I was kinda lazy about the transitions in this. Thanks to ArtemisUndergoingMitosis for reviewing, you're a true amiga. Also, I changed the story summary, I feel like this one is more appropriate.
x
Most people looked at Sancia and saw a Breton. She knew she certainly looked the part, with her olive complexion, relatively short stature, grey eyes, short cropped ash brown hair, and penchant for magic. For her own sake, and for those who looked upon her, she usually chose not to disillusion them. Her father had been a Breton, and she supposed her mother technically had been as well. Though most regarded the Forsworn as native savages, the majority of Reachmen had more than a touch of High Rock in their blood.
Their journey to Riften left the woman with plenty of time to reflect. The wagon ride was dreadfully boring at best, even in those few moments where they met trouble on the road. A few bandits tested their luck against the Breton mage and the Khajiit archer, and came up short; their bodies were left to rot on the side of the road, along with numerous frostbite spiders and wolves. The carriage driver was unwilling to stop long enough to let Eska skin the beasts, though they were able to nip a few vials of frostbite venom for their troubles.
In the long moments between these encounters, when there was nothing around them but mountains or forest, and the never-ending road to Riften, Sancia had nothing to do but think. She tried to think of things like what they would do when they finally reached their destination, but her mind incessantly drew her backward, sneaking glimpses at a past that she would much rather have forgotten.
"We could have walked to Riften by now," she muttered when they stopped over in Ivarstead. The carriage driver gave her a cool look, but by then he had learned to ignore her grumbling. Most people did eventually, when they found themselves stuck in her presence for any length of time.
At least that night they got to sleep in beds, instead of curled up on the ground around a campfire at the side of that damnable road. The inn was hospitable enough, though the beds were a bit rickety. Sancia found she was too tired to really care.
In her dreams, she couldn't escape the past. When she closed her eyes she saw a tower. Comprised of stone, and surrounded by makeshift tents, the tower had once meant "home" to her. She was so little in her dream, and the tower seemed so enormous; if it hadn't been a place she'd known since she'd been born, she might have found it to be forbidding.
x
The little girl ran about the camp, sharing shrieking laughter with the other children. Their elders looked on with tight smiles, and the children could hear them muttering about deserving better than some crumbling redoubt in the hills. But she didn't understand, and she was perfectly happy playing in the camp. Mother was hunting, and would be back soon with the others, hopefully with the choicest carvings from a nice plump elk carried in a bloody sack. Mudcrab legs and goat meat were fine, but it had been a while since they'd had a real feast.
Sometimes she could remember her father's face from back then. Oftentimes he looked almost sad; lost even. At times when she was younger she could fool herself into thinking those sad looks hadn't come along until after that night—the night that mother didn't return with the hunting party. Oh, how father grieved. It was like a piece of him broke, and never quite healed again, festering instead inside of him. The mournful looks on the hunters' faces, combined with her father's wailing, told the little girl that something was wrong, but it took a lot of explaining for her to realize that her mother wasn't coming home.
For the next few days on the road, Sancia was unusually quiet. She simply sat in the back of the carriage and glared off at the river as the carriage trundled alongside it. When they stopped for lunch, she tromped off down to the shallows and came back with a wriggling salmon on the edge of her dagger. Eska began giving her these long, thoughtful looks, which started to grate on the Breton the longer the journey lasted.
"You're thinking about him," the Khajiit finally stated several days later, when she decided that her friend wasn't going to be forthcoming. It shouldn't have surprised her; Sancia was rarely inclined to unburden her troubles onto others.
"Thinking about whom?" the Forsworn snarled in response. No, I'm not Forsworn, she berated herself. That part of her was dead. It might as well have never existed at all.
Father brought her to Markarth. When she was older she would realize the true folly of this decision, but at the time she simply felt alone and confused. She remembered living at the tower, at their camp, until one night when father came into their tent and scooped her up, rousing her from a troubled sleep. She hadn't understood what was happening, but he shushed her when she asked what was going on, and hurriedly carried her away.
A horse waited for them outside the camp, down the trail a ways, well out of sight of those who were keeping watch. Nobody tried to stop them, or ask where they were going, which even then she found odd. There were always sentries.
The horse's reins were handed over by a strangely dressed man. He wore red and gold armor, the likes of which she'd only seen as trophies brought back by hunting parties. She had never questioned where the armor had come from. The man said something to her father, and he had hissed something back, tone urgent, body tense. Finally the man stood out of their way, and father sat her on the back of the horse before jumping up behind her. Just as he turned the beast down the path, the screaming began. The little girl tried to look and see, but she felt her father's arm around her, and then a great jolt as he kicked the horse into a gallop.
x
They reached the settlement of Shor's Stone with the assurance that Riften wasn't much further. It was agreed that they would rest there for the remainder of the day, even though there was plenty of sunlight left before night fell. Sancia felt restless enough to go poking around the forest, having finally decided that the Rift wasn't the worst place they could have ended up. It was warm, for one. Well, warmer than the rest of this gods-forsaken province.
She spent the day collecting ingredients for alchemy, stuffing her satchel until it was fit to burst. When she finally got back to the little mining village, she found the residents playing host to a Khajiit caravan. Eska, of course, had already ingratiated herself, and was sharing their campfire, trading stories with her kinsmen. Ahkari was the name of their leader, and she seemed pleased when Sancia joined them for dinner and agreed to look over her wares. While they bartered, Eska seemed too busy preening for one of the caravan's warriors to take much notice of anything else.
When they settled down to sleep, Sancia whispered teasingly about the Khajiit's overt interest in the male; Kharjo was his name. "He would make a fine mate," Eska said with a shrug. Unlike humans, most Khajiit didn't make courtship into too elaborate a dance. Eska had once told her of the rituals they had back in Elsweyr, where the men of the clan would battle to the death over a desired female. "Alas, most matings are arranged these days," she had sighed, "It's a bit dull, but I suppose we wouldn't have many men left if they spent all their time murdering one another for the right to marry." Outside of their home, it was a bit simpler. Without clan politics standing in their way, many Khajiit simply mated to any worthy partner who crossed their path. It seemed so much simpler, although Sancia most definitely was not looking to get married anytime soon. Or ever, for that matter.
x
Again she dreamt that night. Markarth had been so cold, so uninviting. It was stone, like the tower, but unlike the tower, she could not leave. There was no camp to play in, just cold stone streets, stone buildings, and stone walls. There were other children there, children who teased and pushed her. They were bigger, but not as fast, and they were soft and plump, like well-kept cows. They cried so easily, went blubbering back to their mothers when the girl would bite them, or twist their arms. She was used to rougher play, and she quickly decided she had no interest in making friends with these whimpy Nord brats.
The people of Markarth didn't like outsiders any more than the girl liked them. Through visitors to their tiny stone home, she learned that her father had lived here before. He knew some people in the city, though he wasn't always happy to see them when they came calling. The longer they lived there, the more adept she got at sneaking toward his room, where she could listen to his whispered conversations.
He and mother had lived here once, before she was born. It was where they had met. But something had happened, something bad, and they had had to leave. She heard mutterings about the Forsworn, though she didn't realize at first that that was the Nord name for her people; the Reachmen. The contempt on the faces of the Nords when they spoke about the "Markarth Incident" and the "Forsworn Rebellion" bid her to hold her tongue. She wasn't stupid enough to go about bragging, not as she grew older and learned about Ulfric Stormcloak, and heard that he had made the streets of Markarth run red with Forsworn blood.
Father worked at the blacksmith forge. It was humiliating, and paid very little, from what she could gather. He was treated as an apprentice, despite his age, and he could do nothing about it. As she grew older and years passed, the girl found a job serving drinks at the Silver-Blood Inn. It was at least as degrading as father's job, perhaps more so. Men would grope her, call her "sweetheart" and try to pull her into their laps, and when she broke their fingers it only resulted in a scolding from the innkeeper. She was expected to tolerate these abuses with a smile, but she found other ways to get revenge.
Coins were pilfered, drinks dosed with just the right amount of canis root and nightshade to cause bowl discomforts. She only took these liberties every so often, knowing these things couldn't lead back to her, lest she suffer the consequences. It wouldn't do for her to wind up tossed into Cidhna Mine, where Divines only knew what would happen to a young girl.
It wasn't until she was sixteen that she learned the full truth of why they were in Markarth, why father wouldn't let her leave, why he never spoke about their home, or her mother. When she came home one night after an endless shift at the inn and found him lying on the floor of their hovel with his throat slit, she wasn't quite sure how to feel. Over the years she had grown to resent him, but had never seen any other option but to stay by his side. He was her father, after all, and if she left he would have nobody.
For a moment she almost felt relieved, even as his blood pooled around her feet. Then she saw movement out of the corner of her eye, and narrowly escaped joining him in death.
What happened next would follow her for years. The boy who'd killed her father was one of her kinsmen, a child who had escaped the slaughter of their clan all those years ago. It was something she tried not to think about, though she'd always suspected what had befallen their people. She barely managed to convince him she hadn't known anything about it, about how her father had sold them out to the Imperial Legion, all for a chance to move back to Markarth with a clean slate. He was just a Breton, after all, not a true Reachman, though he was known to live among the Forsworn and therefore could not simply return to the city. Living in the wilds had never suited him, and with her mother gone, he had seen no point in continuing to live amongst the savages.
The only reason he'd gone with them in the first place was because of mother. He hadn't wanted to leave when Ulfric Stormcloak sacked the city, but he would have been killed if he had stayed. Besides, leaving enabled him to marry her mother, though he'd always felt out of place. He had never wanted to raise a family out there in the wilderness, so after mother died he'd found a way to get back into Markarth and wash his hands of the Forsworn entirely.
"If he hadn't had them all killed they would have come for him, if only to get you back," the boy told her. Even as a child, the hagravens had taken note of her magical talents. She would have grown up to be a shaman, a powerful leader amongst the Reachmen, but instead she stagnated in this place where magic was sneered at.
She saw the look of greed in the Forsworn boy's eyes. He lowered his dagger, tucked it away into the breeches he wore as part of his disguise. He told her he'd been one of the few survivors of the slaughter, and that he'd spent his entire life training to fight the outsiders, and to hunt down her father. "Come away with me," he said, "You could come back. They would welcome you with open arms…sister." He wanted her for himself. His expression was the same as those pigs at the inn, the ones that grabbed her, and whistled, and whispered what they would do to her if they got the chance. She'd smiled, tentative, and crossed the room. He'd looked terribly surprised when she stuck her own dagger between his ribs.
x
All teasing aside, Sancia was glad when the caravan headed back toward Ivarstead the next morning. Without Eska, she was certain she'd wind up lying dead in a gutter somewhere, though if she decided to run off and get married, the Breton wouldn't try to stop her.
The carriage reached Riften a few days later, though she wound up having to threaten the guard at the gate before he would let them in. The fool had the nerve to try to cheat them out of the few coins they had left, and then he halfheartedly attempted to bar Eska from entering the city.
It wasn't the best first impression, but Sancia had promised her sister to behave. Once they were inside the walls, the city would be theirs for the taking.