Dear Diary,
I'm not sure if I want to write this, because it's wrong and unsettling and even though I don't want to think about it or pass judgement on it, I can't help but do so. I can't help but wonder why.
You see, today, I witnessed the Dragonborn murdering someone.
Now before you starting patting me on the head with a smile, saying that I'm just stressed, nervous from all the Shouting, or that I should take a holiday somewhere sunny, let me tell you that this was different from the usual fights we do. Yes, we've killed bandits and Thalmor and rogues and mages before, but that was different. It's the feeling. I mean, attacking people is definitely not something to be taken as lightly as killing beasts. I know that. It's just that everyone we've ever attacked either had it coming or attacked us first. The Thalmor are a plague, as are the necromancers and bandits. The occasional Forsworn that we run into are always the first to draw their weapons. But today...
When I came to, I was told that the Dragonborn had left me a message to meet him in Whiterun. He had gone off to return the horn to the Greybeards by himself. Just as well; I didn't really want to see this Delphine woman nor the Greybeards again, much less trek back up the mountain. I was still feeling slightly dizzy, like a piece of my stomach was missing. So I made my way back to Whiterun on my own. The journey took about three days and was rather uneventful.
When I met up with him, he seemed to be in high spirits. He told me that he now had the full Unrelenting Force - Fus, Ro and Dah. The way he beamed reminded me of a kid wanting to be praised.
"Why don't you show me," I said, and so we went a little ways outside and shouted on the wall.
"Fuuuus - rodah", with a bit of dragging and delay. That's what the full Unrelenting Force sounds like, and it was amazingly powerful. And here I was, thinking that Fus was magical. Now that I've seen the whole thing, Fus is like the whiny eight-year-old brother of the tough captain-of-the-guard Fus Ro Dah. The iron dagger to an ebony greatsword. The barrel lid to a tempered, enchanted shield. You get the picture.
Anyhow, we got on the cart and went, this time, to Windhelm. I began to sense the Dragonborn's enthusiasm fading, but never thought much of it.
"So, any particular reason why we're going to Windhelm?" I asked.
"I have an appointment," he replied.
His appointment turned out to be another breaking-and-entering mission, but I wish that were all it was to it. When we stepped into the house, we were met with the stench of deathbell and tallow. The house was musty, as if it were abandoned, and it was poorly lit. The Dragonborn and I crouched low. We made our way carefully up the stairs, and the sound of a voice become increasingly evident. It was the voice of a child, but the words, and the way he said it...
"Sweet Mother, Sweet Mother, send your child unto me, for the sins of the unworthy," something or other about death and purging.
Why the hell was a child saying such things? The words betrayed his actions to be occult. Was it a recital for some dark magic? Or a prayer to the daedra? I never paid much attention to the myths of evil rites, but standing there, if there ever was such a thing, this would be it.
What turned my blood cold, though, was the way he stopped to moan: "Why won't you answer me? O Night Mother, why won't you answer me?" As if this Night Mother or whatever was something good! He was a child! Why was he participating in the occult, praying to some demon?
We sneaked up and saw a better glimpse of him. Oh, the image - how I wish I could forget all of it. It was sickening. In the room on the second floor was a child, kneeling beside a skeleton. There were a few deathbells scattered around, along with candles, thin and almost burnt out. There was a pentagram of sorts, chalked on the floorboards. There was a piece of flesh and a heart, stinking of precisely that. And he was there, mumbling that twisted prayer as he stabbed the skeleton.
What did the Dragonborn have to do with him?
His actions have always been inappropriate, but there's a boundary between grudgingly funny and infuriatingly insolent.
What he did was strip and began creeping around.
I'll let that sink in for one moment.
He stripped, wearing nothing but his loincloth (and thank Talos for that). Then he crept up to the child and crept back out. And again. And again, and again.
"What the hell are you doing?" I hissed, barely restraining myself from kicking him in the groin.
"Sneaking."
Sneaking? As if that made any sense!
I was boiling mad. He had gone at it for around thirty rounds when I failed to restrain myself, and kick him in the groin I did. He grunted and crashed, chin first, on the floor.
"Huh? Who's there?" The kid spun around to look at the intruders, a suited Nord woman and an orc as naked as a peeled banana. He stumbled back and was about to say something, but then the weirdest thing happened (as if it wasn't weird enough): his eyes clouded over, literally, and he blinked a few times before getting up to his feet.
"It's... you! It has to be you! The Night Mother's answered me at last!" he exclaimed, running up to us.
As the Dragonborn got dressed, giving me a rueful look, the child explained who he was. His name was Aventus, and he was an orphan on the run from Riften. The headmistress of his orphanage was extremely cruel and made life difficult for the kids, beating them and verbally abusing them. He, Aventus, had ran away in order to summon the Dark Brotherhood to get rid of her - and he thought that we were them.
Just when I was about to tell him that he was sorely mistaken, the Dragonborn stepped forward and agreed to do it.
"Do what now?" I asked.
"Kill Grelod the Kind," the Dragonborn replied.
That night, we travelled to Riften. No matter how much I tried to coax him or persuade him out of it, he wouldn't even look at me. Were we seriously going to go and kill this woman? I mean, sure, she sounded evil, but you know how kids are! Beatings produce character, damned if I was never beaten - we all were, and we grew to appreciate the discipline. It could just be a fit of childish spite, or a temper, or a joke played too far, and anyways why were we taking the most drastic measure? Surely the orphanage answered to someone in charge. Riften is a Stormcloak city, and they seem like the sort who would step in if needed. Why couldn't we lodge a complaint and an investigation to them instead? If she was found guilty, then sure, lock her away and throw away the key, but people are innocent until proven otherwise. You can't just get rid of someone because they're not nice to you. That's not how justice works.
The Dragonborn didn't have an answer to anything I said. Not even an objection. He was being obstinate, and, strangely, that felt almost as bad as the idea that we were going to a certain place for the sole purpose of taking another's life.
We broke into Honourhall Orphanage. I didn't care how loud my footsteps were. If we got discovered, serve him right. The children didn't say much to us, just looked at us with a strange mix of fear and, I daresay, hope. Did they know about Aventus and the Dark Brotherhood? They were scrawny, thin kids, many of them bruised along the neck and arms. Maybe the kid had been telling the truth after all...
The Dragonborn went on to check the wardrobes. He opened the first one and pointed to it, apparently still not talking to me. Fine. I didn't give him the benefit of seeing me surprised when I saw the shackles, heavy and rusted, lying at the bottom. These were definitely not toy shackles. They had no place in an orphanage of all places. Something was wrong all right.
But even if this Grelod was evil, shouldn't that mean all the more that we should take her to court?
Aren't we being no better by abusing the power we have?
The Dragonborn had switched his maces for a dagger. It was a beautifully crafted elven dagger that he had taken off a dead Thalmor, and it looked like it had never been used, with an edge that glimmered and a body that gave a throbbing twang if you knocked it lightly against a rock. He took out a potion of invisibility and drank. I watched as the magic took place until there was nothing but a blur around the edges of his body.
"Drink," he said.
"I refuse," I replied. "This is wrong and you know it."
"Then wait outside."
So I did. I stood outside the door, fuming and glaring at anyone who passed by.
About ten minutes later, I saw the woman herself. She was a tough old bird, with pulled cheeks and wrinkles all over her face, and her lips were curled into a sneer.
"What're you looking at? Get out of here," she hissed, slamming the door behind her, not knowing that those words would be her last.
Another fifteen minutes later, there was the sound of excited babbling. The door opened and a tiny girl, no more than seven years old, said: "The good man asked you to come in. It's over now!"
"The good man"? I snorted, spat, and followed her back inside.
Inside was Grelod, throat slit cleanly, slowly bleeding all over her pillow. The children were celebrating and dancing at the foot of her bed, praising the Dark Brotherhood and Aventus. Standing in the middle, dagger tucked away, upright and visible, was the Dragonborn.
I felt sick to my stomach. The scene, the sight of it, what I was hearing... all of it just made me sick.
"The book I found on her is interesting," said the Dragonborn later on as we bunked down for the night.
"Get out of my room," I snarled.
"Read it. See, it says, 'By all rights, the civilized races of Tamriel should have been able to purge the land of their blight eras ago'... it's talking about orcs. She was reading books like these. 'The Pig Children', it's called."
"You're a murderer. You sicken me."
He lowered his voice. "I did what I had to do."
"Oh? And you really believe that, don't you?" I asked, looking him squarely in the eye. I walked up to him and spat in his face. "Going around, killing defenseless women in their sleep? Sure, she was despicable. Yes, the kids looked happy, damned if that's normal. But she never did you any harm. You literally slit her throat in the dead of night, behind her back! It was so cowardly! Now what are the kids going to do? She may have been cruel, but at least she kept them fed and clothed! They'll starve without an adult! And how did you know about Aventus anyways? The Dark Brotherhood, passing off as them... don't you feel that it's just so wrong? The whole thing? Summoning assassins with the offals, the deathbells, and that dark prayer of theirs?"
"There's Constance, the other woman," the Dragonborn tried to say, but I wasn't hearing any of it.
"Get out. The sight of you disgusts me."
"If only you would listen..."
"Go on then. I'm listening." I crossed my arms. "You have ten seconds to tell me what your amazing grand plan is this time."
"I... can't."
He can't?
He can't?
What sort of answer is that? He's not going to even try and justify himself?
"Listen to me," pleaded the Dragonborn. "I can't tell you what's going on yet, but when I can I will! Didn't I say so?"
"What if that's not good enough? Everything you've been doing... there's a limit to these things, you know. There's only so much I can take. Passing off as some daedric killer for hire? Revelling in the misguided cheers of those poor children? It's like you want to be part of this Dark Brotherhood," I said.
"I do," he replied.
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes.
"This Dark Brotherhood. Tell me, what do they do?" I asked as evenly as possible.
"They receive requests for murders. When the deed is done, there is a reward. Most of the time, it's money," he replied, matching my gaze with those empty eyes of his.
"And you want to join them."
"Yes." It looked like it pained him to say it. "But there's more to it than that. I want to... I want to..."
"You want to what, huh?"
"I can't say. I'm sorry. I really can't say. I want to, please understand this, I want to, so much, but..."
"I can't travel like this," I told him. "I can't do this killing thing or this Dark Brotherhood nonsense with you. It's just wrong, wrong, wrong. Somewhere deep inside me is something telling me that this group is no good at all. They shouldn't even exist. They're sick. The entire idea is sick. The skeletons, the Night Mother, all of it. And you want to be part of them? Going around, killing people for money? You can't expect me to do that. I won't be able to live with myself."
"I know. I don't." The Dragonborn sighed and straightened himself up. What little emotion was left in his face had disappeared, leaving a coldness that gripped at my heart.
"From today onwards, you no longer have to follow me. I'm dismissing you as my companion."