Chapter Text
I am clearly starting to worry in this forgotten prison, captured by the Thalmor while I was sleeping outside of Falkreath, unaware of what was going to happen
It is now five days after Saturalia, I might drop dead by the bloody cold and I speak to nobody from days.
I started writing a diary this morning because the guards feed us while we sleep, my neighbour talks like a skeever and I am bored.
Eventually a guard shows up. I look into her face over that grey, golden hemmed shitty tunic and I recognise some of my own traits. I'm partially elf. I speak in the Alinor language I learned from my mother as a pup. "Hi darling. Why am I here? I don't even know this forgotten lands' gods."
The guard look at me confused, I keep going. "I can't remember when I ate, I hardly understand where I am and..."
She shushes me: "there might have been an issue here." then the pain.
I feel it all over my body. She speaks again: "you might want to stop speaking"
the fact is I had time to concentrate, despite the pain and Improvise a spell. I start singing myself. "There was a night I use to walk among mortals indeed"
She starts blinking, then moving her head slowly, captured unconsciously by the music.
"it was a night of darkness in Alinor ancient fortress" she clearly stop using her spell, I heave.
"and now you dance because you can do nothing else."
my hand is loosing grip, the guard is now closer to the door. I lunge and grab her clothes, untill our faces are so close that we can kiss throught the metal bars. I don't kiss her though, i smash her face on the bars and when she falls, I look for her pockets until I find a key.
When I leave the room, she is in my place and I wear her clothes. Nobody see me leaving the back door I lockpicked with a hairgrip and some magic help. I also grabbed coins from a closer room, some swords and freed all the talos worshippers.
Most of them created a distraction good enough for me to sneak through the door and turn invisible.
I am couple of islands far from the fortress leading to the Sea of Ghosts that I hear the breathing. I slowly turn.
It is a khajiit, a cat man, the main colour of his hair is blue, hemmed with white. His yellow eyes are pointed at me, he's eating a carrot and say: "all's good, pal?"
I blink, he smiles: "You freed me and I owe you my life." I blink again, he adds: "Name's Inigo. I am still working on my surname" "Alessia, happy to have done it but"I raise a hand and show him the palm: "I don't care. I work alone."
He shakes his head: "I swear I owe you my life since I killed you before?" This time I step backwards: "what do you mean?" then I stop: "how in oblivion do you see beyond my spell of invisibility?"
He shrugs: "no idea" keeps eating, he's still wearing the rough prison clothes but he doesn't flinch.
"All right" i heave "you owe me nothing whatever you think you did and I swear you can't kill me that easily."
He sighs: "I swear that I killed you, down in riften. They brought us together and we were pards, almost leaders of the Riften Thieves guilds" this time I laugh hard, I laugh hard looking around. Then I shake my head: "listen cat." he corrects me "Inigo" I don't repeat his name: "You owe me shits. I am now leaving and you are not following me. Even because you will probably die of cold. Forgotten" I turn invisible again and I let him look at me with wet eyes. I sigh but turn my back against him.
I start walking, ignoring him until I found myself in a foggy swampland. I turn towards the Snowhawk village. Not much is left but the towers of the fort. I go stealth up on a hill, ignoring it because I can see no flags but dark banners.
A wooden guarded bridge on a river, takes me to the proper hjalmarch's territory. I ignore the guards, this is clearly Imperial territory because the Imperial banner, where on a purple red, golden hemmed background, a golden dragon is opening its wings, it is moving at the wind together with the triskelion on green of Morthal's City. And, on the street, a small doggie appears to me. He barks until I caress his head. "nice boy, nice boy" he lunges away and turns, barking.
I follow him and he leads me to a couple of ill-equipped cottages. One is made of wood and it's in ruins. The other has still a door and red roof made of hay but still red and yellow walls.
The dog leads me to the first one. It served probably as a storehouse or small barn. There's buckets, wood and also decaying meat.
Next to an axe, there's the decomposing body of a guy. Or what's left of it.
I immediately raise my hand to cover my mouth and I sigh. Then shake my head: "doggie, love. I'm sorry to tell you" i kneel and whisper to the dog who barks sadly.
I hug it for a long while. Then I move to the close cottage. As imagined, there's a key under a rock. I shake my head.
The dog doesn't follow me inside. I look around, it is mostly a room but there's a kitchen stove, a bed, in an adjacent room without a door the latch of a trapdoor. I look inside, at the feeble light of several candels, as i climb down the stairs, I can see a hot spring in a large room filled with stalagmites and stalactites trying to reach one another in a medium cave. I heave and start undressing.
I stay in that bubling hot spring until I almost fall asleep but I can't allow myself to stay here this close to an Imperial hold.
I leave the spring and climb the stairs again.
Now it is dusk, there's no trace of the dog and I stealthy look around until I find a wardrobe. Out of a mistake I touch the background wall. It is hollow. I close my eyes and I let my hands touch the wall untill I find a latch. I pull it and a secret passage opens in front of my eyes.
It is an alchemist cove. There is a lot of different tables with ingredients, an alchemy and staff table and also a small bed made of hay. I nod, stepping back to grab some clothes.
They look like Mage's guild clothes. I notice immediately they have protection spells on them. I choose the colours I like and I take them on the bed. I grab some sturdy boots as well. The clothes' material is decent and they have a cape as well. I dress up fast then I grab one of the golden, elvish swords I stole in the fortress and I let it slide inside a sheath hanging at the hip of this coloured clothes. I look around guided by my sense of smell. I recognised the smell of dried meat. untill I find another latch. I open another trapdoor.
I grab what I can and I fill a bag.
As soon as I am outside of the place, the dog is next to me. I hesitate a moment then I kneel on one knee and caress his head. "I can have some company in the marshes, no prob..but...you need a name" I sigh, for a moment, then I say: "you're minuetto from now on." I repeat the name, the dog look at me with an intelligent gaze and bark.
I nod and i cast invisibility on both of us, entering the marshes again.
Chapter 1 Myrwatch and Halfdan's visions.
It's been several of hours when, passed the Snowhawk fort with the castle ruins and also the wooden palisades of Morthal now at my back, I slam my forehead with my hand: "damn, water!" my Imperial accent fills the air as I realise I've also no idea where I am. The dog barks but, despite he's close to me, all is padded as a figure moves fast behind me and I don't see it. He's clearly wearing an hat and he's limping, hanging by a tall staff.
Then I feel dizziness before to fall like dead.
"Untrue." When I wake up the smell of apple crumble is in the air: "am I having hallucinations? Pie, from Ma?" I bite my lips as I see, sit by my bed, a bald man in his fifties, clearly a nord. I grumble "for all the bloody daedras." He smiles: "You finally woke up kid." I sigh: "me, a kid?" i say as I sense what's around. I cast without speaking a spell to see if there's somebody around. Sense life or something. One is clearly Minuetto, there are two more dogs, bigger than him and...damn, the cat-man. He's snoring on a bed not far from mine. The man stands: "you should eat and also drink" I shake my head: "I don't know who you are, old geezer." I keep the pantomime of being younger than him while I sit in the bed, checking myself. "all's good, you didn't use my body?" the man laughs hard: "why should have I do that? My work" he hesitates "I give people succor. I'm called a clever folk but really, not big deal"
In the meantime, I moisten my lips, sensing if I can step on my feet. An old trick, I learned from a warlock back in Bruma: "find your centre, little girl" he used to tell me and see if you have balance.
I did that, than I grab a fork on a close table and I lunge at him, raising the for.
"Are you that hungry?"The man simply turns away, like I never attacked him. He serves me a portion of pie and hand it to me.
"Do you like mead or like an elf like you look, you prefer wine?"
I mutter: "red wine" as I think about my next move. Minuetto steps next to me and licks my hand. "darling" I just say.
I grab the glass when he hands it to me and drink a sip. "doesn't look poisoned" I whisper to myself.
The dog whines, I caress his head. The geezer sits me gently on a wooden chair and I find myself in front an amazing pie in a wooden plate. The time I take a piece, that's finished. "listen, pal" I sigh, cleaning my lips with my tongue "you say that you saved me. I appreciate it but why?" He raise an eyebrow: "why not? That's my job I told you, if Jhunal allows it."
I narrow my eyes:"Jhunal? The nordic god of Runes? Still somebody believes in him?" He freezes for a second then he nods: "We're more than you think." I am still confused. "wait..." i blink and asks:"are you a daedra?"
He burst laughing and Inigo wakes up: "what the..."
Part 2
We are now sat at the same table: a cat-man nearly all blue, a dirty nord with blue eyes and a black tunic, my friend Minuetto. Somewhere there are two more dogs I haven't yet seen.
Inigo finished all the pie and I am sipping my wine, overlapping my legs and discussing like a proper Altmer. My father would laugh hard about it. I blink: "so, we're right outside Morthal?"
Halfdan is the man's name, he nods: "this is an appendix of the Shalidor's college, it is called Myrwatch"
I narrow my eyes: "It is not in the brochure of the college" He laugh hard: "you read a brochure about the college? You want to go there?" I immediately shake my head: "nope. I could teach them all but my mentor, Meldon" big, fat lie "read it to me. I can't read." another one. The geezer is giving me his back as he caress Minuetto. He turns again: "Jhunal tells me you're a big liar" I gasp: "really? Why you say that?" He laughs again: "he says that you all sons of Akatosh are. " It is my time to burst in laughing: "My father's name was Helm, from Bruma, old man. Stop it."
He shakes his head: "you're the dragonborn, kid and you'll discover it soon." My jaw falls and I can't speak, a glass fall on the ground as Inigo gasps too.
At this point, I stand, abruptedly: "I heard all kind of bulls in my life and it is a long life, mind it, but this beats them all." I grab my hood, look for my sword around and hang it on my hip. "time to go Minuetto", I whistle, looking around in the big tower where we are. "where is the exit, old man?" The man stands too and grabs a backpack, passes another to me and also Inigo stands.
"I show you because I will walk with you. Also Inigo has something to say." Inigo steps in, takes a deep breath: "I swear" he kneels and adds: "to serve you untill I repay my debt or die doing it" I swear against Molag Bal. "Dibella's tits, stop it cat-man. Leave me alone" Halfdan shakes his head: "I saw both of you" his eyes turn white: "You'll meet him in Falkreath's Hold and he'll save your life but your posse is not yet completed." He moistens his lips "A orsimer and two dunmers will join you, an Imperial, a khajiit and a nord. The Dragonborn Contuberno. " he slams his forehead: "There's also a couple twin sisters. One's Reguard and one's Breton" I burst in laughter: "You're a crazy one."
He's still speaking as i step out. His last words are: "and a Vampire is your soul mate."
I burst in laughter for hours after that.