Chapter 21: Circus Sideshow

I told myself that I really shouldn't have been surprised when I didn't wake up in the Shivering Isles. Instead, my "dear uncles" thought it would be much more convenient to dump us in a musty prison cell along with a skeletal mangy old man.

Lydia was sitting against the wall rubbing her head. Horax was nestled on the frayed and stained bedroll with our cellmate. A shiny object in my peripheral view caught my attention.

"It appears your friends left you a present." Lydia grumbled standing to her feet.

Two staves stood against the prison wall. In between them, a black slab of stone lay on the ground.

The Dragonstone!

I had completely forgotten about the entire reason we had gone out of our way to track down a Daedric Prince. I crawled over to Horax and shook him by his shoulders. He rolled into his sleeping companion who mumbled at me angrily and scurried off to another corner of the cell.

"Wake up." I whimpered as the elf pulled his cloak over his head. "Damn it, Horax, get up!"

"Try again when night falls," groaned the voice underneath.

"In case you haven't noticed," Lydia jeered as she leaned against the wall. "we are stuck in prison."

Horax groaned once more and ran his hands down his face before rising to his knees. "Ah! I know exactly where we are."

Lydia and I stared at him, awaiting an answer.

"We are in deep shit. What's that over there?" Horax shuffled over to the Daedric weapons resting against the wall. "Some party favors huh." He ran his slender finger along the thorn of Sanguine's rose. "Clearly, Sanguine left this one for me." The elf tossed the Wabbajack into my hands." I bet this is what you'll look like in a little while."

"That's so kind of you." I sneered, carefully tracing the intricate carvings of the screaming man's teeth.

"Here Lydia, this must be for you." He slid the dragonstone over to her feet. The Nord rolled her eyes before bending over and sliding it under her arm.

"Ok, Jailbird," Lydia began, as I made my way to the door of the cell. "What's the plan?"

"I'm sure we could just ask the guard. He should know that we aren't supposed to be in here." I gripped the bars of the cell and watched as a guard dressed in red stopped in front of a neighboring cell. I waved my hand through the bars.

"Oh please. Good luck with that." Horax turned his staff over in his hands. "What do you suppose these do?"

Lydia watched in caution. "I don't think you should go waving that around."

The solitude guard slowly wobbled his way over to our cell. "Hey, what are you three doing in there."

"Well," I smiled, trying to find his eyes within his steel helmet. "as you can see, there has obviously been some sort of a mistake and..."

The guard ignored my plea and slowly walked away.

"Hey! Wait! You're supposed to uphold justice! This is clearly a mistake!" I clung to the bars and pressed myself against them as close as possible.

"Listen girl," the guard took a few steps back. "I have to listen to you and your prisoner problems every damned day. My cousin's out fighting dragons and what do I get? Guard duty." The Guard shook his head at me before looking up towards Horax, who had just picked up my Wabbajack. "What's that you've got in your hands elf?

Horax shrugged and pointed the tip of the Wabbajack at the guard. "Want to see what it can do?"

"Don't point that at me! That's a Daedric artifact" I screamed.

The Guard jumped backward. "A daedric artifact! How in oblivion did you get that into your cell? By the law of Solitude you better hand that over."

The Altmer pulled the staff in closer. "Not a chance in Nirn, my friend."

"Tell you what," The guard lowered his voice and beckoned us closer. "you give me that there staff and I'll let you be on your merry way. Not another word of it."

The guard pressed his helmet against the cell door. Horax squinted his eyes. A bit of black kohl was still smudged about his lower lashline. He glared directly into the holes of the guards helmet, grinning until his upper lip pulled up, revealing his sharp white teeth. With one swift movement, he blasted a red light into the guard. A cloud of red exploded from his form until the only thing standing in front of us was a pile of armor and a helmet.

"By the God's Horax! What have you done?" Lydia screamed as she ran to the cell door.

All of us, including the gangly prison mate, gathered at the gate as we stood awestruck by the power of the Daedra. A tiny wiggle underneath the red tabbard of the armor made us gasp. A tiny brown rabbit hopped out of the clothing and pranced around on the floor.

"See if you can reach his keys." Lydia advised as I dropped to my knees and reached my hand through the bars. The tiny bundle of brown hopped over to me and nipped my finger.

"Ouch!" I pulled my hand in as a small trickle of blood dripped from my finger.

"Hey Leles, feel like doing some hunting?" Horax nudged me.

It really didn't seem like such a bad idea after all.

As it turned out, our prison cell had a very weak walls and fortunately for us, the strange old man in our cell went on a rampage soon after he witnessed the work of a Daedric Prince. I quietly stepped over the unconscious man's body as I followed Horax and Lydia down the secret escape route. Horax handed me the Wabbajack and proceeded to climb the dingy ladder. I fastened the staff around my back and followed suit.

"Are we fugitives now? I asked, emerging into the shade of an alley way.

"My reasoning says no." Lydia announced, helping me out of hole. "Given that we were never arrested."

"That we know of." Horax quickly replied slipping Sanguines rose onto his back. "Did we have business in Solitude?" He asked, straitening his robes and turning to Lydia.

"No." I responded before the Nord could open her mouth. "We need to get the Dragonstone to Farengar."

"I thought the whole reason I had to chase you down was because you were trying to keep it away from him."

I slumped down against the wall of the house. A bush of nightshade grew from the mossy crack in between the ground and the house. My mind was now in a state of ambivalence. If Horax deliver's the dragonstone, he was going to discover his true nature. If I tried to keep him from it, he would flick me off like a bug and I would be on my own once again. Not to mention he would deliver it anyway.

"I've kept you from this too long." I picked at the purple leaves of the nightshade plant and brought it to my nose.

"From what exactly?"

"Sanguine confirmed you were the Dragonborn remember?" he nodded his head. "When you deliver the Dragonstone, you will trigger an event that unlocks your true gift: The Dragon blood in your veins given to you by Akatosh himself."

"And you know this because you are from 'Earth'? I don't understand. Is it just common knowledge there?"

I shook my head. "No... no. It's, well it's all in a game."

Horax cocked his head and Lydia crossed her arms across her chest.

"Our world is a game to you?"

"No, not quite, I..." This was becoming rather difficult to explain. I gazed to the faces of the two in front of me. At least nobody was freaking out. "whatever character you create is the dragonborn and you just sort of, um, make them do stuff."

"Are you trying to say created me?"

"No not at all. I have had no part in your life until I took the dragonstone." I chewed on my fingernails. I had made myself as confused as the two tamriel natives.

Horax peeked around the corner and returned to Lydia's side."But from what the Daedra have implied, this is a completely different dimension, a unique reality separate from yours."

"Apparently. You see, not everything is identical to the game. And everyone here lives by their own free will." Lydia coughed and cleared her throat before throwing a sharp glare at Horax.

The Nord shifted her weight to her other foot. "Then what was all the knowledge you learned in your, uh, game?"

I sat silent for a while and then stood to my feet. "I suppose it was uh, like a prophecy?"

"Well, then it's settled." Horax spread his arms wide and grinned, pulling both Lydia and myself to his side. "Here we have it, our lovely little freak show, The fortune teller, the strongman, and the beautiful showgirl. What are we missing?"

Lydia rolled her eyes and lifted Horax's scrawny arm over her head. "A dancing bear."

The elf opened his eyes wide and snapped his fingers. "Meeko, Meeko can most definitely do it."

And then the three of us set off, scurrying about in the awakening sunrise, eager for our next performance.