Jump to content
Existing user? Sign In

Sign In



Sign Up
  • entries
    17
  • comments
    0
  • views
    3,524

8 | Morndas, 1 Evening Star 4E 201


579 views

                It was late morning by the time Azhani was awake and downstairs, which made it particularly surprising that there was absolutely nobody at the bar – nobody behind the counter, no Romlyn Dreth telling stories waiting for the socially-acceptable time to drink, nothing. There was the smell of meat in the air, and a fire was going strong in the pit that served as a stove, but beyond that it would have seemed like the place was abandoned.

                Well, abandoned aside from the fact that the entire current residency was gathered around a table in the dining room – more accurately, two tables that had been pressed together. A few heads turned to acknowledge the new arrival, but only Keerava said anything to her directly.

                “Oh, hey,” she said, bringing up her mug of whatever-that-was in a sort of salute. “Looks like you’re not the only one getting a day off.” Then she waved the Khajiit over, who tentatively took a seat next to Keerava, leaving herself directly across from Lydia, who was more invested in the conversation Talen and the Dragonborn were having. War stories, by the sound of it, though very much a one-sided discussion. “As it turns out,” Keerava said, bringing Azhani’s attention back to her own side of the table, “Even the Nords around here don’t much like snow. They’d rather sit around and get drunk off their asses in the comfort of their own home than make the effort to dig their way over to the local bar.” She drank from her mug of whatever – by the smell of it, it was apparently some sort of tea – and went on. “Not that I can blame them. I mean, it’s still snowing, probably won’t stop until tomorrow. I sure wouldn’t want to dig out the streets only for them to get covered up again. You want some?” She had grabbed the pitcher that had been sitting on the table near her and re-filled her own mug – though the tea surely had to be cold by now, sitting there out in the open – and was now waving it at the Khajiit next to her.

                Azhani nodded quietly and took some bread from a plate in the middle of the table, speaking while Keerava found a new cup and filled it with tea that was definitely no longer the correct temperature. “Wouldn’t you want people to come in today, though?”

                “Oh, yeah, of course.” She handed the cup over to the Khajiit. “Can’t get paid by people who aren’t here. But business was going to be shit anyways, I’d have to do way more work than makes any kind of sense, and I’d have to put up with Romlyn and his asinine stories about how his ancestor was imprisoned alongside the Champion of Cyrodiil. I mean, how do you even go from being some nobody horse thief or whatever in some dank cell under the Imperial City, to being savior of the world?”

                “Happens more often than you’d think,” Bjorn chimed in. “Haven’t you heard of the Nerevarine?”

                “Everyone who knows how to read knows about the Nerevarine. What about him?” Keerava had set her tea down and was now leaning back with her arms crossed, while Azhani was listening in quietly, working on her bread.

                “Well, the Nerevarine started off as a prisoner, too, y’know. Emperor at the time was, uh… Uriel, I think. Guy right before Martin, ended up getting himself killed. Anyways, he gets this vision or something, decides to release these prisoners he has, so he sends them off to Vvardenfell, one of them ends up punching Dagoth Ur in the face and stabs some heart or something. I forget the details, but we all know the story.” Bjorn took a swig of his own drink, which was definitely not tea. “Oh, but that’s not even the best part. I, uh… found… this book, right?” Lydia looked off to the side while Bjorn spoke, trying to seem casual, but obviously knowing more than either of the two were saying. “Memoirs of Saint Jiub. The guy says that he was on the same prison boat as the Nerevarine. Crazy, isn’t it?”

                “Jiub the fucking Eradicator?” Keerava was leaning forwards now, with her elbows on the table. Azhani and Talen were watching silently from either side of her, neither of them really knowing what to do. “You’re telling me, Saint fucking Jiub was a prisoner shipped off to Vvardenfell along with the Nerevarine?”

                “The guy who would become the Nerevarine, yes.”

                “And, what, that’s supposed to make Romlyn’s crazy stories more believable?” While Keerava was talking, Azhani was reaching across the table to get to that pitcher. Cold, yes, but still good.

                “No, just the part about the Champion of Cyrodiil having been a prisoner. All that Mythic Dawn crap he says Valen got involved in, I ain’t buying. But it definitely makes sense that the guy who saves the world started off as a prisoner.”

                Keerava threw up her hands in defeat. “Alright, fine, you win, but that doesn’t make his stories any less of a pain to listen to every damn day.” Then she stood up. “Now I’m going to go back to sleep. Have fun with your history lesson.” She turned and walked off towards the stairs, with the faint sound of a door closing above confirming her location.

                Everyone else got up a little bit afterwards, too – everyone except the Dragonborn, who had his feet up on the table and his chair in critical danger of falling backwards, just sitting there drinking. Though, with nothing for any of them to do, they didn’t go far. Talen underwent the unthinkably massive journey of travelling all the way to the opposite side of the table to talk to the Dragonborn, and everyone else went off to some corner of the inn or another. Azhani quietly followed Lydia, not paying attention to anyone else’s whereabouts, though she heard a brief exchange between Talen and the Dragonborn that seemed to be about gemstones, or something along those lines. Nothing was actually exchanged, though – not that she was paying attention to expensive things changing hands, or anything.

                Lydia was paying attention, though, and noticed the Khajiit walking up behind her. “Hi,” she said, “Need something?” She was sitting on a table, looking out the nearest window. The view was pure white, a combination of the modest amount of snow that had piled up outside and the cold glazing all the windows with a layer of frost.

                “Actually, yes. Need some help.” Azhani had her tail at her side and was stroking it with one hand, in a way that would have looked like grooming, but considering she couldn’t seem to look at any one thing, the idea of asking someone else to do anything for her was making her nervous. “Need, uh, protection. Escort.”

                “Eh?” Lydia had stopped looking out the window and was now watching the Khajiit. “What for?”

                Azhani muttered something inaudible and moved her tail around so that she could hold onto it with both hands – for some reason it made her remember that one time she saw a painting of a bridge in some temple somewhere – but when Lydia just tilted her head, clearly not having heard anything, Azhani spoke again, a little louder. “Ratways,” she said. “Have to go to the Ratways. It’s dangerous there. Need help.”

                “Oh, is that it?” Lydia jumped down from the table and stretched. “Guess you’re not the type to carry weapons around, huh? Well, I’ll go let the Thane know.”

                Azhani froze as Lydia started to walk off. “Wait, what? Why?”

                “Because he’s got to go down there, too. Rescue some old guy or something. I don’t know, don’t really care, I just carry his stuff. And technically I can’t really go anywhere without telling him first, because that’s how housecarls work, I guess.” Lydia shrugged. “Good chance to get it done, though, if we’re going down there for you anyways.” She started walking again, but turned around one more time. “Oh, you don’t have anything to wear in the cold, do you?” Azhani shook her head, and Lydia continued, “Well, alright, meet us down here in an hour or two, I’ll have something for you.”

 

                Sure enough, two hours later, Bjorn and Lydia came downstairs fully armored, both wearing hoods tucked into the padding beneath the plates with scarves bundled up around their necks – Bjorn wearing his traditional red, Lydia now wearing a plain dark gray. Lydia had a bundle of thick tan cloth in her arms. She set the bundle down on the nearest table as Azhani walked over. The Khajiit had spent the entirety of the last two hours wandering around on the ground floor of the inn, making some attempt to socialize with Talen, and mindlessly checking the various barrels and bottles lying around.

                Lydia waved one hand over the bundle on the table. “Here you go,” she said, as Azhani lifted it. The bundle promptly unfolded, revealing itself to be a travelling cloak. Slightly bigger than Azhani’s frame, it was clearly intended to fit Lydia, but it was a proper, heavy woolen cloak, sure to keep out the elements. It even had fur around where one’s neck and shoulders would go, though that would likely only be useful for aesthetics. And it was slightly unnerving – it was definitely from some fox or something, but Azhani still felt weird handling it. One thing to be covered in fur naturally, another thing entirely to wear something else’s at the same time. Or someone else’s. The Dunmer didn’t do that anymore as far as she knew, but still.

                All she could say in response was “Uh, thanks” as she put the cloak on and adjusted it around the neck to make it fit better. When she put her arms down, the cloak surrounded her so completely that only her feet and the tip of her tail could be seen sticking out from the very bottom. Then she headed to the front door without another word, leaving the Nords to follow behind.

                It was still snowing, and Azhani had to work her way out the door and on top of the little pile of snow packed in front of the door. Fortunately, since the door was slightly recessed, that space didn’t get as much snowfall as the area around it. That still had the problem of there being a rather significant amount of snow on the ground everywhere else – only half a foot or so, barely anything by Skyrim standards, but still uncomfortable to navigate considering Azhani’s boots were old and worn-out from years of being her only footwear, and weren’t even intended for this kind of activity even when they were new.

                Fortunately, the Nords seemed to have a solution. Lydia stepped outside first, followed by Bjorn, who came forward, planted his feet into the snow as securely as possible, and looked down at the ground. Then he Shouted:

FO, KRAH DIIIIIII-

                The last word blended into the sound of ice magically pouring from his mouth, chilling the snow in front of him even beyond its regular frozen status. Azhani shivered behind him – her cloak could apparently not protect from even the residual chill from a blast of a dragon’s ice-breath. Good thing she didn’t have to test that out on a real dragon. The Shout ended after a few seconds, though, and as soon as Bjorn had shut his mouth, he held one arm up in the air, then quickly dropped it again in a slamming motion, accompanied by a purple flame. There was a cracking sound as all the super-frozen snow suddenly packed itself down, providing a solid walking surface.

                “Well, let’s get going then,” Bjorn said, rubbing his hands together and stretching.

                The Shout-and-telekinesis combination had to be done repeatedly on the trip down to the Ratway entrance, making what would have been a relatively short walk into an extremely slow hike. The good thing about that was it gave Azhani plenty of time to think. She had nearly forgotten why she had come to Riften in the first place, after all, and now was a good time to consider her plans. The bad thing was having time to think made her realize that she’d been wandering around the dining room back in the inn for the last two hours. In fact, she was already fully dressed when she came downstairs right after waking up, so she couldn’t remember if she had gone back to her room for anything. Though for right now that wouldn’t be a problem as long as she didn’t spend too much time thinking about it.

                In fact, that might not even be a problem at all, if they could get through the Ratway quickly and not get interrupted by some maniac with magic gloves, or something like that. All things considered, it didn’t take them too long to actually get into the Ratway – the last little bit of the route was all underneath the regular boardwalk-streets, so there was hardly any snow there to deal with. Once they were in, all three of them stopped for a moment to clean the snow off themselves. Azhani shook her head energetically. Her hood was big enough to cover her eyes if she pulled it up, so her usually jet-black hair was now powdered white from standing outside for so long. She was fairly sure some of that snow ended up on the Nords, which wasn’t necessarily a bad outcome. Neither of them seemed to notice, though, so after a minute they were on their way.

                The tunnels were extremely straightforward, at least at the entrance. Quite literally, even. All they had to do was walk directly forward – indeed, that was all they could do – before they came across a room with a pair of bandits living in it. Azhani ended up in the back of the group, which proved to be very useful when they encountered this minor annoyance. Without anything in their way, the Nords were able to take the bandits down before they could even decide that it was just the wind. Being behind everyone else also had the advantage of giving Azhani extra cover if she needed to move around discreetly, though the cloak already provided cover enough for that. Also she didn’t need to – there was a feeling there that she knew she should do something about, but that was it.

                That feeling was soon accompanied by a feeling of great annoyance. The group had come to a drawbridge. Except it was raised. And the lever to lower it was on the other side of the gap. “Okay, first question.” Bjorn was rubbing his forehead, very much displeased, though not at the bridge itself. “Who in Oblivion puts a drawbridge in a sewer? Second question. What moron puts the lever for a drawbridge in a sewer on the far side of the bridge?”

                Lydia looked down over the edge and into the gap the bridge would have spanned. “Small enough drop to jump down. Looks like the only choice.”

                “Couldn’t he just, eh, Shout his way across and pull the lever?” Azhani’s question was technically directed at Lydia, since she still didn’t want to talk to the Dragonborn.

                “Oh, sure, I could,” he said. He made no indication that he noticed the question’s intended target. “If I wanted to slam my face into that bridge. And I don’t. We’ve got to go around.” Then he jumped down to the floor below. His head still reached up to the floor he was just standing on. “Well, let’s not spend too long waiting around here, huh?”

                Lydia and Azhani looked at each other for a moment and shrugged, before they both jumped down and followed along. Azhani took a second to recover from the impact of the landing, mentally reassuring herself that everything was fine. Particularly noticeable now, though, but still fine. So she carried on, and neither of the Nords noticed she had fallen slightly behind.

                It didn’t take long for the group to stop again, though. They were passing through one room, when a door opened off to the side and an old vagrant stumbled out to greet them. Although, his definition of “greet” seemed to be shouting “Aim for the middle one” at himself and throwing wildly inaccurate drunken punches. He flailed around for a while, occasionally landing a hit on the Dragonborn, creating slight dents on the armor plating that shouldn’t have been physically possible. Bjorn, of course, just stood there. “Stop that,” he said. “What are you doing?” He received no answer and the drunk continuing punching in his general direction. Once Bjorn grew tired of that – which only took a couple of minutes – he grabbed the drunk by the shoulders and used his knee for the only thing it could do beyond storing arrows. When he released his hold, the drunk ended up immediately on the ground, rolling around aimlessly. Bjorn took a moment to slide the gloves off the drunk’s hands, and gave them to Lydia. “Good magic on these, hold onto them for a while, will you?” The answer he got was something muttered about burdens, which was apparently satisfactory, since he continued on like nothing had just happened. Lydia followed, and Azhani hurried along a few seconds later once she had properly absorbed that encounter and realized that she was starting to fall behind again.

                Fortunately for all three of them, the rest of the journey was very much uneventful and straightforward – they came across and pulled the lever for the drawbridge, but beyond that it was very simple walk to their destination, with hardly any distractions. Especially fortunate for Azhani, since that tea of hers had finished settling down and was now letting her know that now would be a great time to do something about it. Eager to not wet herself for once this week, as soon as they passed through the door to the run-down cistern that passed for a bar down in the Ratway, Azhani stopped the group.

                “Okay, here is far enough,” she said. Her legs were shuffling ever so slightly under her cloak, subtle enough to not be visible from the outside. “Go on ahead, can get back alone.”

                “What, here?” Bjorn looked around. “What’s here? Why would y-“ He cut himself off by pointing far too dramatically at the Khajiit. “You’re Thieves Guild?”

                “Yes, Azha is Thieves Guild.” She shrugged like it was just part of normal life.

                Lydia had run off to some distant corner while Bjorn continued. “But, why? Why would you do this? There are plenty of ways to make money without having to take it from someone else.”

                Azhani really didn’t have time for this. Having someone criticize her life choices wasn’t high on her list of priorities. “Has it noticed,” she started, “that there is a war going on? Has it noticed that there are dragons burning down cities and eating people?”

                “Yes! Yes, I have! They’re kind of hard to ignore. I’d think that makes it an even better reason to not steal from people, since everyone else has lost so much.”

                “We don’t steal from the poor. And does it really think they’re not doing what they can to survive? This one does this because it’s all she can do to survive.” Fortunately, her legs were still concealed, because she’d probably be taken far less seriously if their movement was visible.

                “Surviving doesn’t have to involve taking things from other people. Things aren’t easy, but there are other ways to get by.” Bjorn crossed his arms.

                “How should it know? It’s the Dragonborn. When has it ever had to fight to survive?” That tail lashing could very easily be interpreted as anger. And, sure, that’s what it was. Mostly.

                “Before I got to Skyrim, actually, if you must know. Don’t you know about Helgen? My head was on the godsdamned block all because I happened to be on the wrong side of the border, near the wrong road, at the perfect time to meet the guards taking Ulfric Stormcloak to his death. Shit, I was born in Bruma during the Great War, and let me tell you, Cyrodiil is the last place you want to be when the Dominion is busy burning down White-Gold and raping everyone in the Imperial City.”

                 “But it wasn’t in the Imperial City, was it? It was in Bruma. Dominion never touched Bruma. And it was too young to remember anything, anyways.” Azhani just realized that she was in a shouting match with the Dragonborn, which could get extremely terrible if it escalated into the other kind of Shouting match. Didn’t matter, though. And there was still that whole bladder situation to contend with, too – it was yelling at her even louder than she was yelling at Bjorn.

                “Sure, sure, but that fucking idiot Titus got, what was it, three Legions killed taking the city back.” He inadvertently let some flames escape from his hands, which were now tightly balled into fists – fortunately the flames were only light bursts, and were gone as soon as they had started. “Legions too small, no police. And guess what the first place they decided to recall the Legions from was? The force there never actually recovered.”

                “So, wait, it knows what these wars do. Why hasn’t it tried to stop this war?” On one hand, this was greatly reducing the pressure in Azhani’s abdomen. On the other, that pressure would all come back at once when she calmed down again.

                “I- what?” Bjorn was expecting some other criticism about how all the supply lines to Bruma were still intact.

                “It’s the Dragonborn. Has it gone to Solitude? To Windhelm? Has it talked to Tullius or Stormcloak?” She wasn’t quite sure, but Azhani thought she felt a little drop escape. “It- you. You could convince them to end the war.” Taking a deep breath just then probably wasn’t the best idea, since Azhani felt a brief spurt rush out as she did.

                “What do you- they wouldn’t-“ It took a moment for the Dragonborn to find the right words. “Even if I had gone over to try to convince them, neither of them would go ahead and end the war. Not alone. Not without…”

                Azhani was left waiting for him to stop being lost in thought. And she didn’t really have the time to wait. “Dragonborn!”

                “Ah, what?” He shook his head. “Oh, right, no, I know what I need to do. I know how to end the war. Just need… Yeah.” Bjorn started to run off towards his initial destination, but before he was completely gone he turned around and yelled “Thank you”.

                The little Khajiit, meanwhile, was left rather confused. She had no idea how that conversation had reached that conclusion. But, now that it was over, she had one thing only to focus on. Lucky for her, she knew the exact location of what she needed down there. There was a closet across the room, a place that nobody ever went into – odds were nobody even realized it existed, since it had nothing to do with the secret entrance to the Guild just nearby. It took some miracle, but Azhani managed to rush over as fast as she could with her cloak nearly tripping her, and only a few drops had escaped on the way, still not enough to leave a mark on her pants. She wasted no time actually getting into the closet and shutting the door behind her. The room had no light source at all, but that was hardly a problem – Azhani couldn’t see any containers on the floor, but that was more because there were none there than because it was dark. She did see a bottle or a pitcher or something on a shelf within arm’s reach, though, and immediately grabbed it, simultaneously undressing just enough to get this to work.

                There was a brief moment of careful positioning, which perhaps included a leak or two hitting the floor directly, but once everything was in position, Azhani didn’t even bother lowering herself to a squat. She just stood there, emptying herself into a jug she was carefully holding up in exactly the right position with one hand. All she really could do was just lean back against the door and wait. She closed her eyes, listening to the sound of her stream hitting the clay walls of the jug, which drowned out the sounds of criminals getting up to whatever they were doing out in the bar. Hopefully they couldn’t hear it from there.

                It took a minute, but eventually she finished – just in time, too, the jug wasn’t particularly big and was nearly at capacity. She set the container back where she found it and dressed up again, dusting off her cloak and thoroughly checking her pants to make sure there was no visible wetness on them. Satisfied, she quietly left the closet and slipped through the cabinet that acted as the door to the Guild. She had quite a few things to tell Brynjolf, but this was most definitely not one of them.

0 Comments


Recommended Comments

There are no comments to display.

Guest
Add a comment...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...