sword-belt. “I, ah, there is something I feel you should know, as my superior.” Joram-Ei looked up at her from where he was struggling to get a shelf lined up right. She took a deep breath, forcing herself to look at him so she knew where to dodge just in case he tried to throw the hammer at her or something. “I was born a man, my thane.” He just blinked at her, as if waiting for her to get to the point. “I...understand, if you wish to have a different housecarl assigned to you.”

Joram-Ei slowly put the hammer down, the shelf forgotten where it was dangling crookedly from one nail. He brought his left hand up, curled into a fist with the index and second finger out, rocking his hand side to side. The Imperial sign for “why?”. Now it was Lydia's turn to stare at him.
“Because, I was born a man, my thane. Some have...found it unsettling, before.”

He frowned at her, brows furrowing in confusion, before making a little clicking noise and whirling to rummage through his satchel, digging out fresh parchment and charcoal. My mother is Saxhleel, he wrote, Argonian, in the common tongue. Any Saxhleel can pray to the Hist and have their outer self match their mind, in whatever way that appears. Why would anyone find you doing much the same “unsettling”, as you say?

“Oh,” Lydia breathed, stunned. “That... sounds convenient.”

He smiled, it is. Can you do the same with your gods, or do you need some kind of potion or something?

“I, uh, potions, my thane. There are surgeries offered by priests of Mara and Dibella, but I am not fond of the idea of going under a knife simply for looks.”

Joram-Ei nodded, a soft rumbling curling up from his throat that almost sounded... confused? Do you need money for these potions, or are they included as an expense in your salary? And no one bothered to explain how paying you a salary is supposed to work when my income isn't exactly stable.

“I receive a stipend from the jarl, as do you as a thane.”

He startled a bit. I'm paid to be nobility?

Lydia couldn't help it. She started laughing.

Her new thane sulked at her in fine teenage fashion, hissing and snapping his teeth in annoyance as he turned back to struggling with the hopelessly crooked shelf.