Evening, 27 of Last Seed, 3E433
'And here I sit,' Sabine Russoric sat on the stool in the back corner of her miserably damp cell, looking around tiredly as she leaned onto the rickety table before her, chin resting in her hand. 'So much for 'job security'. Damned elf. Sold me off for a bag of septims first chance he got,' she sneered to no one in particular, glaring at the floor near the bars to the cell. 'Master Rinauld always used to brag that those born under the Thief were lucky. Shows what she knows.'
She looked up when someone called out from outside her cell. Tiredly, almost bored, she stood, wrist irons clinking faintly against the table as she rose to her feet. As she neared her bars and peered across the dimly lit hall, she saw movement behind the bars of the cell across from hers. She squinted, leaning a little closer to the bars, and a scrawny-looking Dunmer came into view. He crossed his arms defensively and looked her over with a smirk. Losing interest, Sabine let go of the bars and copied his posture, leaning against the wall to stare across at him with a raised eyebrow.
"Pale skin, snotty expression.. You're a Breton. 'Masters of magicka, right?" He snickered looking her over with a leer. "You don't look like much to me. Just a stuck-up harlot with some cheap parlor tricks." When she rolled her eyes, he bristled. "Go ahead," he taunted. "Make those bars disappear."
They stared at each other in silence for a moment. Sabine decided he wasn't worth answering, and sat down on the step at the front of her cell, leaning her head back against the wall.
"No?" The Dunmer male taunted again. "What's the matter? Not so powerful now, are you Breton?" He let out another laugh when she sighed in annoyance. "You're not leaving this prison 'til they throw your body in the lake!"
Sabine heard a faint creaking of metal, and her head snapped up. She leaned forward and peered toward the stairs, trying to make out the sounds coming from the floor above. The prisoner across the hall seemed to think he had gotten the better of her, and continued talking.
"Oh, that's right. You're going to die in here, Breton!"
"Will you shut up?" She finally hissed at him. "I can't hear what's going on."
He sneered at her as the sounds of heavy boot steps came closer. "You hear that?" He snapped, and she had the distinct desire to carve his tongue out of his mouth. "The guards are coming. For you!"
Sabine jumped to her feet and leaned to the side, peering up the darkened stairs that led to the main level of the prison. "Shut up!" she hissed again.
She frowned, taking an involuntary step back from the entrance to her cell. Those weren't prison guards. Their armor was too fine, too ornate. And they had an old man with him. Sabine's eyes widened, and she staggered away from the door, bumping into the table hard enough to send the tan pitcher on it clattering to the floor, spilling what precious water remained inside it across the damp and cold floor. She was too busy staring at the rich purple robes of the old man before her, the authoritative air he gave off. She had never seen him in person before.
The Emperor.
What in Oblivion was he doing in the Imperial Prisons? Surely it wasn't common practice for the leader of the Empire to wander damp dungeons in his finery.
"What's this prisoner doing in here?" The woman before him snapped at one of the other men in ornate armor. Sabine frowned slightly and looked closer at the design as the woman continued speaking. "This cell's supposed to be off limits!"
"U-Usual mix up at the Watch," the man stammered, "I..."
The woman scoffed, cutting off his near-excuse. "Just get this cell open!" she ordered in a very clipped tone, and the third man stepped forward, unlocking Sabine's cell door with a heavy-looking key.
He looked up at her, still pressed against the battered table in her cell. In the glimmering torchlight, the ornamentation on his armor came into view, and Sabine recognized the dragon crest on his helmet.
'The Emperor's personal guard?' She stared back at him with wide eyes. 'What are they doing with the Emperor?'
The third man spoke, his voice deep and his eyes suspicious. "Get back against the wall, prisoner." He spat the word as though it were something foul. "We won't hesitate to kill you if you get in our way."
Sabine didn't hesitate to back farther toward the rear of her cell, pressing herself into the corner as the three Blades, and the Emperor, entered her tiny cell. Water dripped from the crack in the ceiling, leaving a cold trail as it dripped down the back of her neck. The other male Blade came forward and stood not far away, close enough to ensure she made no sudden moves, but not close enough to touch.
"Just stay put," he said gently, as the woman fiddled with the pillar on the wall of her cell. Sabine's eyes widened when the woman pulled the pillar out, causing a section of wall to fall back and drop into the floor.
The woman grunted in satisfaction and motioned for the Emperor to step forward. "Better not close this one," she said. "No way to open it again from the other side."
'This one?' Sabine wondered briefly how many other secret passages the Emperor and his entourage had been through that day.
"Wait," called an old, but still regal, voice. The assembly halted as the Emperor stepped forward, placing a hand on the shoulder of the man before Sabine. When he moved aside, the old ruler addressed her directly.
"You," he said quietly, staring at her as though he saw a ghost. "I've seen you before. Let me see your face." He beckoned her to take a step forward. When she did so, the light from the bars at the back of her cell shone dim light down on her. The Emperor took a deep breath. "You are the one from my dreams. Then the stars were right, and this is the day." He looked around the cell solemnly, then sighed. More to himself than to her, he murmured, "Gods give me strength."
Sabine frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Assassins attacked my sons, and I'm next. My Blades are leading me out of the city along a secret escape route. By chance, the entrance to that escape route leads through your cell."
Sabine's eyes widened, and she stepped back away from him again.
"Come," he said tiredly, but his smile was kind. "You may yet follow us for a while."
Sabine watched in surprise as the Emperor followed the angry woman through the now open passage in the wall of her cell. One of the remaining Blades sneered at her as he passed into the passage, but the last one regarded her with a nod.
"Looks like your lucky day, prisoner," he said dryly, motioning for her to follow. "Just stay out of our way and let us do our jobs, yeah?"
Sabine nodded numbly and hurried behind him, scrambling to keep up with the faint torchlight ahead of them, 'Perhaps my luck has not yet run out, after all,' she thought.
Pre-Dawn, 28 of Last Seed, 3E433
'...I take it back.'
Sabine sat on the edge of the dock outside the sewer exit of the Imperial prison, exhausted. She watched the sky begin to lighten in the east with disinterest, still thinking about the Emperor, his body lying in the sewer she had only just exited. She sighed, running a hand over her face as she stared at the gaudy red jewel in her lap.
''Close shut the jaws of Oblivion'?' She frowned. 'What in Mara's name did he mean by that?'
She stared down at the Amulet again, her frown deepening. The first rays of light had begun to peer over the horizon, and the Amulet of Kings seemed to glow in her lap, as though made of fire. She looked out across the water, away from City Isle, then back to the top of the hill, where the Imperial City sat.
She sighed. 'First things first. I'll need to get some better gear if I'm going to walk all the way to Chorrol from here. Weynon Priory is a two day walk away.' She grit her teeth and stowed the Amulet away under her shirt. 'In any case, once the Amulet is out of my hands, so is the rest of this mess.'
Her scowl deepened as she climbed the hill behind the Imperial Prison. 'The assassination of an Emperor. And under the Blades' watch, no less!' She shook her head. 'I want nothing to do with this. If they wanted me to get involved in all this, they shouldn't have thrown me in jail!' She kicked a nearby rock, sending it skittering down into Lake Rumare. 'Damn that Phillida! After all the 'cleaning up' I've done on his payroll!' She kicked another rock. 'What's the matter, Adamus? Getting paranoid in your old age, are we? Well, you can take your Dark Brotherhood obsession and blow it out your backside! I hope they slaughter you in your bed!'
Sabine continued to fume until she reached the bridge that connected the Prison to the main circle of the city. She hopped over the low wall that lined the side of the bridge and trudged toward the city. At the tall, heavy doors, she sighed.
"At least he doesn't know what I look like," she muttered to herself, and heaved against one of the doors, then slipped inside while saying a silent prayer of thanks for the requirement of wearing a mask while working. At least any wanted posters that appeared would lack decent descriptions.
Midday, 28 Last Seed, 3E433
The Imperial City Market District was crawling with soldiers. Every time a man in heavy Legion armor acknowledged her or passed by too close, Sabine held her breath. She shifted uneasily in her mismatched leather armor, keenly aware of the weight of the wrist irons in the bottom of her salvaged pack. She had to find somewhere to ditch them. But where?
Her eyes lit on a stack of barrels and crates nearby. She waited for the patrolling legionnaire to pass by, then stood in front of one of the crates. She deftly pulled the wrist irons out of her pack and lifted the lid of the crate behind her. As soon as it was open wide enough, she dumped the irons inside and dropped the lid back down. A faint tinkling sound was heard, and she frowned, turning her head toward the crate. She reopened the lid to see several loose Septims laying in the bottom of the crate, and scooped them up without hesitation.
'Now that's more like it!' She thought to herself with a grin, then looked around at the other boxes and barrels nearby. 'I wonder if there are any more...'
After nearly an hour's scrounging, Sabine managed to find decent enough clothing to replace her ratty prison wear, and almost thirty Septims. As she leaned over the rim of a barrel close to a side alley, reaching for an apple from the bottom of the barrel, she felt something sharp against her back.
"Give up the coin and I won't gut you like a fish," a gruff make voice hissed in her ear.
Sabine stiffened and straightened up slowly, then turned around. The blade slid to her throat, and she stared up into the filthy, pock-marked face of a Redguard with the end of his nose cut off, giving him a strangely flattened appearance. She blinked owlishly at him for a moment, and he curled his lip into a snarl.
"I saw you digging those septims outta them barrels," he snapped, eyes flashing. "Give 'em here. And anything else you got, scrounger."
When Sabine didn't move quickly enough for his liking, he jerked the pack off her bag and tore the money pouch off the front. She cringed when the movement tore a hole in the bag, and the light caught on something red and shining inside it. The Redguard grinned at her and pushed her farther back against the barrel, then dug the Amulet of Kings out of her sack and held it up to the light.
"Well now." He spat a large quantity of something brown out onto the cobblestones by her feet. "Where'd ya get this at, then?"
Sabine felt her stomach drop into her shoes, and tried to protest. "Hey, you can't just—"
The knife went back to her throat, and she closed her mouth. The Redguard shoved her now empty pack back into her chest, then crammed her gold and the amulet into the chest pocket of his jerkin.
"You'll keep yer mouth shut if ya know what's good for ya," he snapped, then shoved her down onto the cobblestones and stalked away, stowing the knife back into its sheath.
Panic seized Sabine as she struggled to her feet. She looked around wildly, "Hey, wait! Thief!" She turned around and around, then slumped her shoulders. The bastard had disappeared into the crowd. Farther down the street, she caught sight of the gleaming armor of a Captain of the Watch, and ran toward him. Surely as a paid guard he would be willing to help.
Oh, if only you knew, Sabine. You poor girl.
A/N: Just a little something that occurred to me while starting a new character in The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion. Sabine will be going through the Main Quest, but with several changes, and a few headcanons.
Please tell me what you think! Comments, favs, and follows are all welcome!
Cover Image Credit: "The Amulet of Kings - Finished" by drowsysnarkfish over at Deviant Art
