It was dawn. The marshy, southwestern coast of the strange island of Vvardenfell was illuminated with the red morning sun. It shined through the weedy, algae-draped trees on such a notably clear day – free of the thick fog that was usually everywhere along that area called the Bitter Coast. The reeds and sea ferns and tall, crystalline-looking flowers swayed with the ripples on the living water. Sunlight refracted off of their angular blue bulbs and flitted over craggy tree trunks and a broken, moss-covered stone wall that was far past its prime, sinking into the soft ground. Everything was lit up as if a giant, warm fire was nearby. The air was filled with gooey, hot humidity, and it stuck to everything like an illness.
It was in this place that a solitary, worn old dock stretched out into the coastal waters, extending away from a weary old fishing village that was playing host to the generally unwanted presence of the government. This scene was nothing new in the Empire, of course. Where the dock met the shore was a meticulously edged and maintained stone path, leading up to an officious, clean-cut stone building, with imperial limestone columns supporting its broad gabled roof. This building was frequently mopped with a hardy solution that killed moss, and a powerful bleach. It stood out like a manicured sore thumb amidst the boggy trees.
At the other, further end of the dock, a twisted, alien-looking boat was silently gliding across the water towards its mooring. The ship's bow was gnarled and woody, and the knotted mast stretched high into the bloody sky like a willowy trunk, and the canvas sail flupped in the salty sea breeze. An old black-skinned man leaned over the twisted railing with a rope clutched tightly between his aged, calloused fingers. He stooped lower and closer to the edge, ducking his head underneath the rail and eying the murky depths of green water. He decided it was the right depth.
The anchor plunged through the water and stirred up silt as it hit the bottom, and settled amidst the brackish green algae that resided there. From shore, several bystanders leaned against buildings and waist-high walls to watch the spectacle. Such an event happened frequently in the small village of Seyda Neen, but rarely was it on such a clear day as the one they were presented with that morning. Amidst the tiny crowd, a short, scrawny bosmer brought his hand to his face and rubbed the side of his sharp little nose with his forefinger. He was unnoticed. His tired eyes glistened with a fleeting spirit, like he had woken up and the haze had cleared from his thoughts. It happened every time a boat like this arrived. Someone new was coming. Someone who didn't have that pesky stigma – didn't think of him as a lowlife. He quietly hummed a tune.
On the deck of that peculiar ship, the black-skinned man hopped down onto the dock, his braided, coarse grey hair fluttering with the whoosh of air, and his muscles tensing as he hit the boards. It creaked angrily at the impact, and the black-skinned man looked at it, and something in his eyes apologized to the old wood. He stood upright, the metal studs in his leather shirt glistening in the sunlight. Something told the onlookers that this man... was unimportant.
The door to the main cabin swung open, and a broad-chested Colovian took three deliberate, bold steps down the wooden stairs onto the deck. The sound of his polished boots clanking on the wood echoed through the air to where the residents of Seyda Neen stood watching, and the light from his shiny breastplate and helmet glinted in the sunlight and onto their faces. The small bosmer squinted his eyes, and his mouth hung slack as he struggled to observe the scene. He picked uncomfortably at his clothes - they were dirty - and he found himself comparing his old rags to the chrome shell of the imperial soldier. He felt sorely lacking, and it made him angry.
All around, the murmur of discussion and gossip began to spread.
"Is that a Knight Errant?" some asked, pointing and gawking at the soldier's shiny armor. Others whispered, "Whoever they're dropping off must be important."
A hushed din of voices came from the shore, and the black-skinned man looked up from his work tying the boat to the dock, and a thin smirk cracked his lined face. The wispy strings of his thin beard swayed in the breeze. His concentration came back to the task at hand with the stimulus of three gloved snaps. He looked up to see the annoyingly wry face of Knight Errant Mallorbye - a particularly jaunty and arrogant example of a man, and his superior officer. Mallorbye had his hand held out with his palm up, as if he were offering up a fistful of raisins or some other snack, but then he swiftly retracted it with an overly dramatic flourish.
"Finish up your mooring, spearman, we're on a tight schedule!" he said, with an air of feigned camaraderie. He gestured with his hand towards the hatch leading below deck, a gesture which went unnoticed by the black-skinned spearman, as he was tying his final knot around the rusty iron loop on the dock post. "The prisoner should be brought up from below deck any minute now," he shared, "let's get that boarding plank down." Mallorbye stood awkwardly, as if he didn't know what to do with himself, and the black-skinned man pulled himself back up onto the deck and slid the boarding plank from its place and off the edge, where there was a gap in the railings. It hit the wooden boards of the dock with a dull, thunk. Mallorbye nodded as the spearman locked it into place with two cast iron pins.
"I think we're ready!" he exclaimed, and walked down the plank onto the dock. It creaked with his weighty armored body, but he strode on to the end of the dock, to stand in the shade of the imperial-style building. It was currently being bleached by a grey-haired dunmer, who was up on a ladder high above Mallorbye's head. He looked at a friend in the small crowd, and pretended to spit on the soldier's helmet, and the friend let out a barking laugh. The spearman noticed, too, but kept his laughter to himself. As he went to take his post, he cracked a smile between his dark lips - and bared his grey teeth to the red morning sun.