Disclaimer: All proper nouns (with the exception of Felix Valerius), plot references, possible taboo replacement, and one piece of badly paraphrased dialogue are the property of Bethesda Softworks.

Rated T for mild language.

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Felix Valerius walked through the dark streets of Chorrol with what might have appeared to be a purposeful stride, but was in fact the result of desperate concentration to keep placing one foot in front of the other. Shivering in the cold rain which seemed to have followed him from the south, he raised his hand in what had become a compulsive and futile gesture to dash the water from his eyes; he had lost his cloak--or thrown it away, he couldn't remember. He was headed west to the part of the city where the wooden houses of the have-nots clustered together--for warmth or perhaps safety in numbers he thought suddenly and inanely and just as suddenly harnessed and picketed his straying thoughts.

His steps quickened as he neared the house which was his destination and the festering anger, lulled for the past several days by exhaustion and hunger, began to stir. It was three in the morning and the house was predictably and sensibly dark. Felix hammered on the door. Without waiting for a response he began to pound harder, kicking at the door, "Oreyn! Oreyn, open the godsdamn door! Oreyn!"

The door lurched open without warning, revealing a half dressed Oreyn, sword in hand. His blade lowered when he recognized Felix and the tense expression on his face changed rapidly to one of annoyance, "Are you out of your skull? What the devil were you trying to do? Break my door down? Get inside."

Rousing the fire in the hearth from its nocturnal hibernation, Oreyn stoked it with several more logs then, lighting a lamp and several candles, he examined Felix critically in the improved, but still dismally poor light, "You look terrible, "he pronounced the verdict matter-of-factly. "What's wrong? What did you find out?"

"They're dead," Felix' voice was dead level. He did not elaborate.

"It may have escaped your notice, but I am not and never have been capable of reading minds," Oreyn snapped. He was tired and irritable, a result of having minutes ago been roused from a sound sleep at an ungodly hour of the night. It was enough to sour anyone's mood and, as the increasingly frequent aches of old wounds reminded him, he was not getting any younger. "Who are dead?"

"The people at Water's Edge. I--we--killed them. Men, women, children, livestock, there were corpses all over the village. No goblins," he continued with growing agitation, "Not a single dead goblin. But I saw goblins, I swear, I thought they were goblins. I didn't--I never meant..." he trailed off.

Oreyn's face was grave. It made sense now. Not just Felix' statement, but all the Blackwood Company "accidents". His agile mind was immediately scrambling in a dozen directions--there was much to do-- but he pulled it back. First he had to see to Felix. He took a deep breath. He was no good at this sort of thing; he never had been. "Look, I know how disgusted you must feel with yourself, but you have to remember, that was the Hist sap, not you."

Felix bristled, "Don't give me bullshit rationalizations," he snarled, "I did it. I doesn't matter what I thought I was doing; it doesn't change what I did," there was a pause and then, "Why the hell did you send me? You too good for interrogation now? We could have pulled one of their rank and file bravos off the street and made him squeal, but no, you had the brilliant idea to send Felix the idiot on an infiltration mission."

"This is my fault now, is it?" Oreyn held the other man's stare until Felix looked away. It was several moments before Felix looked up again. When he did, Oreyn was disturbed to see that he looked years older. The anger was gone from his face and bearing, but with it seemed to have gone whatever energy remained to him, leaving only weariness and despair, "I'm sorry," Felix said, shaking his head, "I was...I don't know."

"When was the last time you slept or, for that matter, ate?" Oreyn asked, changing the subject. Felix blinked at the floor, knitting his brow as though trying, unsuccessfully, to concentrate, "I don't remember," he replied finally, "What day is it?"

"Not since Leyawiin, then?" Felix shook his head.

"And where'd you get that?" Oreyn nodded towards Felix right arm, the fabric covering which was torn and dark with dried blood.

"What?" asked Felix, staring stupidly down at his right arm.

"Your sunny disposition." Then, in response to Felix' bewildered look, "The wound in your arm, you s'wit."

"Oh. Bandit probably," mumbled Felix, pulling back his sleeve and inspecting the wound as if noticing it for the first time.

"What? With his teeth?"

"Wolf, then," Felix offered.

"And infected by the look of it. Probably contracted witbane, since something, clearly, has been draining your intelligence."

Felix shrugged. Oreyn glared at him in exasperation, "Gods! Have you been trying to get yourself killed?"

"Maybe...I don't know. I've half a mind to turn myself over to the guards." This last, semi-sequitur statement caught Oreyn completely off guard.

"Don't talk nonsense."

"There's always that ring we got off the Argonian..." Felix continued in the same hopeless monotone.

"That's enough!"

"Fire's a nasty way to go, but at least it would be a--"

Modryn Oreyn was a strong, durable man. He liked strong, durable things. He was uncomfortable around fragile things; he was constantly worried he would break them. For the same reasons, he was exponentially more ill at ease around fragile people. He was a member of the Fighter's Guild; he broke things for a living. He hadn't the first idea how to put them back together. And so he did the only thing he could think of: he delivered a sharp jab to the soft spot below Felix' breast bone.

Felix crumpled to his knees and, being temporarily incapable of breathing and therefore temporarily incapable of speech, was obediently silent. Oreyn knelt stiffly, "Listen to me, maggot," he hissed furiously in Felix' ear, "What happened at Water's Edge was an accident, so you'd best get that straight in your head. Those people would have been killed with or without you and now, thanks to you, we have the information we need to take down the the Blackwood Company and keep this sort of thing from happening again. So snap out of it!"

Felix had begun to breath again, shallow, wincing breaths and as Oreyn's words slowly sank in through the dissipating haze of pain, he managed to mutter, "You're a real fetcher, Modryn, you know that?"

Oreyn smiled, relieved, "And all this time I thought I was a cold-hearted bastard."

"That too," Felix ground out between clenched teeth, starting to rise, then thinking better of it, "The beatings will continue until morale improves, huh? I thought that was a joke. Only you would try implementing it."

"Well, it worked, didn't it?" demanded Oreyn and regretted it almost immediately.

Felix stared at him in disbelief. The entire situation was so absurd; there was nothing remotely funny about it, yet he suddenly found himself laughing.

"None of that!" Oreyn barked, grabbing Felix by the shoulders and shaking him roughly. This produced the desired result. Felix stopped laughing and then, to Oreyn's helpless chagrin, burst into tears. "Shit," Oreyn muttered, holding Felix awkwardly, as one might hold a cactus. He was bad at comforting. Almost as bad as he was at fixing things.

At least, Oreyn reflected, Felix was not a noisy crier. He'd know quite a few women and several men who would bawl their guts out given the chance. Felix just shuddered quietly with the occasional sobbing gasp as punctuation. All of this, Oreyn endured in stoic silence. He imagined himself to be annoyed, but was in fact deeply relieved that Felix was behaving in a way which, however inconvenient, he could make sense of. Anything was better than that horrible, broken laughter.

Then, as suddenly as he had begun, Felix stopped. He broke away from Oreyn and rose unsteadily to his feet. "Shit. Shit. I'm sorry," he muttered, flushing with embarrassment, "I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize. How many times do I have to tell you that?"

"I shouldn't have--I'm sorry," Felix stammered again. Apparently the Hist sap had affected his short term memory or his hearing or both.

"Shut up."

Felix opened his mouth as though to say something else, but shut it again after a glare from Oreyn. After a few moments, Oreyn, satisfied that Felix was done apologizing, pointed to the bed, "Get some sleep. I'll take the floor."

Too tired to protest, Felix collapsed on the bed and was asleep almost immediately. Oreyn scrounged several spare blankets and a cloak in an attempt to make the floor comfortable, a feat which he knew by now to be impossible at his age. He was going to regret this in the morning.