Song of the Dragonborn- Prelude
The sun shone high and bright over the docks near Solitude as three members of the Imperial Legion walked side-by-side in ambulatory procession towards the proud, stern bow of the ship that awaited them. The Katariah. The ship which would carry many of the Legion's finest, including many of the Penitus Oculatus, far away from Skyrim and its many brewing troubles.
Indeed, the city of Solitude itself had been rocked by numerous misfortunes of late. Young Vittoria Vici, soon to be happily wed to Asgeir Snow-Shod, was brutally murdered by her own husband at her wedding. Many who disapproved of the match tutted under their breath that she should have expected such an end from marrying a Nord from The Rift, widely known to be a wretched hive of villainous scum. But, personal opinions on the match aside, all of Solitude spared words of pity and sympathy for the butchered bride.
But their words of pity did not hold out long, for soon the city of Solitude was rocked by not just one, but two high-profile assassination attempts. It was these latest in the string of deaths which preoccupied the thoughts of the Legionnaires approaching the Katariah.
"It's simply beyond belief. The utter cheek of it! Sending an assassin to pose as The Gourmet in an attempt to poison our Emperor!" Silanus, the lone Imperial amidst the three legionnaires, shouted, pounding one fist in an outstretched hand for emphasis. "Lucky Commander Maro saw it coming!"
"Yeah, lucky for him." Mohana, a Bosmer and recent addition to the Penitus Oculatus scoffed. "He gets the accolades of having 'stopped the Dark Brotherhood', and what do the rest of us get? Guard duty as we try spiriting the Emperor out of here. Can't see why he's bothering, given that he and most of the rest of our brothers-in-arms wiped their sanctuary out completely."
"To be honest, I'm more worried about what happened in the Blue Palace." Giselle, a softspoken Breton opined. "Poor Elisif must be absolutely heartbroken right now, with what happened to her husband..."
"Ahh right, Ulfric Stormcloak's assassination of High King Torygg." Mohana replied slowly. She'd only just then recalled in the midst of all the other deaths the Stormcloaks' most brazen move towards inciting Skyrim into endless civil war. "I'm sure Elisif will survive without her husband."
"Can we just stop talking about this?" Giselle asked with an abrupt shiver. "I don't like this. Talking about all this death when we're about to board the ship is giving me a bad omen."
In response to her friend's worried comment, Mohana snorted derisively. "Oh please. It's not like the Dark Brotherhood is going to find a way to sneak onboard the most well-guarded ship in Skyrim."
As Silanus joined Mohana in her laughter, the three legionnaires were hailed by a young, gray-skinned figure who was charging for the docks in robes befitting a student of the College of Winterhold. "W-Wait! Wait for me!"
The three legionnaires stopped in their tracks and turned back to face the new arrival with humoring smiles on their faces. Mohana's smile at the new guest was the widest of all, and only grew wider as the figure pulled back her hood. The Dunmer standing before the three of them had the usual severe features that characterized a Dunmeri face, which her half-shaved brown hair did nothing to conceal. Her eyes were a deep red, their intensity almost unnerving even as a smile lit her face.
"It's about time you caught up with us, Savri." Mohana teased, ruffling Savri's hair. "I was beginning to think you'd miss the ship."
Savri took a few moments to respond, as her voice was nearly stolen from her by panting. "Ran here as quickly as I could... Knew you would need healers... in case the... skeevers... infest and infect the ship..."
"Well then, let's go ahead and board before we truly do get left behind." Silanus groaned testily, stepping onto the ship.
"Silanus is right, we should be going now." Giselle concurred, following the Imperial.
"C'mon, Savri." Mohana invited as she bounded up the gangplank.
Savri stared off into the distance for a very long moment before boarding after her companions. The gangplank was retracted, and at last, the Katariah set sail.
The low embers of dying torches on the walls barely illuminated the faces of the only two legionnaires to still be up at this ungodly hour on a Tirdas. The flickering red light lent Mohana's silvery blonde hair an almost eerie glow as it cast the darker features of Silanus into deep shadow. Mohana let out a groan of annoyance as she laid down the cards in her hand. "Three Dragon's Heads and two Atronachs. Full house. And you?"
Despite his shadowcast face, Mohana could easily see Silanus's grin as he laid down his hand. "Thane, Jarl, High King, Emperor, Septim. Royal flush. Pay up."
"Damn it to Oblivion!" Mohana cursed, removing her Imperial Gauntlets. They joined the pile containing her boots, her ring, her helm, Silanus's necklace, boots and helm. "If the cards don't stop hating me, I'll be naked before long."
Silanus smirked. "Not that anyone would mind seeing that, I'm sure."
Mohana's deep green eyes glowed menacingly as she tilted her head towards her friend and opponent in game. "Got a fever for Bosmer flesh, do you?"
Silanus shrugged, his brown eyes alight with humor as he leaned back in his chair. "What can I say? I like my women pointy-eared and fiery."
Mohana chose to ignore her comrade's lecherous stare in favor of asking, "Speaking of pointy-eared women, where did Savri get off to? I haven't seen her since dinner."
Silanus shrugged. "Last I heard, she and Giselle were going to sick bay. Apparently the staff missed some skeevers and now we have some men infected with disease."
"What a surprise. They missed some." Mohana deadpanned. "Well, at least we have healers onboard. Still... they've been gone an awfully long time. Maybe someone should take a look."
"They're probably just busy trying to get rid of the diseases. I think you worry too much."
The conversation was abruptly cut short by the sound of a loud clatter from the deck beneath them.
"What was that?" Mohana asked slowly.
"Probably just the damn skeevers messing around in the storeroom." Silanus replied, shuffling the cards on the table. "Come on, let's just get back to the game."
Mohana shook her head. "That definitely doesn't sound like skeevers to me. I'm going downstairs to investigate. And if it is skeevers, I'll kill the little buggers."
As Mohana pulled on her lost pieces of armor, Silanus let out a bark of a laugh. "You're going downstairs to kill a skeever infestation in the storeroom. All right. Best be careful you don't get yourself dragged into some grand adventure while you're at it!"
"Ha. Ha. Ha." The sarcasm in Mohana's 'laughter' was obvious. "Make yourself useful and go look for Giselle and Savri. I've got a bad feeling about all this."
Mohana was right in her guess that the loud noise was not the work of skeevers. But nothing in her training could have prepared her for the sight that awaited her in the storeroom. Blood painted the floor of the deck and the shelves and walls of the ship. Lying face-down in the floor was a figure in the robes of a College mage. Her heart dropped in her chest, and she ran for the unconscious body, pulling back its hood.
The face that met her was not Savri's, but the face of a lowly Dunmer crew member who she'd seen working in the kitchens before. She heaved a sigh of relief even as her unease grew in her stomach. She looks like she's been stabbed. Brutally. As has everyone else on this level. What in Oblivion is going on?
Barely taking the time to properly appreciate the grisly spectacle in the storeroom, she drew her sword and ran upstairs only to find a similar scene to what she'd seen below. Bodies sprawled on the floor, blood spattering the walls and tables overturned, weapons lost as though stolen. Room after room after room she came to as she ran through the open doors of the ship were painted crimson in blood.
She hoped she'd catch sight of a living Savri and Giselle in the sick bay. But instead, all she found were slaughtered bodies. Including Giselle's. Mohana knelt by the dead Breton's side, her grief outweighing her ability to stand as she gazed hopelessly at the last ghastly expression of shock and betrayal on Giselle's face. Mohana didn't know how long she'd knelt there before reason finally caught up to her. If there's an assassin onboard, I need to tell the captain!
Looking back for only a brief moment, Mohana charged out of the sick bay and towards the normally locked door of Captain Avidius. When she arrived there, she found the door standing open and Avidius laying back in his chair, a ribbon of blood flowing down from his slit throat. Refusing to allow grief and panic to get the better of her, Mohana ran instead for the war-chambers of Lieutenant Salvarus. There, she found a similar sight to that of Captain Avidius- a corpse sprawled across the war-table, painting the whole of Skyrim red with blood.
Wait a minute... Mohana thought as a terrible realization hit her. Captain Avidius and Lieutenant Salvarus were the only two people carrying keys for the... Emperor's Quarters... Gods, no, the Emperor!
She ran for the Emperor's Quarters and found the door closed. Pressing her ear to the door, she could hear the Emperor's voice interacting with someone else's. A woman.
"-must be punished for their treachery. Once you've been rewarded for my assassination, I want you to kill the very person who ordered it. Would you do me this kindness?"
"I'll... consider your request."
"Thank you. Now, on to the business at hand, I suppose."
Business at hand? Wait, he isn't going to fight back against-? Mohana thought in shock. No! I have to get in there and stop it!
She threw open the unlocked door and charged in with her sword drawn. "In the name of the Empire, I demand that you cease and desist right now, assassin!"
The next moment seemed to come to Mohana only as flashes of memory when she looked back upon it later. One moment, she was staring bravely at the one who would kill their emperor- the next, her sword was on the ground, her knees turned to water as she fell to the ground. The dagger slowly drew across the Emperor's throat, leaving him a fallen, bleeding heap on the ground. A figure in the robes of the Dark Brotherhood stood behind him, a twisted smirk across her face. A figure with a face Mohana knew only too well.
She said to herself, again and again, that it simply couldn't be so as the figure behind the Emperor vanished. But there was no denying what her eyes had seen. The assassin, the surviving member of a dead order, was none other than her comrade-in-arms Savri.
Sithis would be most pleased with this offering of appeasement and blood. Of that, Savri was certain as she crept silently along the exterior deck. She was visible for only the briefest of moments as she slew her targets before vanishing once again, leaving the crew and her former comrades in a state of blind panic. As she drew her dagger across Silanus's throat, she heard a strangled cry of grief and fury coming from the entryway to the lower decks.
Before she had the chance to properly react, a blade of finest Imperial Steel rammed itself through her stomach at the command of a heavily weeping Bosmer.
"I trusted you!" the Bosmer screamed, driving the blade in deeper. "We all trusted you, and in the end you betrayed us-!"
Savri let her weakness get the better of her, to fall limp on the sword piercing her. "Fools..."
It was the last word she would speak to the Bosmer. At least for now.
"What a damned mess."
"I'm with you. High King Torygg, dead. The Emperor, dead. The entire crew of the ship that was supposed to protect him, dead. All except for that Bosmer girl.
"There any more bodies to add to the pile?"
"Nah, that's the last of them."
"What about that Dunmer? Savri? I can't see her body anywhere."
"Eh, the wood elf probably just chucked her overboard when all was said and done. Just check her off the list so we can cremate the bodies and be done with it."
"All right then."
Satisfied their list had been properly dealt with, the two guards of Solitude tasked with cleaning up the remnants of this whole bloody affair walked away, the pile of slaughtered bodies smoldering behind them, filling the air with acrid smoke.
It had all worked out much better than expected. Amaund Motierre hadn't known what the results of this assassination would be, but he knew that whatever happened would work somewhat in his favor. He hadn't expected to be named temporary emperor while the lineage of Titus Mede was properly sorted out.
But now there was a certain... problem. Namely that the people of Skyrim were panicking from the thought of an emperor's assassin being able to slaughter a whole ship, escape unscathed, and get away with it. A shiver ran down his spine as he felt, rather than saw, the presence of the assassin he'd hired to become the instrument of his seizure of power. "We need a scapegoat. If no one is visibly punished for the murder of the emperor, the people will get suspicious."
The figure in the shadows laughed softly. "I already thought of that. Why do you think I left one of them alive?"
Amaund Motierre raised a brow in impressed surprise as his hired assassin's logic reached his comprehension. "Ahh I see. You truly are a professional, accounting for all possible outcomes. Very well then. Yes. We'll use her."
The news was all over Skyrim by the next week. A young Bosmer member of the Penitus Oculatus deliberately allowing an assassin to slip past her vigilant eyes and slaughter everyone onboard the outbound Katariah. Including good Emperor Titus Mede II. The trial, if it could even be called that, was swift. Judgement moreso. The sentence: death by public execution. The place: the small town of Helgen, where she, along with another usurper who'd see the Empire destroyed, would meet her fate.