Work Text:
3E 407. The Imperial City, Cyrodiil.
Janus Versero hated Saturalia.
He hated it because the rich made merry whilst he slogged through another day of hard labour. He hated it because Saint Saturio promised false hope to the children of the downtrodden and the damned. He hated it because it reminded him of days when the weight of life was not so heavy, and when hope and faith were lights not yet extinguished by endless toil.
That year, bitter winds had blown off the Jerall Mountains too soon, and brought the icy breath of Skyrim south before the fields were cut. The pinch of poverty struck the poorest the hardest, and the wealthy no longer remembered Saint Saturio and his spirit of giving. Saturalia was merely a chance for nobles to show off – their wives would parade through the streets in their fine new frocks, reeking of Rihadi roses and shining with jewels mined by a child a thousand miles away. No porridge for the poor man, no respite for the homeless, no cure for the sick.
Snow had always been rare in this part of Tamriel. Mostly, Kynareth just brought freezing rain to overflow the sewers, or the occasional bout of hail to pommel their aching heads. Tonight bore a slow, weak drizzle, foggy and cold, but that didn’t stop the revellers. Their songs drifted on the breeze from better parts of the city than where Janus was headed. Once in a distant past, his own family would watch the parade pass their door, join the line, and sing songs of hope and joy.
Those days were hazy memories.
All Janus did now was work. That’s all he’d done for thirty years. His father was the one to blame - a gambler, and not a very good one. Every septim his ancestors had struggled to accumulate, every scrap of silver and gold, Janus’ father had bet it on the Arena. The Versero family lost their standing, their honour, their wealth. Now there was only Janus, a fifty-year-old man with nothing to show for life but the scars on his hands, hands which once wrote in a scholar’s cursive flair.
He trudged into the crooked streets he called home. Thirty years he’d worked down at the docks for measly scraps, thirty years with no time for anything else. No wife, no children. The distant rumble of the celebrations mingled with the screams of a woman from a nearby window.
Why had he carried on for so long? Until now, Janus had held onto hope that things might change. He might meet a woman – maybe she would have a little money, enough for him to start a business, lift them out of poverty. Or maybe she wouldn’t, but they would find other ways to make it work, a way to be happy. His thirties passed, then his forties, but now…
Hope drained into nothing.
He looked up at the gallows in the square, ropes swaying in the breeze, and wondered if he would be doing himself a favour.
But first, I’ll clean myself up, wear my least threadbare shirt. Might as well take what’s left of my dignity to Aetherius.
The music of the whorehouse drifted out from its windows, a grim chorus of hollers and whoops and uncomfortable groans. Behind its red curtains, an eternal candlelit glow, shadows of exhausted women thrown upon the walls. Janus came downstairs more often than he liked to admit. At least the landlady took some of his payments out of the rent for the leaky, cold loft he rented above it.
With a heavy grunt, Janus dragged himself up the stairs, blocking out a wailing noise from somewhere around the brothel.
No, not from the brothel. Janus frowned and held up his lantern.
A dark shape was laid before the door to his loft, wailing softly.
As Janus lowered the lantern, the light fell upon the face of a baby.
‘By Akatosh,’ Janus muttered.
The child was a Dunmer, swaddled in a scarlet blanket, an amulet laid upon him. Janus recognised the crescent moon studded with a single star, gleaming in the firelight. A symbol of Azura.
For a moment, the man glanced around, confused. He hadn’t slept with any Dunmer women. Not recently, anyway. Not recently enough.
Who in Oblivion thinks they can just leave their kid at my door?
With an angry huff, Janus chucked his work gear down by the door and scooped the baby up. As he did, the child wriggled its chubby little arm out of the swaddling and grabbed at his face. Janus gasped. The child’s eyes were red as mountain-fire, glimmering like rubies.
Janus gave himself a firm shake. ‘I’m taking you to the orphanage.’
The baby giggled and reached for his beard, clutching at it with stubby fingers.
‘Hey, watch it!’ Janus grumbled. The baby ogled him, brow furrowed in a grumpy frown. ‘Oh – no, no, don’t cry. Hey, don’t cry. Shh.’
But the baby only burst into bubbling laughter again.
Janus sighed. ‘Sure, laugh at me. Everyone else does.’ He shuddered against the chill. ‘You can’t have been out here long, hm? Damn cold out here.’
As he went to head down the stairs with the child, Janus caught sight of the gallows swinging in the breeze. Then he looked back at the grinning baby. A single snowflake, bright as a silver coin, fell upon the child’s head.
‘Snow,’ he marvelled. ‘There’s been no snow on Saturalia for over a decade now.’
More flakes whirled around them in a flurry. The baby reached up to catch them, and a note became dislodged from under the wrappings. Janus plucked it from the blanket and pressed out the creases.
My darling boy,
I’m sorry if the ink runs. I can’t keep from crying. As I write this letter, you are laid beside me, sweetly dreaming. It kills me to let you go, but I must.
If you are reading this, perhaps the stranger I left you with has shown you some kindness. Or maybe he passed you on to someone else who could. Either way, I hope someone gave you the life I couldn’t. For half a year I have tried, but I’m not fit to be your mother. I am ruled by addiction, and I do things to fund it that no child should live with. I’m so sorry.
I named you Teldryn, after my brother. Please, bear his name with honour. He no longer lives to honour it himself. I leave to you his Azurite rosary. In our tradition, we add a bead each time Azura grants us a blessing. It would please the ancestors for you to do the same.
Good luck in everything you do with your life, my son. Be proud, be wise, and above all, be strong. The world is a harsh place, but it’s there for you to take.
Know that when death takes me, I will watch over you from Moonshadow, and spin your nightmares into dreams.
I love you forever.
- Ama
Janus choked back a hard lump in his throat. A vision of his own mother came to him, swallowed up by misery and debt, fallen from the graceful, educated, elegant woman she once was. Skooma claimed her life in the end.
‘Well, there’s something we have in common,’ Janus said to the boy. ‘We’re both losing in life.’
Teldryn blinked, giving a low cry, and shrunk with a shiver.
Janus looked to the gallows once more as the snow came thick and fast. With a resigned sigh, he cradled the boy to his chest.
‘Alright, then,’ he muttered. ‘In the spirit of Saint Saturio hm? Me and you against this damn place.’
The door clicked softly behind them, and the bells chimed midnight.