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They drink together on the weekends after Martin finishes the day’s duties in the chapel.
The Dunmer who moved into town a few weeks ago to finish his writing in peace is a bit odd and Martin’s not really sure which parts of his stories are true and which parts of his stories are wild exaggerations, but he soon welcomes his company more than he does than most.
(He’d otherwise spend those last few hours before bed dwelling over blood and daedric flesh and mistakes he dare not speak of.)
Jiub introduces him to a bitter but satisfying type of sujamma only made during the summer in Narsis. Martin introduces him to good stout ales and the myriad varieties of Cyrodiilic wines.
Once he has a bottle or two in him, Jiub starts talking about tracking devil-birds through the Ashlands, about how to make arrows from the bones of cliff racers, about beautiful gods with hair of flame and eyes that see into the fabric of the universe. Martin is reticent at first. He doesn’t like talking about his past or even remembering those wild years before everything went wrong -or maybe he just realized that it had been wrong all along- before he became a priest and tried to pretend that nothing had ever happened at all, but as the weeks go on, he opens up more and more. There comes a day when he lets slip -and he’s honestly not sure if he does it accidentally or on purpose- that he used to be in a daedric cult, that of Sanguine, but rather than flinch away from him as if he is unclean, unfit for decent company like many would or ask for sordid details like many others would and have, he simply nods, takes another swig of his bottle, and listens. And for the first time in years, Martin talks.
One day, there isn’t a Kvatch anymore and that’s the last time Martin tastes sujamma.
