Morndas, Last Seed 31, 4E201
10:46am
Clay-Shoes Farm, Whiterun Hold

Drip… drip… drip…

The roof was leaking again.

Amara stared listlessly as fat droplets of water accumulated along the crack above her head, only to fall down into the broken bucket below when they became too heavy. The rhythm they created was infuriating, a monotonous counterpoint to the drone of the rainstorm outside.

Drip… drip… drip…

The broken catch bucket was getting full. Soon, the water would spill over into the floorboards, soaking into the wood planks and causing them to swell if she didn't dry them quickly. Someone would have to replace them if that happened.

Drip… drip… drip…

There was a perfectly good bucket in her room, down in the basement. It was full of paper rolls at the moment, but she could move those to her chest. Then the floorboards wouldn't be damaged. Then no one would have to fix them.

Drip… drip… drip…

The roof was leaking again, but this time Alar wasn't there to fix it.

This time, she'd have to go ask Loreius for his help. The Jarl's housecarl had hired men to look after the fields and the animals of the Clay-Shoes farm—at Alar's request—but there was no one to look after Amara or her house. No one but Loreius and his wife, the kindly farmers whose lands bordered theirs—hers.

Drip… drip… drip…

Amara stared listlessly at the fat droplets and decided that she'd ride to the Loreius farm as soon as the rain ended. Maybe she'd go now. Who cared if she died, cold and wet and alone? Alar wasn't there anymore and Amara was a—

Her breath hitched in her throat as she remembered, the smell of smoke and blood and burning skin fresh in her memory. A dragon above and a dragon within, in more ways than one. In more people than one, though none but she knew it.

Monster.

Amara stood abruptly. She was going out now, rain be damned.

The storm had eased into a drizzle by the time she had dressed and saddled up her sweet old mare, Bryn. Her new cloak—a gift from Alar before he had left to find the Graybeards—easily repelled the rain. Her exposed hands, clutching the reins, quickly beaded with glimmering droplets. She didn't bother to shake them off.

The road was nearly empty. Amara passed only a single Whiterun guard, who nodded to her respectfully but didn't question why a little girl was riding alone. Everyone in Whiterun hold knew who she was now, she reflected morosely, staring out over the plains. Everyone knew poor little Amara Clay-Shoes, baby sister to the Dragonborn. Perhaps most venerated her; sister to a demi-god like Tiber Septim himself. Who could ask for more?

I could ask for more, she thought rebelliously, gripping Bryn's reins so tightly that her knuckles went white. I could ask for my brother back.

"Oh, bother and befuddle!" a voice shrieked in front of her.

Amara started, snapping her head up to see a very strange sight indeed. A wide, sturdy wagon was pulled off the road near the entrance to the Loreius farm, with one of the wheels obviously broken off. A man in a jester's outfit was glaring down at it, speaking to himself in a shrill voice.

"Stuck here! Stuck!" he moaned, stamping one foot like a petulant child. "My mother, my poor mother... Unmoving! At rest, but too still." He ran gloved hands over his face in apparent agony at his mother's fate.

With a frown, Amara gently nudged Bryn toward the man, stopping close enough to speak to him but not so close that she couldn't easily run. There was no other person in sight, but she could see a long box in the back of the wagon. This Cicero fellow must have been moving his mother's corpse. "Whatever is the matter, sir?" she asked politely.

The man spun around toward her, and she was startled to see tears pooling in his eyes. He must love his mother very much, she thought.

"Oh! Poor Cicero and his mother are stuck! Yes, stuck, because of this—this damndest wagon wheel! See!" He pointed to the incriminating wheel with a harassed expression and Amara nodded dutifully.

"Well," she said delicately, trying not to set the obviously unstable man off. "I cannot fix it myself, but perhaps Loreius can? I will ask him, yes?"

Cicero's expression twisted with anger at the name. "Cicero has asked Loreius! But he refused to help poor Cicero and his mother!"

Amara shifted uneasily in the saddle, averting her eyes from the man's furious visage. "Well, I—I will ask for you. I am sure there is some misunderstanding." She spurred Bryn on before Cicero could reply, moving quickly to the open gate. The faint scent of nightshade blossoms tickled her nose as she passed the box that contained Cicero's mother's corpse.

The rain ceased entirely as Amara swung down and tied Bryn's reins to a hitching post. She climbed the steps, avoided the squeaky board, and rapped quickly on the door.

"Oh for the love of Mara what now?!" Amara flinched backwards as Loreius wrenched open the door, a furious glare on his face. It softened immediately when he saw who was knocking. "Oh, Amara," he said, scrubbing one hand across his tired eyes "I'm sorry, honey. Come inside."

"Hello," she said quietly, accepting a hug as he ushered her through the door.

"Amara!" Lorius's Altmer wife, Curwe, came bouncing over a second later to embrace her with much greater fervor. "Did you ride all the way out here in this terrible weather, sweetie?" she asked in concern, guiding the little Nord over to the fire even as she deftly removed her damp cloak. "Go on, go sit by the fire. Lunch will be ready soon, so you just warm up until then."

Curwe was always a little overwhelming. "The cloak kept me dry," Amara assured her. "But the roof's leaking again and—" she stopped abruptly, a lump in her throat.

And Alar isn't here to fix it anymore.

"I'll go with you right after lunch, Amara," Loreius assured her, his voice soft with sympathy.

"Thank you." She fiddled nervously with her belt for a moment. "Could you, uh, could you also help that Cicero fellow?"

Immediately, Loreius's face twisted with displeasure. Amara looked down quickly at that, missing the way Curwe glared at her husband. When she looked back up, his expression was apologetic.

"He's asked me five times already, Amara," he said. "I don't know what that man is transporting, but I don't believe for a minute that it's his mother. I don't want to get involved with anything—anything illegal!"

Amara considered this for a moment as she sank into a chair by the fire. "But…" she said slowly. "But don't you want him far away if he is doing something illegal? What if other, more dangerous people come to find him because he's stuck?"

Loreius wavered visibly at the argument. "Well… I just…"

Curwe frowned. "Go fix the wheel, dear," she said in exasperation. "I don't think anyone will blame you if he is doing something bad."

Grudgingly, Loreius went.

Curwe began chattering at her as soon as the door had shut. Amara zoned out after a few moments, staring contemplatively at the twisting flames in the hearth. Curwe never minded her inattention; the Altmer usually chattered just to chatter.

Some time later, a gentle nudge against Amara's shoulder brought her back to the waking world. Ignoring the Altmer's sympathetic smile, she silently accepted the bowl of stew. The smooth wood was warm against her palms and a wonderful smell wafted from it. Her earlier disinterest in food suddenly vanished, replaced by gnawing hunger. The little Nord quickly wolfed down the contents.

"Hungry?" Curwe laughed as Amara proffered the bowl in a silent request for seconds, hazel eyes pleading. "Well, you should be. You're growing like a weed!"

Loreius returned just as Amara was sopping up the last bits of stew with a piece of bread. His expression was a mixture of disquieted and relieved, eyebrows pinched together and lips pulled down.

"That fool certainly is generous with his money," he said, handing Curwe a small, fat pouch. He turned and handed Amara another, slightly smaller pouch. "He wanted to thank you in person," the farmer explained in a displeased voice. "I told him to leave. Didn't want him getting anywhere near you."

Amara peered into the sack with wide eyes. Golden septims gleamed invitingly from within, more than she had ever held in her entire life. Hundreds, probably. She could buy so many books with this...

"I'm out of nails, I'm afraid," Loreius continued as Amara gawked. "I'll have to go into town today and get more. I'll fix your roof first thing tomorrow, alright?"

"Uh-huh," Amara said absently, tying the pouch closed and double-knotting the laces. "Thank you. And thank you for the food, Curwe. It was delicious." The Altmer lady cooed and insisted on a parting embrace, admonishing her to be safe.

She slipped out the door as quietly as she had come in, shutting it silently behind her.

The gray, ponderous clouds of the morning had vanished, replaced by a clear blue sky. The sun shone brightly from his zenith, banishing any lingering chill. Bryn nickered happily when Amara untied her reins and swung up into the saddle.

"Better weather, huh, girl?" She said, pausing to tuck her cloak away in a saddlebag. "Maybe other things will get better too."

Bryn's hooves clipped sharply against the paving stones as she started home, creating a soothing rhythm. Again, Amara slipped into a reverie, contemplating the sudden darkness her life had fallen into. It was not a good thing to contemplate, but it was, perhaps, inevitable. Her mind was drawn into those ponderous thoughts as easily as a twig was dragged into a river's current.

"Oh! It is you, kindly child!"

For the second time that day, Amara was startled by the jester's voice.

Cicero had stopped at the border between the Loreius farm and her own and was retying the ropes that secured his mother's coffin. He beamed at her and hopped down from his perch with a strange, fluid grace. She tensed uneasily; the movement was too predatory, too catlike to suit a mere jester. Perhaps Loreius was right.

"Thank you, little one!" He enthused, either oblivious to or ignoring her discomfiture. "You have done Cicero and his mother a great service, oh yes!"

"I—" The breeze reversed, blowing over Cicero's cart and into her face. Again, the sharp scent of Nightshade tickled her nose. "No thanks are necessary," she said weakly, her heart suddenly pounding. "I was just—" Warmth swept up from her toes, suffusing through her entire body. "...being…" The sentence stalled as she lost her breath.

Fragmented images began to flash through her mind. She saw the lower levels of the Helgen keep as she followed after her brother and Hadvar. She saw the ambush by Stormcloak rebels. She saw herself, cowering on the stairs where the men had left her, a knife clenched tightly in her hands. She saw the rebel at Alar's back. She saw the rebel raise his sword high.

She saw herself lunge forward and stab him in the back.

Something had snapped when she had done that. Something important. She had thought it had broken, but now, as the intense warmth made her skin tingle, she realized that the strange, feral piece within her had not snapped asunder—it had snapped into place.

Amara gasped raggedly and cried out, lips parted as tears poured down her face. She barely noticed as the jester slid her from the saddle.

My dear child, a woman's voice whispered in her head. Ethereal fingers seemed to cradle her face. My dear, sweet child. Too soon, yet not soon enough.

Amara was overwhelmed, completely blind to the waking world. She knew this woman's voice—or at least, she felt as though she should. It was velvety and soft with fondness, yet edged with steel, like a dark Empress speaking to a favored daughter. Amara had no doubt that this voice could annihilate her instantly.

And yet, she loved the voice instantly.

You must go with Cicero, my dear Listener, the woman continued. There is nothing here for you now. But first, tell him these words: darkness rises when silence dies.

Then the voice left and Amara jolted back into wakefulness, gasping and sobbing like an exposed infant. She found herself laid out on the grass with Cicero hovering over her, his eyes wide with confusion.

"You are back," he said in surprise as she wrestled her sobbing to a stop. "Where did you go, kindly child? Where did you go that caused such… madness?"

"She suh-spoke to me," Amara hiccupped as Cicero helped her sit upright. "She spoke to me a-and then she left." More fat tears rolled down her cheeks before she could stop them. "She left me."

"She?" asked Cicero slowly, his voice rich with some emotion that the little Nord couldn't quite identify. He stared at her with a piercing intensity, one hand still gripping her elbow. Amara met his eyes and remembered the phrase the voice had given her, remembered the life-altering weight it had carried.

In that moment, Amara made her decision.

"She said, 'darkness rises when silence dies.'"

I personally headcanon that the Nightmother sounds and feels like whatever her Listeners need. In this case, her voice isn't horrible and rasping, but soft and maternal (in a very loose sense).