The fire crackled merrily in the hearth, while the two women sat in companionable silence, each occupied with their own activities, the icy wind howling outside.

The younger of the two, a striking blond woman with lean well made limbs and an intelligent gleam in her eye, was carefully stitching a garment of white and gray. The other sat with piles of books about her. A neat braid, as white as snow, surrounded her bowed head, weathered hands that had worked hard in their youth turned page after page, her cheek was lined with three faint white scars - souvenirs from an encounter with a wild cat as a child. She had a slim frame, draped all in black. Although well past her prime, she still held an odd allure, that shone from her clear blue eyes as they rapidly skimmed over the pages of the book.

. . .

Far away, in a different world quite literally, an elderly man seated himself wearily in the half-lit cavernous library of the mighty fortress of Masyaf. He sighed, thinking to rest a moment, in his hand a strange glowing golden disk.

He felt tired to his very bones, a feeling that had been creeping up on him for several years now. Despite his advanced years, he remained a sleek man, the years of hard exercise linked to his profession, to his calling, keeping some of the weakness of age at bay. He huffed a mirthless laugh, perhaps the golden orb, now sealed away, even had something to do with it.

He closed his eyes, and leaned his head back, sighing. Feeling melancholy, his thoughts went to his sons - both Darim, to whom he had just bid farewell, quite likely for the last time; and Sef, whom he had lost long before. He smiled, thinking of their mother, Maria. He missed her still.

His wife's image came to his mind, but not as when she died - he saw her youthful beauty, not a conventional type, but one that came from her determined spirit, that spark that had initially attracted him to her. Somehow the image in his mind changed, as Maria closed her deep hazel brown eyes in his vision, they opened to reveal two icy blue irises. The eyes were surrounded by wrinkles from a life-time of both joy and sorrow. He saw the pale white braid, typical in the style of a world he had almost forgotten. Looking directly in his eyes, she smiled, a bit sadly.

. . .

The book had fallen from her hands, and her eyes were focused on something very far away, a sad little smiled curled her lips.

"Ma?" Runa asked, setting her needlework aside, and kneeling by her mother's side. "What's wrong?"

Quill closed her eyes, murmuring something so softly that her adoptive daughter could not make out the words.

. . .

"Fare thee well, Altaïr, my friend. May Sovngarde welcome you," she said softly, closing her eyes.

He returned the smile, tempted to remind her that he believed there to be nothing for him after the grave in his world, but he decided against it.

Opening her eyes, and seeing his smile, she broke into that broad grin that he had forgotten, that he had once known so well and the years seemed to be lifted from her face. This caused him to chuckle.

Was it really some kind of vision of her, or was it merely the sad memories of an old man that had seen too much of the world? He wondered absently, but realized that he didn't care.

"Fare well, Quill of Skyrim," he replied, as the vision started to fade into nothing. He sat smiling, strangely contented, and closed his eyes.

. . .

Quill opened her eyes to meet the worried expression of her daughter.

"I am quite well pup, don't fuss," she replied, wiping a single tear from her cheek.

"What just happened? I could have sworn I felt another... presence..." As the new leader of the Dark Brotherhood, Runa's senses were very finely tuned.

Quill looked at her with an enigmatic smile. She was so proud of her - Runa had turned the brotherhood around, fixing everything Quill had seen wrong in it. She had transformed them into a strong and honorable faction from the shambles of the group Quill herself had once belonged to - and the Night Mother was locked somewhere in the back of a broom closet collecting dust.

"Walk with me," Quill said, gathering a wrapped parcel from a locked chest near the entrance hall. Runa followed curiously - everything in her mother's house was open to her, the other chests that were locked, were actually placed particularly for her to practice on from a young age. But that chest could not be picked, oh and how she had tried!

Her mother walked with a slight limp, damage left by a fairly recent incident with bandits on the road towards Whiterun, on their yearly visit to uncle Farkas. The wind howled as they stepped outside, tugging at their coats. Approaching Quill as she walked toward the water, Shadowmere made a soft nickering noise, nudging her elbow. Runa could have sworn the horse looked sad.

"Yes," Quill said, rubbing that big forehead. "I know."

Walking past a neatly kept little graveyard, Quill put her hand to the stone nearest to her, letting her fingers trail the rugged stone until they slipped off. The engraving so familiar she didn't have to look at it to remember every stroke she herself had made there.

"VILKAS

Beloved husband, Devoted father"

She made her way to a little fishing boat at the edge of the freezing waters. Unwrapping her parcel, much to Runa's interest, she placed a gleaming suit of pitch black armor into the vessel. A bright silver bird clasp fastened the cloak. She first placed the boots, then the folded armor and cloak, and then the bracers. Runa craned her neck so see and immediately realized the left bracer seemed different to the other. Lastly Quill took a small silver brooch wrapped in silk from her pocket, placing it on top of the stack. It was triangular, or Runa thought, shape like an ornate "A".

Runa frowned. For some reason the stories her mother used to tell her as a child came to her mind. Stories about assassins in white, in a land far far away. She could recall every adventure of the white-clad assassins - especially their leader. He had become an actual entity in her youthful mind, and it wasn't difficult for her to conjure the image even then: his white hood always drawn down obscuring much of his features, a red sash beneath his belt; strong and sleek, a deadly warrior with a faint scar on the right side of his mouth. She stood transfixed, not sure why these memories suddenly flooded her mind like a deafening roar.

Quill pushed the little boat off and as it drifted away silently, she breathed one word over it, almost a whisper: "Yol".

The air erupted in a gust of flame, the oil on the armor immediately bursting into a blaze.

Runa gave a horrified gasp. "Mother! That was a Nightingale set! I had use for it!"

Her mother gave a bemused chuckle. "First, it cannot be given away, it must be earned. And second, the bracer does not belong to that set anymore, it had to go. And what is a set of armor that is incomplete?"

"The stories. They were real, weren't they?" she said after a moment's silence.

"Yes pup."

"And that is what's so special about the bracer. It was one of their weapons - those special blades?"

Quill nodded. Runa was a smart girl.

"They were real," she repeated, mostly to herself.

"Hopefully they still are there, searching for the truth - but the man I knew is no more," she said matter-of-factly.

"I am sorry mother. I realize now that you must have cared for him."

"Yes. Yes I did," she conceded.

"It's alright, I know you loved father too. One doesn't just love a single person during your entire life," she said a bit cheekily.

Her mother laughed. "Come along pup, before I clip you behind the ear for your impertinence," she replied playfully. Looping her arm through her daughter's, they strolled back towards the house.

"I'm sure there's still a few bottles of the good Honningbrew Mead left," Quill said.

"Oh, drowning our sorrows, ma?"

"No," she smiled. "Celebrating a life well lived."

Author's Note:

Wow. And that's that.

Many thanks to all those who have read, commented and encouraged along the way! It means so much! :)

Quill and Altaïr still have a few silly adventures from time to time on my deviantart account (also littlejuliet), if anyone is interested or feeling nostalgic :P